Primer helps residents battle shale industry with 'citizens army'

[Bravo Zulu]

from left: June Beal, Michael Long, Joan John and Marigrace Butela, all of Dunbar, listen as Adam Garber speaks at a workshop Saturday hosted by the PennEnvironment Research and Policy Center to help people organize around Marcellus Shale gas issues.

Among 25 people who assembled at the Carnegie Library in Connellsville Saturday, Phyllis Carr was on the "after" side of the Marcellus Shale industry: Her family has been falling ill, she said, since two gas wells and three compressor stations began operating on a property 250 feet away from her home in Lake Lynn, Fayette County.

The others were still "before" and turned out to learn skills to protect their properties, groundwater and the streams they fish in.

Organizers from PennEnvironment and Earthworks held the training session, one of many being planned through the spring, to help people organize and present a case to legislators for stricter gas drilling regulations.

The group included fishermen, water-quality professionals and several environmental activists.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11016/1118385-455.stm#ixzz1BEMYdvEx

[hootinholler]

1. Fracking Bastards!

Fracking must stop.

-Hoot

[truedelphi]

2. My heart goes out to these people.

However, I do wanna point out that people in Colorado have been fighting these battles for years. And so those in PA need to turn to those people, and see what they have learned.

No sense in re-inventing the wheel. Time and energy needs to be conserved, so studying up on what the Colorado folks have done and how they did it might be an enormous help.

Also Theo Colburn, who is a very noted researcher on the harms of environmental pollution, was someone fighting this battle, as she had bought a home in CO that ended up being polluted by the fracking. She probably has a lot of science on the harms of these operations.

In saying this, I am assuming she is still alive. The fracking that went on around her home had made her quite ill. Great irony there - she was one of the first scientists to say that Multiple Chemical Sensitivities is not in the sufferers' heads - and now she too has this disease. (I don't mean to imply that sometimes Multiple Chemical Sensitivities is not actually sometimes a different disease. Many Lyme sufferers find out they really aren't MCS - once the Lyme's Disease in their system has been detected and combatted with appropriate drugs.)

[WillyT]

3. HUGE K & R !!!

:kick: