Pennsylvania

Pa. Gov. Wolf Is On Pace To Permit Almost 8,000 Shale Gas Wells

February 3, 2015 Energy Justice Summer, www.energyjusticesummer.org Educate! Oil & Gas, Pennsylvania

Permit totals in his first full week indicate Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf is on pace to issue almost 8,000 fracking permits in his first term. In his first five business days (1/21-1/27), PA Governor Tom Wolf’s Department of Environmental Protection issued 38 shale gas well permits, about one permit per hour, eight hours a day. At this rate, Wolf is on pace to issue 7,904 shale gas well permits in his first term. During his campaign, Food & Water Watch found that Wolf received at least $1.5 million from oil and gas interests. Also in his first five days, 37 permitted shale gas wells were “spud” which means started drilling. At this rate, Wolf is on pace to oversee the drilling of 7,696 shale gas wells.

Partial Victory In Penn., No Fracking In Public Lands

January 30, 2015 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Resist! Fracking, Law, Pennsylvania, Politics

New Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed an executive order on Thursday reinstating a moratorium on new fracking leases in Pennsylvania's public parks and forests. The move is being heralded by residents as an important step but still short of the state-wide ban they say is needed. The development came just days after hundreds of people rallied at Wolf's inauguration, under the banner of the coalition Pennsylvanians Against Fracking, to demand a complete ban on the controversial drilling practice. Local grassroots networks, from the American Indian Movement in Lancaster County to Marcellus Outreach Butler in Butler County, have led the opposition against the industry's aggressive drilling expansion in the state, including the construction of nearly 8,000 wells in recent years.

Regulation Of Fracking Does Not Work

January 30, 2015 Stefanie Spear, www.ecowatch.com Educate! Environment, Fracking, health, Pennsylvania, Regulation

A new report out today from Environment America Research & Policy Center shows that all types of fracking companies, from small to large, are prone to violating rules intended to protect human health and the environment. The report, Fracking Failures: Oil and Gas Industry Environmental Violations in Pennsylvania and What They Mean for the U.S., analyses Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry over a four-year period and found that the top offenders of regulations—averaging more than one environmental violation every day—represented a wide range of companies from Fortune 500 companies like Cabot Oil, to mom-and-pop operators, to firms like Chevron.

The Corrupt Revolving Door Of Fracked Gas Energy

January 28, 2015 Marie Cusick, www.cetology.org Educate! Corruption, Energy, Environment, Pennsylvania, Revolving Door

Less than a week after Governor Corbett left office, his top energy adviser has accepted a new job with Pennsylvania’s largest gas industry trade group, the Marcellus Shale Coalition. Patrick Henderson, who made $145,000 a year as Corbett’s Energy Executive, will now become the MSC’s Director of Regulatory Affairs. “These are truly exciting times within the energy industry,” Henderson wrote in an email to StateImpact Pennsylvania. “I very much look forward to partnering with the coalition and its members to advance what is a shared commitment to developing our energy resources in a safe and responsible way.”

Settlement Reached In Surveillance Suit Filed By Anti-Fracking Group

January 22, 2015 Jerry Lynott, www.timesleader.com Resist! Fracking, Law, Oil & Gas, Pennsylvania

A settlement has been reached in the civil rights suit filed by the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition over surveillance of the group as a potential terrorist threat. Notice of the settlement was filed Friday with U.S. Magistrate Judge Martin Carlson in Harrisburg, but the terms were not disclosed by attorneys in the suit, dating back more than four years. Dr. Al Rodriguez, president of GDAC, said Sunday the group will hold press conferences later in the week to discuss the notice. “Right now we can’t give any statement,” he said. In status reports to the court, attorney Paul Rossi, representing the GDAC, and Deputy Attorney General Lindsey Bierzonski indicated the agreement covered injunctive relief and payment of attorney’s fees.

Shale Gas Lobby Backfires In Pennsylvania

January 17, 2015 Robert Magyar, www.resilience.org Organize! Environment, Fracking, Pennsylvania, Shale

This past November, Gov. Tom Corbett became the first standing governor in the last 40 years in Pennsylvania to lose a second term reelection. As the GOP scored overwhelming victories nationally that November night, incumbent Gov. Corbett lost by more than 325,000 votes to Democrat Tom Wolf. Corbett was a powerful first term governor who oversaw the huge shale gas industry drilling boom in the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale formation which vaulted the state into the middle of a unexpected U.S. energy boom. By the time Corbett took office for his first term, Pennsylvania's shale gas industry was creating jobs in several of the depressed regions of the state and had created an opportunity for a tax revenue base which would have been the envy of virtually all mid-Atlantic and northeast region states.

