Posts Tagged ‘Protecting Our Waters’

Largest Petition Ever Submitted In Pennsylvania

April 30, 2013

And It Calls For A Fracking Moratorium

April 30, 2013 is an historic day.

Today, a coalition of environmental organizations and anti-fracking activists deliver the largest petition ever submitted to the Pennsylvania state legislature. It calls for a moratorium on new shale gas drilling permits in Pennsylvania.

The petition, Protect Pennsylvania From Gas Drilling, includes the names and signatures of more than 100,000 Pennsylvania residents, and it sends a stunning message to state legislators and the shale gas industry. This is what it says:   (more…)

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Posted in anti-fracking movement, Environment, fracking, PA DEP, Politics, shale gas pollution | Leave a Comment »

Damned Data! PA DEP Still Withholding Vital Water Test Results

November 23, 2012

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has held out long enough.

It’s time for the state to release the full test results from a Washington County, PA water well near a Range Resources fracking operation. It is, after all, the taxpayers who pay for such testing, and these taxpayers ought to know what pollutants have been identified in their drinking water. It’s perfectly reasonable to want to know to which toxic chemicals you have been exposed, especially when those chemicals have been intentionally omitted from your well water report by the DEP.

Now that the infamous “Suite Code 942” has been revealed, the jig is up. Am loathe to moralize, but it sure seems like the right thing to do.

Many groups across Pennsylvania are calling for the release of these results. In Fracking’s Toxic Secrets: Lack Of Transparency Over Natural Gas Drilling Endangers Public Health, Advocates Say, Huffington Post, November 21, 2012, Lynne Peeples reports:

“Critics suggest the purported ‘filtering’ of testing data is just one of the ways people are left in the dark about the assortment of heavy metals and other toxic contaminants that may be in their air and water as a result of drilling, hydraulic fracturing and other phases of natural gas production. Recent studies have identified more than 600 chemicals used throughout the process of natural gas production, and often left undisclosed by companies. Additionally, natural but equally hazardous substances can be released from the wells.”

Doesn’t DEP get it yet? Dismissing the drumbeats of concerned citizens only makes them louder.  

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network is asking people to please send this letter via the link on their site, or write you own, to those directly responsible for keeping this vital health information a secret. Addresses below.   (more…)

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Posted in DEP, Environment, fracking, fresh water pollution, hydraulic fracturing, PA Drinking Water, shale gas pollution | Leave a Comment »

Flipping The Bird At Gassers In Philly

September 21, 2012

Gas industry conference attendees watched from the Convention Center windows while we rallied on Arch Street below. They’d been warned to remove their badges when leaving the building. It was very Ayn Rand. The speakers, the testimonies, the songs, the chants and street theatre were nothing short of spectacular. I suspect like many I am still processing it. And, yes, together we greeted them Philly-style…

For an amazing photo gallery of the event, visit the Shale Gas Outrage facebook page. My favorite image:

credit: © Jacques-Jean Tiziou / www.jjtiziou.net

#GovernorGashole

Meanwhile inside the industry conference, Shale Gas Insight, our governor, Tom Corbett, delivered an amped-up version of his usual anti-environment rhetoric. Pennsylvanians are being harmed by gas drilling, and by his administration’s weak environmental policies, though Corbett and the industry would like us ignore this fact. They say all energy production comes with “risks.” They need to say it the stricken farmer’s face, and to the grieving mother. Define “risks.”

For Immediate Release: September 21st, 2012:          

“Shale Gas Outrage speakers, marchers push to stop fracking, support renewable energy, efficience, conservation”

credit: © Jacques-Jean Tiziou / www.jjtiziou.net

Protesters from shale gas “sacrifice zones” and downstream communities protest industry conference, press for fracking bans and moratoria 

Contacts: 

Iris Marie Bloom, Protecting Our Waters, 215-840-6489 protectingourwaters@gmail.com

Tracy Carluccio, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, 215-692-2329 tracy@delawareriverkeeper.org 

~

Philadelphia, PA – “The nearest wellpad was 4000 feet from my house. After my family’s water became saturated with methane, officials told us not to use the kitchen stove because it could cause a flash fire… My granddaughter began vomiting, and only got better after they brought us a water buffalo [tank for clean water],” Tammy Manning, one of many speakers whose lives have been turned upside down by gas drilling, told the crowd of about 1000 at Shale Gas Outrage yesterday in Philadelphia. Rally and march participants vowed to protect people in affected communities by demanding a moratorium on shale gas drilling.   (more…)

