First of two parts
Sunday, November 06, 2011
Now a junior, Jenna Kemmerle knows her way around California University of Pennsylvania's campus, the shortcuts to its red-brick classroom buildings, the walkways approaching Old Main.
But this she didn't know: Land where she and hundreds of CalU students live and play is part of the Marcellus Shale drilling boom.
Ten months ago, The Student Association Inc., an organization affiliated with the university, approved a lease for subsurface drilling on land it owns that includes tennis courts, baseball and soccer fields and an apartment complex where 768 students, including Ms. Kemmerle, live.
The deal may be the first Marcellus Shale lease affecting a state-owned university in Pennsylvania, and it shows how drilling is starting to alter the financial landscape at colleges struggling to maintain their missions in a bad economy.
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Mike Morgan is a superintendent for Mashuda Corp., the company building the well pad next to Bethany College's campus in Bethany, W.Va. Elisabeth Ponsot/Post-Gazette |
But this she didn't know: Land where she and hundreds of CalU students live and play is part of the Marcellus Shale drilling boom.
Ten months ago, The Student Association Inc., an organization affiliated with the university, approved a lease for subsurface drilling on land it owns that includes tennis courts, baseball and soccer fields and an apartment complex where 768 students, including Ms. Kemmerle, live.
The deal may be the first Marcellus Shale lease affecting a state-owned university in Pennsylvania, and it shows how drilling is starting to alter the financial landscape at colleges struggling to maintain their missions in a bad economy.
It also illustrates how a drilling lease can remain under the radar. Even the school's president, Angelo Armenti Jr., said he did not know a deal had been struck. The lease, approved in a closed meeting, was never announced on campus.
Ms. Kemmerle, 22, of Dover, Del., is neither fan nor foe of hydraulic fracturing -- or fracking -- the process used to extract natural gas from rock. But she was surprised to learn from a reporter that a group better known for managing student activity fees had approved fracking deep below what CalU describes as part of its South campus.
"I do live up here," said the education major as she stood outside her Vulcan Village housing complex. "I'm surprised they didn't send out an email or anything to let us know."
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