Bravo to Michael Badges-Canning for his persistent courage to stand up and speak out for the health and safety of residents of Butler County. As a pediatrician, I regard the significant and growing body of scientific evidence that fracking for oil and gas is dangerous to human and animal health as a clear indication that fracking must stop. Fracking is particularly harmful to children, before and after birth.

The peer-reviewed studies that Badges-Canning cited, part of the more than 500 studies now in print, were performed by reputable institutions and include data from Butler County. These studies can be easily found in the Compendium released by Concerned Health Professionals of New York.

If a food or medication was causing as much harm as fracking, it would be pulled from the shelf. How odd it is that as we learn more about the dangers of fracking and its associated infrastructure, some try to defend it through personal attacks.

The Butler Eagle can do a service to the people of Butler County by listening to its concerned citizens, the growing body of research and health experts and educating its readers about the reasons why fracking needs to end. We can create cleaner energy, safer jobs and a healthier environment by stopping dirty practices like fracking and moving to renewable sources. 

Margaret Flowers, M.D.
Baltimore, MD 

"A week ago today, I started circulating a petition. I currently have hundreds of signatures in my hand. The petition says:
Fracking and its infrastructure is not safe. It doesn't belong anywhere but it is particularly dangerous when it is located nearby. It is linked to premature births, low birth weight, problem pregnancies, admissions to local emergency rooms for cardiac incidents, childhood asthma and a host of other medical conditions. Fracking has also been linked to groundwater contamination, air pollution, and methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas. Accidents at drill sites can have catastrophic consequences and evacuation zones extend beyond the half mile separating the Geyer well and the Mars Campus (and certainly the 700 feet from the Kozic Brothers well to Summit Elementary); putting children and their teachers at risk is not acceptable.

Communities in Butler County have, for too long, been subjected to industry malpractice, governmental negligence and collusion, and unneighborly acts of aggression by leaseholders who assert rights to "improve" property while endangering people nearby.

Drilling needs to stop. The short and sordid history of shale extraction in Butler County shows that it is too dangerous, its practitioners too reckless, and government oversight inadequate to nonexistent. 
We, the undersigned, demand that Rex and other drilling companies, the Butler County Commissioners, leaseholders (including Commissioner-elect Kim Geyer), other local government officials, our representatives in State and Federal government act to protect our communities and vulnerable children, restore water to the Woodlands, stop drilling and give more than lip service to the concept of neighborliness. We further demand an investment in "green" technologies and conservation measures.

In the last several months, several studies from highly respected institutions have been released linking the proximity of fracking and negative health impacts:

• A study released in June out of the University of Pittsburgh linked proximity to fracked wells and low birth weights
• An October study out of Johns Hopkins linked proximity to fracked wells and premature births and problem pregnancies
• A University of Pennsylvania study released in July linked proximity to fracked wells and increased cardiovascular admissions to emergency rooms
• The Southwestern Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project has linked proximity to fracked wells to many health impacts - from minor to acute 
  
• A Public Herald expose' recently uncovered thousands of water complaints related to fracking in DEP's own paperwork and a completely inadequate response from that agency.

Here in Butler County, you are, today, facing a significant shortfall and I'm sure you are looking at ways to impact fees from the state. I'm here to tell you that we have significant impacts right here in Butler County.

I have some suggestions for spending that impact fee:
The people in the Woodlands have been without water for 5 years. Get them water.

The children and staff at Summit Elementary are mere hundreds of feet from the Kozik Brothers well. Purchase high quality air filters to, at least, partially mitigate the dangers they are subjected to.

The children and staff in the Mars School District and the people of Weatherburn who are, as we speak, being placed in harm's way by the reckless and irresponsible decisions by the industry, local government, land owners (including Commissioner-elect Kim Geyer), and State and Federal decision makers: they, too, need protection.

I've heard you Commissioners say in the past that fracking is not something that the Commissioners can deal with. I say, on the contrary, just as you can be ambassadors for the county for things like tourism and business, you can be advocates for the health and welfare of the residents of Butler County. Just as you can be administrators of the public purse, you can make sure that the public is not harmed by bad actors and that those already harmed can be justly compensated and made whole.

I'm calling on the new Commissioners to do what you have failed to do - protect the people of Butler County from this dangerous industry."

-- Michael Bagdes-Canning

Your June 4th article "Leaseholders Sue Drilling Challengers" revealed the motives of those filing this counter lawsuit.   Ironically, all the words used to describe the action of the parents listed on the lawsuit challenging the Middlesex zoning ordinance, "a sham, malicious and the misuse of the legal process"  are an accurate description of their own actions in this case.  One of their goals seems to be to subject the defendants to an expensive and time consuming experience in order to dissuade them from appealing the Middlesex Zoning Hearing Board's decision, which supports an ordinance permitting drilling and its supporting structures in most of Middlesex Township.  These type of lawsuits are meant to discourage present and future opposition.  Attempts to deter our first amendment right to free speech is what makes them dangerous.

