????沃思堡市位于方圓5000平方英里的巴奈特頁巖天然氣田的中心地帶。在全美國陷入頁巖鉆探“大躍進”的年代，沃思堡市是天然氣鉆探搞得最紅火的地方。

????但是現在，“鉆探熱”在沃思堡已經“退燒”，轉而傳染到阿肯色州（費耶特維爾頁巖田）、路易斯安那州（海恩斯維爾頁巖田），然后是賓西法尼亞州、西弗吉尼亞州、俄亥俄州和紐約州（瑪西拉頁巖田和尤蒂卡頁巖田）。由于原油鉆探的利潤更高，高近人們的興奮點也自然轉移到了能產出原油的頁巖田，比如北達科他州的巴肯頁巖田和德州南部的鷹堡頁巖田。

????“頁巖熱”已經持續了十年了，所以現在也該對沃斯堡的今昔做一個對比，看看它在當年頁巖熱剛興起的時候是什么樣子，現在又留下了什么。像很多其它被炒熱的經濟概念一樣，頁巖熱來得快去得也快。2004年12月，德州北部的土地所有人每簽訂一英畝土地的租約，能獲得500美元的簽約獎金，以及一定比例的開采使用費。而四年以后，一英畝土地的簽約獎金最高達3萬美元。到了今天，一英畝土地的簽約獎金大約是5000美元。【我在這方面有第一手的經驗：我本人就住在沃斯堡，2011年，我和我妻子與切薩皮克能源公司（Chesapeake Energy）簽訂了授權其鉆探我家所有的三分之一畝土地的租約，我們獲得了1239美元的簽約獎金，最近我們每月獲得的開采使用費是51.54美元。】

????據RigData公司統計，2008年，在頁巖熱達到最高潮的時候，巴奈特頁巖田大概有200個活躍的鉆井平臺，而且還在不斷有人尋找新的鉆井點。但是到了今天只剩下了22個。

????據行業網絡通訊《鮑威爾頁巖摘要》（Powell Shale Digest）的出版方吉恩鮑威爾公司估算，受自然壽命所限，巴奈特頁巖田現有的17,546口油氣井所出產的油氣量正在日益減少，每天大概只能產出49億立方英尺天然氣，比2011年的鼎盛時期下跌了20%多。巴奈特頁巖田的天然氣儲量還能繼續開采幾十年，如果天然氣價格出現了重大躍升（現價格約為每百萬BTU4.55美元），使得鉆探新井變得更有利可圖的話，那么這里的天然氣產量可能還會再次上升。同時頁巖熱也為當地創造了好幾千個就業崗位，緩沖了2008年經濟危機給本地區帶來的沖擊。正因為這樣，沃斯堡的失業率要遠低于美國平均水平。

????但是在漸漸變得沉重的現實面前，“賺快錢”的美夢已經失去了它的光環。巴奈特頁巖田分給土地所有者的開采使用費要遠低于許多政府官員和土地所有者的預期。另外，它還給沃斯堡當地帶來了許多負作用，比如道路破損、市民對環境的擔憂，以及層不出不窮的官司。地質學家甚至表示，鉆探頁巖氣所使用的液壓破碎法，即利用高壓將液態的鉆井廢棄物打入地下的方法，很可能正是導致了當地幾十次小型地震的元兇。

????有一段時間，由于很多人深信開采頁巖會給美國帶來大量的清潔能源，從而使美國擺脫對外國石油的依賴，同時刺激地方經濟的發展，因而“頁巖狂熱派”一時占據了上風。隨著鉆井公司為了吃進土地而展開投標大戰，不少行業專家斷言天然氣的“黃金時代”即將拉開大幕。2005年，一家公司的公關人員對《沃斯堡明星電訊報》表示：“巴奈特頁巖田的財富就像是舞會上的漂亮女人，每個人都想和她跳舞。”

????對沃斯堡展開最猛烈的追求的是總部位于俄克拉荷馬市的切薩皮克能源公司，當時這家公司的CEO名叫奧伯雷?麥克蘭登。（切薩皮克能源公司的發言人拒絕對本文發表評論。）

