The biggest issues facing my community is the Marcellus and Utica shale gas drilling boom. There are many pros and cons involved. I would like to address a few of them here. The pros are mostly economic advantages like, jobs, increased local tax bases and lower consumer prices for natural gas and other products that come out of the wells with it. Some of the cons are increased traffic on roads that are not designed to handle that volume. The constant danger of explosions and fires that could overwhelm local emergency crews. Let us remember these are mostly rural areas with volunteer only emergency crews. The other area that needs to be considered is the health of local residents. This could be affected either positively