I am responding to David Spigelmyer's letter ("Stick to the Facts") in the Dec. 13 Butler Eagle, and also to the Jeer in that same edition that made light of health studies related to unconventional drilling.

In his letter, Mr. Spigelmyer touts Pennsylvania's strong regulatory framework with regard to the oil and gas industry, while imploring us to "stick to the facts."  With pleasure...

Fact: a recent Harrisburg Patriot-News investigation has uncovered "systemic failures" on the part of state regulators to enforce environmental, health and safety standards for the multibillion-dollar oil and gas industry.   http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2015/10/state_regulators_fail_to_prote.html#incart_m-rpt-2

Fact: The federal Environmental Protection Agency has found "major issues" with the Pennsylvania DEP in a recent review of DEP practices.  http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2015/11/federal_regulators_find_major.html

Fact: The EPA itself is under fire from its own scientists re: a study of fracking's effects on drinking water; the scientists refute the study's claim that fracking "has not led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States."  http://insideclimatenews.org/news/19112015/fracking-water-pollution-epa-study-natural-gas-drilling?utm_source=Inside+Climate+News&utm_campaign=3c54768dcb-Weekly_Newsletter_11_22_201511_20_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-3c54768dcb-327748361

What we have here is a case of tumbling regulatory dominoes, making it doubtful that the public can trust the oil and gas industry to be adequately regulated at any level, state or federal.

Both Mr. Spigelmyer's letter and the editorial Jeer refer to health studies done in relation to unconventional drilling.  Regarding such studies, let's be clear: none of these studies are "conclusive."  All of them point to the need for further research.  So by all means let's throw caution to the wind and "drill baby drill" near schools and residential areas until all the research is completed!   How many times have we done this in our nation's sad industrial-health history, only to rue the consequences later?

Health care practitioners at the Southwest PA Environmental Health Project in Washington County are assisting residents with medical issues that reflect those being indicated by these studies.
In the press release to the Johns Hopkins University study linking proximity of unconventional drilling to premature births and high-risk pregnancies, lead researcher Dr. Brian Schwartz, MD states: "The first studies have all shown health impacts.  Policymakers need to consider findings like these in thinking about how they allow this industry to go forward."  http://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2015/study-fracking-industry-wells-associated-with-premature-birth.html
Meanwhile, local policymakers in Middlesex and Butler townships and other municipalities in Butler County have seen fit to approve unconventional drilling in close proximity to schools and residential neighborhoods in the face of all scientific medical research and what most of us consider sound zoning practices.  In the zoning boards as well as the lower courts there seem to be two and only two guiding principles with regard to zoning for drilling, both of which benefit leaseholders: 1.) a person has the right to develop his property as he sees fit, and 2.) a person can get money from this kind of development.

This new approach to "zoning" poses significant soul-searching for me as I try to figure out the most profitable use for my half-acre.  A methadone clinic?  An adult bookstore?  Maybe a small-scale nuclear waste dumping site?  Points to ponder.  At least there's one thing which apparently I don't need to worry about: how any of these options might impact my neighbors...

Hey -- I got my rights!!!

Mr. Spigelmyer's comments are to be expected from someone who is paid handsomely by the gas industry to make it look good.  And I suppose the disparaging editorial comments from a newspaper that receives thousands of dollars annually in advertisements (read: propaganda) from the gas industry is to be expected as well.

j.p.m.

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

Lest we get depressed with the recent decision handed down by Judge Yeager on the Middlesex Twp. zoning case, let's look at another struggle: the Civil Rights struggle of the '50's and '60's.

In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery (AL) bus. She was charged with disorderly conduct and violating a local ordinance. A 381-day boycott of the buses, a near bankrupting of the transit company, and a federal court decision saying such practices as segregated bus seats were unconstitutional didn't end the practice; it just made it illegal.

Although the 1954 Brown v Board of Education of Topeka decreed that segregated schools were unconstitutional, many schools remained segregated.  In 1957, 9 black teens had to be escorted by Army and National Guard troops to classes at Little Rock's Central High School -- the first black students to attend school there.  The troops were there to "maintain order and peace."

In 1960, four black students sat at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina and asked to be served. They were not. They were forced to leave when the store closed. A group of black students in Nashville, replicating the Greensboro event, were beaten by white teens and then arrested for disorderly conduct.