Protests Stop Drilling & Pipeline In Pennsylvania

January 6, 2015 Andrea Germanos, www.commondreams.org Resist! Environment, indigenous, Oil & Gas, Pennsylvania

Dozens of people in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County brought work towards a natural gas pipeline to a halt on Monday, charging that the project threatens a Native American cultural site and their rural way of life. The protesters, who include area residents and a local chapter of the American Indian Movement, gathered along the Conestoga River and encircled a rig which was drilling for core samples at the site of a proposed pipeline, according to a statement from the group. The drilling was for part of the Oklahoma-based Williams Partners' proposed $3 billion Atlantic Sunrise Project, a pipeline network that would pass through ten Pennsylvania counties, bringing gas from the Marcellus Shale to as far south as Georgia. It is slated to be in service in 2017.

As New York Bans Fracking, Calls For Moratorium In PA Grow Stronger

December 31, 2014 Sharon Kelly, www.desmogblog.com Resist! Fracking, New York (NY), Pennsylvania

For the past several years, Pennsylvania has had a history of lax regulation of the shale rush and its impacts on drinking water. For example, in 2011, the state made national headlines for allowing shale wastewater laced with toxic and radioactive materials to be discharged after incomplete treatment into rivers and streams that were not capable of fully diluting the waste, according to internal EPA documents. Even now, toxic waste from the fracking industry is only tracked via industry self-reporting, which a Pittsburgh Post-Gazetteinvestigation found has led to major gaps in tracking and reporting. “I think there is a strong feeling in Pennsylvania that what happened in New York is in large part because of the demonstrated damage caused by gas production here,” said Myron Arnowitt, State Director of Clean Water Action. “It appears that the leadership in New York has been more responsive to what has been happening to Pennsylvanians than the leadership in Pennsylvania.”

Judicial Decision Paves Way For School Privatization In PA County

December 29, 2014 Angie Mason, www.eveningsun.com Organize! Education, Pennsylvania, Privatization

A Spring Garden Township businessman was put in charge of the York City School District on Friday and tasked with implementing a financial recovery plan that could see all district buildings turned into charter schools run by an outside company. York County Judge Stephen Linebaugh on Friday granted a petition from the state education department to name David Meckley as receiver for the city school district, which gives Meckley all of the school board's powers except for levying taxes. Meckley, who has been the state-appointed chief recovery officer for the district for about two years, guided the creation of a financial recovery plan for the district. The plan, adopted in 2013, called for internal reform but included a path to charter conversion if progress wasn't made.

Parents And School Districts Sue Over Pennsylvania School Funding

November 12, 2014 Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, www.pilcop.com Organize! Education, Law, Pennsylvania

On November 10, 2014, we filed a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court on behalf of six school districts, seven parents, the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools (PARSS) and the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference against legislative leaders, state education officials, and the Governor for failing to uphold the General Assembly’s constitutional obligation to provide a system of public education that gives all children in Pennsylvania the resources they need to meet state-imposed academic standards and thrive in today’s world. We are conducting this litigation in partnership with the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania and a national, private law firm.

Obama Approves PA Plan To Privatize And Eliminate Medicaid

September 6, 2014 Douglas Lyons, www.wsws.org Educate! health, Medicaid, Obama, Pennsylvania

The Obama administration has given final approval to a Pennsylvania plan that essentially privatizes Medicaid and abolishes the program as an entitlement. Pennsylvania Republican Governor Tom Corbett’s Healthy PA plan is an alternative to the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. The state and the Obama administration had negotiated for months over Corbett’s proposal, which will begin December 1 and will be called Healthy PA Private Coverage Option. Corbett said, in a prepared statement: “From the beginning, I said we needed a plan that was created in Pennsylvania, for Pennsylvania, a plan that would allow us to reform a financially unsustainable Medicaid program and increase access to health care for eligible individuals through the private market.” The federal government similarly praised the plan, saying, “Like we are doing in Pennsylvania, [the US Department of Health and Human Services] and CMS [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] are committed to supporting state flexibility and working with states on innovative solutions that work within the confines of the law to expand Medicaid to low-income individuals.” In fact, the plan seeks to undermine and restrict health care coverage.

