Development of the Marcellus Shale natural gas play has sparked a natural resource “boom” in western and northern Pennsylvania, along with neighboring states West Virginia, Ohio and Maryland. It could do the same in the southern tier of New York.
But the rapid pace of natural gas development has provoked concern over its environmental consequences. Recent events in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia, coupled with the analogy that the press and regulators have quickly drawn to the well blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico, have reinforced the concern.
