Dear Editor:
The people pleading loudest for a moratorium on natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania are NOT “environmentalists.” They’re actually regular people…some of whom you may even know. They’re people who teach our children, drive the school buses, work in our grocery stores. They’re people who’ve minded their own business for years, who went about raising their families, working at careers, paying their taxes. And suddenly, these people have woken up to a nightmare: threats of economic and environmental carnage they never thought possible in America.
I’m one of those people. And having never been an “activist” before in my life, I’m amazed at the complacency of those who live throughout the Scranton area who continue living their lives as if this industry of destruction isn’t steamrolling straight for their doorsteps! Do they not realize that the natural gas industry is relying on that complacency? Do they not realize that this time, it will NOT all work out? That we are on the threshold of a return to the days of the coal barons…and that after the natural gas drillers are done with us, they will leave us in even worse shape than ever?
Here’s what I know. I know that right along with our children’s school buses, there will be thousands upon thousands of tanker trucks filled with toxic chemicals roaring down I-81 and all roads leading in and out of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. I know there isn’t a single fire department in the local area capable of handling a major spill or a well blow out, and that the nearest emergency response team is located in Texas – five hours away. I know that the only emergency response plan in existence for an accident is evacuation. I know there are well pads being constructed within a mile of Lackawanna State Park. I know that the waste water (filled with almost 600 chemicals that are carcinogenic and disruptors of the endocrine system in fetuses) are being disposed of by crystallization and sale to PennDot to de-ice our roadways this winter. I know that what remains is being diluted and dumped into our local rivers. (You see, the technology for cleaning those fluids hasn’t been invented yet.) I know that 70 percent of the jobs in the industry are going to people from out of state…not to Pennsylvanians. I know the gas industry hopes to have 168,000 wells in place during the next five years and 785,000 wells in the next ten. I know that hunters who shoot deer that have ingested frack-water from ponds on drill sites will be taking their lives into their own hands by eating the venison.
So. Now that you know it’s not just tree-hugging radicals protesting this industry’s invasion into our area, are you the least bit concerned? I hope so. Write your legislators. Tell them to slow down. Demand a moratorium until this industry gets the kinks worked out.
Virginia Cody
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