More than 7,000 shale gas wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania since 2004. The fracking process requires a large amount of water, which is primarily brought to and from a well via tanker trucks. Sometimes developing one well will require more than 1,000 such trips—mostly along rural roads and through small towns.
New analysis by RFF Fellow Lucija Muehlenbachs and Senior Fellow Alan Krupnick, director of RFF's Center for Energy Economics and Policy, links shale gas well development activities to traffic-related accidents in Pennsylvania. They used data on accidents from the Crash Reporting System maintained by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, which provides detailed information, such as the types of vehicles involved in an accident, the exact location and time of the accident, and the severity of the accident. They cross-referenced that data with information on shale gas wells from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.
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Figure 1. Number of Truck-Related Accidents in Pennsylvania Counties With and Without 20 or More Shale Gas Wells, per Year[/caption]
They find a significant increase in the number of accidents involving a heavy truck in counties with a relatively large degree of shale gas development, as compared with counties with less (or no) development. Figure 1 shows the average number of accidents involving a heavy-duty truck in counties with 20 or more shale gas wells, the same information for counties that have fewer than 20 shale gas wells, and the number of shale gas wells drilled over the same time period throughout the state.
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