After Rancher’s Death, Calls For Fracking Health Study Grow Stronger

August 9, 2014 Sharon Kelly, www.desmogblog.com Educate! Fracking, health, Pennsylvania

Last month, Terry Greenwood, a Pennsylvania farmer whose water had been contaminated by fracking waste, died of cancer. He was 66 and the cause of death was a rare form of brain cancer. His death drew attention from around the globe in part because Mr. Greenwood was among the first farmers from his state to speak out against the gas industry during the early years of the state's shale gas rush. Mr. Greenwood went up against a company called Dominion Energy, which had drilled and fracked a shallow well on his small cattle ranch property under a lease signed by a prior owner in 1921. In January, 2008, Mr. Greenwood had reported to state officials that his water supplies had turned brown and the water tasted salty. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection subsequently found that the company, whose gas well was drilled 400 feet from the Greenwoods' water well in 2007, had impacted the Greenwoods' water. State officials ordered Dominion to temporarily supply the family with drinking water. Mr. Greenwood's death was mourned by environmentalists around the world. In London, for example, attendees at a fracking education event recorded video messages for the Greenwood family and raised over $500 for Terry's survivors.

Pennsylvania Report Finds State Unprepared For Fracking Impacts

July 25, 2014 Pennsylvania Department Of The Auditor General, www.auditorgen.state.pa.us Educate! Fracking, Law, Pennsylvania, Regulation

Auditor General Eugene DePasquale today said that a recent audit shows that the meteoric growth of the shale gas industry caught the Department of Environmental Protection unprepared to effectively administer laws and regulations to protect drinking water and unable to efficiently respond to citizen complaints. “There are very dedicated hard-working people at DEP but they are being hampered in doing their jobs by lack of resources – including staff and a modern information technology system -- and inconsistent or failed implementation of department policies, among other things, “DePasquale said. “It is almost like firefighters trying to put out a five-alarm fire with a 20-foot garden hose. There is no question that DEP needs help and soon to protect clean water.” The audit covered the period of 2009 through 2012 and was launched by DePasquale in January 2013 immediately after he became auditor general. The audit’s purpose was to assess DEP’s ability to protect the water quality in the wake of greatly escalated shale gas well drilling. The audit revealed that DEP failed to consistently issue official orders to well operators who had been determined by DEP to have adversely impacted water supplies. After reviewing a selection of 15 complaint files for confirmed water supply impact, auditors discovered that DEP issued just one order to a well operator to restore or replace the adversely impacted water supply.

NYC Trash Train Plan Derailed In Chester, PA

July 12, 2014 Energy Justice Network, www.energyjustice.net Resist! Election, New York (NY), Pennsylvania, pollution

We've been re-organizing the Chester Environmental Justice group to "derail" plans to send 500,000 tons/year of trash from the richest part of New York City by train to be burned in the low-income, 75% black City of Chester, near Philadelphia, PA. The plan would fulfill a contract Covanta has with New York City to burn this waste for the next 20-30 years. That contract would send an equal amount to Covanta's Niagara Falls, NY incinerator, where people are fighting the trash-by-trail plan as well (see http://stopburningthefalls.com/myths/). Chester hosts the nation's largest trash incinerator, burning up to 3,510 tons/day, and residents have had enough. We just won a vote of the Chester City Planning Commission Wednesday, when we got them to vote "NO" on Covanta's proposal for a rail box building to store the rail cars of trash. It'll go to City Council next, and we'll be cranking up the pressure to get them to follow the Planning Commission's advice. With about 100 people turned out, standing-room-only, we packed the place and made a strong impact. We also had 100 people email the local officials leading up to the meeting.

Former State Health Employees Silenced On Drilling

June 27, 2014 Katie Colaneri, www.stateimpact.npr.org Educate! Fracking, health, Natural Gas, Pennsylvania

Two retirees from the Pennsylvania Department of Health say its employees were silenced on the issue of Marcellus Shale drilling. One veteran employee says she was instructed not to return phone calls from residents who expressed health concerns about natural gas development. “We were absolutely not allowed to talk to them,” said Tammi Stuck, who worked as a community health nurse in Fayette County for nearly 36 years. Another retired employee, Marshall P. Deasy III, confirmed that. Deasy, a former program specialist with the Bureau of Epidemiology, said the department also began requiring field staff to get permission to attend any meetings outside the department. This happened, he said, after an agency consultant made comments about drilling at a community meeting. In the more than 20 years he worked for the department, Deasy said, “community health wasn’t told to be silent on any other topic that I can think of.”

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