Fracking has led to a "bust" for Pennsylvania school district finances
Fracking in Pennsylvania has led to disadvantages in state school districts.
Unconventional natural gas development has transformed American energy over the past decade.
Hydraulic fracturing, often popularly referred to as "fracking," is a process used in extracting oil or gas resources from underground formations such as shale or sandstone. In Pennsylvania and elsewhere, this has been an industrially intensive method, and wells are often drilled a mile or more beneath the ground and a mile or more horizontally along the shale or sandstone.
Several Democratic presidential candidates have called for new limitations on the practice because of environmental and other concerns. Two of the leading candidates, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, have promised to ban fracking if elected.
Opponents of these restrictions insist these bans would devastate the economies of states like Pennsylvania. These debates have also raised serious questions about swing state support for democratic candidates in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
As educational researchers in the Keystone state, we recently conducted a study on the impact of unconventional gas development on the financial resources of the Pennsylvania's school districts.
We found that fracking had largely negative impacts on affected school districts.
Fracking history
In the mid-2000s fracking's largely unanticipated gas development dramatically changed much of Pennsylvania.
Fracking has made gas extraction technologically and economically possible from energy deposits that CONTINUE READING: Fracking has led to a "bust" for Pennsylvania school district finances | Salon.com