An Urgent Call to Action from the Delaware Riverkeeper Network
Please sign the letter,”Tell DRBC: Permanent ban on fracking now!” Once again, shale gas development threatens the Delaware River Basin, a national treasure, and the drinking water source for 17 million people.
“There seems to be new interest on the part of DRBC staff to rekindle the development of gas development regulations, which would lift the current moratorium. We must tell the DRBC that NOW IS THE TIME to enact a permanent ban on all gas development, including drilling and fracking, in the Delaware River Watershed.” – Delaware Riverkeeper Network
Photo: Susan Phillips, NPR
TAKE ACTION:
Support the call for the Delaware River Basin Commission to adopt a ban on gas and oil development in the Delaware River Watershed. Sign on to the letter to the Governors of the four states that flow to the Delaware River and tributary streams – Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware – and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as the federal representative, to immediately adopt a ban on all oil and gas development in the Delaware River Watershed.
How Will Ambient Delaware River Water Quality Assessment Data Fare Under Trump’s Tiny Thumb?
‘What we’re seeing is environmental McCarthyism,’ said Patricia Kim, a graduate fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Program in Environmental Humanities, of the incoming administration. She was commenting at a ‘guerrilla archiving event‘ at the University of Toronto in December, 2016, which was aimed at informing climate scientists how best to preserve climate data ahead of the Trump presidency.
Keeping the database is part of the DRBC’s responsibility, according to law, passed by congress in 1961. Nevertheless, now would be a great time to acknowledge this essential and invaluable public service, and to assure the DRBC of our support for the protection of their data along with our drinking water supply.
The Delaware River Basin didn’t suffer terribly during the Obama administration, but it didn’t exactly thrive, either. Thanks, Obama?
President Barrack Obama always seemed to understand that water is life, yet freshwater protection has not always been the divining rod in his decisions. If that were so, he would have banned fracking in the Delaware River Basin when he had the chance.
Donald Trump is a threat to every last watershed in the country, as he and his shale-happy appointees have promised to extract every last penny from an expensive and grossly overestimated supply. They honestly don’t care if you can set your water on fire. And if the result should be more costly access to a diminishing supply of safe, clean drinking water, then they’ll probably try to profit off that, too.
So, while the mainstream media is having its long overdue existential crisis, ordinary bloggers are left to chronicle Obama’s legacy and its impact on our drinking water supply, and to find new ways to help protect our precious fresh water. Me, I like lists.
Seven Things Obama Did – And Didn’t Do – For The Delaware River Basin …
# 7 He Left It At Moratorium
Obama could have banned fracking in the Delaware River Basin in 2011, but he didn’t.
He’s slimy, offensive and a threat to the ecology.
Like rock snot, Trump’s proposed policies would be devastating to Pennsylvania’s watersheds. Like rock snot, a Trump administration may be a danger to the drinking water of 17 million people in the Delaware River Watershed. Like rock snot, Trump jeopardizes the integrity of our state’s tourist economy. Plus, he’s just gross.
Didymo, often referred to as rock snot, kind of looks like Donald Trump’s hair.
Didymosphenia geminata, or Didymo, is a single celled, invasive algae. “Thick mats of Didymo can crowd out or smother more biologically valuable algae growing on the riverbed. Didymo is easily spread, and the chance of it hitchhiking its way into nearby streams or rivers that currently lack this unwanted invader is cause for alarm.”
According to Reince Priebus, Trump’s White House chief of staff, climate denial is the president-elect’s official default position. While the rest of the world scoffs, Trump has repeatedly promised to boost gas and coal. He is currently, albeit quietly, appointing frackers and climate change deniers to top cabinet posts. The current frontrunners in The Appointee Apprentice are Myron Ebell for EPA Chief, and fracking billionaire, Harold Hamm, for Secretary of Energy, swamp-dwelling industry insiders both. Hamm is, by way of his adultery, the current record holder for most expensive divorce of all time.
Rock snot sticks to your shoes and spreads easily, so you need to check very closely. With similar vigilance, Pennsylvanians need to pay special attention to these fossil fools because they plan to expand fracking in the Marcellus Shale, big time.
Montgomery and Bucks are the only counties in Pennsylvania where there’s a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing. We don’t see rigs from our front porches, or continuous flares. We don’t get headaches from strange odors, or drive on crumbling roads clogged by endless truck traffic. In the Philadelphia suburbs, it’s easy to ignore the health and environmental impacts of Marcellus shale gas drilling.