In 1961, black and white passengers were savagely beaten and imprisoned for riding together on buses from Washington, D.C. to cities in the Deep South in the Freedom Rides, designed to test the Supreme Court's ruling in Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which declared segregation in interstate bus and rail stations unconstitutional.

In 1962, after repeated failures to gain admittance to the University of Mississippi, James Merideth was admitted when a federal court ruled that the school could not bar a student based on race. It took 500 troops to allow him to enroll and he was continually harassed.

In 1963 Dr. King delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech in front of over 200,000 people in Washington, DC, but also in that year Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers was assassinated in Mississippi and four young girls were killed in a church bombing perpetrated by Ku Klux Klan members in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Civil Rights Act was passed and signed into law in 1964. It ended, at least in legal theory, the unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public.  Yet when it came to registering African-American voters, discrimination continued.

In 1965, following several peaceful voting rights demonstrations (including one in which Civil Rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson was murdered by a police officer in Marion, AL), a series of marches from Selma to Montgomery AL were initiated. The first attempt was brutally halted by state troopers and county possemen who attacked the unarmed marchers with billy clubs and tear gas. The news footage of "Bloody Sunday" galvanized the country and President Johnson announced that he was sending a voting rights bill to Congress, which later that year became the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

So what does all this long-suffering and brutality have to do with the Middlesex Twp. zoning case?  It offers us a powerful lesson: we will not lose unless we quit fighting.  This is true of the legal process and beyond.  In 2013 the PA Supreme Court ruled that Act 13 zoning is unconstitutional, stating that shale-gas drilling is an industrial use which is incompatible with residential zoning uses.  Yet township solicitors continue to ignore these admonitions, and now a county judge has done so as well.  And so this case will be appealed to the Commonwealth Court and ultimately the state Supreme Court.  We lose only if we quit fighting.

But it is equally true beyond the legal process.  Beyond the obvious abomination of a heavy industrial use placed in a formerly quiet residential neighborhood, there is the growing evidence that shale-gas drilling is an abomination to the planet -- to the air we breathe, the water we drink, to our children, pets and wildlife and to our climatological system that is growing more out of control by the month.  This abomination must be stopped.  

Despite laws being passed that were designed to help protect the rights of minorities, the Civil Rights movement had to keep implementing protests and demonstrations to bring the true spirit of those laws to fruition.  Our state and country may or may not pass laws to address the abomination of shale-gas drilling; it may be up to us to continue to draw attention to these hazards and keep them in the forefront of the public consciousness, just as Martin Luther King and other Civil Rights activists did with black rights issues in the '50's and '60's.  We can't give up until shale-gas drilling is banned everywhere on the planet in favor of clean and renewable energy.

Make no mistake: the shale-gas protest movement is very much a civil-rights movement: our right to clean air, pure water and a healthy environment for decades to come.  These rights were established by Pennsylvania's Environmental Rights Amendment -- Article I, Section 27 of the PA Constitution --  in 1970, and re-affirmed in the Robinson Township case of 2013.  Like the civil rights laws of the '50's and '60's, they are being ignored.  Like those brave activists and organizers, we must continue the fight.  We will not lose, unless we quit fighting.

-- Michael Bagdes-Canning

"We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all — by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians — be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us.
How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing." 
Wendell Berry, from Compromise, Hell!  

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice but, left to its own devices, that arc would, indeed, be long.

Sometimes, the arc needs a little help. Human history is packed with people helping the arc along by confronting injustice.

Many of us profess to be Christians. Jesus is one of those historic figures who helped bend the arc of justice. One example: In his first appearance at the temple in Nazareth, Jesus quotes the Prophet Isaiah.
 
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because God has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."  (Luke 4: 16-19)

How would quoting the Prophet Isaiah help bend the arc of justice? Nazareth and all of Judaea was an occupied land. The power of the day, Rome, and those complicit were benefitting from the enslavement of the poor, the captives, the oppressed. Jesus, speaking out, was calling out the oppressors. He said what others dared not say. He so enraged those that heard him that they tried to kill him, driving him to the edge of a hill where they hoped he would plunge to his death.  (Luke 4: 20-30)
 
American history, too, has those who bend the moral arc toward justice.

The Boston Tea Party was a reaction to the coercive powers of the British East India Company. It was, in essence, the ExxonMobil of its day. In order to see that its profits were robust (because a Dutch company's smuggled tea was undercutting the East India Company), Parliament enacted a series of "intolerable" laws. The colonists reacted to those laws with an act of civil disobedience (and destruction of property) by tossing tea overboard. Today we celebrate those brave "activists."

