Preliminary thoughts on yesterday: In this country, we are told that "we" are represented by the people we select. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The "one man" who was arrested is from Butler County, where a community (50 families) has been getting 20 - 25 gallons of water every Monday at White Oaks Springs Presbyterian Church to replace a tiny percentage of the potable water they used to get from their own wells - wells that the best science that's been done to date points to contamination done at the hands of Rex Energy. The water is not provided by the industry or any arm of the government. The water is provided though the good works of people like you and me. The water bank came about because Rex was exonerated by Don't Expect Protection on the basis of a faulty hydrology report and were going to leave the community with badly tainted water. The "one man" and others have worked with the people in this community to help them be made whole. There have been millions of dollars in impact fees filter into Butler County. Impact fees were to be used to pay for impacts of shale extraction. Not a penny of the money in Butler County has been expended for ANY impact of shale extraction. There have been lobby days, rallies, lawful protests, meetings, hearings, and a court case. NOT A SINGLE FAMILY in the Woodlands has been made whole.

The "one man" who was arrested is from Butler County, where 17 schools are within 1 mile of an active fracking site (some of these are within one mile of several sites - as is the Woodlands, mentioned above). In the past couple years, research from respected institutions have linked proximity to fracking (1 mile) to low birth weight, problem pregnancies, emergency cardiac admissions, migraines, asthma, and a host of other maladies. There have also been studies linking proximity to fracking and water contamination, air contamination, and lower property values. There have been lobby days, rallies, lawful protests, meetings, hearings, and several court cases - including a SLAPP suit - and this is still allowed to go forward.

But why on earth would "one man" decide to "crash" a Trump fundraiser? Isn't this the same as setting a fire or looting?

After close consultation with the "one man," I think I understand.Trump came to Pittsburgh to extol the virtues of shale extraction (and coal, and other fossil fuels). And after that event, he went to a private club where folks were granted some special favors. If they paid $50,000, they got a private audience with Donald Trump. If they raised $25,000, they got to eat lunch with him. And if they raised $2,700, they could "get on the Trump Train."

If the "one man" paid for a special audience with the judge that was about to hear his case, I'm pretty certain that we could all agree that he was trying to curry favors, get a more favorable outcome for his trial. And, I think, we'd all agree that was highly suspect behavior. In fact, I think we'd call it illegal.

The shale industry, the rich and powerful, are able to buy access to politicians - Donald Trump even brags about how he did it - but the average Joe cannot. $50 or 25,0000 dollars is a hell of a lot of money; to people (like the folks in the Woodlands) who have nothing, $2,500 is a hell of a lot of money.

The "one man" thought about doing a Go Fund Me campaign to get access - but that just seemed stupid. Asking people like him, a retired school teacher living on a pension, to kick in money to buy what should be guaranteed seemed sinful to his Catholic heart.

So, the "one man" went to engage in a lawful protest and found, when he got to the Duquesne Club, that the door to the fundraiser was open, that people were coming and going. that there was no one telling him he had to pay to get in. So he went inside.

The fact that this was a Trump event was just a nice coincidence. If this had been one of the high roller Clinton fundraisers, I'm pretty certain the "one man" would have gone in there, too.

The "one man" takes solace in the fact that what he did was not a violent expression of dissent. No one was hurt, though his wrists hurt from the handcuffs. No property was damaged. There were no riots or fires set.

However, "the one" man doesn't condemn riots out of hand. Riots are the cry of the unheard. I love this quote by Dr. King:

"But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?...It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity."

What was happening in the Duquesne Club was an exercise of corruption - money buying influence. That some think that what the "one man" did is akin to riots and setting fires is one of the slaps that the "one man" is willing to absorb because my friends in the Woodlands, my friends in Summit Township, my friends in Mars, my friends in all the shalefields are oppressed and the status quo in unjust and inhumane.
One man's opinion.

Michael Bagdes-Canning

I am greatly concerned about the proposed well pad at the Cratty farm off Election House Road. Currently, this pad is located within the watershed for Lake Arthur and Moraine State Park. This watershed is a state-designated Special Protection High Quality Watershed in which strip mining and other significant earth-moving projects have been prohibited since the creation of the lake in the 1960s. However, because the Marcellus Shale boom is so recent, there are no special protections concerning fracking. I am opposed to fracking in general, but it likely will happen regardless. Therefore, since townships have the power to regulate fracking within their communities through zoning and other laws since the repeal of Act 13, Franklin Township should pressure XTO Energy to move their well pad to the southeast, so that it would not drain into Shannon Run, which directly feeds Lake Arthur. 

