Residents, legislators, town, village, and planning board members, and neighbors of Spencer-Van Etten are invited to hear from an esteemed professor who specializes in fracture engineering and from a lifelong Pennsylvania resident.

On Tuesday, March 27, at 7:00 p.m. in Spencer Town Hall, local citizens are hosting a forum, “Gas Drilling: The Science, the Myths, the Dreams, the Realities,” with Professor Anthony Ingraffea, Ph.D., the Dwight C. Baum Professor in Engineering at Cornell University, and Victoria Lee Switzer, a retired social studies teacher and resident of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania.

They will discuss the science of fracking for shale gas and the impact on families living in a town where the industry is operating in full swing.

“Whether you’re pro-drilling, anti-drilling, or somewhere in between,” said Rick Rogers, a Spencer resident who is part of the organizing committee, “this is a chance to hear from one of the foremost fracture engineers in the country and from a woman whose retirement has turned out to be not at all what she expected.”

Neither of the presenters is industry-paid or industry-tied. “That means we’ll be hearing, for once, something that is not essentially a marketing or advertising or lobbying message,” said Maura Stephens, another longtime Spencer resident. “How refreshing that will be.”

Ingraffea has published widely and received many professional and teaching honors. He leads the Cornell Fracture Group, which creates, verifies, and validates computational simulation systems for fracture control in engineered systems. He is co-editor-in-chief of Engineering Fracture Mechanics, received the ASTM Irwin Award for meritorious contributions to the practice of fracture mechanics, and is a Fellow of the International Congress on Fracture. He speaks widely on the subject of fracking, was invited to speak to the U.S. House of Representatives, and has been interviewed by many media.

Switzer spent 32 years as a K-12 social studies teacher with special expertise in Pennsylvania history, geography, government, and world history, as well as student wellness. She and her husband leased their land for drilling, having no knowledge of the vast difference between “her grandfather’s gas well” and the new hydraulic fracturing methods. For the past five years her days have revolved around the subject of fracking, and she has given many talks on the subject.

“We are fortunate to have people of their caliber coming to share their expertise and experience with us in Spencer-Van Etten,” said Stephens. “We hope many in the community will come to the forum with an open mind, willing to learn what we have not yet been told.”

The event is cosponsored by Coalition to Protect New York and is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Rick Rogers, gilmere61@gmail.com; 607-589-6820.