Their other goal seems to be to make sure they profit from their leases with the gas industry so they accuse the defendants of "disseminating false, misleading and inflammatory" information.   Nothing could be farther from the truth.   The defendants and members of the Mars Parent Group have been careful not to say anything that is not supported by research.  There are potential health impacts from unconventional gas drilling and its infrastructure, especially to children whose respiratory systems and immune systems are still developing.  Serious explosions have happened requiring evacuations; water has been contaminated in some places and air pollution is also a real problem.   More people need to speak up and support these parents who are protecting their children and call out those who are making false accusations.    

D.A.

I have lived in the Mars Area School District for 47 years. My three children attended Mars Area schools and, I believe, they received a superior education. Throughout their public-school careers, neither my children nor the rest of the community were ever, to my knowledge, placed directly at risk for serious health and safety problems by the leadership of MASD.

The slightly disheveled, soft-spoken, gosh-howdy demeanor of Rex Energy representative Duane Maust is typical of the carefully crafted image that Big Gas presents in its relentless campaign to con people into selling out their rights - and in some cases, their livelihoods or even their lives. Duane's colleagues were less able to conceal their discomfort as they lied to the school board and to the assembled residents of MASD. To anyone who took the time to read the body language of the other Rex people, it was crystal clear that they're not as comfortable with lying as Duane. The water-test guy weaseled out of the questions addressed to him by failing to mention that although his company does extensive testing at the behest of drillers and DEP, DEP's protocol has carefully, intentionally, and cynically omitted reporting over half of the toxic chemicals that they find in homeowners' well water after drilling has contaminated it. The young man who presented the company line - now widely acknowledged to be false - that their drilling had never contaminated a water supply, was visibly shaken by the spotlight. I was disappointed that no board member was well enough informed to ask the obvious follow-up question about the entire Butler County community of Connoquenessing Woodlands, whose water supply has been poisoned as a result of the shale-gas drilling that surrounds their community, or about the refusal of the drilling company to continue to provide water to the devastated members of the community, even though the drillers admitted culpability.

The Rex geologist, who was able to tell you how long most laterals are, carefully avoided discussing the fact that the many existing abandoned coal mines, shallow gas wells, and naturally occurring but unidentified geologic faults in our area provide migration pathways through which millions of gallons of toxic chemicals will begin to seep toward the surface, the instant they complete the fracking process. These are the chemicals that they hope to pump under enormous pressure into the laterals that pass under MASD property - and roughly 80% of those chemicals will remain deep underground, long after the well has run its full gas-production cycle and been capped.  Long after your lease has expired. Long after Rex Energy has gone out of business. But our children and grandchildren may still be living in this area when those chemicals finally migrate up into our aquifers, poison our fresh-water supply, and render Adams and Middlesex Townships uninhabitable.

The "produced water" or "flowback" following the fracking process also contains radioactive components that sometimes spill at the drill site or during truck transportation, and even when handled properly, must be transported far away and injected into deep underground storage facilities (not yet proven to be safe, either, but proven to trigger earthquakes in areas that have never in human history experienced earthquakes). Trucks bearing this radioactive material are increasingly setting off radiation alarms at dump sites. The trucks are being turned away and forced to travel across state lines for disposal. And the drivers of these trucks are, all the while, exposed to many hours' worth of exposure to radiation intense enough to set off alarms at dump sites. Think about that, as you evaluate Big Gas claims that they create great jobs.

Even your own solicitor's representative was oddly - perhaps tellingly - testy, defensive, and unwilling to make eye contact when asked by your own board members about indemnification.  Indemnification sounds comforting until you realize that in this case, it applies to a nearly zero probability of legal actions taken against MASD until long after Rex has folded their tent and crept far out of legal reach.  And the REAL problems that will arise - perhaps 10 or 20 years down the road - are going to be problems that your $1 million windfall couldn't begin to address, even if you put it all in escrow now, to be used against future claims, such as loss of water supply, destruction of the environment, and catastrophic loss of property value.

The loss of water supplies and property values, although high-probability eventualities, are longer-term problems that will likely peak here in Adams and Middlesex long after your terms as school-board members are completed. The more immediate issues, which the community will begin to feel as soon as this industrial process starts to ramp up less than a mile from our schools, are noise, truck traffic, and - most important of all - air pollution. Big Gas is fond of asserting that they "know how to do it safely."  Perhaps some of them do, at the intellectual level.  The problem is that everywhere in the country where this technology is currently being employed, it is NOT being done safely - and there's no evidence that the proposed well less than a mile from our schools will be the first, shining example of Big Gas finally getting it right in their desperate rush to apply this poorly understood, evolving technology. Air pollution will come in the form of the toxic chemicals that are both leaked and intentionally vented during and after the drilling process at every site like this that has ever been drilled.  There are emissions of volatile organic compounds and other toxins that are well-known carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. There are unburned hydrocarbons and additional toxins that are produced by flaring and by the myriad diesel engines that power trucks, drilling equipment, compressors, pumps, and electric generators at every drilling site.

