New book looks at the big decisions small communities had to make when fracking came to town - The Allegheny Front

https://www.alleghenyfront.org/new-book-looks-at-the-big-decisions-small-com...

NEW BOOK LOOKS AT THE BIG DECISIONS SMALL COMMUNITIES HAD TO MAKE WHEN FRACKING CAME TO TOWN KARA HOLSOPPLEAPRIL 18, 2022 ECONOMYENERGYPOLITICS Since the industry came to Pennsylvania almost 15 years ago, fracking has been looked at from a lot of angles — economic, environmental, and even geopolitical. But Sabina Deitrick, an associate professor at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, and her colleague, Ilia Murtazashvili, noticed a hole.

Sabina Deitrick “We were finding there wasn’t a lot for planners in our municipalities, for supervisors,” Deitrick said. “Volunteers were making decisions on things that had to do with fracking – not pro-fracking or anti-fracking – but what was happening in their town or their township or their borough. We were finding that there wasn’t a lot of advice and a lot of information from the state.”

So they put out a call to colleagues for a workshop on the impacts of fracking from the perspective of local government. It became the basis for the book: When Fracking Comes to Town: Governance, Planning, and Economic Impacts of the US Shale Boom. The Allegheny Front’s Kara Holsopple spoke with Deitrick about some of the themes in the book.