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

"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

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

Gary Neely's July 29 Letter to the Butler Eagle (Don't Blame Fracking) contains many easily refutable claims with which I will dispense forthwith.

I have written about the Woodlands water situation several times in the past, but since the pertinent facts seem to have escaped Neely's grasp, I shall here reiterate...

1. Despite Neely's claim that “the Woodlands water was never any good,” the residents whose water suddenly turned every color of the rainbow and made them and their pets ill after fracking commenced in the area claim to have had good water for at least 10 years prior to the onset of fracking. Many impacted families had their water tested and certified clean and healthy before drilling started for reasons such as mortgage requirements.
   
   
2. According to an Associated Press 2012 file review of PA DEP records, man-made industrial chemicals were found in Woodlands residents' water samples post-fracking that were not there previously. Fracking is the only industry currently present in the Woodlands area.
   
   
3. The Associated Press also uncovered previously undisclosed problems with cement seals on gas wells in the Woodlands via a DEP file review. Although not “officially” linked to Woodlands water problems, faulty cement casings have been linked to polluted aquifers in other areas.
   
   
4. Former DEP employees testifying in a Washington County court case have stated that the DEP in recent years has routinely generated incomplete water testing results statewide that have exonerated drillers in Marcellus Shale water complaint cases. A file review conducted by a Pittsburgh newspaper revealed that Woodlands water test results were among those flagged with the “Suite Code 942” designation.
   
   
5. In the past nine months, every new round of fracking has resulted in more families having their water go bad. Coincidence?
   

Neely's thoughts then ranged to the people of western New York, whom, he claims, are unhappy with that state's moratorium on drilling that denies them this multi-billion dollar industry. Actually, many residents in western New York are concerned about fracking's negative effects on the lucrative industries they already have, such as tourism and agriculture, as well as its effects on their health and the health of their children and grandchildren. That's why many communities in western New York have actually gone beyond the state's moratorium and enacted total bans on unconventional drilling and hydraulic fracturing. And in instances where these bans have been subject to lawsuits, the New York Supreme Court has upheld these land-use ordinances that prohibit fracking.

Lastly, Neely credits the fossil fuel industry for having created the American middle class. If that is so, then the current global culture of corporate greed is certainly bringing about its demise. Make no mistake: the drillers in your back yard are part of a multinational conglomerate, despite their attempts to create a warm and fuzzy “local” feeling. And the shale gas they frack from under your feet will be sold to the highest bidder on the global market. And, brothers and sisters, that ain't you and that ain't me.

Not that any of this will deter Neely and others like him from continuing to worship at the altar of fossil fuels. But the wave of renewable energy is fast approaching. It has to happen. As Bob Dylan once said: “Your old road is rapidly aging. So get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand, for the times, they are a-changing...”  


j.p.m.

A letter to the editor published in the Butler Eagle on April 26, 2013 with the original title If you See Something, Say Something

The April 21 Butler Eagle article “Natural gas development thriving in Butler County” focuses on the positives that the fracking boom has brought to Butler County, while downplaying the damages.
The article reports that there have been “just 41 violations reported across all wells (in Butler County), resulting in about $11,000 total in fines. Most wells that have been issued violations have received only one, while no site has received more than three citations from the DEP (Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection).”
One thing many people overlook when assessing these numbers is that violations are assigned to a unit (or a well) and not a pad. A pad can have numerous wellheads.
For example, according to the DEP’s website, there are seven wellheads on the Voll/Soergel pad on Woodlands Road. Three thousand feet to the west sits the Gilliland site with 10 wellheads. Combined, they have four recorded violations, according to the DEP website on oil and gas.
None of the numerous “unintentional returns” and “discharges” into streams during pipeline construction are reported in the DEP system.
One such example was the February 2011 leak into Crab Run next to the Gilliland well. At that time, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission was investigating more than a dozen such spills into Connoquenessing Creek and its tributaries. There is no way of knowing how many have occurred in the county.
Many pads also house compressor stations to push the gas through the pipeline. Last week, it was reported that MarkWest, Rex Energy’s midstream partner in the area, was found by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to be in violation of the Clean Air Act. MarkWest operates many of the compressor stations, including the one on the Voll/Soergel pad, and the cryogenic plant in Connoquenessing. Its plant in Jackson Township is located about a mile from the Seneca Valley School District’s secondary school campus, and the Jackson supervisors have just approved a third plant right next door.
The third plant will be larger than the previous two combined.
If we are going to peddle the exaggerated short-term benefits of toxic fracking, should we not also be studying the devastation and violations? Should we not look at the whole process and not just the narrow view of the industry’s public relations campaigns?
In the middle of the biggest expansion of its responsibilities in recent history, the DEP’s budget has been slashed to historic lows. The recently resigned head of the agency, Michael Krancer, stated that he placed growth of the natural gas industry above oversight.
Additionally, as the deadly explosion in West, Texas, clearly demonstrated, a lack of documented violations does not make a facility safe. Far from it. It often points to a lack of proper oversight.
It has therefore been left to investigative journalists, grassroots organizations with limited resources, and concerned taxpayers to shine a light on the dangers of this industry.

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?