Natural gas gold rush: Is your state next?

June 27, 2012

The script might not play out exactly the same in each new community touched by the nationwide boom in natural gas and oil drilling, but the changes have a familiar echo:

Trucks. Noise. Cash. Conflict.

Since the late 1990s, American landscapes have become dotted with a small forest of shale gas wells — 13,000 new ones a year, or about 35 a day, according to the American Petroleum Institute. In the past decade, this steady stream of development has become a gusher as nearly half the country has staked claim to these energy riches. In 2000, the USA had 342,000 natural gas wells. By 2010, more than 510,000 were in place — a 49% jump — according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

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