(AP:PHILADELPHIA) The chief executive of one of the top U.S. natural gas producers has delivered a blistering rebuke of critics of shale gas drilling, calling them "extremists" engaged in "unfettered fear-mongering."
Speaking at an industry conference in Philadelphia, Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon said Wednesday that gas drilling has been done safely for decades using a process called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." Environmental activists say that fracking and the drilling boom it's created has led to polluted air, has tainted groundwater and has made people sick.
McClendon accused critics of distorting the facts. He asserted there have been only a few dozen cases of methane migration in Pennsylvania and that residents were merely inconvenienced.
In fact, some residents have been forced to get their water delivered for months or years.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
Energy executives opened a major conference on shale gas Wednesday by advocating a national energy policy in which natural gas plays a leading role, citing its domestic abundance and cleaner-burning characteristics.
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, now an industry consultant, said that gas extracted from the nation's vast shale deposits can help reduce U.S. reliance on foreign sources of oil.
"I think all of us in this room must commit ourselves to ensuring that this enormous national reserve will be developed in the right way ... to the benefit of our economy, with the full and responsible protection of our workers, our environment and our communities, and in a way that will help us release the vice grip of our dependence on foreign oil," Ridge told industry officials gathered at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Ridge decried what he said were manufactured fears over the environmental impacts of drilling, asserting that shale gas taken from the ground by a technique called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," leaves the lightest environmental footprint of any fossil fuel.
"We need to make sure that natural gas doesn't get squeezed on the margins ... by some phony hysteria about its environmental sustainability," he said.
With drilling opponents questioning the safety of fracking and frequent media reports about alleged water-well contamination and other drilling mishaps, industry officials acknowledged they face a public relations challenge. One after the other, they said the solution is more transparency about their operations and aggressive messaging that casts natural gas as a cleaner-burning, homegrown source of energy and a jobs creator.
"Let's be honest: As an industry, we're often measured by our least diligent operators," said Dave McCurdy, head of the American Gas Association. "That is what gets the press' attention or the regulators' attention. So we have to raise everyone in this process."
The conference was being held in Pennsylvania, where companies are trying to unleash gas trapped in the Marcellus Shale.
The Marcellus is a vast rock formation beneath Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, New York and portions of other states that's believed to contain one of the biggest deposits of natural gas in the world. Nearly 4,000 wells have been drilled in the state over the past few years, with tens of thousands more planned.
To reach the gas, drillers combine horizontal drilling with fracking, a technique in which millions of gallons of water, along with sand and chemical additives, are injected at high pressure to crack open gas-bearing rock.
Opponents say fracking and shale gas drilling in general have led to polluted air and water and made people sick.
Environmental activists are countering the industry meeting with their own two-day event that will feature a march, a rally and a conference focusing on the negative impacts of gas drilling.
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