Editor’s Note: This is the last in a seven-part series on natural gas drilling gleaned from a staff outing to Pennsylvania last December.

DIMOCK – After publishing more than 200 articles in The Evening Sun about natural gas since 2005, it’s clear that Chenango County’s lawmakers and landowners – both pro-drilling and anti-drilling – have been informed of the natural gas industry’s pending move into New York and the controversial hydraulic fracturing process.

That’s more than could be said for people living just over New York’s border in Susquehanna County, Pa. While both states have abundant water and feed into concentrated, high population, major metropolitan areas, little information about public health, environmental and economic consequences of drilling into the Commonwealth’s natural gas rich Marcellus Shale was disseminated before drilling began. Seemingly Pennsylvania was unprepared for the scope of the drilling activity and its effects on the landscape and population.

When it became obvious back in 2008 that energy companies were targeting the Marcellus Shale, an economic and industrial development authority in Bradford and Susquehanna Counties did educate itself. Members paid a visit to Texas where development was already underway in the Barnett Shale play. Since then, the authority has played an active role in helping create jobs and facilitate investment in the region.