in response to forbes article: could shale gas lead to a manufacturing boom in appalachia?

The disregard for Appalachia is represented in your pictures - they are 
from the Rockies!

Obviously, there is nothing here but a pile of dirt and a few 
uncivilized, half clothed natives.  We have had long experience with 
extractive industry - which continues to this day.  They come in and 
burn brightly for a few decades at most, and leave behind rusted out 
installations, transportation lines that erode and damage water sources, 
mangled forests.  They have a legacy of poisoned people, both workers 
and just residents.  It is never cleaned up.  The government is expected 
to clean up railroad lines, pipe yards, and all the rest.  But it 
doesn't get done.  There are literally hundreds of thousands of old 
shallow wells, hundreds of mine waste piles, hundreds of mines producing 
streams too polluted to support life.

You seem to be getting predictions of gas production from wild eyed 
optimists.  Industry guys who see only the front edge of production.  
The easy stuff is taken out first - always - and it gets less productive 
as time goes on.  Why don't you consider experts like Dr. Anthony 
Ingraffea, who take a more measured view? The fracking method only gets 
6% of the gas in place, and the difficulty of situating the horizontal 
drilling means a lot will not even get the 6% taken out.

Why don't you consider the past of extraction companies a guide to the 
future?  Better yet, I dare you to buy acreage in this new "fertile 
crescent" and see for yourself why the natives are restless.

Sincerely,
​S. Tom Bond, Jane Lew, WV
​