At a press conference Monday, November 14, outside the offices of The US Army Corps of Engineers in Center City Philadelphia, a group of the Delaware River’s biggest proponents announced that among them they have a record-breaking 73,910 signatures on letters and petitions to the voting members of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) urging them NOT to open the basin to industrial shale gas drilling at their upcoming meeting on November 21, 2011. (more…)
Wake The Village! Again
This morning, I sat in traffic for nearly three hours. Record flooding, mudslides and downed trees blocked the way of nearly every commuter in the region. It was a nightmare. I was late for the Freedom from Fracking Conference in Center City, and I was ticked. I arrived just in time to catch hydrogeologist Paul Rubin’s workshop, Our Aquifers, Our Drinking Water: Casualties of Gas Development. 
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The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has had a productive year so far! It approved new 2,461 hydraulic fracturing permits since January, 2011. In 2010, the DEP issued 6,581 gas drilling permits, and it is right on track for increasing those numbers in the fall. Enforcement is also on the rise. With 1,512 Inspections overall in 2010, there were 2,754 Total Violations, and 769 Enforcements. This year, between January and May 2011, the DEP already has 977 Inspections under its belt, has issued 1,751 Total Violations (Wow!) and it has enacted 311 Enforcements. SOURCE: dep.state.pa.us (more…)