When the shale gas industry arrived nearly a decade ago, it was still somewhat plausible to insist that there’s “no proof” gas drilling has ever polluted water supplies. Today, there’s plenty of proof. In 2014, The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection reported 248 cases of water supply contamination since 2007. Nationwide, there are more. (more…)
Recently, my son wrote an essay about hidden costs. He discussed the heavy toll that certain industries, like factory farming and clothing manufacture, take on humanity and our environment when they externalize their true costs. Naturally, it got me thinking about the external costs of fracking.
One of the biggest hidden costs of Marcellus shale gas development will be a significant reduction in the number of clean, fresh drinking water supplies for future generations.
PA watersheds have endured a history of environmental degradation from a variety of sources such as logging, agricultural run-off and acid mine drainage, to name just a few. But while it’s true that many threats to our water supplies are long-standing, we can’t ignore the fact that they now face a much more serious, imminent threat.
The instances of fresh water contamination in Pennsylvania have increased dramatically since hydraulic fracturing began.
How can we not worry? The business of shale gas is predicated on taking public risks for the purpose of private gain. All it requires, apparently, is a pricey ad campaign and couple of slick publicity stunts.
Van Wagner teaches Environmental Science at Lewisburg High School in Pennsylvania. He’s also an accomplished country-folk musician who has donated his time to teach music to kids at Pennsylvania summer camps. I came across this compelling plea on Wagner’s website:
“I have played music at several summer camps for children who are cancer survivors. Camp Victory / Camp Dost and Camp Can-Do to name a few local examples. These children are amazing. I’m always amazed how grateful they are to me for spending a few hours simply singing with them. It is I who should be thankful. These children have smiles worth their weight in gold. They are filled with joy and know more about love and friendship than most adults. I challenge any fracking advocate to donate some time at one of these camps. While there sit down at the dinner table with these kids and try to explain to them why grown-ups want to put more cancer causing chemicals in our environment because of things like energy, stock values and jobs. (more…)
As former Vice President of Operations at Pennsylvania American Water, who also previously served on the board of trustees for the American Water Works Association and the Water Resources Association of the Delaware River Basin, the National Association of Water Companies – Pennsylvania Section, Steven (don’t forget the Rancocas Conservancy) Tambini seems like the ultimate water industry insider. Just sayin.
“Mr. Tambini’s work on both the Pennsylvania and New Jersey sides of the Delaware River has allowed him to develop and build relationships with regulators and stakeholders throughout the basin,” states the Delaware River Basin Commission press release.
Somebody ought to ask Mr. Tambini to define exactly who those “stakeholders” are. I want to have faith, really, but Tambini’s resume is pretty thin on conservation, and darn heavy on extending private water industry interests. One can’t help but worry that he will be inclined to keep on carrying water for the water industry. (more…)
It’s Time To Save The Delaware River From Fracking, For Good
Food & Water Watch wants you to know that the Special Protection Waters of the Delaware River Basin are more endangered than ever.
“For the past two years, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) has upheld a moratorium on frackingin the Delaware River Basin due to massive public outcry. But right now, Carol Collier is calling for a strategy around gas drilling in the basin before she retires as executive director in March. Join us by telling President Obama and the governors of NY, NJ, DE and PA that the only strategy we support is a ban on fracking!”
Gas drillers want in. They want to produce and transport, and to frack, baby, frack. DRBC’s Collier has indicated that she intends bring a new drilling “strategy” to a vote before departing her post. It may be her idea of a legacy, though I certainly wouldn’t want all those undisclosed chemicals on my conscience.
President Obama – the man who campaigned on a pledge for a sustainable energy future yet now favors the term “energy independence” – may well deliver the deciding vote on the DRBC via the federal Army Corps of Engineers. Conscience, per se, probably won’t factor much into that decision.
As ever, the only way to protect the Delaware River Basin from the massive impacts of shale gas industrialization is with massive pubic outcry.
Permanent Protection
Start by adding your name to the the growing list of Americans who oppose expanding our dependence on fossil fuels, along with any plans to allow shale gas drilling the Delaware River Basin. Sign the Food and Water Watchletter addressed to President Obama and the governors of New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania, Protect the Delaware River Basin With a Ban on Fracking.
Let legislators know that the only long-term strategy for protecting the Delaware River Basin is a permanent ban on fracking. (more…)
Take Note: DRBC Wants To Vote On Shale Gas Drilling Regulations
It’s time once again to save the Delaware River basin from the toxic impacts of shale gas drilling.
At the next public hearing of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), on Tuesday, December 3, 2013, a coalition of concerned advocacy groups will present a scrapbook entitled The Delaware Is Me.
The idea is to celebrate the Delaware River and commemorate another year without fracking. The point is to show the commission why this high-value, highly productive watershed ought to be spared from the ravages of industrial shale gas drilling.
