By Rich Bindell, senior writer and blogger at Food & Water Watch
From advertisements touting the environmental benefits of “clean, natural gas,” and energy independence, to the Penn State professor who claims that there is 50 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Marcellus Shale, the powerful energy lobby has aggressively positioned itself to give us nothing but good news about fracking for shale gas. But, the data that industry clings to most in its clarion call to drill and frack for shale gas—the number of jobs that will be created—may be their biggest exaggeration. Exposing the Oil and Gas Industry’s False Jobs Promise for Shale Gas Development, Food & Water Watch’s latest report on fracking, demonstrates how a cascade of flaws inflated one industry-backed job projection by 900 percent. They were just a little off. Welcome to Frackville.
Many of the flaws identified in the Food & Water Watch report came from a series of widely-cited studies out of Penn State, but the Public Policy Institute of New York State (PPINYS) added to these flaws to make the bogus projection. PPINYS claimed that the drilling of 500 new wells each year would create 62,620 new jobs (15,500 direct jobs plus an additional 47,120 indirect or induced jobs as an economic spillover effect) in five counties of New York State by 2018.
Food & Water Watch revealed, in painstaking detail, the making of this rosy projection. The new report identifies and corrects numerous methodological flaws to show that the economic forecasting models used only support a claim of 6,656 total jobs—one tenth of the PPINYS claim! And it used actual on-the-ground labor data to show it, data that policy makers should be heeding instead of industry projections based on flawed models.
Regardless, this is just a projection of the potential job gains. It does not account for the public health, public infrastructure, and environmental costs that would come from opening up New York to drilling and fracking for shale gas. Neither does it account for the negative impacts on employment in other economic sectors such as agriculture and tourism.
Now, such negative impacts ARE reflected in actual employment data, and the report’s accompanying issue brief looks at actual employment data in five counties in Pennsylvania with shale gas development…specifically five counties that border counties in New York where shale gas development is being planned.
Here’s a little-known fact that might help paint a clearer picture: while the industry has aggressively pushed for shale gas fracking by citing the number of potential jobs that would be critical in this depressed economy, some of the biggest oil and gas companies have actually been reducing their workforce while increasing profits for top executives. Check out Congressman Ed Markey’s (D-Ma) report on it.
If consumers want to know what rampant, unfettered drilling and fracking would bring to this country, here are some critical numbers to consider.
— 1,000: The number of cases of contaminated drinking water reported near fracking sites to date.
— 1.6 million: The amount of gallons of fracking fluid that leaked into the Colorado River in 2008.
— 75 percent: The average amount that property values near drilling sites have depreciated in Wise County, Texas.
— 8,420: The number of gallons of fracking fluid spilled in the Cabot Oil leak in Dimock, Pennsylvania. (Residents STILL do not have access to clean drinking water.)
— 25: The percentage of chemicals used in fracking fluid that are known to cause cancer.
— 19 million: The number of gallons of fracking wastewater that Pennsylvania fracking wells are expected to produce this year, which most municipal treatment plants can’t process or treat.
As an industry poised to rake in billions of dollars from the extraction of public resources, the oil and gas industry is feeding the media with all sorts of promises. As a consumer advocate, we are trying to provide critical information to the public so they can make informed decisions about how we use those resources. Our report questions the validity of one of the industry’s main campaign promises: lots of new jobs.
As our leaders currently weigh the facts on whether or not to allow fracking in New York and in the Delaware River Basin (the source of drinking water for 15 million people), it’s critical that consumers be informed before making their own conclusions. Since decisions made by New York State and by the Delaware River Basin Commission are critical to the welfare of the entire nation, it is worth your while to read this report.
Rich Bindell is a senior writer and blogger at Food & Water Watch. Rich earned his B.A. in communications and rhetoric at the University of Pittsburgh and has previously worked on environmental issues, including providing communications assistance to the land-recycling program for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Contact Rich at rbindell(at)fwwatch(dot)org.
