Inside the Fight to Frack a Pennsylvania Township

[Divernan]

This is really an excellent, in-depth article on the multiple negative effects of fracking on a community. If you are concerned about fracking in your area, whatever state you live in, you'll learn a lot from reading the whole thing. Good job, TruthOut.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35082-inside-the-fight-to-frack-pennsylvania-township

Since a 2013 Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling, several Southwestern Pennsylvania communities have ended up meeting in local government buildings - like Penn Township's municipal complex tucked behind Fox's Pizza Den in Harrison City - sharply divided on where shale gas drillers should be allowed to frack wells.

The state's highest court overturned key parts of Act 13, the state's governing oil and gas law, and gave the power to local governments to control some aspects of shale drilling through zoning. Penn Township's zoning ordinance allows shale drilling across about half of the township, much of which is rural land. The ordinance is pending and could change, but it is in effect.

It's this mix of suburbia-meets-rural landscape that's at the heart of the drilling debate in Penn Township: Many residents who live in residential areas don't want drilling near their homes - fearful of what the activity could mean for their health, property values and way of life. Other residents want to lease their land to drillers.

Just one well pad in and Penn Township officials, residents and the drillers are struggling under the change. The public hearing is mostly filled with residents against the pad. Under township rules, residents who object can try to prove to the zoning board that the site would be harmful to the environment and their health and safety. Then, it could be a violation of the ordinance.

(Cont. below)

[Divernan]

1. Burning off the methane created a stinking Mess.

To pump the product into the pipeline, Apex first needed to burn off excess gas. To do this, the drillers decided to use incinerators, expensive and hauled from Canada, said Mark Rothenberg, Apex's chief executive officer. Flames shot on and off from the incinerators for about a week.

At this stage, another device called a flare is typically used, he said. But Apex officials chose incinerators because they burn "cleaner," Rothenberg said. brochure on the Alberta Welltest incinerators Apex used says the device "converts 99.99 percent of methane to C02 and H20." It also says, by contrast, flaring "will significantly increase the greenhouse gases emitted." On this issue, they concluded incinerators were the clear choice: "I don't think we would want to flare. I think that would scare our neighbors," he said.

It backfired. They were flooded with complaints. Protect PT (Protect Penn-Trafford), a nonprofit citizens group against drilling near homes, tracked complaints via an online form.

"It is horrible and I am miserable. I moved out here because it WAS peaceful," one person 1.8 miles from the well pad wrote on Oct. 12. Others complained of residue on cars, a chemical taste in the air, sore throats and lack of sleep.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

2. Dunkard Creek fish kill, look what happened where I grew up!

Dunkard Creek is a 38-mile creek that contained a unique ecosystem with 161 species of fish, 14 species of mussels, salamanders, crayfish and aquatic insects. It was one of only two or three creeks like it on the Monongahela River watershed. Some experts say it will be decades before the fishery returns to normal, if ever. Many of the fish were over 15 years old. It's believed the prized mussel population may be lost forever.

http://www.marcellus-shale.us/Dunkard_Creek.htm

[Divernan]

3. Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection is worth shit.

Corbett cut the size of the department in about half, just as all the wells were being fracked and MORE inspectors, not less were needed. Then the regulations were gutted, so that if field inspectors did find a violation they were not authorized to close operations down or even file a report which hadn't first been approved by the political hack running DEP.

One of the Dem. primary candidates for U.S. Senate, Katy McGinty, bills herself as the enivornomental candidate because she was the politically appointed secretary of DEP. She was very fracker friendly herself in that role, and when she left she went to work for fracking related companies, and her husband lobbies for frackers.

Vote Joe Sestak for U.S. Senate!