Although county commissioner Martin Saffer said last Wednesday he does not believe gas companies are at Pocahontas County's borders ready to drill in the Marcellus shale deposit, the issue continues to be the controversy of the day, and arguments for and against drilling are becoming as thickly layered as the shale itself.

In an effort to sort out county sentiment, commission president David Fleming said he supports putting the Marcellus shale drilling issue on a ballot. Fleming said he wants an evening meeting for public input.

Drilling in the Marcellus shale, and its accompanying practice, hydraulic fracturing-has first, caused a spate of mineral rights leasing and then, anxiety, as movies like "Gasland" seek to prove that drinking water supplies have been damaged and the land surrounding well pads is rendered unusable for surface rights owners.

Further, original estimates of the amount of gas in the shale have been diminished by the US Geological Survey. In August, US Geological Survey estimated there is 84 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas in the Marcellus shale strata underlying the northeastern U.S., a considerable difference from the
April report of the non-profit Potential Gas Committee, a group of natural gas industry experts, which estimated 350 trillion cubic feet. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), which has come under Congressional scrutiny, estimated 410 trillion cubic feet.

Whether it was the ballot issue or the thought of yet another contentious public meeting on Marcellus shale, Saffer winced at the suggestion. Ballot issues, he said, are for voting something up or down, a candidate in or out; however, an issue such as this might not be a "majority rules" mandate because popular sentiment could not preempt regulations already on State and Federal books.

"I don't know where this ballot thing goes," Saffer said, noting the framing of the language on the ballot would be "exceedlingly difficult."

Further, he said, none of the experts he's spoken with have indicated that drilling in Pocahontas County is imminent and quoting one of them said, the commission is "in search of a problem."

Fleming disagreed with both Saffer's reluctance to put the issue on a ballot and his conjecture that drilling here is far in the future.

"I can't imagine we would be unwilling to ask the question," Fleming said. "I hope we can do this. I hope we can continue to discuss what the wording will be.

"I disagree that there will be a zero percent chance it will happen," he continued. "I think we should continue to talk about this, have a meeting of the minds and get some protections in place."

The commission president said he thinks the outcome of a ballot issue will give the commission guidance in how it should lead.

Commissioner Jamie Walker said any question that concerned property rights restrictions would be voted down.

"What could we do at that point to protect the public?" he asked.

Walker had an answer for his own question.

He said some county residents regret leasing their mineral rights, and those people should be offered help rewriting their leases to protect their land and water. Also, he said, drilling companies should be made to inject some type of dye into their fracking fluids so they can be traced if water supplies are damaged.

Such action would make enacting ordinances-which imply zoning-and resolutions needless, Walker said.

Drilling companies are not required to disclose the contents of their fracking fluids, which are used to break sub-surface rock to release gas into the drilled holes to be captured. Opponents of the process say fracking can contaminate water wells, use millions of gallons of water for each well and increase the likelihood of surface contamination due to spills or leaking holding ponds.

Late last week, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that hydrofracking had contaminated a water well in Wyoming.

Slaty Fork resident Gil Willis has lived in Pocahontas County for more than 30 years. He asked the commission to take a look at history.

"Real leadership decisions are hard on elected officials," Willis noted. "If you look back, those decisions aren't popular for five years, or 10 years. But history repeats itself continuously. You have to be a leader."

Willis said the stream which flows by his property has decreased in volume over the years he's lived there.

"Water is the most invaluable resource," Willis said. "You can throw away all the cows, all the timber, all the skiers. At the end of the day, it's still water. It's more valuable than oil. Every state is losing clean water every day. You three have to address that and make that decision.

"I want protection for my groundwater."

Saffer took the cue and noted that other issues besides Marcellus shale drilling are currently affecting water resources.

"Water? Talk to the DOH (Division of Highways) about what they spread on roads. Let's talk about getting that sewage system at Snowshoe in the ground," he said. "You've got big items on the table that are real."

