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This is basically what happened in the rust belt with steel. Now another "boom" is happening with fracking. The people still haven't learned. You wouldn't belie

This is basically what happened in the rust belt with steel. Now another "boom" is happening with fracking. The people still haven't learned. You wouldn't believe how many gas workers are driving new trucks, buying toys, etc. I bet very few are putting any of this money in savings. When the fracking leaves we'll be in the same place we were when the steel mills shut down. Just waiting for the next economic boom to come. What are left of the mills are pretty much rusty wastelands but I don't think quite as much pollution (at least in the ground) as we will see from fracking.

ssharp 13y ago
Prophetically, and maybe ironically, fracking service infrastructure in my hometown, Youngstown, Ohio, is being built on the same land that the steel mills sat abandoned for decades.
- johnward 13y ago
  I'm on the Ohio border near Pittsburgh. Most of our infrastructure isn't reusing steel mill but some of it is. The thing I worry about more than the ground pollution are explosions. We've already seen a few but I don't think anything like that fertilizer plant yet. I have a pipeline being put in probably 300 yards from my house and those things scare the shit out of me.
  - ssharp 13y ago
    I lost any faith in these companies doing any sort of sound geological work when a company disposing of fracking water placed their injection well near a fault and caused a rash of earthquakes in the area the well was built. I'm not inherently against the idea of increased natural gas production, including fracking, but the lack of effort put forth by the industry to recognize and mitigate the risks involved has completely turned me off the practice.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      It costs money to recognize and mitigate the risks. Under the current legal regime, it costs very little money to let the negative effects happen because other people will bear the costs of those effects. I.e. it's totally rational for companies under the existing regime to fail to take adequate precautions.
      - specialist 13y ago
        ... because other people will bear the costs of those effects. Yup. Environmental protection is an accounting problem. Convert those externalities into line items on a company's profit & loss statement, voila, no more exploitation.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]

ssharp 13y ago

Prophetically, and maybe ironically, fracking service infrastructure in my hometown, Youngstown, Ohio, is being built on the same land that the steel mills sat abandoned for decades.

johnward 13y ago
I'm on the Ohio border near Pittsburgh. Most of our infrastructure isn't reusing steel mill but some of it is. The thing I worry about more than the ground pollution are explosions. We've already seen a few but I don't think anything like that fertilizer plant yet. I have a pipeline being put in probably 300 yards from my house and those things scare the shit out of me.
- ssharp 13y ago
  I lost any faith in these companies doing any sort of sound geological work when a company disposing of fracking water placed their injection well near a fault and caused a rash of earthquakes in the area the well was built. I'm not inherently against the idea of increased natural gas production, including fracking, but the lack of effort put forth by the industry to recognize and mitigate the risks involved has completely turned me off the practice.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    It costs money to recognize and mitigate the risks. Under the current legal regime, it costs very little money to let the negative effects happen because other people will bear the costs of those effects. I.e. it's totally rational for companies under the existing regime to fail to take adequate precautions.
    - specialist 13y ago
      ... because other people will bear the costs of those effects. Yup. Environmental protection is an accounting problem. Convert those externalities into line items on a company's profit & loss statement, voila, no more exploitation.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]