Naveena Sadasivam, reporting for Inside Climate News:
Gas drilling has long raised concerns about water contamination and air pollution. But until recently, little public attention has been paid to the pipelines that must be built to carry the gas. In Pennsylvania, concerns about these pipelines are growing because many of them are being built in the state’s 16 million acres of forest, which include some of the largest contiguous blocks of forestland east of the Mississippi River. Nearly 700,000 acres of forestland already have been leased for drilling, allowing companies to cut paths through pristine stretches of trees, fragment forests, decrease biodiversity and introduce invasive species.