Whose Property Is It, Really?

Just watched a short CBS News piece on New York's decision to finally allow some limited oil and gas "fracking" in the Empire State, although with the nation's toughest regulations. After resisting for years, the state legislature finally acquiesced to demands from property "owners" that they be allowed to cash in by leasing the mineral "rights" on "their" land.

An environmental scientist explained that even with NY's strict rules and regs, there's really no way to safely fracture the bedrock (the cracking of the rock itself releases toxic chemicals and gases into the ground and groundwater, and the fracking fluid is a noxious soup), and there's really no such thing as a safe containment well for the waste water.

Nevertheless, the lure of the windfall is hard to resist. Pennsylvania was among the first to permit fracking. A New York farmer on the NY-PA border was interviewed. He can look across his land and see producing fracking wells on Pennsylvania farms. He's anxious to sign a lease and get frackin' on his own farm. Of his PA neighbors, he said, "There's no problem I can see -- their crops and animals look as good as ever. The only difference is those guys have new tractors and new buildings."

I understand the importance of property rights in our society and the desire to benefit from those rights. It's part of our history and, to some extent, our success. But in the long view, the big picture, we're all renters just passin' through. I mean, whose property is it, really?

The NY farmer sees no problems. He wants his chance to cash in, like many others have, and it's hard to fault his point of view. But fracking is so new, so extreme, and so unproven, it's damn hard to believe it's just a bowl of cherries. We never see the problems at first -- it's only decades later that we get the Dust Bowl, and Love Canal, and the Cuyahoga River explodes.

Eventually, the farmer will be gone, as will we all. The new tractor will be gone. The land will remain for future generations. We may want to think twice before we smash it into pieces.

In the words of an old, old TV commercial: It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!