I am hearing, from a variety of sources, that PA DCNR Secretary John Quigley's keynote address at the just concluded 2010 Chesapeake Watershed Forum included a projection - taken directly from sources within the natural gas industry - that they are planning to drill between 200,000 and 600,000 wells in Pennsylvania before the Marcellus Shale play is over.
600,000 wells.
Here's a verbatim snippet from one of the e-mails I received last night:
"Marcellus shale is the single, biggest, and most all-inclusive threat to the Susquehanna River for the next 100 years--and perhaps in its history, including the industrial revolution and the coal industry. The gas industry has stated it expects to drill between 200,000 and 600,000 wells before the play works out."
The magnitude of this threat to the future of the Susquehanna River and Pennsylvania cannot be overstated. At 5,000,000 gallons of freshwater per well...you do the math. This latest news takes this unfolding environmental nightmare to levels even I did not anticipate. Time to crank it up a notch or three.
BTW - if you didn't catch 60 Minutes last night, here's the ~14 minute Shaleionaires video.
Finally, my blog's guest list is now at 27 countries outside the USA...okay, 26 plus one phantom visitor.
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