If we could find easy to extract oil, shale gas would still be a future product.

(destroying). You drill a well it disturbs about 5 acres of ground. A few weeks after the wells are drilled the only evidence left is a pipe coming out of the ground and a brine tank. In this area we have 5 new motels that have just opened or under construction to house drillers and pipe-liners. All the camp grounds are packed with campers and many people rent out camping space in their yards for the workers. We have several plants being built to process the gas that will make permanent jobs. The gas-fracking is the first positive economic news in this area for 40 years. Anyone that has acreage has got checks for drilling rights (many instant millionaires) and royalty checks are coming in.

I hope it does't happen, but do we ever see these guys leave a place unspoiled?
I guess a lot of people feel it;s worth the gamble, because they can afford to leave now.

environment than a gas well. As far as the water table goes I think the strip mining for coal in this area has done more to damage the water table than fracking ever will. Those wells are a mile deep, far below the water table in my opinion. As far as peoples water wells getting gas in them that probably can be traced back to coal mining in most cases if not all.

concern and controversy about the fracking happening in upstate NY. It could effect water quality and impact the health of many millions of people.
Energy companies have a very poor track record and historically prefer to pay fines later than act responsibly. It's new technology, and if there wasn't fortunes to be made now, I'm sure residents would be taking a much harder look at the risks. Because they'd have to stay at live with any fallout. But they don't, just their poor neighbors and everyone downstream.

midstream. The compressor stations that emit BTEX 24 hours a day. The 800 heavy truck trips necessary to develop each well. The re-fracking necessary to maintain production levels that the un-conventional gas industry has been lying about in order to finance their get rich quick at our expense scheme. This is landscape level industrialization of rural areas that has been deregulated by the usual plutocrats without regard for the consequences to the rest of us.

in the coming decades?

Is this fracking?

What are the environmental pitfalls?

Is this bottom line a positive thing?

A discussion of the environmental issues is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_hydraulic_fracturing
Obviously we need to be very careful to monitor and control this activity so that it does not cause pollution or contamination.

And anything which makes us less beholden to the crazies in the Middle East is a positive in my book.

Pollution of the water, pollution of the air. A continued reliance on fossil fuels because they are going to continue to be relatively cheap. The long term consequences of continuing our fossil fuel addiction are only now being recognized.

as greenhouse gases.