Economist Remarks on the Visual Evidence of the Benefits of Pipelines in Communities Across Pa.

Economist Kevin Gillen remarks that, “If you drive through the commonwealth, from east to west…the visual effect that natural gas extraction has had on local communities is really striking.”

 

He explains that you can see the benefits in the quality of life and infrastructure in these communities, and details that “these are communities which have been economically depressed for decades. Even the farmers who have been struggling to compete economically with the much larger farms of the mid-west which have a much lower cost of production, now have found that their land is worth a lot more money and they’ve hit a pay day for them. Again, that’s after decades of struggling to just get by.”\

These comments are supported by a recent letter to the editor in The Reading Eagle by Kurt Knaus, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Energy Infrastructure Alliance, which stressed that projects like the Mariner East 2 pipeline “will fuel countless economic benefits for the state, give more businesses and consumers access to these resources, and help to support growth among other businesses and manufacturers.”

Gillen concludes that, “the local effects that the natural gas extraction has had on many local economies throughout the commonwealth is visually evident and very difficult to deny. If you talk to people in these communities, they’ll tell you that they are in favor of this mini revolution that has occurred in their communities.”