The Fracking News – Revolutionary Ideas
The Fracking News
Indiana County planning staff is taking their show on the road, and presented their first of three public meetings to introduce the County Comprehensive Plan his week.
What isn’t in that plan? A get out of jail free card to the zoning preemption contained in Act 13. That privilege is apparently reserved to Republican legislators in Bucks and Montgomery County who voted for full preemption language in Act 13 last spring, and then just before the Jul 4th holiday they sneaked a moratorium on fracking in those counties along with the budget bill. Those counties don’t have Marcellus, they have a formation called the South Newark Basin which likely has gas. These legislators suggest that this Basin needs further study. This blogger at NRDC suggests this is less about science, and more about political science. If Bucks gets more study, why doesn’t Indiana? Equal protection for all Pennsylvanians, it’s not a revolutionary idea.
It doesn’t take a degree in any kind of science to realize what’s happening here; it surely has something to do with the nearly $23 million spent by the natural gas industry on lobbying in 2011 and 2012. The good folks at Marcellus Money have numbers to back it up. “For their $23 million political investment, gas companies avoided hundreds of millions in taxes that could have paid for thousands of teachers, roads and desperately needed environmental protections.”
CHC and mother nature have worked together to stop drilling in the county conservation zones. That was SOOOO much easier than these folks who chained themselves to trees and blocked EQT’s rigs from drilling in Moshannan State Forest.
Researchers from Duke have a new study about brine seeping up or down into ground water. I saw two headlines which encapsulate a lot:
– New Study: Fluids from Marcellus Shale Likely Seeping Into PA Drinking Water.
– Duke Study finds no pollution in gas well drilling.
Maybe that’s confusing, but it’s very clear that accidents will continue to happen, like this 4700 gallon spill of hydrochloric acid in Bradford County.
And lastly, speaking of confusing, this unfortunate legislator in North Carolina supported a moratorium on Tar-Heel fracking, but accidentally voted to legalize fracking after pressing the wrong button. OOPS!!
Coalition for a Healthy County 