Saffer asked a congregation of about 15 county residents-fairly equally divided on the issue-to look past the issue of deep drilling in the reportedly gas-rich shale, to a basic issue that tends to nuance all controversies in the county,

"I really don't think that gas drilling is going to come here; it's serving as a metaphor for an underlying tension in the community. ‘What is it we're really talking about?,' would serve us much better than a phantom," Saffer said. "What is it that causes this hostility? What really is the problem? If we could solve that then how to deal with our future would be a lot easier."

The commission's last two meetings were fraught with friction, as a proposed draft ordinance that would restrict drilling's peripheral activities and a resolution that would essentially ask drilling companies to mind their environmental manners were hurled by county residents and business owners back into the commission's court as unacceptable.

Saffer's attempt at analysis fueled a conversation about the difference between people who "were born here" and those who "come here" to live.

Walker had already drawn the lines in response to a presentation by 8 Rivers Council president Cyla Allison.

Allison asked people in the audience to stand up if they would turn down $4,800 an acre to protect their water resources. About half a dozen people stood.
Walker rephrased the question to include how many of those people "were born here [and] raised here."

"That would be me," said the lone person to stand. B. J. Sharp Gudmundsson, a Pocahontas County native, said all area residents will have to put aside those stereotypes in order to make any progress in "stewarding our land."

Walker said he had not agreed to lease his land, but may do that if he's forced to economically. The commissioner said he works three jobs to be able to live in Pocahontas County. Besides being a county commissioner, Walker is also a bus driver and a building contractor.

"When they offer me $4,800 [an acre], I'll take it," Walker said. "It's mine, and if I need it, I need to use it."

Allison produced a litany of likely events once land and water are damaged.

She said the money sounds great, "at first," but a damaged water supply or a surface damaged beyond use would prompt moving to another area where there would be zoning, a larger drug problem, neighbors who don't know each other and live behind stockade fences with locked houses, garages and cars.

"And people would say to you in this new place, ‘you aren't from around here, are you?'" Allison said.

"Sissy" McLaughlin, whose family helped settle the Marlinton area, but who was not born here, said the issue boiled down to one thing.

"We all share water," she said.

It's a fact that resonates with decade-long county resident Brynn Kusic, who said she also wants to talk about "bigger level" ideas that will make living in Pocahontas County sustainable for younger people.

"This becomes a place for us to talk about the future of the county and how we're going to make it," she said.

Kusic said that at the last regular commission meeting, Walker had avowed the county's current excellent conditions can be attributed to landowners knowing how to take care of their property and being allowed to do that in their own way without government restriction.

Allowing gas drilling will change the caretaker from resident to renter, she said.

"When we sign those leases, we give up the right to be those good caretakers," Kusic said.

Walker countered that he had not talked to anyone who wants to see the water supply here damaged; at the same time, he said no one "wants to see laws that would tell them what to do with their land."

Former county commissioner James Carpenter said that people who come to Pocahontas County often comment on how beautiful it is and how much they love it-just before they offer ways to change it into a place more similar to their origins "whether you want to zone us or you are anti-business."

"If you come to our county and you enjoy your life here, fine. Don't try to change us, we're pretty good right now," he said. "Don't be against every business that wants to come into the county."

Edray-area resident Mike McNaull said he did not favor zoning, but was concerned about the risk to family farms.
"My concern is that you need to plan somehow for the future because when those farms are gone, you're going to see things here you're not going to like," he said. The Navy veteran said he and his wife, Trish, have been here about nine years and feel more like insiders here than any place they've lived because they have "made tremendous friends in a short period of time."

Beth Little said that drilling in the Marcellus shale would change Pocahontas County forever and in ways that no resident, long-time or otherwise, could either stop or even manage.

"What we're looking at [are] huge outside corporations," Little said. "Talk about outsiders. And they're not going to stay, they're going to take what they want and leave. They don't care."

The county commission will hold a special session on January 5 at 6 p.m. to discuss putting the Marcellus shale issue on the ballot.