Another fracking-related air-pollution issue is one that is already dramatically affecting gas-field workers, and will soon be producing symptoms in communities near fracking sites: the use of silica sand as a "proppant" agent. The angular shape of silica sand crystals, which makes it suitable for injection along with the toxic chemicals into cracks in shale rock to hold it open after fracking is completed, is exactly the property that also makes it the perfect agent to produce silicosis, a deadly lung disease, in humans. Universally inept handling of silica sand during transportation and at drilling sites is allowing it to enter the atmosphere and be inhaled by unprotected and unsuspecting citizens and gas-field workers.

Duane Maust blithely asserted that you won't even know the laterals are there, deep under your feet. But you asked the wrong question. You should have asked if the noise associated with drilling, fracking, and production will be disruptive to the business of running a school district. The answer to that, if he'd been willing to be truthful, would have been "yes." In fact, people living within a mile of these drilling sites are frequently subjected to noise levels that prevent them from sleeping at night, even with their windows closed. He would also have been compelled to comment on the ground-shaking explosions that will occur directly beneath your schools when the laterals are actually "fracked," which is the process by which they fire depleted-uranium projectiles into the sides of the lateral boreholes, to fracture the gas-bearing shale. That's depleted uranium as in "the munitions that have produced radiation sickness in Gulf-war soldiers who had to handle those munitions." This facet of their process only adds to the hazard presented by the naturally occurring radioactive elements that are also brought to the surface in "produced water."

Another family of lies that landmen like Duane are skilled in delivering with a straight face has to do with "inevitability." They say, "Everyone around you has signed, so you might as well go along." In fact, Duane was lying to you when he said that everyone in the entire yellow area on his map has signed leases with Rex. It's simply not true, but it's the most-often-used falsehood uttered by landmen. Another aspect of the same lie is "The well will be drilled anyway, so you might as well benefit." Don't take it for granted that the well "will be drilled."  The permit hasn't even been issued yet, and the economic viability of this well if you refuse to lease is not a foregone conclusion. Another lie used to prod the gullible and uncaring into signing leases is the false sense of urgency instilled by drillers' assertions that they're about to start drilling, and you need to respond to their offer quickly - "Hurry - get one before they're all gone!". Like, by next week. 

Just so you know, the residents and taxpayers of MASD who attended your 4 March meeting and who strongly oppose both drilling in general and your signing of this lease in particular are only a small proportion of the people here and elsewhere in your immediate sphere of impact who are actively working to prevent the destruction of our lives and our environment by this greedy industry.and their egregiously misused technology. Your board president mentioned the presence here of both risks and benefits, but she may not fully appreciate the dramatic difference between those to whom the benefits accrue and those upon whom the risks - both short-term and long-term - will fall. To think of this issue as one of balancing risks and benefits is to miss the point entirely, especially for a school district that is not destitute, and is considering acceptance of huge risks on the community's behalf in exchange for what, in the grand scheme of things, would be a trivial windfall.

I hesitate to bring it up because it's non-technical and risks getting into the 'argumentum ad hominem' realm, but it's not lost on the community that the land on which this proposed drilling site would be located is owned - and was eagerly leased - by a former president of your very school board. And it's likely that individual board members will soon be asked which of you has leased personal land for drilling, and might therefore derive personal financial benefit from expanded gas drilling in the area. Think of these issues as examples of your need to avoid "the appearance of evil."

If you truly take seriously your roles as stewards of our children's future and of our community, you MUST take a stand for our children and our environment and reject this and all future lease proposals until and unless the technology for shale-gas extraction has been proven to be safe. The deluge of slick, industry-generated TV ads ASSERTING that it is safe do not in any way comprise that proof. Duane's unsupported assertions do not comprise that proof. The overwhelming and steadily growing body of evidence of human tragedy and environmental destruction that have followed in the wake of shale-gas development around the country do, in fact, represent proof to the contrary.

If you're not willing to reject the Rex lease proposal outright at this time, I urge you to at least delay the decision until you've done some REAL research into the long-term implications of allowing this technology to creep under our school district's property, and until you've heard from more residents who are determined to protect our kids, our environment, and our property values.

This is not about a million dollars.  It's about the future health and safety of our community.