Rosa Park, too, bent the arc toward justice. The story goes that she was a simple seamstress too tired to move when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery AL bus in 1955. Parks was no simple seamstress and she may have been tired but, more likely, she was sick and tired of being treated shabbily because of the color of her skin. Parks broke the law supporting segregation but, in so doing, addressed a greater injustice.

We here in Butler County are faced with an injustice. Our communities are being industrialized, our air, water and soil are being befouled, our health is being compromised and our government is not acting to protect us.

We (MOB and concerned others) have responded to this by availing ourselves of all of the legal avenues available to us. We have: filed permit appeals; worked toward appropriate zoning; done DEP file reviews; appealed to our local, state, and federal government officials; engaged in marches and rallies; invited in experts and victims to speak of the harms of unconventional drilling and fracking; sued and sought other legal relief, and many, many other tools.
 
We have, however, shied away from asking our members to consider the sorts of tools that accelerate the bend of the arc toward justice.

My personal call to nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience was first activated when I watched on a live stream as my favorite author, Wendell Berry, went to visit the Governor of Kentucky (his home state), and refused to leave his office until the Governor acted to protect Kentucky from the ravages of mountaintop removal coal mining. Berry spent the weekend "camped" in the Governor's office, garnering lots of press and making a powerful point.

In the quote at the beginning of this article, Berry -- an octogenarian, farmer, philosopher, poet, novelist and essayist -- tells us that we must be "radical" if we are to rid ourselves of those who would oppress us.  And how does he define "radical"?  As "being thorough."  "Being thorough" means using all the tools at our disposal to affect change.  It means emulating the likes of Jesus and the Boston Tea Party activists and Rosa Parks and Dr. King and Wendell Berry.  Their actions may make us feel uncomfortable, but history shows us that this is how real change happens and justice is won.  We all know that the system is broken but most of us continue to play the game even though it's rigged. It's going to take some brave people to stand up and say that they are no longer going to play by the rules that are meant to keep us losing. When enough people stand up, the rules will change.

Undoubtedly we will have to stretch well beyond our comfort zones to accelerate the bending of the arc of the moral universe toward justice in Butler County.  But it is not beyond our capability to do so.

-- Michael Bagdes-Canning
​
(The opinions expressed in this blog do not reflect any official positions held by MOB or any of its members.)

Imagine the following scenario: due to an unspecified natural disaster, 40 families in the Adams/Middlesex Township area of Butler County are left without potable drinking water.  How long do you think it would take local, county and state agencies to step in and remedy that situation?  You can bet that action would be swift.

But let's imagine the unthinkable.  Let's imagine that four years had passed and nothing had been done to return fresh, clean drinking water to these families.  What would be happening then?  The public outrage from local residents would be deafening.  Donations from churches and businesses from around the county and beyond would be pouring in.  No doubt millions of dollars would be raised to help these families.  And the recent battle cry "Where's Our Water?" would take on a greater and deeper significance.

Such a natural disaster has indeed occurred in Butler County.  Forty families in Connoquenessing Township are without potable drinking water.  Duquesne University professor John Stolz has determined, through lengthy and ongoing research, that some sort of geological disruption (we needn't speculate on what caused the geological disruption) has caused toxic substances from old coal mines in the area to flow into the groundwater of the Woodlands neighborhood, contaminating the domestic water supplies of 40 families in that neighborhood.  And yes, the unthinkable has happened: some of these families have been without fresh, clean drinking water for four years.  Please pause in your reading and imagine that daily reality for four years if you can.

So.  Where is the large-scale public outrage?  Where are the millions of dollars in donations?  Non-existent.  A small handful of churches and businesses -- a miniscule percentage of the churches, businesses and faith-based organizations in Butler County -- have reached out to help these people.  One church in the area set up a "water bank" where these families could come and receive bottled water for their daily needs -- only a small percentage of what the Red Cross estimates is necessary for optimum human survival. 
 
And on Aug. 24, that water bank was forced to close its doors due to a drastic fall-off in donations.
Which leads one to ask: why are so many churches and businesses reluctant to lend aid to these needy families?  The answer seems obvious.  Early on in the Woodlands saga, the drilling industry was implicated as a plausible culprit in the contamination of these water wells.  Using incomplete water test data (the infamous Suite Code 942), PA DEP exonerated the drillers from any culpability. County and local officials proffered a few totally inadequate remedies, then walked away and left residents to fend for themselves.

