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| Out my kitchen window |
I live in Northeastern Pennsylvania, more toward the center of the state. I moved to this area over 8 years ago from Southern California. The two states are vastly different. From an area with polluted skies, polluted beaches, traffic and overcrowding, to wide open spaces, blue sky and trees-–lots of them. It is here where I have found my soul. And my world is changing in ways that overwhelm and frighten me.
Since I’ve been living here, I’ve been more in tune with the cycles of Nature. The winters, with their cold snowy days, the spring, with the robins and their complainant chirping about something unknown; they were my alarm clock. The summer with its hot sun, and the fall–Oh the fall! But now it is a rare treat to hear the robins. The snow is now pinking and the fall has lost Her colors. And summer brings on air pollution-- the likes I haven’t seen in a very long time.
I am in the middle of the Marcellus Shale “play”, and some other type of fossil fuel deposit that has yet to be revealed but is what I believe to be oil, (although the gas companies aren’t letting on they are looking for it), and I am overwhelmed by the changes. What was once a blue sky at sunrise and sunset is now replaced with haze tinted with orange and pink. Even the storm clouds no longer have their silver linings, but pink ones. What was once a sleepy town is replaced by noise of traffic from water trucks, drilling trucks, fracking trucks and anything else gas related. Neighbors are in conflict over who “signed up” and who didn’t. And the ones who did, have a glow in their eyes, as if they are proud they “beat Mother Nature into submission”. Money is a great mistress; it gives one temporary satisfaction and makes them hungry for more. And money is what is driving my world into ruin.
The neighbors to the south of me signed up; having an 8-inch gas pipeline traverse their property. I was offered money for this venture; to the tune of the equivalent of an electric double wall oven. While the size of the pipe might not seem a lot, the amount of devastation to lay this pipe is phenomenal. I have seen firsthand the damage done to property and trees by heavy equipment and people driving that equipment. "Oh yes, the land gets put back", the gas companies say, but they forgot one important thing--–the trees. Can they "put back" the 60 foot maple they tore out? Can they transplant another 100 year old fir? Can they find another tree similar to the one you and your grandpa planted? Sure, the land “gets put back”; Mother Nature in her way tries to repair the wounds we have given Her as best as She can. And She too is feeling overwhelmed.
The neighbors to the southwest of me have signed up. A vertical gas well now sits on their property, waiting to be fracked. The thought of this brings me dread. Fracking is the process by which a horizontal bore is drilled from a vertical well, in the attempt to break (frack) rock and force natural gas back out the hole. But the problem is with leakage. The gas finds a way to release, and sometimes this is back to the surface, in ground water or the aquifer which is used as our water supply, or it travels somewhere else in its attempt to get away from the pressure. Who can tell where it goes? The gas companies can’t and they bank on everything going right. Right now I am less than 1500 feet from this well, and I will be less than 500 feet from the fracked well. And there will be as many as six horizontal fracked wells coming off this one wellhead.
There are more vertical wells drilled around me; another four in fact. And when all is said and done, this number will at least double. Multiply that by six and I don’t need to tell you the amount of devastation, danger and other substantial negatives to this situation.
I have a friend who is worried; she can’t water her fruit trees or vegetable garden. The state has authorized withdrawal of water from a creek--our main tributary--near her, and she is worried that if she waters her property, her well will run dry. So she hopes it rains on her vegetables; her main source of food.
Many people I know have signed up; happy they chose this route. They feel that because they laid out guidelines for drilling in their lease that those guidelines will be honored. But truly, can one believe that? Recently an article appeared in a local magazine about a gas company damming up our main tributary to obtain water for fracking. This was completely illegal. Only when a nearby resident began filming the process then sending the pictures to a local writer as well as the Department of Environmental Protection, (and the article came as a result), were people made aware. But Mother Nature slapped this company in the face. Just a few short months after the building of the illegal dam, She let loose a torrential storm which destroyed it. The DEP stepped in and scolded the company, forcing them to obtain water in a different way. The company, to my knowledge, wasn’t fined.
Are mistakes like these on my horizon? I come from an area with lots of development. I used to work for attorneys who represented clients who had illegal things done to their property, or wildlife that had been displaced or ruined. And I am a pragmatist. How can I hope that here will be different?
People here do things mostly on a handshake. The honor system still rules in some areas. And it is this thinking that I feel is leading people down a dangerous road. A farmer near me signed up. And because the gas company couldn’t properly contain the spent fracking water in a holding pond, it did what water does-–ran off into a creek. From which the farmer’s cattle drank and are now quarantined. This water contained contaminants such as benzene, propylene glycol and some other undisclosed substances due to a loophole in the environmental protection laws under Haliburton. What is interesting to note is that people ARE finding out; as surreptitious as companies want to be over what they feel is “proprietary”. And I’m thankful for the information.
