The Pocono Environmental Coalition and Wildlife Society sponsored a symposium about Marcellus Shale gas drilling held at the Hughes Library, Stroudsburg, on Saturday.

There were 50 people present including state Rep. Mario Scavello.Speakers were Shireen Parsons of Summit Hill and Marge Lofland of Sellersville. Preceding the speakers, a DVD was shown narrated by Dr. Theo Coburn. She focused on Colorado but mentioned things that happened in other areas also.In her introduction Elizabeth Greico, president of the coalition, said anything is possible because we no longer have environmental laws to protect us. Among others, in February Gov. Tom Corbett repealed a policy that minimized the environmental impact of natural gas well drilling in Pennsylvania's parks and the 2005 Bush/Cheney Energy Bill exempted natural gas drilling from the safe drinking water act.A house bill is being considered to repeal the energy bill and require companies to disclose the chemicals they use.Coburn spoke of drilling on the Grand Mesa, Colo.. She said there has been a moratorium on environmental laws to benefit drilling. It is damaging our life support system of water and air.It used to be that there was one well on 35 acres and now it is 10. There are open evaporation pits but she said New York has banned them. The gas is wet when it comes up and the water has to be removed. The method is often by evaporation which releases toxins into the air.From a Columbia University Research Seminar booklet it is found that a vertical well requires 80,000 gallons of water to produce gas and a horizontal one requires from 1.5 to 9 million gallons. The Marcellus gas in Pennsylvania and New York requires horizontal wells, which are supposed to go below the line of fresh water (8,000 feet) and be cased to prevent contamination.Chemicals are added to water and the fluid is injected into the rock under pressure to release the gas, a process called fracturing. Companies claim trade secret protection when people ask what chemicals are being used.Watchdog.org created a data base of 278 chemicals that can be used.Thirty to 40 percent of the water returns to the surface and must be disposed of. Many local wastewater treatment plants cannot clean the water. It can be stored in plastic-lined pits for evaporation that may overflow from heavy rains. The water may be injected into disposal wells or hauled from the site, meaning more traffic on local roads.Air quality is at risk from diesel equipment and ground level ozone can be produced which damages lungs, according to Coburn. There are endocrine disrupters that affect fetuses. It irritates eyes, skin and triggers allergy reactions.Greico said, "This is an atrocity. We are just sitting around and letting this happen."Representative Scavello said he is planning a trip to some of the wells to see for himself and it will be on his own dime.A severance tax would have to go toward monitoring Marcellus Shale rather than into the general fund. There have been at least two well blowouts in Pennsylvania.A woman, retired from Shell, said the company says it is job friendly but the jobs are menial work. Thousands of people are moving up from Texas."Don't we have people who can do the work?" she asked.A man stated that the gas is not going anyplace. He wanted a moratorium until safe methods are found.Parsons, a member of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, said it has been having some success getting environmental protection laws passed.She said to reframe the problem, it is not the fracturing, not factory farming, not sludge. Who gets to decide how our health is protected?"We have a democracy problem. We create government to act on our behalf but no one has ever asked what I want. We allow corporate interests to rule. A moratorium is only a pause," she said.The Environmental Protection Agency was formed 40 years ago and water and air are more contaminated now. Pittsburgh has passed an ordinance forbidding fracturing. She said the damage will never be cleaned up just as the Summit Hill coal damage remains."You have the power to go in and say we want an ordinance to protect us," said Parsons. Her organization, CELDF, will help communities request a specific ordinance that it has drafted and it will guide them as they push for passage, but the organization has to be invited to a community. The draft ordinance holds corporations liable for any harm.Parsons said the state Republican caucus is planning a law that will prevent other communities from doing what Pittsburgh did.In her opinion the only possibility of relief is on the lowest level of government, the municipalities and boroughs.That was disputed by Lofland, who said, "Contact all levels of government or you will not be heard. Some legislators don't know what the problem is. Educate them."What angered the most people is the fact that much of the gas will be shipped overseas. It will not benefit Americans.