Residents of Appalachian Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia were told 15 years ago to get excited. A new oil and gas boom was on its way, and it was going to save us all. But we’d heard it before. Most reasonable people took a wait-and-see approach. A new report by the Ohio River Valley Institute — based on U.S. Energy Information Administration data — suggests that approach was correct.

According to the Ohio Capital Journal, the report examined natural gas output statistics and economic outcomes in 22 counties that were responsible for 90% of Appalachian gas production. Ohio counties included in the study were Carroll, Jefferson, Harrison, Belmont, Guernsey, Noble and Monroe.

Bear in mind, the study was authored by an organization that refers to those 22 counties as “Frackalachia.”

But the numbers showed that since 2008, gas production has “deteriorated,” and growth has gone from “meager” gains in 2008 to “an absolute decline,” the Capital Journal reported.

“As measured by jobs, population and income, Appalachia’s principal shale gas producing counties have done worse economically than the region and the nation since the dawn of the Appalachian boom,” the ORVI report said.

What else is new?

“Taken together, these findings present a unique and troubling challenge to northern Appalachian policymakers and to all of us who care about the economic wellbeing of a place that has suffered mightily since the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s,” report author Sean O’Leary, a senior ORVI researcher, wrote.

Those policymakers must bear in mind two things: Some families in the studied region are better off now than they were before the most recent “boom,” and there is no way to know how much worse things might have gotten for the region if there had not been an uptick in oil and gas activity.

With that considered, it is important to look at the data presented by the study and understand perhaps oil and gas companies were not the saviors for our region they said they were going to be. That means only that it is up to our policymakers to attract new employers who will diversify and strengthen the region’s economy.

We waited. We saw. And now we know oil and gas employers are only a part of what will propel this region into a prosperous future. The task now is to be ready for what comes next.