The magnificent, historic Delaware River touches 15.6 million lives, and extraordinary photographs has been literally flowing in. As you may have guessed, no two images – or reasons – are alike. You can glimpse some of the photos and join the event on Facebook at The Delaware Is Me, or follow on Twitter #TheDelawareIsMe.
Better still, attend the public hearing and stand behind watershed advocates and activists in Trenton on December 3rd.
Outgoing Delaware River Basin Commission Director, Carol Collier, has done an impressive job withstanding extreme political pressure. I’ve been highly critical of the DRBC, yet I do believe Collier deserves our gratitude – as long as she doesn’t do anything rash.
The small interstate agency has received sharp letters of admonition from an impatient, gas-happy governor, experienced even sharper budget cuts, and suffered an uneasy tension with an increasingly feckless PA DEP. By July, 2013, the working relationship between the two agencies had deteriorated so badly that former DEP secretary, and current gubernatorial candidate, John Hanger informed readers of The Times-Tribune that “DRBC Should Have ‘No Confidence’ In Corbett’s Drilling Oversight.”
It’s true, DRBC has approved too many pipelines. In March 2013, Maya van Rossum, The Delaware Riverkeeper pressed the Commission on the need for greater oversight of planned projects. Deforestation and watershed fragmentation are growing concerns, as are leaks, ruptures and explosions.
But generally speaking, under Collier’s leadership, DRBC has stood firm in the face the mighty gas extraction lobby, and it has managed to keep them at bay, and protect our vital, shared fresh water resources all this while. For this, we owe Collier our thanks. She must be exhausted.
At this point, it seems unlikely that Collier, who departs in March, 2014, will rally a vote on gas drilling regulations in the Delaware River basin, but one never knows. All you can do is check the DRBC website from time to time.
Taking the long view, however, has been a hallmark of Collier’s tenure. Meetings are long and tedious, populated by scientists and engineers, and packed with data. Collier has led the agency along this plodding, empirical course for the past 15 years, so there’s little reason to suspect she’s planning to suddenly go out with a bang. (more…)
Nearly everyday it seems there’s a new report of Marcellus shale gas waste spilling in Pennsylvania’s wetlands and streams, DEP violations like this recent “discharge” reported by SkyTruth:
Issued to Energy Corporation of America on July 22, 2013 — Code 307CSL: Discharge of unconventional industrial drilling waste to waters of Commonwealth without a permit in Clearfield, Girard Township (ID#673076)
“An unknown amount of the fluid escaped the pad, flowed down a hill, crossed a road and entered the basement and garage of a nearby farmhouse, Ms. Connolly said. It soaked property at the horse farm, whose owners were out of state, but a farmhand kept the animals safely away from the fluid.”
On both sides of the shale gas safety debate, experts agree that “surface spills” hold the greatest threat for surface water and groundwater contamination. Pennsylvania, by the way, is home to more fresh water resources than any other state in the continental U.S.
“Surface spills of fracturing fluids appear to pose greater risks to groundwater than hydraulic fracturing itself,” writes Bryan R. Walsh in Shale Gas: It’s Not the Fracking That Might Be the Problem. It’s Everything Else, Time Magazine, on February 17, 2012. While Walsh pays short shrift the long term impacts of deteriorating wellbore seals, his premise certainly rings true right now. Every week, we see more spills, more overturned tankers and leaky valves, each one a small-scale, highly toxic event unto itself, and it invariably concludes with a dead stream and DEP asking drillers to promise not do it again.
A Water-Tight Case?
And then there are spills so big and negligent that the EPA has no choice but to step in and sue the driller, as is the case of this EXXON/XTO Energy violation, reported earlier this week:
Who are these people? And why do they think they have the right to force a heavily industrial deep shale extraction process into a highly protected watershed which supplies drinking water to 17 million people from New York City to Wilmington, Delaware? It would seem this handful of county commissioners is ready to risk it all, for roughly 5% of the U.S. population, while shushing valid environmental concerns with the vague promise of jobs. Who’s gonna want the jobs if you can’t drink the water?
Tell DRBC: Pennsylvania’s Last Frack-Free Watershed Deserves A Permanent Ban! (more…)
Pennsylvania State Documents Reveal Rampant Water Contamination In Gas Sacrifice Zones
Several excellent articles have been posted recently about the inadequate, often shoddy, records keeping practices of The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. They’re linked here and shouldn’t be missed. Bottom line is, if you think PA DEP is actively protecting Pennsylvania’s water supplies from the impacts of shale gas drilling, think again.
“Scattered records kept by the state Department of Environmental Protection offer one answer to a key question in a new age of fossil fuel extraction in Pennsylvania: How many water supplies have been damaged by drilling?”
