Water: Don't waste it for fracking!

We cannot drink natural gas.

 

Water is precious.  Use it wisely.

Fracking: Should We Inject Poisons Into the Earth?

Sean Lennon's Anti-Fracking Anthem: "Don't Frack My Mother"

Music: Sean Lennon
Directors: Sarah Sophie Flicker, Maximilla Lukacs and Tennessee Thomas
Video Producer: Rebecca Fernandez
Editor: Maximilla Lukacs

The artists of Artists Against Fracking worked together to create this music video for "Don't Frack My Mother," Sean Lennon's very own anti-fracking anthem. This is the perfect time to celebrate our progress. In case you missed it, the New York State Assembly passed a two-year moratorium on fracking in New York. But this is also the perfect time to keep the pressure up! The bill's not a done deal. It still has to pass the State Senate and then get signed into law by Governor Cuomo.

Here's a list of all the artists who appear in it:
•Adrian Grenier •Alexa Chung •Ben Lee •Carrie Fisher •Daniel Pinchbeck •Devendra Banhart •Fred Armisen •Ione Skye •Joseph Gordon-Levitt •Josh Fox •Liv Tyler •Lindsey Wixson •Maggie Gyllenhaal •Mark Ronson •Melissa Auf Der Maur •Michael Skolnik •Natasha Lyonne •Penn Badgley •Reggie Watts •Sean Lennon •Susan Sarandon •Yoko Ono •Zoë Kravitz And band members from: •Au Revoir Simone •Black Lips •Cibo Matto •The Citizens Band •The Like •The Strokes •Wilco •Wild Belle

Issues: environment, energy, oil, gas, pollution, climate, climate change, new york, fracking, art, new york city, natural gas, artists, celebrities

Yoko Ono and Artists Against Fracking

Artists Against Fracking is a coalition dedicated to banning hydraulic fracking everywhere. Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon took a tour of Northeast PA in January. This is their story and their plea.

Don't frack New York State!

Imagine there's no fracking...

Filming by Josh Fox

Bradford County Farmer: What happened to our family and farm

Dairy Farmer in Bradford County tells her story of Contamination after gas drilling...

This is Carol French's Story-- part 1--

Status Update By Carol French

What have We Done Nearly 30% of the rural farm land located in Bradford County, Pennsylvania was already leased prior 2006. We and 50% of the county decided to lease our land for an average $5- $85/per acre. It would take two more years before the gas companies would convince another 10% to lease their land at $2,500 or more/per acre. During this leasing process, you could feel the excitement. It was the talk of the town. There were suggestions made that if a gas well was drilled on your property you would become the next “shaleionaires.” Everyone was to prosper, new roads, jobs, additional money from leasing and royalties.

It was too good to be true!

By the spring of 2009 there was uneasiness among the farmers that had had a gas well drilled on their property. The local newspaper was reporting contamination found in water wells, death occurring on a gas pad and the farmer was facing the fact that he could lose his farm due to a lawsuit based on the gas companies operation. For myself, I was thinking that our lucky neighbor was going to become the next Millionaire, because they had the gas well drilled on them. Soon my mind changed.

Those farmers were facing penalties lodged against them, due to their land becoming industrial use instead of agricultural use.

Landowners found themselves seeking legal advice, only to find that the attorneys were not experienced in Oil & Gas law, and had a conflict of interest. Example: If the landowner could not afford the attorneys fee, the attorney would simply attach his name to the royalty interest for payment. My neighbor (Carolyn) and I attended a presentation by a professor from Penn State University. He made a statement, saying that we must sacrifice; it was our patriotic duty to assure our Country would be independent from foreign oil. I could not wrap my mind around what he was saying.

Was there legislation insuring that our natural resources would stay in this country? What did he mean we would have to sacrifice?

In December, 2010 – January 2011, three gas wells were drilled near our farm. Farm land was getting ripped up like old material for a patch work quilt. In the middle of 2011, five more gas wells were drilled, surrounding our farm. Two of the gas wells were less than 4,000 feet away. My water changed March 15, 2011. Our water appeared pearly white. Then it had a layer of green moss settling on top of a 1/4 inch of sand as the water would become gelatin like. By October 2011, my daughter became ill. She had a high fever, diarrhea, weight loss of 10 pounds in 7 days, and severe pains in her abdomen. At the hospital they found her liver, spleen and her right ovary was extremely enlarged. Our neighbor living north of us had the same health issues after her water changed in March of that year, except her spleen burst three days after she went to the hospital.

