A brief note on Fracking coverage

Heading for bed soon, so I'll be brief.

Over the past few months and especially the last few weeks I have been very heartened by the expanded coverage being given to issues related to the extraction of gas deposits under the Marcellus Shale Formation. Until this expanded coverage came along, much of the general public had no idea what the concerns were with this, or even that concerns existed at all. Several local bloggers have been going on about this for years, but for the large segment of the local public still out of touch with the blogosphere this expanded coverage is the first they're hearing about the situation.

One thing concerns me, though. Is the news coverage reaching the point of attention saturation? Will the public eventually get bored with this issue, one which directly affects every resident of Northeastern Pennsylvania, and move on to other concerns?

I don't know. If that happens, I think it will just take one contaminated well, one uncontrolled leak of fracking fluids, one tragic accident involving the heavy trucks used throughout the gas extraction process, to pull people's attention back to this issue.

Tragically, I expect that there will be plenty of these to keep people focused.