In 1930, my greatgrandparents purchased a beautiful farm in Bradford County, PA, in a little hamlet called French Azilum. In the summer, we spent time there, resting, breathing in the fresh air, enjoying the wild flowers, the bright stars and planets on a clear moonlit night, and swimming in the Susquehanna River. If gas drilling is allowed to continue, Bradford County and all of Pennsylvania will be forever changed, ruined beyond repair.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Max Chilson's Water Well Went Bad: French Azilum, PA
Max Chilson, eighty years old, living in French Azilum and surrounded by gas wells, cannot use his water any longer. It went bad in 2010- black solids turned up. The PA DEP and the gas company Chief Oil and Gas do not know what is in this black stuff. Public officials, including Gene Yaw, Tina Pickett, and the three Bradford County Commissioners, have been no help. Chilson has given up on them. He spends a lot of time trying to get good water to live. He's got a bad back and a bad knee. It's hard to get around. He doesn't trust his water to cook with or do laundry.
Max Chilson lives just up the hill from my family farm we call "Hutchinson Camp." We use a spring for our water source. But Chilson's water and our water come from the same watershed, the same aquifer. I conclude that our water is also polluted. We only go there in the summer. I wonder if our water has been tested recently.
It would be a good idea to have the water tested, but it costs money, so I doubt that it will be done. Wherever there is fracking, there seems to be water, soil, and air pollution. Hmmmmm... Maybe it's not as safe as the Bradford County Commissioners thought it would be when they were being courted/ bribed by the gas companies? And maybe once the pollution is in the water, air, and soil, it would be cost-prohibitive for any small village or town or county to clean it up! That poor guy is sunk.
ReplyDeleteOnce an aquifer or watershed is contaminated, it is not possible to fix it. There is no way to do it. Gone for good.
ReplyDelete