????為了與沃斯堡市本土的XTO能源公司以及其它油氣企業爭奪當地人的芳心，切薩皮克公司使出了渾身解數。先是花了10萬美元為當地警察和消防員建立了一座紀念碑，然后又出資100萬美元幫助當地蓋了一座新的科學歷史博物館（另外還有四家鉆井公司也各掏了100萬）。另外還向當地的基督教青年會捐贈100萬美元，成立了“巴奈特頁巖捐贈基金”。這家總部位于俄克拉荷馬州的公司還資助了當地最大的節日活動，將其冠名為“切薩皮克能源公司燈火游行”。為了慶祝鉆探協議簽訂成功，這家公司在城郊附近一個名叫溫特沃斯的村子（人口2300人）樹立了三塊城市界碑，每塊界碑的角落上都刻著切薩皮克公司的彩色Logo。

????In the great shale-drilling frenzy that spread fracking across America, Fort Worth, Texas—located at the center of the 5,000-square-mile Barnett Shale natural-gas field—was ground zero.

????The drilling boom has moved on now—first to Arkansas (Fayetteville Shale) and Louisiana (Haynesville Shale), then Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and New York (Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale). More recently, the excitement has centered on shale fields that produce crude oil, which is far more lucrative, such as the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford in South Texas.

????It’s now a decade since the boom began, and that makes it a fit moment to look back at what started in Fort Worth—and to see what it left behind. Like any economic mania, it came and went fast. In December 2004, drilling leases in North Texas brought a signing bonus of $500 an acre, plus a percentage of drilling royalties; four years later, bonuses topped $30,000. Today, any landowner signing a new lease gets a bonus of about $5,000 an acre. (I have some first-hand experience: I live in Fort Worth and in 2011, my wife and I signed a lease with Chesapeake Energy CHK 2.05% for drilling rights on the one-third acre of land under our home. We received a signing bonus of $1,239. Our most recent monthly royalty check was for $51.54.)

????At the peak, in 2008, there were about 200 active drilling rigs in the Barnett Shale, seeking to tap into new gas-production sites. Today, there are 22, according to RigData.

????With 17,546 existing wells steadily producing less over their natural lifespan, the Barnett now yields about 4.9 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day—a drop of more than 20% from its 2011 peak, according to Gene Powell, publisher of the Powell Shale Digest, an online industry newsletter. Barnett gas production will continue for decades—and could rise again if a big jump in volatile natural gas prices (now about $4.55 per million BTU) makes new drilling more profitable. In the meantime, the fracking boom has created thousands of local jobs, and cushioned the area’s pain since the 2008 recession. Fort Worth’s unemployment rate remains well below the national average.

????But the get-rich-quick dreams have faded, amid a considerably less thrilling reality. The Barnett boom has generated far less royalty income than many public officials and homeowners expected. Permitted even in Fort Worth’s residential neighborhoods, gas drilling has also generated industrial eyesores, broken roads, pollution concerns, and lawsuits. Geologists even link fracking—specifically, the disposal of liquid drilling wastes in underground wells—to dozens of small local earthquakes.

????For a time, euphoria prevailed, amid talk of a vast new clean energy source that would move America toward independence from foreign oil and generate a local economic windfall. After drillers launched a bidding war to snatch up local drilling acreage, industry experts proclaimed the dawn of “a golden age” for natural gas. “Barnett Shale properties are like the beautiful woman at the prom,” one company PR man told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2005. “Everybody wants to dance with her.”

????And no one put the moves on Fort Worth quite like Oklahoma City’s Chesapeake Energy, led by then-CEO Aubrey McClendon. (Through a spokesman, Chesapeake declined to comment for this story.)

????Vying for favor—and acreage—with XTO Energy, a Fort Worth homeboy, and other companies, Chesapeake lavished all manner of blandishments to win the locals’ hearts and minds: $100,000 toward a memorial for police and firefighters; $1 million to help build a new building for the city’s science and history museum (four other drillers chipped in $1 million apiece); $1 million to the YMCA to create the “Barnett Shale Endowment Fund.” The Oklahoma company helped underwrite Fort Worth’s biggest holiday event, rebranded the “Chesapeake Energy Parade of Lights.” In nearby Westworth Village (population 2,300), Chesapeake celebrated its drilling deal by providing three new elegant city-limits signs carved into giant stone slabs—with Chesapeake’s full-color logo etched in a corner of each.