The state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) faces a challenge in balancing the potential $1 billion in economic benefits from the natural gas trapped in the Marcellus Shale formation with protection of the state's environment.

Pressure from two groups — the gas industry on one side and environmental groups on the other — has been seen in recent months.

In November, representatives from several drilling companies complained to state officials that the DEP's regulations are confusing and applications take too long to be processed. The gas producers suggested, maybe even threatened, that continued frustration with DEPand environmental hurdles would cause them to focus their Marcellus drilling efforts in West Virginia and other nearby states.

On the other side of the issue, environmental groups are raising new concerns about the impact of Marcellus gas operations on streams and rivers as well as deep aquifers and wells that supply drinking water.

It won't be easy to satisfy both sides, but the DEP must make efforts to do just that.

Addressing the drillers' complaints and the regulatory issues, state Sen. Mary Jo White,R-Venango, captured the situation correctly when she said, "This is a wonderful opportunity, and we don't want to blow it."

The economic opportunity in developing the Marcellus Shale formation is extraordinary. The leading geological experts on the mile-deep formation, which runs from West Virginia in a northeasterly direction across Pennsylvania and into New York, have estimated the value of the natural gas at $1 trillion. Though the drilling technologies required to extract the gas from more than a mile below the surface are expensive, the economic benefits to Pennsylvania include rent and royalty income to landowners, and tens of thousands of new jobs connected to the industry's development over the next few decades.

The greatest environmental concerns focus on the massive amounts of water that are pumped into the shale to cause breaks in the rock, which helps release the gas from the porous rock. This "fracking" process can require drawing more than a million gallons of water from streams, rivers or even municipal water systems. Then, after the shale is fractured, sand is pumped into the shale to hold the new voids open, and the water is pumped out. Environmentalists are worried about the impact of removing that much water from streams or small rivers. They also are concerned with how that used water is treated, to filter out naturally occurring contaminants as well as chemicals added by the drilling company, before it is released into waterways.

In the DEP's defense, the agency is trying to develop new rules for relatively new technologies employed to reach the deep Marcellus Shale formation. The deep drilling and horizontal drilling capabilities that will be employed have been perfected only in the last decade or so, mostly as the result of extracting natural gas from a similarly deep shale formation in Texas.

So the existing regulations for traditional vertical, and shallower, wells are not adequate.

But state officials from White to Gov. Ed Rendell and acting DEP Secretary John Hanger recognize the need to find a balance between letting gas drillers do whatever they want and protecting the state's natural resources and its people's health.

The fees associated with drilling deep gas wells were boosted significantly in December, and Hanger said the increased revenues will be used to hire more people at the DEP to keep up with the much higher demand for gas drilling permits associated with the Marcellus Shale formation.

Adding more workers to process applications is a necessary and positive move. But the DEP also must work to streamline both the regulatory environment and the gas-drilling application process. The agency must find — and soon — a workable balance between the economic interests tied to gas extraction and the protection of the state's resources.

As White said, the Marcellus shale represents a great economic opportunity; the state must not blow it with too much — or too little — regulation and oversight.