I would like to point out the fact that XTO has one of the worst violation records for a drilling company in the state. XTO has 186 violations on record, the sixth highest in the state (NPR StateImpact). Here are some recent examples:

• April 22, 2014: XTO Energy issued a violation for “Failure to properly store, transport, process or dispose of a residual waste” at their AK Steel B1H well in Butler Township.   
  A similar incident also occurred at their Vadnal A Unit 10HB in Jefferson Township on April 20, 2014. There are numerous cases of this violation at XTO sites across Butler County. 
• July 23, 2013: XTO issued a violation for “Discharge of industrial waste to waters of Commonwealth without a permit” at their Kozick Bros Const Inc 2 well in Summit Township.

The majority of XTO’s numerous violations are related to spilling, mishandling, or dumping fracking fluid or residual waste. Fracking fluid contains “BTEX compounds, which stands for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene.  They are volatile organic compounds (VOCs) – (organic chemical compounds that are highly evaporative and can produce noxious fumes). Benzene is a known carcinogen, and has also been shown to cause blood disorders.  Both benzene and toluene can affect the reproductive and central nervous systems.   Ethylbenzene and xylene can have respiratory and neurological effects” (from Catskill Mountainkeeper). A joint study by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that a fracking fluid spill in Kentucky in 2007 killed all of the aquatic life in Acorn Fork Creek, the stream into which the fluid was spilled. “After studying samples of the water and bodies of green sunfish and creek chub, government researchers have concluded that the spill acidified the stream and increased concentrations of heavy metals including aluminum and iron. Fish exposed to the water developed gill lesions and showed signs of liver and spleen damage, USGS announced in a press release. The gill lesions were consistent with ‘toxic concentrations of heavy metals,’ the researchers concluded” (from the Huffington Post). Hydrochloric acid was present in the spilled fluid.

As you can see, if similar incidents were to occur at the XTO site on the Cratty farm as have occurred elswhere in Butler County, Lake Arthur and Moraine would be directly affected by it. XTO will also likely construct both fresh and wastewater impoundments at the site due to the lack of municipal water sources and other drilling activity in the area. This poses another threat, as the linings in these pits are only required to be 30 mm minimum in thickness. Often, these liners are poorly installed or tear, leaking the fluid into the ground. These pits have also been known to overflow in heavy, sustained rains. 

I love Lake Arthur and Moraine, and I am certain that many in western Pennsylvania would be devastated if anything were to happen to our beloved park. I urge you to do the smart, common-sense thing and force XTO to move their wells out of the Moraine watershed. Since the repeal of Act 13, you have the power to do that and you need to use it. I have enclosed copies of the articles I mentioned in this letter. Thank you.

Samuel A. Hoszwa

Below is a list of pertinent events in the current Woodlands water contamination fiasco.

• In late 2010, Rex Energy commenced its shale-gas drilling operations in the Woodlands area of Connoquenessing Twp., Butler County. By January 2011, at least a dozen households that previously had good clean water for at least a decade, all suddenly found themselves with a host of water problems, ranging from discoloration (orange, purple, black), to foul odors, to getting sick when they or their pets drank the water, to the water suddenly disappearing from their wells.
  
• In Dec. 2011, Rex Energy announced that, according to rigorous scientific testing done by the lab they hired, Environmental Service Laboratories Inc., there was no way that their drilling operations had anything to do with water contamination complaints in the Woodlands. The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection later backed up these findings.

• A February 2012 Associated Press article reported that initial post-drilling water quality tests in the Woodlands conducted by the DEP showed man-made industrial contaminants in the water – a multi-chemical mix that suggested either multiple sources of contamination or one industry that uses many chemicals. Shale-gas drilling is the only industry in the Woodlands area. It also noted that the chemicals found in those initial post-drilling results were not even tested for in the results that exonerated Rex Energy from blame.

• A follow-up AP report revealed that Rex Energy gas wells near the Woodlands neighborhood had developed casing problems during the drilling process. Neither Rex nor the DEP had disclosed this fact to Woodlands residents or the public, either at the time of the incident or during the later discussions of possible water contamination in the area. Faulty gas-well casings have been a common factor in documented water-contamination incidents linked to natural gas drilling.
• In early November 2012, both the Associated Press and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on court depositions by two former DEP employees-turned-whistleblowers, stating that the DEP routinely creates incomplete lab reports and uses them to dismiss complaints that Marcellus Shale gas development operations have contaminated residential water supplies. According to one deposition, a special lab code for Marcellus Shale water contamination complaints, “942 Suite Code,” is used statewide. In a Post-Gazette file review of DEP water quality reports generated under that code, it was found that those reports didn't disclose all of the contaminants found in well water samples. The water complaints in these cases were then dismissed because the abbreviated reports did not support the property owner complaints. One of the areas mentioned in the Post-Gazette's report on its file review was The Woodlands.
  
