Boom and BUST

GreenWatch

Boom and BUST

The Lies About Jobs

The legacy news media has a lot to say about the positive impacts of natural gas development in New York State. Like many others, you may be convinced that the economic upside of shale gas includes many jobs and a resurgent economy.

You are very wrong if you believe this. Most of the economic projections come from industry oriented propaganda. Industry that stands to profit dramatically if New York State allows hydrofracking. Not by creating jobs, not by building local economies, but by extracting wealth and leaving behind a legacy of destruction.

Last summer the New York State DEC published a draft generic supplemental environmental impact statement that was paid for by taxpayer dollars. A local WNY company, Ecology and Environment (E&E), which has extensive ties to the oil and gas industry produced an economic assessment that was contained in the publically funded document.  In it E&E stated that an average NYS shale gas development scenario would bring 53,969 jobs.  Food and Water Watch, an organization opposed to hydrofracking published an independent analysis last November entitled “New York State Exaggerated Potential Job Creation from Shale Gas Development.”  It states that the E&E projections are “deeply flawed“ and that “in the first year of an average scenario only 195 new jobs would be created for NYS residents and that “after 10 years only 600 jobs”. After the 10^th year there would be almost no more new jobs created”.

The E&E analysis mirrors industry claims and has been repeated over and over while the Food and Water Watch report, and many other independent assessments that support the critical analysis have been ignored by legacy media. “Truth” and fair and balanced information is a commodity bought and sold to the highest bidder and delivered into your living room by uncritical “news” operations that have a bottom line that does not often include investigation, analysis, or even critical thinking.

Boom

Generally speaking, the gas boom can be characterized as a short term accelerated production cycle. The initial development activities are massive and carry many real and environmental costs that are borne by the local communities.  Impacted communities are always unprepared to adjust to increased and cyclic populations. North Dakota experienced a significant boom due to natural gas operations in 2011 and has also experienced a dark side.

Williston ND saw its population grow from 14,500 people in 2010, to over 20,000 in late 2011. According to a Bloomberg report published this last January, “North Dakota Oil Boom Brings Blight with Growth as Costs Soar” the sudden boom created a housing shortage.  Rents for a two-bedroom home without utilities skyrocketed from $350 a month to over $2,000.  Five hotels and 1,200 new apartments are being built.  Meanwhile some workers and their families are living in their cars, while others are gathering in what are being called “man-camps” – temporary shelters including tents and trailers. Some counties have banned these man camps citing lack of sewer, electrical, and water systems, increased crime rates, and increased prostitution among other social issues.

While the Oil and Gas industry provided Williston with $1.5 million “oil extraction tax”  in 2011, infrastructure costs continue to soar.   The community is looking at spending $87 million to provide three new schools for the approximate 1,500 new students this year. This is an approximate 57% increase in what the local schools were designed to hold. Roads designed to handle 10 tractor trailer trucks a day now are being used by over 800 a day. Montrail County’s road system which has been so completely overburdened by the enormous truck traffic needs $600 million just to keep the roads open. Calls to Montrail County volunteer ambulance and fire services has tripled since 2009.

Bust and Despair

Imagine a ghost town with its ruined and abandoned buildings and streets inhabited by the wretched ghosts of its former residents.  This well-known scenario is based on oil and mineral extractions.  The rush and boom is always followed by collapse. Collapse stays forever. Whatever residents remain pay for the boom with expansive poverty and the inability to maintain basic services and infrastructure. The resultant cultural collapse is a Santorum (google it) scenario that we should all be prepared for if NYS allows fracking.

The long-term bust is characterized by broken and impoverished rural communities. According to Chris Burger of the Sierra Club Atlantic Gas Task Force one of the principle downsides of economic impacts in a fracking area is a loss of diversity of jobs.  Tourism and recreation jobs almost completely disappear as those industries are devastated by the blight caused by gas drilling sites and infrastructure.  Agriculture is seriously impacted by drilling activities and studies have shown that in communities that allow fracking up to 50% of family owned farms are put out of business.

A Cornell University report “Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling: What does it mean for Economic Development concludes that short term boom is always followed by long term bust. Good long-term jobs are not created in drilling communities. Other good jobs migrate away.  Economic diversity declines, as communities cannot attract investment from non-extraction industries.

Add these economic development lies on top of the catastrophic environmental issues created when the waters that we depend on become contaminated, and undrinkable. Your drinking water will be affected. Add this to the costs of the remediation, the lack of remediation, and the to costs of the consequences of human health impacts. Add these inevitable consequences of the depravation and predation by the few that will gain economically to the many that will suffer long term economic consequences and you have to wonder how on earth, we has a culture can have the political, social, or moral will to allow hydrofracking.