Rendell To Halt New Gas Drilling
Rendell's office confirmed the moratorium plans Monday, a day ahead of an event in Philadelphia at which the order is expected to be signed.
The decision comes about two months before Rendell leaves office after eight years as governor.
Less than a year ago, the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources announced it was making nearly 32,000 acres of state forest land available for leasing by gas drilling companies.
Talks between Rendell and legislative leaders over a tax on Marcellus shale natural gas drilling collapsed last week, and the governor says he wants those negotiations to restart.
Natural Gas: Economic Boom Or Environmental Bust?
As natural gas companies move to northcentral Pennsylvania and pour millions of dollars into the local economies, environmentalists and state regulators question whether their methods of extracting the resource are safe.
Laborers work to extract natural gas from a Bradford County well. More
The issue of natural gas extraction in the geographical area known as the Marcellus Shale has burned for years as Harrisburg lawmakers wrangled over whether to tax companies who want to drill for the resource. But now, recent accidents, an HBO special, the devastating Gulf oil spill and renewed interest from the federal Environmental Protection Agency are pushing the issue away from taxation and into a full-blown environmental debate.
"Drilling of Marcellus Shale formation requires real sophisticated, real aggressive technology, and that technology is fraught with hazards," said Jan Jarrett, president and chief executive officer of Citizens For Pennsylvania's Future, a pro-environmental group.
Jan Jarrett More
But energy companies are hiring workers during one of the worst economic environments in American history. And according to Brian Grove, a spokesman for natural gas company Chesapeake Energy, the safety record is relatively impeccable.
"I think the concern is a tad misplaced," Grove said.
Natural gas is in vogue now as an energy source because it's considered by drilling advocates as the "cleanest and most versatile fossil fuel in existence today," according to the Marcellus Coalition, a pro-drilling organization. Energy companies have already drilled about 1,700 wells in Pennsylvania with thousands more on the way.
The Marcellus Shale formation is a geological region stretching from southern New York through Pennsylvania and into West Virginia, and it contains up to an estimated 516 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. To put that in context, that's enough natural gas to supply energy to the entire East Coast for 50 years, according to the Associated Press.
The method for drilling for the natural gas -- fracking -- has raised concerns and prompted the EPA to restudy the strategy just six years after it issued a report that said the had "little or no threat to underground sources of drinking water." That report prompted Congress to exempt fracking from federal regulation.
Fracking involves blasting the rock with water, sand and chemicals to fracture the rock and release the gas.
Brian Grove More
"There's a long history of hydraulic fracturing in the Commonwealth of PA," Grove said. "We have hundreds of thousands of wells that have been hydraulically fractured over the last 50 years. Never once has that led to ground water contamination of any kind
