There was much more to this panel discussion than an outburst from a single individual. The deliberation was civil and those in attendance asked several interesting questions to the panelists, the vast majority of which were answered to their satisfaction. I'm eagerly looking forward to future open forums with Representative Simmons!

The one thing we must keep in mind here is that we avoid turning this into an emotional issue instead of a factual one. Over the past several decades emotion has come to be the order of the day and in so doing those things called facts disappear. If you want to talk about this issue or any other be prepared to do so and be able to cite your research.
Chris Miller

In the end, the clean and pure Pennsylvania aquifer will become another love canal. Bottlers like Deer Park will have to move far away after we destroy our precious gift from nature. There must be a better way to extract the gas than fracking, but maybe a little less profitable. Find a way before it's too late. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Craig
As a hunter, fisherman, and conservationist I agree with you all I am saying is that you and I do not let those who use emotions, eg "they are poisoning the water", become responsible on this issue. If we allow the emotions to come to the forefront we will simply end up tossing rocks at one another. No want wants the water supply to be destroyed becuase it would affect all of us. I would advise you to get in touch with you local and state reps and factually express your concerns. The vast majority are very approachable.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/05/fracking_video_gives_a_catchy.html

I hope you see this video as more than a catchy tune. This is not about emotions or scare tactics: these are facts. And Marcellus Shale is just the beginning. Do some research about Utica Shale. Marcellus Shale pales in comparison. Then think about what your drinking water will become; that the jobs promised will not be for Pennsylvanians; that the beautiful PA agricultural landscape that we now enjoy will be gone forever. Do we think so little of our state that this kind of destruction deserves our support? The dollars that people are getting for their land are a pittance for what the gas companies are making. Imagine when the big drilling machines show up and they can't carry on a conversation at the Sunday dinner table.

What is the drilling fluid called that is used in hydraulic fracking? I would call it a hazardous fluid. Why did the industry lobby federal congress to be exempted from the federal clean water act and the federal Right to Know act? They received both exemptions. They use millions of gallons of water to produce a hazardous drilling fluid. In the past they have not been willing to reveal the chemicals used in the hazardous drilling fluid. Why did they initially attempt to put the hazardous driling fluid into municiple waste water treatment facilities? These facilities were not designed for this hazardous fluid. Why does Governor Corbett and the Oil and Gas Industry state that "accidents happen"? In the industry I work in " all accidents are preventable" How do you clean up an aquifer after it is polluted with this hazardous drilling fluid? How do you know that an aquifier is polluted with the hazardous drilling fluid? There are not easy answers to this questions. Why did the natural gas drillers come to Pennsylvania and attempt to operate sloppy and slip shod operations and then respond when PA DEP started to create and enforce necessary regulations? What didn't the NG drillers create and enforce their own rules to prevent the accidents that have occured and to ensure that aquifers and waterways do not get polluted with the hazardous drilling fluid? Why hasn't the industry classified the fracking drilling fluid as a hazardous fluid?

Can the NG drilling companies be trusted? Can the Oil and Gas Industry in general be trusted?
Why is Pennsylvania the ontly state that has not enacted an extraction tax? Why is there no personal income tax in Texas? They get all their revenue from extraction tax. How would an extraction tax chase away the NG drilling companies and Oil and Gas companies? Will the natural gas suddenly disappear if PA enacts a tax? Will the NG drilling companies go somewhere else?

Many questions that interested people should get answers to.

The NG drilling can be done safely with minimal or no impact on the environment but it will take an investment in technology, work processes, equipment, inspections, testing, etc. that the NG drillers and the Oil and Gas Industry has not made yet. They will only make it if they are forced to do it; there past performance has shown us that.

Wake Up Pennsylvania - When the aquifers are polluted they will be difficult if not impossible to clean up!

“I don’t have a problem imposing a fee on the extraction,” he said. “We need to find a competitive balance where these companies pay for what they’re doing but we’re not shutting them down.”

Simmons said he would support either an impact fee “that would stay in the local community” or an extraction fee that could be used to offset Pennsylvania’s personal income tax.

The gas companies said in their House testimony that they wouldn't leave the state even if Pennsylvania passed a severance tax 1% higher than all the other states. I think there's a pretty strong argument for going right up to that line. The drillers have to drill in PA to get PA's gas. If it's profitable, even less profitable than other places, they're still going to do it. So the state should get as much revenue as they can from this activity, and once the budget is balanced, use the rest to offset the sales tax, or property taxes for retirees as Dominic Pileggi's bill does. While I do think it's better to tax resource extraction than labor, it would be better to reduce the sales tax than the income tax. PA's income tax is already a regressive flat tax. I would only support reducing net income tax revenue if it was paired with a change to a progressive rate structure.

