Pittsburgh says "No!" to fracking

This was a landmark occasion. The city council of Pittsburgh, Pa unanimously voted for an ordinance banning natural gas drilling in the city. Yes! Magazine reports:

The ordinance sponsor, Pittsburgh Councilman Doug Shields, led the charge to ban drilling, and was later joined by five co-sponsors. During the months leading up to today’s vote, Shields passionately advocated for the ordinance, saying that the city is “not a colony of the state and will not sit quietly by as our city gets drilled.” He sees this fight as about far more than drilling, saying “It’s about our authority as a community to decide, not corporations deciding for us.”

Drafted by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), Pittsburgh’s ordinance elevates the rights of people, the community, and nature over corporate “rights” and challenges the authority of the state to pre-empt community decision-making.

These issues have come up elsewhere and will likely escalate. We can expect that more local governments will take up this CELDF ordinance to resist corporate encroachments on their communities and their environments. A lot of the outrage in Pittsburgh has been the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that has granted corporations more rights than its citizens. Corporations are individuals with more legal and procedural power, freedom, and rights than you and your neighbors (image courtesy of Yes!). The Pittsburgh ordinance confronts that face-on:

As Councilman Shields stated after the vote, “This ordinance recognizes and secures expanded civil rights for the people of Pittsburgh, and it prohibits activities which would violate those rights. It protects the authority of the people of Pittsburgh to pass this ordinance by undoing corporate privileges that place the rights of the people of Pittsburgh at the mercy of gas corporations.”

Provisions in the ordinance eliminate corporate “personhood” rights within the city for corporations seeking to drill, and remove the ability of corporations to wield the Commerce and Contracts Clauses of the U.S. Constitution to override community decision-making.

So what do you think? Should people press these onward at multiple levels? Or should there be some more moderated approach through stricter or more efficient regulation?

Pittsburgh says

Shale Gas: Jekyll and Hyde

Last week, we encouraged you to watch the 60 Minutes piece on shale gas extraction. We've included it below for you to watch again. A lot of the issues we've discussed on the show were front and center. From the need to reduce carbon emissions to the national security/military issues associated with oil to the dreadful costs to communities and ecosystems in terms of water pollution and truck traffic, this feature gets into a lot of the things we've questioned our guests about.



What do you think of Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon's statements comparing Drano and frack water? If we are willing to clean our drains in our own houses with toxic chemicals, why not do it in a massive industrial process? If we use lawn killers and other toxins in our everyday lives, do we have the right to go after natural gas companies? What's the difference?

Sierra Club director Michael Brune argues that natural gas is the future and it has to be more tightly regulated. Some of our guests think it can't be. If he's right, do we have to deal with our own Jekyll and Hyde? What do you think we should do to make sure this is done "the right way?"

Marcellus trucks overwhelmingly in violation

The Philadelphia City Paper reports that "Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Pennsylvania State Police announced yesterday that a crackdown on trucks hauling wastewater from Marcellus Shale drilling operations yielded the following results: of 1,175 trucks inspected, 1,057 were found to be violating state laws."

The DEP's "Operation FracNET" which ran from October 25-27 placed "207 [trucks]...out of service because of safety concerns. Fifty-two drivers were also removed from service...The most common problems involved unsecured loads and inoperable vehicle lights and lamps."

What is trucking like in your area? What impacts have you seen? Have the police been effective in maintaining your community's safety?

Hiking? Drilling?

In April, Curt Ashenrood of the Keystone Trails Association spoke in favor of Pennsylvania legislature's House Bill 2235 that placed a "moratorium on leasing State forest lands for the purposes of natural gas exploration, drilling or production; imposing duties on the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources; and providing for report contents." The bill passed with Governor Rendell's signature and you can watch Ashenrood's testimony here, courtesy of Faces of Frackland.



Now it seems that we are in a less certain place. According to the Centre Daily Times, Pennsylvania's governor elect "lift Rendell's executive order preventing the issuing of any more drilling leases in state forests." According to Common Cause, as of May, Corbett was the "recipient of $361,207, with 93% of these contributions coming since January 2008." By the time the campaign ended the Centre Daily Times reports that he received nearly $1 million in campaign money. And now we have president Obama joining the cause according to NPR's Living on Earth who, following the recent "shellacking" by the Republican party, has decided to endorse natural gas development.

This is all potentially bad news for hikers, bikers, hunters, and fishermen and the plants and animals they so enjoy in Pennsylvania's expansive state forests.

Are you a hiker? What do you think about the moratorium?

60 Minutes piece on the Marcellus Shale

The Sierra Club has just sent out a media alert. This Sunday evening, November 14, the top-rated CBS program 60 Minutes, will be featuring a piece investigating the environmental damage caused by inadequate regulation in the natural gas industry. Lesley Stahl interviewed Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune extensively for the story.

Sierra Club is one of the most vocal and powerful environmental conservation groups in the country and has been committed to fighting for effective natural gas regulation in the face of the massive and barely controlled rush, including fighting to keep the oil and gas industry out of areas where drilling and production poses unacceptable risks. To learn more about their efforts, go here and get news, views, and ways to connect with other concerned citizens. If you want to involve yourself with central Pennsylvania's chapter, go the Moshannon branch of the Sierra Club's website here. Their members are hosting free screenings of Gasland in the coming couple of weeks.

Check your local listings to tune in to 60 Minutes this Sunday.

Tracking the Fracking

What kind of tracking information is available for us on the natural gas development of the Marcellus Shale play? Just a few months ago, some people in and around State College were wondering how to track the scope of the problem and lamenting that they didn't have the time or the infrastructure to do something that seemed so necessary. But as it turns out, there is a large amount of data out there.

The Center for Healthy Environments and Communities (CHEC) of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health has developed FracTracker:

In response to the growing concerns regarding Marcellus Shale gas extraction's impacts...FracTracker is a combination of a web-based DataTool for tracking & visualizing data related to gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale region, & perhaps in other shale regions in the future, & a blog for synthesizing data.

As you may know from following much local media in Pennsylvania and from talking to your friends, neighbors, and family members across the state, the natural gas industry is impacting Pennsylvania enormously. While some people are making a fortune, others are being exposed to the produced water from the fracking process, workers have died, cows have been quarantined, wells have blown out, water has been contaminated with gas from leaking wells, children have gotten sick, communities and ecosystems have been disrupted by noise and traffic, and roads have been crushed by truck traffic.

Maps and analysis can help us get some handle on the scope of these issues. For example, you can view this map of recorded violations from 1-1-2007 and 9-30-2010 (pictured at left - taken from FracTracker). Like we've been doing with some bloggers who live in Marcellus production areas, some on-the-ground interviewing is illuminating as well (watch this interview with exposed to contaminated water).

That's why we will be talking to Samantha Malone (Communications Specialist for FracTracker) on our show this week. We will talk about Frac Tracker, why it's needed, what it's showing about the Marcellus Shale play development, and how it compares to other places in the United States that have had long-term shale gas drilling.

Listen in on Friday November 11th from 4-5 pm on The Lion 90.7 fm.