MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio are joining forces to strengthen the Marcellus and Utica shale industry.
Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, speaking Tuesday at the Tri-State Shale Summit, said the northeastern region could become the petro chemical capitol of the world and home to billions of dollars in economic development.
“As much as we don’t hear about Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama individually, we hear about the Gulf Coast being a petro chemical hotbed,” Tomblin said. “We must work to promote the Appalachian basin.”
Projects like a 500-mile Atlantic coast pipeline through the state reaching North Carolina and a 300-mile mountain valley pipeline from Wetzel County to Virginia could attract drilling and gas companies to West Virginia.
Independent state programs lowering taxes to entice industry growth and legislation on horizontal shale can create interest in West Virginia. But Ohio Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor said through collaboration between states could maximize workforce and increase interest from companies worldwide.
According to Taylor, some 13,863 jobs have been created by Marcellus and Utica drilling.
She noted a SafeNet program helping create qualified natural gas industry workers.
“It’s a training program that is very specific to this industry and it’s currently offered at 3 schools in Ohio. I know workforce development will continue to be a key component of this agreement,” she explained.
Since 2007, community technical colleges in W.Va. have created 130 new programs tailored to workforce development in the industry.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, who addressed the summit attendees via video, said there’s another layer to the tri-state partnership.
“In order to maximize this development in an environmentally safe way, we must work together. We must support development processes that add value to these resources.”
Tomblin emphasized the need to create workers gas industries want to hire.
“As we prepare workers for the skills of today and tomorrow, WorkForce West Virginia is drug testing all applicants before we start career training before we spend state dollars on people who can’t pass a drug test,” he said.
The Tuesday agreement among the three governor’s offices points to collaboration ahead while touting current collaboration.
For instance, WVU and Ohio State University have already been coordinating research efforts into Marcellus and Utica shale.
The Tri-State Shale Summit attracted educators, researchers, business leaders and economists. West Virginia Public Broadcasting provided live streaming of the summit and shared audio from it with MetroNews affiliate WAJR AM in Morgantown.