Reporter's Notebook: If a Turbine Roars in a Forest and Nobody Hears It…

When I drove deep into the Susquehannock State Forest with a group of researchers from the Academy of Natural Sciences, it was to report on a story about scientific research and the Marcellus Shale.
Just beyond the sign marking the entrance to the forest stood another large yellow sign with black lettering that read: “Caution: Natural gas drilling in progress. Expect rough roads and heavy traffic ahead.”

While collecting samples in a small stream, one of the researchers pointed out a road that he said ended up at a natural gas compressor station. A compressor station helps drive gas through a pipeline. I had recently reported a story on pipelines but had never seen a compressor station, so I set out to find it.  This one is owned by Pennsylvania General Energy, which has been drilling in the Marcellus Shale since 2005 and holds leases on 439,000 acres in Pennsylvania and New York.
Before driving up the gravel road, I noticed signs posted on the trees that were too small to read from the road. On closer inspection, they warned that the roads were closed to all vehicles. The new road, covered in gravel, serpentined up the side of a mountain. I wasn’t sure where the compressor station was located, but kept driving. Along the way, I never passed another car. Wild turkeys crossed my path. A startled bear ran into the middle of the road, stopped, stared at me and then scurried off into the woods.

After about 20 minutes, I came to a beautiful vista, looking down over a valley of rolling mountaintops. I pulled over, shot some pictures and kept going. I felt lucky that I was perhaps one of the few people to have seen this view.
Soon I began to hear more than just crickets, birds and the sound of my wheels struggling up a gravel road. The noise grew louder. Then, in the middle of the forest, I saw a parked bulldozer. I pulled over near a yellow sign that read “Caution: ear protection required.” The sign included an illustration of a person’s head with earphones. The drawing looked a bit like one of an alien.
From about 25 yards away came the roaring of a compressor station. The sound in the middle of the forest was loud enough that it would have been hard, at that spot, to hold a conversation without shouting. A huge turbine, about the size of a small truck, was churning away. Attached were gray, green and red painted pipes, which every so often, clunked. I shot some more pictures.
Driving back down the mountainside, I came across no trucks, humans or animals. But I have a recording of the sound, and I can assure you that what I heard at the deserted site was loud.
 

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