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It’s Always OUTRAGE-ous In Philadelphia

September 20, 2012

Protests against unconventional shale gas drilling have been popping up across the United Shale Shocked States of late, and the global List of Fracking Bans and Moratorium, curated by the incomparable Johnny Lineham at Fracking Hell (UK), has grown so long it speaks for itself. More citizens in more countries are demanding serious study of the impacts of unconventional gas production on human health and climate change. Is it a coincidence that the public’s interest in renewables has also been renewed? Given than many of the bans and moratorium are in the US, it’s safe to say most Americans expect an equally high level of environmental accountability from elected officials.

Shale Gas Outrage • September 20, 2012 at Noon

In front of the Convention Center, 13th & Arch Sts., Philadelphia, PA (19107)

Hyperbolic Hippies On The March?

Anti-Fracking Activists will go “toe-to-toe” with gas industry executives who will be present at The Marcellus Shale Coalition‘s second annual Shale Gas Insight conference, held on the very same day. As Protecting Our Waters, the Shale Gas Outrage host organization, states: “Industry will be rubbing elbows with some of our elected officials, their sights set on expanding toxic fracking throughout our region. Their ‘greenwashing’ doesn’t fool anyone: we’ve seen the damage, and even with a few new regulations, the damage is escalating out of control.”  (more…)

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Posted in anti-fracking movement, Energy, fracking, fresh water pollution, Politics, Stop Fracking PA! | Leave a Comment »

Invasion Of The Gasholes

August 3, 2012

I’m mad as hell about dirty gas drilling, and I’m not going to take it anymore!

SHALE GAS OUTRAGE 2

“The Fracking Industry Returns To Philadelphia”

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Philadelphia, PA

Hosted by Protecting Our Waters.

“Last year, two thousand people flooded the streets of Philadelphia to confront the mega-corporations that are playing fast and loose with public health. Protect our communities and stand up for justice! Protect air, water, farms and food. Fight against climate change by fighting unconventional dirty drilling. Make sure our voices are even louder this year, and more clear: No Fracking. No Cracking. Send this industry packing! Don’t let them frack our future!”

Get the very latest on events, speakers and educational sessions at shalegasoutrage.org. Want to volunteer? Please contact this amazing grassroots organization at protectingourwaters@gmail.com.

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

Fracked vs. Fiction, and the Very Real Need for a Moratorium in Pennsylvania

January 21, 2012

“Fifty Percent of Pennsylvania’s Land Mass (22,835 square miles) will become an heavily industrialized zone over the next fifty years…” *

“Wellbores, even perfectly sealed, will be thousands of times more porous than the rock between the shale and the surface, a multi-generational legacy of pollution could be the result.” *

“Three EPA studies have found that the migration of fracturing fluids into groundwater is unpredictable or has already happened.” *

POW!  Bam!!  Free Facts Fuel Democracy

Regularly circulating valuable links, articles and information, the venerable people at Protecting Our Waters are ever satisfying the public’s right-to-know about the impacts of industrial shale gas drilling on our fresh water supply. The group demonstrates that no matter how much money the gas industry spends on media and lobbying, they cannot captivate the national conversation. (more…)

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Posted in Environment, fresh water pollution, hydraulic fracturing, Pennsylvania Watersheds, shale gas pollution, Stop Fracking PA! | Leave a Comment »

Legality of Susquehanna River Basin Commission Hearing Challenged

December 22, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Thursday, December 21, 2011):

“CONSERVATION ORGANIZATIONS CALL INTO QUESTION THE LEGALITY OF ACTIONS TAKE DURING SRBC MEETING”
Today, a consortium of seven conservation and environmental groups have sent a letter to the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, asking the Commissioners to reconvene to complete its meeting held on December 15.  Last week, the Commission hastily adjourned its meeting in Wilkes-Barre, after a group of citizens challenged its authority, shouted at the Commissioners and disrupted the meeting. (more…)

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Posted in anti-fracking movement, hydraulic fracturing, Pennsylvania Watersheds, Stop Fracking PA! | Leave a Comment »