Whether or not the water is being contaminated or poisoned is not an emotional issue, but a factual one. If an individual is challenging comments being made by the panel, that is a dissenting opinion, not an outburst requiring a police escort. As noted above, the hydraulic fracturing process is specifically exempted from having to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act and other environmental provisions thanks to the Halliburton Loophole. If there is nothing to hide, why does it require an exemption? How are we going to enforce a catastrophic clean-up if these companies are not subject to environmental regulation? We can't. The gas industry has lined Tom Corbett's pockets with over $1 million in campaign contributions. His "environmental advisory council" is made up primarily of individuals who have contributed hundreds of thousands to his compaign. (Again: these are facts, not emotions.) I am not willing to stand by while Pennsylvania's drinking water supply, high-quality streams and forests, rural countryside, and property owners are sold off to the highest bidder. There is no economic "boon" when our water supply has been destroyed and no amount of tax will remedy what will be lost.

There were other people there who "challenged" the panelists as well but that guy was the only one who decided to do it by shouting and making a scene. In the beginning the Representative said that all questions should be written down and handed to his staff, I guess this guy thought that the rules did not apply to him, which was very annoying because I submitted my question like we were supposed to and I waited to have my question answered. But I guess his goal was more to make a scene and promote his group then to discuss this topic in a civil manner. (remember that whole civil discourse thing that was being pushed for a while) Overall I felt it was very informative and there were a lot of good questions asked and answered.

PS. there was no police escort, the guy left to talk on his phone (at least he had the decency to not talk on his phone in the middle of the room) and then about 10 minutes later the police officer arrived. Not to mention that the guy did come back into the event.

I would like to commend Representative Simmons on his handling of the "fracking opponent" (whose motives for drawing attention to himself should also be noted). There were many opportunities for the night to get out of hand due to the influence of this interruption, yet Rep. Simmons kept his composure. He firmly insisted that the rules of debate be followed, which helped maintain the educational tone of the night. Rep. Simmons hosted a phenomenal event, and it is a shame that one outspoken individual stole the headline from all of those who had a genuine interest in learning about the topic.

I have visited two drilling sites in NY state and there does not seem to be that much disturbance to the environment. Regulations are needed, of course. With sensible regulations, drilling must go forward or our economy will wither.

NY AG suing a federal agency over fracking: http://rye.patch.com/articles/state-attorney-general-sues-federal-agency-over-hydrofracking-7

I attended the forum on Thursday evening and must say that I am very disappointed with the coverage from the Upper Saucon Patch. Instead of reporting on the questions and answers that were going back and forth, the reporter decided to go out of the room and spend time (almost 30 minutes) with a man that disrupted the meeting by shouting. He also had his cell phone on and it began ringing and it was the reason he left the room. The other 100 or so people that were there, submitted their questions and waited for the answers from the panel. This man came in late and just decided that he was more important than everyone else that was there to listen. People in the audience asked him to sit down and wait his turn. He didn't care. The man wasn't even from the area, but goes to attends meetings just to cause trouble. He is a paid protester an activist. It was a very informative meeting and worth my time to attend. I learned a lot about the drilling process, the safety standards, what would happen if there were an accident, what the state is doing to protect the environment, what Penn State is doing with regard to research of drilling process, what types of myths are being reported, etc. We need to find more sources of energy in this country. Why is it that we are fighting the very people who are trying to make us more energy independent? Yes, we need to do it in a safe and environmentally friendly way, but we also need to create jobs and get this economy going again.

http://www.followthemoney.org/database/StateGlance/contributor_details.phtml?c=123883&i=33

Speak Truth to Power :
Listen to the numbers: One well every quarter mile, 6000 wells in one county, what is planned for Pennsylvania is MORE than this-400,000 wells is the number planned by the state! Corbett call this the cornerstone of his economic recovery plan. No, it is his economic plan for industrialization of Penn's Woods and complete destruction of everything we know Pennsylvania to be. WATCH TO THE END, PLEASE.

http://youtu.be/yy556ACxJ2I

Dr. Anthony Ingraffea of Cornell University is the expert. He was born and raised in Pennsylvania. He has a very rare PH.D. in Rock Fracturing as well as another in Aero Space Engineering. Yes, he is a rocket scientist. If you want information that is factual, documented, and reliable, you can find many of his lectures on youtube.com. As you can see by their biographies printed in the handout, the participants in last night's forum represent a very biased, corporate point of view. Their interests lie in exploiting Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale formation. They rarely speak of studies or numbers that show what the massive drilling planned for Pa will do to our children's Pennsylvania. We have a responsibility to leave this state to our children as we found it. Penn's Woods is named for its beautiful and amazing woodlands. It was never an industrialized zone full of aging, leaking gas wells that will be the legacy of this endeavor once the gas is gone and the oil companies leave. natural gas drilling, like coal is a boom and bust industry. There will be no cleanup because the oil and gas companies have been relieved of liability. Why would they spend any resources cleaning up something they are not legally bound to clean up?
Click on Links:

http://youtu.be/nDD9n6nLfJo
http://youtu.be/N3ZnFI9-bmo
http://youtu.be/nDD9n6nLfJo
Regular people like us share FACTS ABOUT FRACKING:

http://youtu.be/_NQYN0mEi5Q

The orchestrations of Halliburton/Cheney, again.