Reid Joyce

A number of health studies and reports related to fracking have been in the news recently.  In West Virginia, a state health department official has raised concerns about elevated levels of benzene, a carcinogen, in the air near shale-gas fracking sites, stating: “The concerns of the public are validated.”  A study published in the journal Endocrinology has found hormone-disrupting chemicals in surface water and groundwater near Colorado fracking sites.  A study undertaken by professors from Princeton, Columbia University and MIT shows that infants born within a 2.5-kilometer radius of fracking sites had increased chances, by more than half, of various negative health impacts.  And the latest study from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIH) states that mothers living in high-density drilling areas have a greater risk of giving birth to children with congenital birth defects.

Combine all this with a warning from a national pediatricians' group that children are more susceptible to damage from the toxic chemicals used in fracking, and are more likely to be exposed to airborne contaminants due to their many hours of outdoor play, and one can clearly see why MOB is committed to “protecting our children” from the toxic pollution generated in our communities by the shale-gas industry.

M.O.B.

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?

For years now we’ve heard individual reports about human and animal health impacts related to gas development but until now they have been dismissed as “anecdotal.”  That was until, Earthworks, a DC-based nonprofit, released the results of the largest health study in the Marcellus Shale region to date.
 
The study brings much needed quantifiable data to the discussion surrounding the health impacts of shale drilling and its related infrastructure.  Air and water tests accompanied the health data of 108 residents in 14 PA counties.  Butler county residents account for 11% of the participants.
 
The report shows a direct correlation between proximity to a facility (well, waste impoundment pit, compressor station) and the prevalence of symptoms. 
 

• In all counties except one (Bradford) the most common health symptom reported is sinus/respiratory problems.
• 40% of households (22/55) reported that pets and livestock began to have symptoms (such as seizures or losing hair) or suddenly fell ill and died after gas development began nearby.
• 15 of those surveyed stated that their symptoms lessened or disappeared when they were away from home.
• Members of 4 households moved to new locations due to gas drilling and several others stated that they would if their finances and jobs allowed it.

Read the full report http://www.earthworksaction.org/issues/detail/public_health_and_gas_development#.UKReVIZqMg8

On Aug. 23, the PA DEP issued an “environmental health and safety” violation to Rex Energy for “failure to properly store, transport, process or dispose of a residual waste” in Lancaster Township, Butler County. (Note: “Residual waste” from hydraulic fracturing is generally toxic.) And on Oct. 24, another violation of the same type occurred at a Rex Energy well in Penn Township, Butler County.

I know this because my wife and I subscribe to an online service that continuously monitors the DEP violations database and sends us notifications of violations in our area.

This online service is a valuable resource, because the DEP is not legally required to report drilling violations to the public, nor to local officials, and so, for the most part, it doesn't. If I wanted to learn more about this violation, I would need to apply to DEP for a “file review” – a rather involved process which would include a trip to the Northwest District office in Meadville.

An in-depth analysis of DEP data by the PennEnvironment Research and Policy Center, “Risky Business: An Analysis of Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling Violations in Pennsylvania 2008-2011,” identified a total of 3,355 violations of environmental laws by 64 different Marcellus Shale gas drilling companies between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2011. Of these violations, the Center identified 2,392 violations that likely posed a direct threat to the environment and were not reporting or paperwork violations. Of these thousands of violations, perhaps a handful have received any media attention.

In March, the supervisors of Center Township, Greene County, learned of a 480-gallon diesel spill into a local stream. The spill occurred in December. They learned about it because a reporter from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review did a violations file review. The supervisors were upset, saying that DEP should have notified them. Department officials told them that they wouldn't want to know about “every little spill.” “It isn't clear that DEP officials should be making that judgment if a 480-gallon spill went unreported to the public,” said Edward “Butch” Deter, chairman of the township's board of supervisors and president of the Center Township Volunteer Fire Department, Company 91.

Ed Barale, a supervisor in Amwell Township, Washington County, is also dissatisfied with DEP's lack of notification. DEP officials “don't tell us any more than they have to. I think we have a right to know. DEP keeps you in the dark, so I don't have much faith in them.” Eight Amwell residents are suing Range Resources and DEP over environmental problems they claim stem from violations committed by Range that the DEP did not report to the public.

Online services such as skytruth.org, epa-echo.gov and fractracker.org can help local residents to stay abreast of drilling violations in our area, and also, via skytruth, of new drilling permits that have been issued by the DEP for our area.

But wouldn't it be nice if the DEP would issue regular detailed drilling violation reports to all state media outlets, and especially to local officials and all residents within a mile or two of violation sites? One would think DEP would do this out of a sense of moral responsibility, or that state lawmakers would make it a legal requirement. If these violations were made public, maybe local residents would have a clearer, more realistic perception of the “safe and responsible drilling” taking place in their communities.  

j.p.m.