• In August-September 2012, Rex Energy commenced another round of drilling and fracking. By October, the number of Woodlands households reporting water problems had risen to at least 25.

In the face of the above factual statements, I have two questions to ask the citizens of Butler County: 1.) Are the Woodlands water contamination problems related to shale-gas drilling in the area? 2.) How do we go about getting honest accountability from county, state and local officials regarding this problem, and from our “sacred cash cow,” the shale-gas drilling industry?

  But it seems that people are starting to realize the full scope of this power grab.  In July the Commonwealth Court declared the zoning provision of act 13 unconstitutional. The PA Association of Township Supervisors has come out in opposition to the provision. So have over 65 local governments including four in Butler County.  When the PA Utility Commission (PUC) withheld close to $1,000,000 in impact fees in an apparent retaliation against the municipalities who challenged Act 13 in court, the Commonwealth Court again had to rein in big government by issuing a “cease and desist” order and declaring that the PUC has no authority to review local gas drilling ordinances.

The Corbett administration, the general assembly, and state agencies have overstepped their bounds time and time again by putting the profits of oil companies over the people and the laws of the Commonwealth and I for one am happy that the courts are rolling back their power grab.

J.M.B.

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a national environmental group, contacted MOB in August with a request to visit Butler County to see what is happening with unconventional well drilling.   The President, Frances Brenenke, brought two board members and 6 staff members to Butler to see the impact toxic fracking is having on people and communities. 

Two members of Marcellus Outreach Butler, Ping Pirrung and Dennis McCann, hosted a lunch at their home in Middlesex Township on August 27 for our visitors.  Janet and Fred McIntyre shared how their lives have been turned upside down and their health compromised  since drilling began in the Connoquenessing.  Woodlands.

At the end of the luncheon, Raina Ripple, Director of the Southwest Health Center,  told the visitors that the stories of people impacted in Butler County are the same as the stories she is hearing in Washington, Greene and Fayette Counties.  People are sick and living with contaminated water and breathing air that forces them to stay indoors.  And what is so upsetting to her is that “no one is doing anything to help these people – not the state or local governments, not the medical profession.”

The NRDC visitors were visibly moved by what they heard and this was reinforced when they piled into cars and took a tour of the shalefields in Butler County.  With Janet McIntyre and John Stolz as guides, a caravan of cars traveled down Brownsdale Road where there are 4 drilling sites within a  mile radius from one another.   At one site in the Woodlands,  the liner from a pond which had held contaminated flowback water had been carelessly left by the side of the road.  After visiting several drilling sites, a compression station and the gas processing plant,  our guests had to travel south to Washington County where Ron Gulla was hosting a similar event for them the following day to show them the impacts in Southwestern PA.

What were the results of NRDC’s tours of fracking sites, like their visit to Butler County?   Check out the impressions of  Frances Brenenke’s, President of NRDC, tour of western PA as captured in her blog.

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/fbeinecke/calling_for_national_fracking.html

On September 19th, NRDC launched the Community Fracking Defense Project. This new project, which is launching in five states—New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and North Carolina—will provide assistance to towns and other local governments that want added control over the siting of and/or protections against the harms of fracking in their communities.

For example, NRDC legal and policy staff, together with local partners, will:

•    Assist in drafting local laws and land use plans that control the extent of fracking within their borders and/or limit the harmful effects of fracking.

•    Work to re-assert communities’ rights to protect themselves under state law.

•    Defend relevant zoning provisions and other local laws that are challenged in court.

Kate Sidding, a NRDC attorney, filed an amicus brief in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on behalf of a number of municipalities in support of a lower court decision striking down portions of Act 13, a recently enacted Pennsylvania law that severely limits the ability of local governments to use their zoning powers to control where fracking occurs.

MOB was happy to host NRDC’s visit and is encouraged by their response and actions.  We need more powerful organizations to step forward and take a stand like NRDC is doing.  As more people and organizations stand up and make their voices heard, we increase our chances of stopping this destruction and getting permanent solutions for the people whose lives have been so negatively impacted.

-Dianne Arnold