But the sociological damage had been done.  The drillers had been implicated, and we all know that nobody wants to get involved in controversies involving the drillers: the "goose that lays the golden eggs" -- it's bad for business!  So churches and businesses have turned away in droves from this drama of human suffering occurring in our own back yard.  If it had been a flood or tornado that had caused this suffering, relief aid would have been sudden and swift.  Four years later, these families would have had fresh clean water for the past three years at least, instead of having gone without it for four.  But because the drillers were implicated early on, businesses and churches don't want to get involved.

Butler County communities pride themselves in being "Christian communities."  I'd like to appeal to that Christian spirit now.  Stop worrying about whether or not you're going to offend "the goose that lays the golden eggs"!  These are HUMAN BEINGS we're talking about here!  Human beings who have gone without fresh drinking water for FOUR YEARS!  THINK about that!  Think about it and open your wallets, give of your time, do whatever it takes to make sure these people have clean water.  It DOESN'T MATTER how it happened!  It does and it doesn't; like so much else in this sad chapter of our regional history, it will no doubt all be sorted out in the courts eventually.  But for now, these people need our help.
  
Jesus said: "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, that you do unto me."  Don't tell Jesus: "Those people have always had bad water!  They're just trying to get something for nothing!  They deserve to suffer!"  None of that is true.  After four years, you should know better.  Please help these people.  Donations can be made at the Water for Woodlands website or through White Oak Springs Presbyterian Church in Renfrew (102 Shannon Rd, Renfrew, PA 16053).

Shame on us all if this situation goes on for one more year without a viable permanent solution being in place or well underway!

JPM

I have often wondered what a captured community would look like, a community that was under the crippling heel of an invader. Would the local press be nonresponsive to local peoples and do the bidding of the invaders? Would local government carry water for the invaders and sell the locals down the river? Recent weeks have helped me see.

On Saturday, Marcellus Outreach Butler hosted one of the foremost experts in the world on ultrafine particles and the Butler Eagle didn't see fit to cover the event. Dr. Michael McCawley, a scientist, not an anti-fracking advocate, outlined the catastrophic consequences of ultrafine particles on human health (childhood asthma, cardiopulmonary disease and cancer) and then shared research that links the production of ultrafine particles and shale gas extraction and infrastructure. Considering the steady drumbeat of scientific studies that have been released in this same vein in the last several weeks, McCawley's information was not surprising. What is surprising is the lack of interest by the self proclaimed "Butler County's great daily newspaper." Coupled with recent editorial decisions to cheer on this killer industry and to misrepresent and smear local residents trying to protect their homes and children, the Eagle is nonresponsive to the needs of the locals and doing the bidding of the invaders.

Government agencies carrying water for invaders has a long and tragic history. Butler County government entities selling locals down the river adds another chapter.

The Woodlands has been without water for over 4 years and dependent upon a water bank for over 3 and not a penny of local impact fees have been sent their way. About the only thing folks from the Woodlands have gotten from Connoquenessing Township and Butler County is a smearing of their character and a denial of science. If having your wells poisoned by nearby drilling isn't an impact, what is? But they aren't the only locals being sold down the river. Middlesex, Butler and Franklin Township and Connoquenessing Borough have also seen local officials act irresponsibly when it comes to protecting residents.

The Butler School District acted recklessly in September, 2013 when they didn't cancel classes at Summit Elementary when the Kozik Brothers well was flaring 500 feet from the playground and 900 feet from the school. The recklessness continued this spring when the Butler Area School District decided to expand that school, putting more children in harm's way. One of Dr. McCawley's findings points to the risk to health when one is so close to a well (and a flaring well is even more problematic). Right on cue, XTO decided to expand the operation at the Kozik site. Of course, Summit isn't the only Butler Area school in close proximity to an active well. Connoquenessing Elementary is a mere 1900 feet from another well pad. And Butler isn't alone; unfortunately, children in other local school districts have also elected to put children at risk by leasing school properties and other school districts (and private schools and daycares) are threatened because of reckless neighbors.

Butler County is an invaded community and the local press and government bodies do little more than act as cheerleaders and enablers. If the Eagle won't dig for truth and local politicians won't do our bidding, it's time for change. It's time for the Eagle to act like a "great daily paper" and it's time for the rest of us to kick the bums out.

mbc

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.