We knew our daughter would have to leave Pennsylvania in order to have a chance of a healthy, normal life.

She moved to Tennessee. We don’t drink the water or the milk from our cows. We still have to bathe in it. Our state agency (Department of Environmental Protection) refuses to test our water; therefore the gas company will not provide water for our cows and my family. I now believe I understand what he met by “we are to sacrifice”

It is October 3, 2012.  Many that quit their previous job to work for the gas related companies are now unemployed.

We have become “prudent partners” with the gas company, by signing a lease, now are finding ourselves responsible for their debts (Mechanics Leans).

There are for sale signs in the yard of a contaminated farm. The farm lost 80%-90% of its value, possibly losing his milk market, and who will buy his cows? Many living in Bradford County have “changed” water, depending on the gas companies to provide water for their families and farms. This has become a huge, expensive burden to the gas companies. Some of the gas companies operating in Bradford County have chosen not to pay for the water bill, resulting in no more water deliveries to the effected families. Other residents have been given water filtration systems, resulting in additional cost to the resident.

We were given a chance to dream, not knowing the true value of what lie so far beneath our land. Not aware of the type of operations that would be conducted on our land. We believed in the false promises made by the gas industry.

Now I wonder, will these private gas companies produce natural gas for this country or produce natural gas for sales overseas, selling to the highest bidder. This would crush the theory of “sacrifice for our country allowing independence from foreign oil”. I keep asking myself, what have we done?

Walter Hang Challenges the NY DEC Over Uncapped Wells

Walter Hang of Ithaca-based environmental database firm, Toxics Targeting, on Wednesday released a set of documents he says indicate shortcomings in the state DEC's regulation of conventional oil and gas drilling, and lead to questions about whether the agency is equipped to regulate hydrofracking.  The documents were taken from 25 years of annual reports from the DEC's Division of Mineral Resources and show that the DEC has been trying to deal with a slew of uncapped wells left over from decades when regulations weren't as strict. Hang and others, including Binghamton's Mayor Ryan, are calling for a complete scrapping of the SGEIS (Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Study) which has been ongoing for the last 4 years.  Hang says that this document is completely inadequate. 

Read the Ithaca Journal article here.

New York records show history of oil, gas well problems: Click here.

Sandra Steingraber Speaks in Support of Susan Walker

Biologist Sandra Steingraber speaks at a press conference outside Chemung County Jail (Elmira, NY) where one of the "Seneca Three", Susan Walker, is being held for blocking the gate at Inergy's Seneca Lake gas storage facility project on September 6th of this year. Walker refused to pay a fine and was therefore incarcerated. She will remain in jail for 2 weeks.

Shale Country Kindness: Life In the Gas Patch

When an invasive, greedy, and oblivious-to-human-pain industry rides roughshod over people everywhere,  friends and neighbors from near and far get together to help.  That is what is happening in Butler County, PA.  We generally assume that life in America includes such things as getting a drink of water from the kitchen faucet, taking a shower at home, and not having to buy clean water to drink and cook with.  But not everyone enjoys those things anymore.  Iris Bloom's article gives us a glimpse of what is going on in a place called The Woodlands, Connoquenessing Township, in Butler County, PA:

Read more here...

This is what happened to the McIntyre family.

Marcellus Outreach Butler  An organization seeking to help people in Butler County whose health and safety is affected by slick water, high-volume hydrofracking.

Butler County featured in the news today in the Kuwait Times!  The whole world is watching!

Sandra Steingraber: "I feel like we're old friends."

Dr. Sandra Steingraber speaks at Albany Rally January 23rd

 

Albany rally speech, 1/23/12 “Fracking Abolition” - Sandra Steingraber

by Raising Elijah by Sandra Steingraber on Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Hi, everybody. After three years of fighting fracking together, I feel like we’re old friends.

You know my story:

How I grew up in a heavily industrialized river valley in Illinois just downwind and downstream from the state’s biggest pollutors—dirty coal, ethanol distilleries, aluminum smelters.

How my hometown drinking water wells were contaminated.

How I developed bladder cancer at the age of twenty.

How, years later, as a biologist, I learned that I was just one data point in a cluster of cancers in the zipcode that I call home.

You know that when I became a mother—the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me—I moved my children to upstate New York to get away from all that, only to find myself in the crosshairs of the world’s largest and most polluting industry, with 40 percent of the land in my county already leased for the carcinogen-depended process of fracking.

