Fracking Issues - NOT restricted to PA, but very relevant to all states with this problem.

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17. Now they want to go after a possible smigeon of shale oil here in Bucks County

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/easton/mc-bucks-gas-drilling-marcellus-amendment-20120429,0,2690231.story

Lawmaker wants to exempt Bucks County from Marcellus Shale law

April 29, 2012

A thin layer of 200-million-year-old mud lies thousands of feet beneath the fields, farms and homesteads of Nockamixon Township in upper Bucks County. That ancient mud, laid down in prehistory and dubbed the Lockatong Shale, might have a spot of natural gas locked away in its flaky layers.

And that hint of gas has Nockamixon in the throes of a lawsuit challenging the state's Marcellus Shale law, known as Act 13, which regulates the gas industry that's boomed with the use of unconventional techniques like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of rock to release gas. . . .

A western Pennsylvania company named Turm Oil applied this year to drill in Nockamixon, and some residents and officials fear Act 13 strips them of power to control the gas industry. They worry about heavy truck traffic on narrow roads; the quality of their well water; and the rustic, rural nature of the township. . . .

he company applied in February for a permit to drill and operate a well on a scrubby, 100-acre parcel owned by Cabot Corp. of Boston. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, two oil and gas wells exist on the Cabot property, which was also a Superfund site. The township parried past drilling proposals with its own zoning restrictions barring oil and gas operations there.