pn_20100910165701-1.jpgIt is unclear who in the commonwealth is looking out for natural gas pipelines in rural areas.

The land rush in the Marcellus Shale natural gas region isn’t as much about where to put drill pads anymore; it’s about where to put pipelines.

Drilling companies know how to get the gas out of the ground. Now they need to be able to get it up and down the Eastern Seaboard and beyond.

But many of the same concerns apply with pipelines as with drill sites: What are the environmental impacts? Are landowners being fairly compensated? Are adequate regulations in place?

In Pennsylvania, the answers to those questions are not yet satisfactory.
The big pipelines that run across state lines are regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Since 2010, more than half of the applications for new pipelines to the federal government involved Pennsylvania.

These new pipeline projects have not been without controversy.

In July, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency aggressively questioned the need for a proposed pipeline in the commonwealth’s Endless Mountains region, noting it would cross more than 100 streams and result in the loss of more than 200,000 trees.

It’s better to know up-front what the environmental impact is going to be, try to abate it and find alternatives than to discover problems later as Pennsylvanians know well from the state’s sordid history with coal mining.

While the large interstate pipelines often get the most attention, the Marcellus Shale region is adding a multitude of smaller pipelines to connect drilling wells to compressor stations and, ultimately, to the larger pipes.

As The Patriot-News has pointed out, there is a gap in oversight of smaller pipelines in Pennsylvania.

The Public Utility Commission regulates if they go to

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