And, as if that were not enough irony for English professors, hear this: The riverside bluffs of Illinois are now going to be strip-mined for frack sand. So the remains of the beloved landscapes of my childhood can be carted off and —absent our intervention—shoved into the fractured landscape of my children’s childhood.

Beautiful grains of Illinois River sand forced into fissures of shale, forced to prop open the shattered bedrock of New York so that all manner of explosive vapors and carcinogenic materials—arsenic, radium, uranium, benzene—can come flying out like bats out of Pandora’s box.

Exposing the people I grew up with in Illinois to carcinogenic silica dust. Exposing my children here to smog and radon.

Today, friends, let’s speak plainly.

Fracking is wrong.

Fracking is unmitigatable. Sooner or later, steel and concrete disintegrates. Sooner or later, gas wells open portals of contamination between drinking water aquifers and the toxic materials held in the bedrock below. Doing fracking “right” simply means building time bombs with longer fuses.

There are no places in New York and no children in New York that we are willing to sacrifice to the fracking gods.

So. Withdraw the sGEIS fig leaf and start the hell over.

Over the past three years, we have spoken many clear and beautiful words, in testimonies, in speeches, at hearings, on the banks of the Delaware River, and as far as I can see, there is just one word left to say. I offer it to you as a torch to carry with you into all your meetings today.

It’s the answer to the riddle, “What do Harriet Tubman and the Bulgarian Parliament have in common?”

And the answer is: ABOLITION

Harriet Tubman. Citizen of Auburn, New York. The most famous conductor of the Underground Railroad.

Harriet Tubman did not advocate for state of the art slavery or for promulgating 1500 pages of regulations about slavery or for allowing a few showcase plantations in the Southern Tier to demonstrate how slavery could be done right.

Harriet Tubman settled for nothing less than a total ban, on the grounds that slave labor—however useful to the economy—is a homicidal abomination.

Last week, Bulgaria announced a total ban on fracking. The ban covers the whole nation and it is permanent and unlimited. Permits to frack, held by Chevron, have been revoked. Bulgaria has abolished fracking. The Bulgarians are fracking abolitionists.

How did they do that?

The Bulgarians marched in the streets of twelve cities. The Bulgarians blew whistles and banged on drums and played fight songs on bagpipes. The Bulgarians employed giant, winged stilt-walkers, edgy street theater, and very cool public service announcements.

And when their parliament said, “Okay, fine, here’s a temporary moratorium, the Bulgarian people said, “Not good enough! We’ll settle for nothing short of abolition,” and they marched in the streets again until their parliament voted 166 to 6 for permanent ban.

So, New York, are we meeker than the Bulgarians?

Are we more frightened?

Are we more resigned to a toxic future?

Here is a loaf of bread from a bakery in my own village of Trumansburg, New York.

You’ve seen me hold this bread before. You’ve seen me carry it into the state assembly chambers and submit it as testimony. You’ve heard me say that the flour that makes up this bread is ground at a local mill and that the heirloom wheat that makes up this flour is grown in local fields. And that the flour in this bread makes up the bodies of my children.

Well, today, we’ve brought more than a hundred loaves of this bread, a symbol of the bounty of New York, and we’re going to bring them to our governor, with the message, “Break bread! Not shale!” To tell you about this plan, I would now like to introduce to you the baker of this bread, my hero, Stefan Senders, of the Wide Awake Bakery.

Wide Awake Bakery, 4361 Buck Hill Road, S., Trumansburg, New York 14886
The millers, Greg Mol and Neil Johnston, and the farmers,
Erick Smith and Thor Oeschner, make up Farmer Ground Flour of Trumansburg.

BREAK BREAD, NOT SHALE!

Press Conference in Dimock, PA: January 20, 2012

Today, 1-20-12, Press Conference at the Sautner House in Dimock, Pa., Susquehanna County, where Julia Walsh of Frackaction.org of NY introduces Dimock residents with polluted water. Craig Sautner speaks, followed by Victoria Switzer, then Silver Lake resident, Craig Stevens and Josh Fox, "Gasland", Producer. EPA decides to bring water in a large tanker for polluted residents after reviewing more test data received by Cabot Gas and DEP and EPA will test 61 homes in the area starting this Monday and Tuesday and continue to bring water to several homes in Dimock. Industrial chemicals, barium , arsenic and metals, besides methane found in the water. Four EPA people were there.

Only four homes in Dimock are slated to receive clean water from the EPA so far, but there are many more homes still in need of clean water.

THANK YOU, EPA, FOR BRINGING CLEAN WATER TO DIMOCK.  A GOOD START, BUT THERE ARE MANY MORE FAMILIES IN NEED OF CLEAN WATER.

