Above photos by Thomas Jefferson
Mars, Butler, PA – On July 15th, under a beautiful blue-sky, a group of over 70 parents and their supporters protested the placement of Rex Energy gas wells approximately one-half mile from their children’ schools on the Mars Area School District (MASD) campus. The rally, sponsored by Marcellus Outreach Butler, a founding coalition member of Protect Our Children, decried the practice of situating unconventional natural gas development (UNGD) and related infrastructure, often referred to as “fracking,” close to schools throughout the state.
Several schools in Butler County located near gas drilling activities, the MASD schools being but an example, demonstrate the seriousness of the issue. The campus holds five schools where about 3,200 students attend, along with faculty and staff. Another Butler County school, Summit Elementary School of the Butler Area School District (BASD) is an especially egregious example as there are 32 fracking wells within a two-mile radius upon completion of the well currently being completed, and a compressor station is planned nearby. Also a BASD school, Connoquenessing Elementary School sits a little over 1,000 feet from a fracking site. Seneca Valley School District’s secondary school campus with approximately 4,000 students and staff sits 1.1 miles from Markwest’s Bluestone I and II gas processing plants, contiguous to another but permitted separately as if each was the only facility at the site. Sadly, Bluestone III has just recently been permitted and Bluestone IV is planned for 2016, all abutting each other. The plant sits in low, creek bed terrain where air pollution tends to dissipate slowly.
A newly released mapping tool by Healthy Schools Pennsylvania and Women for a Healthy Environment shows an alarming 75 public schools that have a total of 350 unconventional gas wells within a one-mile radius of the school building. There are 41 compressor stations situated within a one-mile radius of schools (three schools each have three compressor stations within a mile). The risks from this industrial activity are becoming ever clearer.
Speaking at the protest, Raina Rippel, Executive Director of the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project, who has been working for the past 4 years with a team of public professionals, researchers, and healthcare workers to address health concerns plausibly linked to unconventional natural gas development, stated:
In relation to the Mars School District, and many similar schools in our region and state, the following statements are increasingly understood to be true.
- Setbacks distances between vulnerable populations and gas drilling industrial activities are inadequate.
- Schoolchildren are at risk.
- The body of evidence proves this to be true—we can now characterize the short-term health impacts, and we can safely predict the long-term health impacts.
Eva Westheimer of the Center for Coalfield Justice and a Steering Committee member of Protect Our Children, a coalition comprised of over 30 member groups, provided a statement of the Coalition’s position:
The Protect Our Children Coalition is dedicated to protecting school children from the health risks of shale gas drilling and infrastructure. The science is clear, young people are more at risk of harmful exposure from pollutants involved in shale gas development.
Our school boards, townships, and state government have a responsibility to protect the health and well-being of the future of our Commonwealth. Shale gas infrastructure has no place near schools or where children gather, learn, and play!
It’s quite simple actually: we want our schools to be safe environments for students and teachers. From the dangerous chemicals and pollutants of well pads and compressor stations, to the increases in truck traffic and diesel pollution, industrial zones have been set up next to many schools in our state. This is not a safe environment for students or teachers.
Crystal Yost, a western Pennsylvania field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force and parent with children attending school on the Mars campus, expressed her concerns with respect the well site near the schools:
The oil and gas industry is the largest source of methane emissions in the United States. Along with methane, the wellheads, condensate tanks, diesel engines and infrastructure like compressor stations, processing plants and pipelines emit VOCs, such as benzene and xylene which are recognized carcinogens. In addition, well sites emit large amounts of particulate matter, a known trigger for asthma. This chemical concoction is what we expose our children to when we place them next to these sites. We have been told the air quality on Rt.228 is poor due to the heavy truck traffic and almost 30,000 vehicles that pass through here each day. Why would we knowingly make the air worse for our children?
Another MASD parent, Patrice Tomcik, had similar concerns:
Unconventional gas drilling creates pollutants throughout the entire process of development and production, including all the permanent supporting infrastructure. The scientific studies published to date have given cause for concern about placing this industrial activity so close to children who are a vulnerable population to health effects. As a parent, I cannot condone placing a known health and safety risk near children’s schools. We just want to Protect Our Children.
Students are concerned as well. Andrew Guidarelli, a June graduate of Mars High School, had the following to say about his doubts regarding our nation’s current energy policy and what he believes would be the best energy option for his generation’s future:
As a nation, the United States has accomplished many incredible feats. We are the country that built the federal highway system, sent a man to the moon, and just recently, flew a spacecraft four billion miles away to Pluto. Yet in the energy field, we continue to lag behind countries like Denmark, who just last week announced they produce 116% of their energy from wind power. If America is the world’s greatest country, why can’t we put solar panels on top of school buildings? Why can’t we lease out farmers’ land for wind turbines instead of potentially deadly gas drilling wells. The technology is there, and the need is there. With the willpower, America can become a world leader if it wants to. But we have to want to.
At this time, the Geyer well construction is at a standstill as a legal challenge by two nearby residents and two environmental groups to pursue an appeal of the Middlesex Township Zoning Board ruling. The Zoning Board has ruled to allow recently revised ordinances that permit drilling in 90% of the township’s zones to stand, which permits the establishment of the fracking wells near the schools. In response, a group of leaseholders have filed suit of their own against the appellants and another parent for allegedly making false statements at public meetings and preventing them from realizing their royalties from drilling their land. The ACLU has deemed this a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP suit) and is assisting the SLAPP suit defendants in this matter. Regardless of the outcome of the appeal or the SLAPP suit, more communities will undoubted join the struggle to safeguard their most precious treasure, their children.