BRADFORD COUNTY PA – Of many changes wrought since 2008 by the exploration of natural gas in the layer of deep-underground Marcellus shale – which stretches across New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio – one of the most profound may be economic growth created in Bradford County farming communities, according to the September-October 2103 edition of Keystone Country magazine.
A rural shale natural gas well
The county “leads Pennsylvania in well production in the Marcellus Shale field,” the magazine reports in an article titled “Marcellus Shale, ‘A Changing Landscape’,” and it adds, it “has the lowest rate of unemployment in the state.”
For a two-page, full-color article, Editor Darrin Youker interviewed farmers and their families, other property owners, energy and drilling experts, and government officials. He reports many farm owners have embraced natural gas production as a source of additional revenue to keep their farms self-sufficient for succeeding generations.
Keystone Country is a bi-monthly periodical of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, published from offices in Camp Hill PA. The article may be valuable to Pennsylvania real estate sales and broker licensees who want insights into how shale natural gas production is perceived by land owners who lease or sell real property mineral rights to drillers.
It also serves as a reading supplement to a Polley Associates’ course on Marcellus shale and property rights offered primarily in western Pennsylvania during the 2010-2012 real estate sales and broker license renewal period.
Photo by Jeremy Buckingham (2012) from Flickr under a Creative Commons license