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Fracturing Our Future?

Calvin Tillman, former mayor of Dish, Texas, knows all about the risks that drilling and transporting natural gas can pose to human health and safety.  In order to protect his family’s health, Calvin has given up both his position and his home and has moved off the Texas Barnett Shale.  These days, Calvin spends his time helping others to cope with the onslaught of problems and challenges that gas drilling brings.   Calvin has founded a non-profit organization known as Shale Test (www.shaletest.org) to help those impacted by drilling to get the water, air, and soil tests they need but cannot afford.

Calvin Tillman is coming to Lycoming County. Tillman will speak at the Hughesville Fire Hall, corner of Railroad and Water Streets, at 7 pm on Tuesday, April 26th.  If you’re concerned about the water you’re drinking, the air you’re breathing, and the soil in your garden, plan to attend the “Fracturing Our Future?” event on April 26th.  Sponsored by RDA, admission is free and open to all.  Please help us spread the word.

Map to Hughesville Fire Hall:

Bradford County – home of the water buffalo

At the Bradford County commissioners' meeting last week, residents filled the room asking the commissioners to address the many problems related to gas drilling, including traffic congestion, high rents, and pollution of air and water.

Diane Siegmund of Towanda and Sheshequin Township resident Carol French told the commissioners that 70 to 100 households in Bradford County have had their water wells contaminated by gas drilling.

Joe Shervinski of Terry Township told the commissioners that the number of Bradford County residents with water contamination problems from gas drilling is five times more than in Dimock, PA, the town that made national news headlines.  Siegmund said that 13 households in Dimock had contamination problems, a number now dwarfed by Bradford County.

 "Newly industrialized Bradford County is bearing an enormous burden from unsafe air, due to methane, and from water contamination.  I've spoken to people who have barium in their water--people who want to get out, but can't sell their houses”, Siegmund told the commissioners.

French urged the county to begin reducing the assessments on homes where people have been affected by gas well contamination, as they are financially strapped.  She said residents along Paradise Road in Terry Township, where there have been numerous drinking water contamination problems, have seen the value of their homes drop dramatically, as reflected by recent real estate appraisals. "Their properties are worth one-tenth of the value before gas drilling started," French said.  She also said these same residents have to face skyrocketing electric bills to prevent freezing in the water buffaloes that now provide their drinking water and from running water filtration systems at their homes.  One household saw its monthly electric bill increase from $130 to $450, while another household's bill increased from below $150 to $520. "This increase in electric bills is occurring throughout Bradford County," French said.

Information for this article came from a story in the Daily Review. Read original article here:
http://thedailyreview.com/news/residents-dozens-of-wells-in-bradford-county-have-been-contaminated-1.1129833

Gambling With The Planet

Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz was not referring specifically to gas drilling in his essay on the Fukushima disaster and the global economic crisis, but his words are certainly applicable to the industrialization of PA’s Marcellus Shale. We have an under-regulated and untaxed industry using new and unproven technologies to extract a resource that lies under the land where we live, work, and play. Stiglitz writes, “Societies fail to manage risks. We have little empirical basis for judging rare events, so it is difficult to arrive at good estimates. We also have few incentives to think hard at all. When others bear the costs of mistakes, the incentives favor self-delusion. A system that socializes losses and privatizes gains is doomed to mismanage risk.”

And so it is with the risk that the entire process of gas extraction, processing, and transportation brings to all of us who live in what Professor Engelder of PSU refers to as the Marcellus “sacrifice zone”. Increasingly, Harrisburg appears to be the capitol of self-delusion, incessantly repeating their false mantra of “jobs, jobs, jobs” and grossly underestimating the risk this industry poses to our health, safety, environment, and long-term financial stability.

We are entering a boom/bust economy, where long-term risks are ignored and short-term wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few – many of whom hail from other states and other countries. 

Opportunities to Exercise Your Right to Free Speech

Protest of Governor’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Committee Meeting
10:00 am, Wednesday, April 27th
 Room 105 - Rachel Carson Building, Harrisburg PA
More info at: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=158737797520289

National Rally in Washington, D.C. on April 18th

A protest against the dirty money and big pollution policies of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce 
Organized by 350.org
Check out the video at: 

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