The March cover of Grid.

This month’s issue of Grid, a magazine that covers sustainability in Philadelphia, features a cover story on West Philly activist Iris Marie Bloom, who is organizing to challenge natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania.

In an article entitled “Stepping on the Gas,” Bloom, director of the environmental group Protecting Our Waters, explains opposition to drilling in a massive rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale, which stretches from the northeast corner of the state to the southeast corner. Much of the drilling is concentrated in small farming areas in the northeast, northcentral and southeast parts of the state, in towns that most Philadelphians have probably never heard of – places like Towanda, Wilcox, Dimock and Hickory.

Bloom and others argue that the drilling, which includes a process of forcing sand, water and chemicals into the ground to break up the shale and free natural gas, is an imminent threat to fresh water in the state. The process is known as “fracking” (hydraulic fracturing) and Bloom and others are pointing to water contamination as one of the main hazards of the process.

“Drilling is being done in a rush because it is underregulated,” Bloom told Grid reporter Jacob Lambert.

Bloom’s opponents in the fight are, of course, big gas companies and drillers, legislators who support them and, sometimes, the residents of these areas themselves. In most cases, drilling companies have paid handsomely for the rights to drill on vast swaths of privately owned farm land, making many farmers instantly wealthy.

Willingness on the part of state legislators to regulate the drilling is likely to wain with newly elected governor Tom Corbett, she said. Just yesterday newly elected Governor Tom Corbett rescinded a moratorium on new leases for drilling in state forests.