Natural gas explorers have ventured into the Marcellus shale play in a big way during the past few years. Most are seasoned players with a history of making all the right moves. They have coordinated reasonably priced lease deals (thanks to a quickly declining economy) with fairly conservative drilling plans to pave the way to success.

One of the Marcellus drillers’ smartest moves was to quickly organize an energy-industry coalition in 2008, which is now headed by Kathryn Klaber, a well-informed local advocate who is proof that hydrocarbon development and environmentalism are not mutually exclusive.

Klaber serves as the first president and executive director of the 95-member-strong Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC). On behalf of the MSC member companies, she works closely with elected leaders, regulators and communities to promote responsible gas development and to enhance Pennsylvania’s economy.

Previously, Klaber was executive vice president for competitiveness for the Allegheny Conference on Community Development and the executive director of the Pennsylvania Economy League. A lifelong Pennsylvanian, she earned her undergraduate degree in environmental science from Bucknell University and her master’s in business administration from Carnegie Mellon University.

Klaber won the Enterprise Award for Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon for her business plan for an innovative environmental reporting and metrics company. She was elected president in Carnegie Mellon’s archetypical Management Game and later appointed to Pennsylvania’s Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee.

Klaber regularly testifies before legislative committees and advises stakeholders on public policy issues. Beginning in early 2008, she led the Allegheny Conference’s efforts to help the region and state realize the full benefits of Marcellus shale development, including creation of an economic impact assessment of the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania and design of the Energy Alliance of Southwestern Pennsylvania.

Through the 1990s, she worked for Environmental Resources Management Inc., the international environmental, health and safety consulting firm, first at the company’s headquarters in Philadelphia, then in her native Pittsburgh. Her client work consisted primarily of mergers and acquisitions, environmental management systems, air- and water-quality projects, and other engineering engagements. She supervised multinational projects, primarily for Fortune 1000 companies.

In southwestern Pennsylvania, she worked with regional companies on air-quality compliance, brownfields redevelopment, accidental-release preparedness, and myriad other environmental initiatives. During her last three years with the firm, Klaber managed the Pittsburgh regional office and oversaw all aspects of the practice including business development, product delivery, staffing, and financial management.

Klaber lives in southwestern Pennsylvania with her husband, two sons and a yellow lab.

Investor: You have a background in environmental science, yet you work for energy development in the Marcellus shale-gas play.

Klaber: I don’t think of those two goals as diverse. When I did my undergraduate work in the 1980s, environmental science was not a major. That was knit together from a lot of different disciplines, including engineering, geology, biology, chemistry and political science. The range of coursework reflects an appreciation for and care of the environment, which can be done from the “inside” of industry. Certainly, publicly traded companies know that environmental protection has to be a top priority and should be managed very carefully for growth.

Investor: Is it difficult to promote energy-development growth during these tough economic times?

Klaber: Not really. We are working in an industry that is still hiring the best and the brightest and investing huge amounts of capital. In our recently released economic-impact study that Pennsylvania State University rolled out for us, we found that for every dollar the Marcellus industry spends, about $1.90 of total economic output is generated. That’s good news for some of the rural areas that have been hard hit by the recession. It’s a very positive place to be.

Investor: Are you seeing any blowback from the recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico?

Klaber: I think that event makes us even more focused on the environmental best practices that we continue to work on. We recognize how key our performance is to the image of the industry. Obviously, an oil well in the Gulf has very different technical issues from a well in Appalachia, but the public will certainly draw some connections.

Investor: Yet, the Marcellus is a gas play.

Klaber: Right. In fact, we see a greater affinity for gas development in shale plays because of its relative safety.

Investor: What is the challenge in the Marcellus that keeps you up at night?

Klaber: It’s the perpetuation of fallacies. How do we get the facts out to counter what has been a gross misleading of the people of Pennsylvania? There are more conversations about water issues that have been based on a poorly researched newspaper article than on decades of performance by the industry. These fears are created. While we certainly understand the public’s concern about their need to be supplied with fresh water, the misinformation has dominated the factual information. How we turn that around is probably our biggest challenge.

Investor: How do you combat that?

Klaber: Within the coalition, we have a series of working groups that are sharing information across companies, allowing us to perform even better. We recognize that our collective reputation affects each individual member.

Investor: Do you have enough members for that to be effective?

Klaber: We are inundated with requests for associate memberships. That is a direct reflection of the supply-chain interactions and connections that are being developed within our organization and throughout our community, even as we speak. It’s thrilling to be part of these business-relationship formations to share best practices.

Investor: How do you disseminate those?

Klaber: We have large meetings where we focus on a couple of issues each month, and we also have individual committees and subcommittees. The topics range from best practices for gas management to water sourcing to pipeline permitting and installation to health and safety.

Investor: Any cool new technology on the horizon?

Klaber: We are seeing the most rapid changes in water-management processes. For example, in Texas, a lot of the spent water is disposed of by underground injection. That is not a major opportunity in the Marcellus. But we are finding extremely high levels of recycling undertaken by many of our companies. Some are using a new closed-loop, zero-discharge level.

What is exciting is that such a method was developed in a short, 12-month period. The new water-management practices and technologies that enable high-salt-content water to be put back into hydraulic fracturing, in order to use and dispose of less water, is probably one of the biggest real-time advances.

Investor: Do you see any new regulations coming in Appalachia?

Klaber: I hope not! There is a widespread misunderstanding about existing regulations. There are so many on the books right now with which the industry is complying. It’s not a matter of needing wholesale new regulations. We are working to ensure that changes to the current regulations should more accurately reflect Marcellus drilling as opposed to more traditional shallow wells that have been drilled here for generations. There have been some knee-jerk reactions in the past that have resulted in bad policies, some of which are coming down right now. In particular, there are water fears about the Delaware River.

Investor: Could that become like the New York (watershed) ban?

Klaber: We are hearing about what is happening in New York. That is driven by communities that are not close to the actual drilling. They don’t have an opportunity to see, firsthand, how safe it is. They are not experiencing the economic benefits. A ban on the Delaware River basin would harm the ability of local landowners to reap the benefits of drilling on their land.

Investor: It seems an over-reaction.

Klaber: There is another new regulation working its way through the system that concerns facilities at water-treatment plants on Pennsylvania’s waterways. It would limit oil and gas treatment-plant discharges to 500 parts per million. First, that is a very uncompetitive regulation that is not in place in any other state. The other issue is that it asks the industry to lower a compound level to less than that found in Pelligrino bottled water. That regulation will not stand the test of time. We are working through the details of that right now.

Investor: What can the coalition do?

Klaber: We are trying to talk with the communities face to face. Newspaper ads are not typically effective, because there is a feeling of mistrust of any energy company across the country. We are also working with our elected officials so they understand the facts. In their role, they can be spokespersons for what is really going on.