Anti-fracking activist barred from 312.5 sq miles of Pennsylvania

[TalkingDog]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/29/vera-scroggins-fracking-activist-pennsylvania

Vera Scroggins, an outspoken opponent of fracking, is legally barred from the new county hospital. Also off-limits, unless Scroggins wants to risk fines and arrest, are the Chinese restaurant where she takes her grandchildren, the supermarkets and drug stores where she shops, the animal shelter where she adopted her Yorkshire terrier, bowling alley, recycling centre, golf club, and lake shore.

In total, 312.5 sq miles are no-go areas for Scroggins under a sweeping court order granted by a local judge that bars her from any properties owned or leased by one of the biggest drillers in the Pennsylvania natural gas rush, Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation.

"They might as well have put an ankle bracelet on me with a GPS on it and be able to track me wherever I go," Scroggins said. "I feel like I am some kind of a prisoner, that my rights have been curtailed, have been restricted."

The ban represents one of the most extreme measures taken by the oil and gas industry to date against protesters like Scroggins, who has operated peacefully and within the law including taking Yoko Ono to frack sites in her bid to elevate public concerns about fracking.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Unbelievable.....afraid it might become a trend.

How did we get so many bad judges?

[truedelphi]

2. It just might have something to do with

Big Money.

The same Big Money that has so much control over the puppets in Congress, and in our state legislatures, and for that matter sitting in the Oval Office.

These judges are also busy putting young run aways into detention centers where they get worked over by "mental health professionals." (For a kickback or two, from the facilities' owners? Huh?) Judges like this also make sure that in a child custody battle, only the richer of the two parents ends up getting custody. The other parent will get "court supervised" visitation with their own children. The visitation mandates that the non-custodial parent pay a therapist up front to supervise the visits, and then the therapist gives the judge a kickback.

The amount of criminality lurking on the bench is beyond belief.

Our era is the Robber Baron era on steroids.

[KT2000]

3. can she appeal this?

she needs to get this as far away from "local" judges as possible.

[TalkingDog]

7. I'd be surprised if the ACLU doesn't get in on this one.

And lawyers cost money, so she may need some fund raising.

[El_Johns]

4. I don't get it. Cabot is drilling under a Chinese restaurant? I just don't see how this is legal.

Pennsylvania sounds like a Nazi hellhole.

It gets worse: She hasn't done anything but protest peacefully, nothing illegal.

In court filings, Cabot said it holds leases on 200,000 acres of land, equivalent to 312.5 sq miles. That amounts to nearly 40% of the largely rural county in north-eastern Pennsylvania where Scroggins lives and where Cabot does most of its drilling.

The temporary injunction granted on 21 October does not require Cabot to identify or map the lands where it holds drilling leases, putting Scroggins in the bizarre position of having to figure out for herself which areas were off-limits.

"We need a map. We need to know where I can and can not go," she said. "Can I stop here, or can I not stop here? Is it OK to be here if I go to a business or if I go to a home? I have had to ask and check out every person I go to: 'are you leased to Cabot'?"

Many of those businesses are, it turns out. Susquehanna County is one of the most active areas in Pennsylvania's natural gas rush. Eight of the top 10 most productive gas wells are in the county, according to an industry newsletter. All eight belong to Cabot.

The company was not pressed to demonstrate the gas leases gave it the right to make such absolute decisions about access. "They have no proof that they had the right to exclude her. They didn't present evidence of leases that gave them the right to treat the property as their own," he said.

Cabot in court filings does not accuse Scroggins of violence or of causing harm to property, and she has never been arrested or charged with trespass. She has not chained herself to machinery, or staged sit-ins.

But Shepstone argued Scroggins had upset too many people to be tolerated. "I believe she is a public menace because what she does is she essentially trespasses not so much on property – though she does do that – but she trespasses on the soul of the community," he said. "She does not allow the people of this community any peace."

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/29/vera-scroggins-fracking-activist-pennsylvania


Oh, wah, wah. Outrageous fascist ruling.

Hopefully Yoko Ono will fund a defense. This is intolerable.

[El_Johns]

5. Kick for attention.

[Festivito]

6. Sounds like no peaceable assembly because we don't like your free speech.

Is there a judge who needs removal and a mental checkup?