If your child attends the Wyalusing Valley Elementary School in Wyalusing, PA, I suppose you will be glad to know that measures will be taken during the installation of the MARC 1 pipeline to insure your child's safety. Noise pollution will be kept to an acceptable minimum, and the school district's water well will be protected from contamination. Great! No problem. However, if you think perhaps there might still be a problem with putting in a 30-inch wide major pipeline a mere 897 feet from the school building, you might not be so impressed with all the precautions the Central New York Oil and Gas Company is taking. The Susquehanna River is near the school. This pipeline operation will bore beneath the river only 40 feet underneath the river bottom. Noise-producing equipment used to drill under the river will be located 875 feet from the school. Central NY Oil and Gas has hired a noise consultant. Sound barriers will be put up. Nice touch there. And the best part- a full-time environmental inspector will be on site. So all bases have been covered I guess. The drilling company has assured Wyalusing residents that the pipeline would not pose any danger to students. So don't we all feel better now?
Read the article from the Towanda Daily Review here. LINK
Read what Standing Stone resident Diane Ward said about the approval process for this pipeline. Very interesting. Also Google "pipeline accidents." You might be surprised. Here's one site to start with: LINK.
And if you would like a broader perspective, here is a presentation from 2005 entitled "Restoring Public Trust in Pipeline Safety."
Pipelines are very dangerous. They should not be installed near ANYTHING, much less an elementary school. Are we crazy to allow this to happen? I think we are.
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