Archive for July, 2012

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Just Ask A Pennsylvania Politician

July 8, 2012

Natural gas drilling is complicated. I’ve been known to go on about it long past the point of being polite. Woe to those who ask a simple question because there are no simple answers. Yet if you care deeply about our environment, about public health and the health of future generations, it’s difficult not to get a little impassioned when the subject comes up. Thankfully, it comes up a lot more often. When I’m fortunate enough to have the ear of a state official, I keep it brief but I let them know I’m alarmed by specific impacts of Shale Gas Production. I stick to the facts, and mind my manners of course.

FACT 1:  (more…)

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Posted in Energy, Environment, fracking, fresh water pollution, Pennsylvania Watersheds, Politics, shale gas pollution | Leave a Comment »

Gas, Lies & Videotape

July 7, 2012

Wanna see a gas industry executive lying like a dirty rug to an understandably concerned citizen at public Zoning Board meeting in Pennsylvania? Watch.

“Shouldn’t have any in it,” drones Chief Gathering’s expert witness, an employee whose name is not readily apparent, in response to questions about specific toxins from a resident concerned about the air impacts of a newly permitted Glycol Dehydration Unit near her home in Monroe Township. She wanted to know if Chief’s new unit would emit benzene, toluene or formaldehyde. He said the station will emit only methane. She also asked if the emissions would affect her children’s asthma. She was told, simply, “I don’t believe it does.”

Something smelled off to Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition Luzerne County, who picked up on Chief’s misinformation right away. They submitted data, along with the gas guy’s testimony, to two highly regarded experts seeking their take on this brand of bullshit from industry boots on the ground. GDACLucerne then posted the responses with the video on YouTube. It’s footage like this that makes the gas industry wince, and want to ban citizens from videotaping public township meetings. (more…)

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Posted in anti-fracking movement, Environment, fracking, fresh water pollution, shale gas pollution, Unconventional Gas Drilling | Leave a Comment »

Bucks & Montgomery Get Gas Drilling Moratorium

July 1, 2012

Political Powder Kegs For Pennsylvania’s Other Sixty-Five Counties

A 6-year unconventional gas drilling moratorium in the little-known South Newark Basin…  Few saw it coming. Iris Bloom did. She immediately mobilized Protecting Our Waters and its allies to help stop the measure which was slipped into the Pennsylvania Fiscal Code Bill, HB1263, in the eleventh hour. Laura Olsen reports on Sen. Chuck McIlhinney’s [R-10th, Bucks] successful, powder-keg provision in Oil and Gas Permits on Hold in Southeastern Pennsylvania in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Bloom’s email alert, sent early Saturday afternoon, was the first many had heard of this extraordinary measure. It was extraordinary because McIllhinney is the among the self-same legislators who, only four months ago, crammed The Marcellus Shale Act down the Commonwealth’s collective throat – all in the name of “consistency” and “uniformity.” Now, McIllhinney is seeking exemption from the very zoning restrictions he would impose on the rest of Pennsylvania. (more…)

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Posted in Environment, fracking, hydraulic fracturing, Pennsylvania Watersheds, Unconventional Gas Drilling | Leave a Comment »

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