Fracking at Drinking Water Source for 80,000 Pennsylvanians Raises Alarms

CNX Gas drilling site next to the Beaver Run Reservoir owned by the

Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County/Credit: Marcellus-shale.us

By Anthony Brino

InsideClimate News. Jul 19, 2011

Cynthia Walter, an ecologist at St. Vincent College outside Pittsburgh, gets a lot of emails from local wildlife enthusiasts asking about “this bird” or “that amphibian.”

But one day last year she got an uncommon request to inspect the forest cover around the Beaver Run Reservoir via Google Earth. The 1,300-acre lake is the main source of drinking water for 80,000 residents in southwestern Pennsylvania. It also rests atop the enormous Marcellus Shale gas reserve.

“Are those natural gas wells on the peninsulas?” she recalls the email sender asking.

Immediately, Walter spotted a square of barren earth on the satellite map. Later she learned that a company called CNX Gas had drilled more than a dozen wells on that bald patch from two sprawling well pads, using a controversial technique known as horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, to release gas trapped in layers of shale rock deep underground.

Continue reading Fracking Challenge to Pennsylvania Drinking Water Sources →

Court orders quick hearing on state oil and gas law challenge

By Timothy Puko, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW

by Randy Shannon

March 30, 2012

Led by Robinson Township, numerous municipalities, officials, and individuals have filed suit in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania for a Declaratory Judgment against Act 13 of 2012.

Passed with overwhelming Republican support and signed by Governor Corbett, the law was written by the gas drilling industry. The premise of the law is that the right of corporations to fully exploit all of the gas deposit in the Marcellus shale takes precedent over the lives, property, communities, and other business interests in Pennsylvania.

Continue reading Area Municipalities Sue State to Overturn Zoning Gift to Gas Drillers →

by Randy Shannon

March 29, 2012

A candlelight vigil will be held at 7pm at the Beaver County Courthouse on the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The vigil will focus on the new Pennsylvania Law that restricts access to the polls and is expected to disenfranchise over 200,000 Pennsylvania voters. The law is an attack on the democratic right to vote under the pretext that voter fraud is taking place. There have been no cases of voter fraud brought in PA. Republican lawmakers approved the law over Democratic opposition.

The vigil is sponsored by the Beaver-Lawrence AFL-CIO, SEIU Local 668, USW, and Beaver County NAACP. Speakers will include representatives of local labor unions, civil rights, and community groups, as well as local political leaders.

The American Civil Liberties Union is planning to ask for an injunction to prevent the law from influencing the 2012 election. Most voters who will be denied the ballot usually vote for Democratic candidates.  An ACLU spokesperson will address the vigil.

A limited supply of candles will be available at the vigil.

A Budget For Wall Street Versus A Budget For Main Street

Trumka calls on Pa. unions to support Obama

March 27, 2012|Jane M. Von Bergen INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

While acknowledging the “ups and downs we’ve had over the past three years,” the national head of the U.S. labor movement called on Pennsylvania union members Tuesday to mobilize to keep President Obama in office.

“President Obama stands on our side,” AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka told hundreds of AFL-CIO union delegates gathered at the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown in Philadelphia at the start of the Pennsylvania Federation of the AFL-CIO’s three-day convention.

Much of the convention will consist of union administrative business, heavily underscored with politics. But on Thursday, the AFL-CIO will also unveil a new effort to connect start-up companies with union workers before sending delegates to attend a noon rally in support of a drive to unionize 3,000 security guards working in Philadelphia’s office towers and major institutions including the University of Pennsylvania.

Continue reading Trumka Calls on Pa. Unions to Support Obama →