Fracking: Water Quality

Dr. Sandra Steingraber, author and college professor, speaks about her well water in the Ithaca, NY, area, and asks important questions which have not yet been answered. Shouldn't we hold off on fracking until we know the answers, she asks?

Water Well in Geneva, NY, Tainted After Hydrofracking

Here is a woman who lives in Geneva, NY, whose well water became discolored right after Chesapeake Energy fracked a gas well nearby.  She is being interviewed by Walter Hang of toxicstargeting.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/DTfjWta2Krc

What are her immediate concerns?  She has quite a few.  Who will be next?

Contaminated Public Water in Ulster, PA

This all happened in 2009, but some people are just finding out about it.  What happened to contaminate the public water well in Ulster, PA, in 2009?  This article does not explain that.  How did the water get polluted?  And why did the 12 other test wells dug to attempt to find good, safe water, turn up nothing acceptable?  They had to spend $3 million dollars to remedy the situation which affected only 183 customers.  The money was obtained through the PennVest program.  This is a state agency, so I would assume the taxpayers of PA are funding it.

LINK to Daily Review article (02/14/2011)

LINK to related article from Dear Susquehanna blog. (04/2010)

Rocket-Courier Letter To the Editor From a Montrose Resident

Dimock Water

Dimock Rumors Meant to Be Divisive
by Lynn Senick - 10/14/2010


Dear Editor:
The gas companies came here with the white trucks and figuratively wearing the white hats of the good guys. They love our community and they want the best for us. They want to make money and they want us to prosper. Gas is good for all of us. And then they made sure every arrangement protected their interests and reduced their costs of doing business. They have passed the costs of their industry onto our community. This is standard good business practice, right? Everyone looks for a bargain. Doesn’t every business proposition that ever existed operate this way? You would be a fool not to.

Let’s stop fooling ourselves. We are going to have to be tough and protect ourselves, something that so many did not do when blindly signing on the dotted line with a completely trusting, or if not trusting, completely unquestioning attitude. You can decide if this was a measure of our communal honesty and integrity or our stupidity.

I read and hear the assertion that the water in Susquehanna County always had contamination problems. Why does the community bear the brunt for testing and proving that we have no pre-existing water problem when we all lived here without any water buffaloes and vent pipes popping up in our yards?

I have been told it is our responsibility to prove we have good water before drilling starts. I have purchased properties in Susquehanna County and no one suggested that I should have my water tested as a condition of sale. I have municipal water now, and it is inferior in quality to the spring water I had on my small farm. I did get my water tested when I lived there. Not the extensive cradle to grave tests that are now required to prove and prepare in case of a future lawsuit, but the regular tests for nitrates, colliform bacteria, heavy metals...the usual suspect things in a region like ours. My water was always good. I have not heard of widespread problems with water in our county before this time of drilling. In fact, the water was known for its abundance and purity; it was our greatest natural resource before gas drilling, and I assert, our most valuable, far more valuable than shale gas.

I find it disturbing, saddening and maddening that the people in the affected area in Dimock, who like mostly everyone else signed a lease without a thought of a need to defend against the industry, are now being blamed and accused for their bad fortune.

The water in Dimock was affected during the vertical drilling, before gas production had started, and yet I hear rumors that the Dimock residents are suing because their royalties have dropped off. How is it known who gets royalties and who does not? And how much they receive?

I hear rumors that the folks who are suing are all from “other” areas and were not born here. Yes, some were and some were not. Susquehanna County has had an influx from other regions for many years; this is now the test for truthfulness?

I hear rumors that the residents blew up their own well or poisoned their own wells, that they only want the money. Why does anyone sign a lease if not for money? You don’t expect to get rich by falsifying your water quality, do you? Are these accusations credible considering all the residents have been through and the fact that the gas companies are well financed to fight a lawsuit that may drag through the courts for years? If a gas company will not abide by the DEP findings, then who will regulate their activity? Who will protect us if gas companies disregard the PA DEP?

Why do the Dimock residents stand as the accused in the court of public opinion? Why are they expected to publicly explain themselves and defend themselves from suspicion when the gas companies have planned everything to escape liability?

I have countered these and other accusations many times by extending the offer to introduce the accusing person to an affected Dimock resident. Let them come and ask the questions and see the situation and make a decision about the truth of this matter. No accuser has ever taken me up on the offer.

