Feb 27, 2014 4 min read

Jesse Spara is a senior at Washington High School and a budding geologist. He also is a baseball player who couldn’t help but invoke an analogy related to the game.

“Our coach tells us to focus on the signs, to not listen to opponents, to other things going on around you,” he said Wednesday, appropriately inside the Pony League headquarters building in North Franklin Township.

He was applying that philosophy to his gathering of knowledge of the wide-ranging, ever-evolving world of energy, particularly as it pertains to Marcellus Shale matters in Southwestern Pennsylvania. His point was that there is a lot of information, and a lot of misinformation, about oil and gas, and that his athletic experience has taught him the importance of focusing on known truths.

Spara was one of five high school students who participated in roundtable discussions organized by TheShaleAcademy.com, whose mission, according to its website, “is to provide educational, communication and career development opportunities for students.”

The academy recruited the students months ago and matched them with adult mentors working in energy-related fields, The two sides interacted, participated in three pre-workshops, then got together en masse Wednesday for the first time.

Despite a small measure of angst, the teens proved to be well-rounded at the roundtables, acquitting themselves well in response to questions posed by Beth De Maagd, executive director of the academy; Tejas Gosai, founder of Shale Media Group; and Matt Crocco, senior account executive for Bravo Group.

All of the students are seniors and taking advanced-placement classes. Four are from Washington High – Spara, Julianne Rotunda, Andrea Sharp and Shawn Hughes. They were accompanied by calculus teacher Siobhan Visser.

Adam Larson of Bethel Park was the fifth student.

Questions about Pennsylvania Act 13 were introduced first. Act 13, of course, was enacted in 2012 to make zoning regulations uniform in all municipalities where drilling occurs. It also mandated impact fees to be paid to municipalities where drilling takes place.

Parts of the act were declared unconstiutional in December, and there are questions about whether impact fees will be maintained. Washington County and its municipalities have gotten more than $24 million in impact fees since the law was enacted.

Rotunda found doing research on Act 13 to be informative and enlightening.

“I assumed you could drill anywhere,” she said, “but found out that was not the case, that you cannot drill near a school, for example. I had my opinions swayed.

“Parts of it are unconstitutional, but it’s important for the state to have this.”

Spara is concerned that shale-related financial benefits the region has realized may be short-lived, citing Pennsylvania’s 9.99 percent corporate income tax, which is higher than West Virginia’s 6.5 percent.

“We could lose drilling to other states.”

Sharp said she agrees with the oft-expressed sentiment Wednesday that shale work has created jobs statewide, in the oil, gas and ancillary industries. But as for legislation, “it shouldn’t be at the expense of water, air and land.”

Hughes, likewise, is a staunch supporter of provisions of the act that protect “the environment and people.”

Visser had an interesting and feasible recommendation for where some of the impact fee money should go.

“I teach students to respect their land,” she said. “Industries are being proactive in returning land to where it was.

“They’re giving impact fees to municipalities, but I’d like some of that to go to the education of communities (about shale development), so we can go ahead with being energy independent.”

Crocco had an overview of the proceedings, which later featured a roundtable on energy-related magazine articles.

“We need a highly skilled, educated workforce,” said Crocco. “It’s nice to see what natural gas is doing for this area and great to involve students in this.

“It gives them a window into the future.”

The academy’s next session with students will be 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. April 30 at the Pony League headquarters.