CHARLESTON — Unrest over Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s revised Marcellus shale bill was evident Monday, leaving its fate in the House of Delegates uncertain as a special session aimed at regulating the industry entered a third day.

Up first this morning, the House Judiciary Committee planned to consider the bill, in what promised to be a lengthy and arduous meeting.

Across the rotunda, the Senate Judiciary Committee wrangled over it nearly five hours Monday before sending it over to the finance panel with some minor tweaking. No changes were made in finance, setting the stage for a vote today by the full Senate.

In all, seven amendments were approved, one of them calling for WorkForce West Virginia to provide an annual update on the jobs created, but not requiring such reports by industry.

House Democrats caucused late in the afternoon, and afterward, Majority Leader Brent Boggs, D-Braxton, declined to assess the bill’s standing in his chamber.

Some delegates, however, were openly angry over the revised version Tomblin sent to the Legislature, saying it weakened the one crafted by the special, 10-member select panel that worked all summer and most of the fall.

“We just had a caucus and asked questions,” Boggs said.

“There’s obviously a lot of questions at this point. We have a lot of questions on any legislation.”

A public hearing in the House chamber attracted 66 speakers, all allotted a mere minute to express their views on the bill.

West Virginia is host to the shale formation that runs through parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York.

Industry leaders see the horizontal drilling as a major bonanza just waiting to happen, but landowners and environmentalists see the dark side of abuses, water and air pollution, and annoying lights and sounds in nighttime drilling.

David Drennen, a Parkersburg resident, said his father was lured to the West Virginia oil fields during the Arab oil embargo in 1974.

“Good and reasonable regulations will allow the horizontal drilling industry to develop fully in West Virginia,” he said.

“World class resources will take world class capital, world class science, world class technology.”

An opponent, however, David Cowan, who owns 150 acres in Greenbrier County, warned of potential leaks in cave-pocked areas around Lewisburg and Union.

Should gas escape into the cave system, he said, “the potential for an explosion would be something like we’ve never seen in the United States.”

Favoring the legislation, Roy Hayhurst of the West Virginia Royalty Owners Association said it would increase the wells, and provide mineral owners some additional income.

Holding aloft a Christmas shopping bag, environmentalist Carol Warren of Huntington  used the visual aid to dramatize her wish list for what she prefers in the bill.

Among her proposals are no on-site waste burial, no variances for occupied dwellings, permits for water withdrawals, authority by the Department of Environmental Authority to monitor air emissions, to decide if some locations are unsuitable for drilling, and more latitude to deny permits, and money to finance long-term studies of the health impacts.

Zach Arnold, operations manager for Chesapeake Energy, pledged the “best management practices” would be undertaken by industry.

“We will recover this resource responsibly,” he told the delegates.

“Our industry is committed to environmental excellence.”

Pocahontas County resident Alan Johnson invoked a biblical passage, Psalm 24:1, reminding the lawmakers “the earth is the Lord’s and all that it contains.”

“The decision you make will be affecting God’s creation, either enhancing and strengthening it, or defiling it and degrading it,” he said.

Julie Archer, representing the West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization, outlined a long list of concerns.

Among her group’s areas of dissent is a lack of incentives for drillers to negotiate with surface owners on well sites and access roads, the “inadequate” buffer zone of 625 feet and a lack of notice to landowners and the general public.

“This is just unacceptable,” Archer said of the governor’s bill.

“We do want a bill. I think the citizens deserve a strong bill. We don’t want to see a bill that’s just taking baby steps to address these leaps forward in technology.”

J. Frank Deem, a former state senator who has spent his life in the oil and gas business, called on environmentalists to consider the economic and jobs aspects of the legislation.

“Why is the governor in such a rush to pass an inadequate bill?” inquired another opponent, John Christiansen.

“Shouldn’t our elected officials be concerned with protecting our water, air and valuable farmland for future generations? Obviously, the answer is no. They are more concerned about campaign contributions and helping the 1 percent get richer and richer.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com