I say to the folks who happen to be lucky enough so far to have experienced no problems with drilling, “Congratulations and I hope it never happens to you.” But if you do develop a problem, do not expect my support if you have cast unproven, reckless aspersions on your more unfortunate neighbors.

This is just what the gas industry loves, pitting us against each other. In the words of Mayor Calvin Tillman of Dish, TX, “United We Bargain; Divided We Beg.”

Sincerely,
Lynn Senick
Montrose

LINK

Marcellus Shale: Cabot May Be Forced To Bring Water To Dimock, PA

A glass of refreshing Dimock well water

The PA Department of Eventual Pollution Environmental Protection is going after Cabot Oil and Gas Corporation.  The DEP Secretary John Hanger wants Cabot to provide a permanent solution to the water issues in Dimock, PA, the little town in Susquehanna County that has been turned into an industrial zone by the gas industry in the last two years.  Hanger is calling for a public water extension from Montrose.  Dimock is 6.5 miles from Montrose, making this project a huge undertaking.  Cabot was found responsible for contaminating 14 residential water wells in Dimock.

Water buffaloes sit in a yard in Spring Lake, Bradford County, PA
Photo: Karen Korell

Secretary Hanger plans to meet with Dimock residents soon, perhaps as early as September 29th, to discuss how he intends to solve their water problems.  Cabot is still claiming no responsibility for the methane contamination, which it says was due to natural causes.  The company likes to talk about the wonderful filtration systems they have so graciously installed in some homes in Dimock, but some residents are not at all satisfied with these systems and have declined to have them in their homes.

LINK

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Victoria Switzer: Dimock Warrior Speaks Out In Harrisburg

Victoria Switzer, a resident of Dimock, PA, spoke at a rally in Harrisburg, PA, on September 21, 2010.  She lives within walking distance of nearly 100 gas wells. Her water well is ruined.  She has to use water brought in by Cabot Oil.  Thirty-two families in Dimock now use what is called "replacement water,"  delivered every day by truck.  Gas companies, says Switzer, deny any culpability for contaminated water wells, and they bring water to Dimock residents as a good neighbor gesture.  It is okay with the gas drillers for people to simply disconnect from their aquifer forever.  Then what goes on underground on their properties becomes a non-issue- supposedly.

Ms. Switzer has had her water tested by independent labs for several years.  In 2008 she had good water.  In April 2010 4 deadly chemicals were found in her water which only could have gotten there through methane migration of chemicals used in the drilling process.  This is a hugely significant discovery and very damning against the gas industry. 

Switzer has coined a new phrase:  Marcellus Madness.  It is madness.  It is insanity of the first order to destroy our water- a vital resource which cannot be replaced once it is gone.  Have we gone crazy?

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Water Well Driller Questions Cheaspeake Energy's Theory in PA

Water extraction facility in Ulster, PA.   These trucks are sucking up the water from the Susquehanna River.

Photo credit:  Carol Manuel

Letter to the Editor, Aug. 29, 2010
Published: August 29, 2010 (The Towanda Daily Review)

Loss of one resource for another?

EDITOR: Being a licensed Pennsylvania water well driller for the past 40 years and being born and raised in the Towanda area, I feel I must respond to the stories I keep reading about the gas drilling companies shifting the blame of water well problems to poor well construction and local water well drilling.

One such story was in this week's Sunday Review (Aug. 22, 2010). And before I begin I want it known that any subsequent mention of the Chesapeake company shows no hostility towards them or their representatives. With mutual respect and dual acknowledgement of experience, I do believe that natural gas extraction and water well drilling can harmoniously coincide in Northeast Pennsylvania.

First of all, if a water well is not constructed properly, there are problems from day one and not 10, 20 even 50 years later. Referring to Sunday's article, Brian Grove of Chesapeake stated he does not believe, the facts, implicate its drilling operations is causing the water issues at hand. We have not spoken with any of the Paradise Road residents, but, the fact is, we have recently received many calls from local homeowners regarding disturbances in their water wells that began after nearby gas drilling activity had started. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize the time line coincidence and figure out gas drilling activity probably has caused these water well issues.

Again referring to the Sunday article, Mr. Grove wrote, affected water wells are drilled into shallow aquifers. Most of our calls pertain to rock wells, but our answer to his comment is, this is Pennsylvania, not Texas! In many local areas, residents depend on the shallow aquifers because the deeper water is salty, or sulfury, and not compatible to human consumption. What a shame to disturb their only potable water resource.

