The rush to extract natural gas from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania is expected to have an impact on Lancaster County.

No wells will be drilled here but new underground interstate pipelines need to be built to distribute the natural gas to the East Coast's heavily populated markets.

And some of the proposals for new pipelines have them cutting through the county.

Just last week, the 200-mile, $1 billion Commonwealth Pipeline that will likely go through much of western Lancaster County was announced by UGI Energy Services and two partners.

Within several months, local farmers and landowners could be approached about selling their land for a needed 75- to 100-foot right of way.

In September, Houston-based Spectra Energy completed the laying of a new pipeline that starts at its compressor station in Marietta and goes across the Susquehanna River as part of a 28-mile, $120 million pipeline extension driven by the natural gas rush.

A handful of new interstate natural gas distribution lines have been announced in Pennsylvania just in the last year. And more are expected.

Lancaster County already has five interstate natural gas transmission lines crisscrossing it. Some are being retooled and expanded to handle the emerging Marcellus Shale network.

Think of it as an underground freeway, suggests Chris Stockton, spokesman for the Houston-based Williams Partners, which owns the Transco Pipeline that runs through southern Lancaster County.

"If, all of a sudden, a city's population would explode, suddenly the freeway has to be expanded because you can't accommodate the traffic anymore.

"That's what we are seeing, particularly in Pennsylvania, with Marcellus Shale. There is existing infrastructure but it's not big enough to keep up with the supply anymore. So we and others are trying to catch up."

There is a scramble to link pipelines from gas fields in Pennsylvania's vast Marcellus Shale country with existing interstate supply lines, like the five in Lancaster County.

Transco's pipeline in the southern end, for example, carries just under 10 percent of all natural gas used in the United States.

An important link for Marcellus Shale pipelines is a compressor station on the Transco Pipeline near the Susquehanna River in eastern York County's Peach Bottom Township.

Its geographical proximity to Lancaster County could result in more pipelines here.

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Transmission companies are quick to point out that new and expanded pipelines could mean cheaper natural gas bills.

Until now, almost all natural gas came from the Gulf Coast or the West, a distance of 1,600 to 2,000 miles.

Marcellus Shale wells, however, offer a source of natural gas that is within hundreds of miles from major markets in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas.

Since natural gas suppliers pay on the basis of how far their gas has to be piped, they could experience huge savings that can be passed to consumers, according to industry officials.

"Marcellus Shale is not so much about how much gas there is, it's about how close it is to the market. It's really turned the market upside down," Stockton said.

An example of how Marcellus Shale has become a game-changer is the 1,679-mile Rockies Express Pipeline, which was built to pipe gas to the East Coast, but is now going to be used to take gas to western states.

The natural gas bills of Lancaster County residents have dropped a whopping 40 percent in the last year, according to Peter Terranova, a vice president for UGI Energy Services, one of three partners that wants to build the Commonwealth Pipeline here.

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Lynda Farrell, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Coalition, a citizens group based in Chester County, believes the pipelines pose a threat to the environment.

The Chester County resident said new pipelines mean more woods will be fragmented and more streams will be crossed.

"Particularly in Lancaster and Chester counties, we will see massive numbers of stream crossings," she said.

"Every stream crossing fractures the environmental stability of the creek, the biodiversity of the creek and potentially the water supply."

Her group pushes for pipes to be drilled under stream beds without destroying the stream buffer, rather than the cheaper but more environmentally disruptive "open cut" method of crossing streams.

Farrell also worries about safety issues from increased demand on existing pipelines, some of which date to the 1950s and 1960s.

And even upgrades to existing pipelines often mean wider rights of way, she said, which can affect land values and "quality-of-life issues."

 "I think we've all been so focused on the drilling aspect that we haven't been asking these questions — and we should be asking them," she said.

Elaine Lapp Esch of Lancaster, co-founder of the Community Action Forum on Marcellus Shale, believes many of the new Marcellus Shale pipelines are not being driven by a desire to distribute natural gas for domestic use.

She contends there are widespread plans to export much of the Marcellus Shale gas overseas, where it will bring energy companies higher profits.

She points to the recent federal approval to export liquefied natural gas from a facility on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

Since the 1970s, the Dominion Cove Point facility has received imported gas from foreign ships. In October, the U.S. Department of Energy said the facility might start exporting natural gas to countries with Fair Trade agreements with the United States.

The terminal connects to the Transco and Columbia gas pipeline systems found in Lancaster County, as well as one of its own.

Asked if there were plans for Marcellus Shale gas on the proposed Commonwealth Pipeline to be exported, Terranova said, "Not at this time."

acrable@lnpnews.com