Lease signed for natural gas drilling under Pittsburgh's Catholic cemeteries
August 18, 2010
The director of the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s Catholic Cemeteries Association said on August 17 that she signed a five-year lease in 2008 granting a local company the option to drill for natural gas underneath 15 local Catholic cemeteries. Financial terms of the lease were not disclosed, and drilling has not yet taken place.
The cemeteries, located on 1,060 acres, “offered us the possibility to drill horizontally beneath the tracts from adjoining leases without encroaching on the surface,” said the company’s president.
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Further information:
- Catholic Cemeteries to permit gas drilling among the headstones (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
- Series on gas drilling (ProPublica)
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Posted by: garedawg -
Aug. 18, 2010 8:45 PM ET USA
They will probably find the most natural gas in those cemeteries where the faithful departed of the Byzantine rite are buried. If the cabbage-based Eastern European food served up by our parish kitchen is any indication, those who spent their lives dining on that fare should have enough methane left in them to power half of Pittsburgh.