And Mr. Grove's insinuation that poor water well construction could be causing current water well issues is a direct disrespect to me, my father before me, and other local reputable water well drillers. Speaking for myself and my father's memory, we have drilled thousands of water wells during decades of business in Northeast Pennsylvania. Our continued good reputation is testimony that we do successfully construct quality water wells. I invite Mr. Grove to call me to discuss well construction but not to come into my hometown and discredit my work. Mr. Grove stated that Chesapeake has offered to drill replacement water wells of "superior construction standards." A recent telephone conversation with Chesapeake representative Larry Wooten makes me question what he means by "superior construction standards?"

Mr. Wooten called in regards to me drilling a replacement well on my neighbor's property. He quizzed me about my practices and prices. When I told him I use a steel drive shoe on the bottom of my casing to seal contaminates from entering the well, he told me they never use them and thought this contaminant seal was an unnecessary added cost. Again, this is Pennsylvania, not Texas. I believe embedding a steel drive shoe into rock formations is necessary to superiorly construct a Pennsylvania water well.

To end, we believe Northeast Pennsylvania is both blessed and cursed by the Marcellus Shale mineral deposits which lie underneath our homes. The excitement of gas lease funding and large drilling rigs coming to our area has been replaced by damaged roads; delayed travel and traffic snarls; streams sucked dry by convoys of trucks, driven by persons foreign to our area, who may skillfully drive Texas flatlands but have difficulty maneuvering our hilly serpentine roadways; residential sweet water invaded by methane that is blowing off well caps; local families displaced by gas workers; and other changes affecting our work and lifestyles.

 Unlike cautious New York state, we think Pennsylvania jumped the gun and has allowed natural gas drilling companies into our area too soon, in too large of numbers, and with too few regulations in place. The saying, you don't know the worth of the water until the well is dry, sounds like a reality to us. Our drinking water is being affected and millions of gallons of water are being extracted from our streams, rivers and municipal wells with insufficient recharge. Well, Sen. Casey, we agree it is high time to protect our water, our people and our future.

Thomas and Loraine Cummings Water Well Drilling
Towanda

The letter can be viewed as it appeared in the Towanda Daily Review here.

Half-polluted or Half-protected?

Credit: Marquil

empirewire.com

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

"What Chesapeake claims is a crock..."

Well water from Dimock, PA

George Turner, a licensed professional geologist from Tunkhannock, has a strong message for the citizens of Bradford County.  He warns everyone that they must test their water before drilling begins, and they must follow protocol called "chain of custody."  The homeowner must prove that contaminated well water was caused by drilling and was not present before drilling was done.  Drilling companies notoriously claim, "We did not cause this," as their first line of defense.  Unless a homeowner has documented water tests, the gas company can get off the hook easily.Turner says that Chesapeake Energy's claims of pre-existing conditions on Paradise Road in Terry Township are, in his words, "a crock." 

Chesapeake says that pre-drilling water quality testing in the area was done by an independent lab and showed that nearly 70% of the residential wells had pre-existing  methane saturarion and 30% of the wells exceeded acceptable EPA standards for arsenic, iron, or mangenese.  Turner takes exception to this.

What Chesapeake claims is a crock. I've done testing in Terry Township and I haven't found any of that. I haven't found any examples of methane saturation at all in Terry Township. What they're trying to do is lay the groundwork for saying: 'We didn't do it.' That's the same thing that Cabot (in Dimock) did when people came to them about water contamination. First thing they said was: 'We didn't do it.' Well, Chesapeake is saying the same thing: 'We didn't do it.'

A resident on Paradise Road is able to ingnite the water coming out of his tap in his kitchen. According to Turner, this indicates that methane saturation has occurred- about 25-26 milligrams per liter of water. He stresses that, regardless of dramatic evidence, a well owner has to obtain documents that will stand up in court.

Read the whole article here.

Back story from SPLASHDOWN, Towanda's most reliable source of news, is here.

Breaking news:  Residents of Paradise Road were evacuated yesterday (8/4). Reported by the Rocket Courier.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

WE CAN'T DRINK NATURAL GAS!

Grit TV Tackles Hydrofracking Issue: "No water for gas!"

More GRITtv

Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in Pennsylvania and New York is a heated topic. Whose power? Whose water? And just how natural is natural gas anyway? On the search for cheap clean energy, natural gas drilling has been sold as a solution. But is it? Affected communities are split. GRITtv's Sarah Friedland and Isabel Braverman went to the Delaware River Basin Commission's Headquarters in West Trenton, New Jersey to hear from residents, including actor Mark Ruffalo.