http://www.earthworksaction.org/halliburton.cfm

If you haven't seen this then you are not as informed as you need to be.

http://youtu.be/dZe1AeH0Qz8

Michael -

Gasland is all liberal propoganda. The water that is lit on fire at the end is used to stir up emotions. There has been methane in the water in the Marcellus Shale region long before drillers came in. So stop the theatrics and deal with facts. No one wants to hurt the environment but distorting facts to stop one of the only industries that is producing jobs right now is disingenous.

I was in attendance at the forum held in the Southern Lehigh Public Library. While for the sake of balance it might have been good if one of the panelists was there to represent the anti-drilling position, overall I think the presentation was informative for people, especially those with a little background in the issues surrounding drilling into the Marcellus. The man who tried to disrupt the meeting certainly didn't gain any sympathy that I could see. If he had submitted a written question/comment as the format called for, he might have made a point which others could have agreed had some merit. This business of developing the gas bearing shales including the Marcellus, Utica, etc. is a complex issue which involves rewards as well as risks. I hope that those who have reservations about the process do more research than just watch the rather cartoonish Gasland. As anyone who has lived in the northern tier of Pennsylvania/southern tier of New York knows, the flaming faucets were there long before anyone put a drill bit into the ground in the search for natural gas. Steve

We need to get together, and we need to fight back,
And we need to stand up to these @$$H@LES.

--John Fenton, Rancher, Wyoming

"Once you know, you can't not know."

--Calvin Tillman, former Mayor of Dish Texas

Protecting amazing Penn's Woods:

http://youtu.be/DNOc69PsWqg

A true forum with opposing points of view and questions asked by people in their own voices. ( Take note Justin Simmons, this is how information is fairly disseminated.)

http://youtu.be/kCYUdLJSav8

"A corporate business plan is not a national energy strategy." --Dr. Anthony Ingraffea

Steve,
I was raised in Pennsylvania's Woods. I love this state ( not for its corrupt politicians and some ill-informed citizens) and although I have lived in the south, west, and the northwest for short periods of time, I always come back home to PA. I am a professional photographer and instructor at a local school. I make part of my living taking beautiful pictures of Penn's Woods. I work for myself. What do you do? Are you employed by the gas companies, do you owned leased land, are you working for Justin Simmons? Let's be honest. What do you know about the history of unconventional high pressure slick water fracturing? If you watch the videos I post and do your research, you will see this is not about a few landowners. This is about the ecosystem of the entire state. No one has a right to mess with that when the harm will be irreversible. Experimentation with caustic, toxic chemicals is laboratory work. Pennsylvania's woods is NOT the gas companies' test ground. And no one has a right to fracture our state forests. That land belongs to our children and all future Pennsylvanians, right?

Steve,
Sorry to hear that you haven't found work yet. When I got laid off from the publishing industry, I decided to make my own way. It is hard and incredibly time consuming but so rewarding. You may want to give it a try. Meanwhile, the toxic effects of fracking are so bad, it makes no economic sense for Pennsylvania long term. Who will want to work, live, and raise kids in a place where the quality of life is what they are experiencing in eastern Utah, western Colorado, Texas and Wyoming. With 100,00 wells, Pennsylvania will be one big industrial zone with lots of old , leaking gas wells and pipelines. These wells and pipelines require maintenance and regular attention. The wells out west are a mess for lack of it. We won't even get into the 596 chemicals injected with millions of gallons of fresh , Pennsylvania water in the fracking process; its use and disposal- which is where some of the most serious deception occurs, and the effects of the volatile organic gasses that are emitted 24/7 from the condensate tank(s) at every well site. Financially, it will be ruinous for our kids in PA. This is a a tipping point for Pennsylvania, like Fukushima was for the Japanese, only without a Tsunami.

Gee Michael, we were in Wyoming and there were so many jobs people were coming in from out of state to work (I believe the the unemployment is under 4%) and the dealerships couldn't keep new vehicles on the lots...We must have been in the wrong area, because everyone there was thrilled about the oil and gas development.........