Gas proponents might continue to insist that gas drilling has never damaged a single water supply, yet we now know there are plenty of instances where it has. As it turns out, PA DEP knows this, too, though they had to be sued to produce the evidence. They claimed, unsuccessfully, that the public records requested by The Times-Trbune were “too burdensome” to find. In The Times-Tribune’sSunday Times Review of DEP Drilling Records Reveals Water Damage, Murky Testing Methods, Legere reviews the pages eventually furnished by the civil servants of this hyper-reluctant state agency:
“State environmental regulators determined that oil and gas development damaged the water supplies for at least 161 Pennsylvania homes, farms, churches and businesses between 2008 and the fall of 2012, according to a cache of nearly 1,000 letters and enforcement orders written by Department of Environmental Protection officials and obtained by The Sunday Times.”
The Times-Tribune editors have even included a detailed groundwater complaints map with the help of the genius geeks at FracTracker.org, “a non-profit organization that collects, shares and visualizes data related to the oil and gas industry.”
Pennsylvania Stands Witness To The Adverse Impacts of Shale Gas Drilling
More than 1,208 individuals have gone on record (to date) on The List of The Harmed. The list is meticulously compiled by Jenny Lisak of The Pennsylvania Alliance for Clean Water and Air. It’s got to be a full time job, as the number of people harmed easily keeps apace with drilling.
Even a list as long as this can’t do justice to the people whose lives have been ruined along with their land, air and water.
Ready or not, Americans have to make a choice. They can believe the slick TV ads, buying into the false promise of safe shale gas, or they can try to understand what impacts large-scale, industrial hydrofracking really brings to our ecology, landscapes and the communities who inhabit them. They can listen to the experiences of people living in the new gaslands of Pennsylvania, and not just the stories that grab headlines, but the common, garden variety suffering wrought by a single extreme extraction industry.
Postcards From The Sacrifice Zone
Rebecca Roter and Frank Finan listen. They listen to their neighbors and friends, and they speak out. They relay the stories they hear, and they encourage others to share their experiences, too.
Stand witness, encourage friends and family with skin rashes, upper respiratory problems, etc that appear shale related to DOCUMENT your experiences in your own voice, let a volunteer health advocate make sure the Dept of Health DOES ITS job and takes your shale related health complaint. Help save the next generation, so the claim cannot be made there are no health impacts in shale corridors. Impacted individuals can call Volunteer Health Care Advocate Celeen Miller 215-680-1452, 215-249-3619, 800-200-2229 to report complaints. Call Dr McKenzie, 215-662-2354, University of Pennsylvania, Occupational Medicine, for treatment.
Take The PLEDGE To Protect The Delaware River And Its Tributaries
“These legal challenges are vital opportunities for protecting our communities from the damage that pipelines bring, as well as the devastation brought by the drilling and fracking these pipeliens induce and support.
“There are not many organizations with the resolve or the resources to pursue legal claims on behalf of the River and our communities the way the Delaware Riverkeeper Network does.”
“If the Delaware River Basin Commission, the Governors of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware or Maryland, the President of the United States, or any of our state or national leaders permit any processes or infrastructure in support of shale gas development in any part of the Delaware River Watershed, I pledge to join with others to engage in lawful non-violent acts of protest, including demonstrations and other lawful non-violent actions, as my conscience leads me.” ~ Pledge of Protection For The Delaware River Watershed
URGENT ACTION NEEDED!
The Delaware River Basin needs protection right now. New gas drilling activities such as high pressure gas pipeline networks, slated for high value streams and tributaries, threaten to destroy the quality of our water supply. Special Protections were created for our fresh drinking water resources, yet they have been systematically eroded by a single industry – unconventional shale gas production – whose influence extends throughout Harrisburg and Washington, and along both sides of the aisle.
The Delaware River is an irreplaceable source of drinking water for 17 million people… Spills, leaks, explosions, and toxic air emissions do not belong the most productive watershed in the Northeastern United States. Don’t Let Gas Drillers Frack OUR Watershed!
The Marcellus Shale Documentary Projecthas finally come to Philadelphia. The images collected “tell stories, through photographic images, of how the lives of Pennsylvanians are affected by the Marcellus Shale Gas Industry. By creating a visual document of the environmental, social and economic impact of drilling, the work aims to engage communities in the current Marcellus debate while providing important historical images for the future.”
Images, like this pipeline cutting through a southwestern Pennsylvania cow pasture, leave an impression. This stirring collection is on display at The Gershman Yin Philadelphia until February 14, 2013.
No NIMBYs In SEPA: Citizens Say “Yes!” To Clean Energy In Everyone’s Back Yard!
PA Dems to hold a hearing on non-fossil renewable energy for Delaware and Montgomery counties in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Show your support for solar and wind! Free, open to the public.
Keep Tap Water Safe 