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.
You can read all about it here. (There's a picture here which says it ALL.)
In essence, a Georgia man has admitted to PA State Police that he dumped approximately 800 gallons of dangerous materials from a Bradford County gas well site onto state game lands early Thursday morning. He now sits in a West Burlington correctional facility with bail set at $100,000.
The discovery was made by a man as he pulled out of his driveway and saw the pool of viscous black liquid. It was described as a gooey, black material which was about 3 inches deep, covering approximately 100 X 30 feet. The man who discovered the problem said he believes the liquid was dumped Wednesday night.
Tire tracks likely tell the story, he said. What it looks like to me is a tanker truck pulled out in there. It looks to me like they were going to go out into a field and dump, and they got stuck, so they just dumped it there and just left.
This will be happening more and more in gas fields everywhere.
Last week a waste hauler by the name of Robert Allan Shipman from Southeastern Pennsylvania and his company, Allan's Waste Water Service, were accused of dumping fracking wastewater and sewage illegally into local waterways and mine shafts.
How many times has this happened and was not caught? It's a lot cheaper and easier to dump toxic waste when nobody's looking than to follow the law. There are far too many wells and trucks involved in this unregulated industry to be able to inspect and keep tabs on everything. It would be an effort in futility.
The photographer wrote:
The above picture is of a Hawg Hauler tanker truck dumping waste water on Blake Ridge. The license number of the truck is AF65647 and the truck number is 125. We have seen many incidents of this type in the past, but this is the first time we were able to get a picture. You can see dark stains on the road and in the ditch from this type of activity. The picture was taken on September 27, 2010.
Wetzel County, West Virginia
Click here to view more incredible pictures and videos from West Virginia.
The Pennsylvania DEP has fined two Owego, New York, businesses a total of $15,500 for disposing and burning solid waste in Windham Township, Bradford County, in September of 2008 without a permit. Windham is a small little township of about 32 square miles, population 967. The median income for a household is $37,589. Somewhere in this town, employees of Central NY Oil and Gas and Willbros Project Services (U.S.) decided to dump nearly 40 tons of waste: timber mats, tires, pallets, oil booms, foam pipe inserts. straw, and other waste. Just this week a Montana newspaper published an article about the hazards of burning tires, to name one of the things that were dumped and burned in this incident. Burning tires is illegal in some areas, or at least carries with it strict regulations.
Tire burning is known to produce a variety of toxic pollutants including heavy metals like lead, arsenic, mercury and chromium and extremely hazardous organic compounds like furans, PCB's, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and dioxins.
Bravo to the citizen who took the responsibility to report this to the authorities. And shame on the people who showed such total disregard for the law, for the residents of Windham, and for Mother Earth. Unfortunately, the gas industry does not have a good record of being good neighbors, although spokespeople for the industry will tell you over and over how important it is to have a friendly relationship with the communities where they drill. It is hollow talk at best. A few thousand dollars in fines is a small price to pay for a little dumping. Although the offending companies cleaned up the trash, the damage was already done. After setting fire to a pile of industrial waste in a field somewhere, how can that place ever look the same again? Perhaps in a few years? However, what does it do to the people of Windham, to realize that their homes and community are expendable and subject to the lawless whims of some big gas company? It is a means of intimidation, a reminder of who is in charge now.
