Pipeline Plan, Designed To Deceive

[RDA - Responsible Drilling Alliance]

Picnics Not Pipelines

 

Lycoming, Sullivan and Bradford counties have long provided outdoor recreation, river gateways, rolling hills, family farms, river towns, historic districts and quaint rural villages. PA’s Endless Mountain region helps to bolster the state's $26-billion-a-year tourism industry.  But Central New York Oil and Gas Company wants to install an industrial gas pipeline that would tear up over 600 acres of land; replacing wooded mountains and pastoral landscapes with 39 miles of hub line, additional miles of lateral gathering lines, access roads, massive compressor units, filter separators, gas coolers and other industrial machinery. The company is seeking eminent domain status. If granted, their plans and their route could never be stopped or diverted by citizens and/or private property owners. This pipeline would truly serve as the enabler for the industrialization of the entire region.

 

Earthjustice, a national environmental organization, has once again stepped up to the plate to assist us with this challenge.  The “Picnics Not Pipelines” campaign has been launched. Please visit the website to quickly and easily send your message to the regulating agency that is making the decision on this pipeline. If you live in Lycoming, Bradford or Sullivan County –you also have the opportunity to contact your County Commissioners via this website. A map of the proposed pipeline, as well as a slideshow and video are also available.

 

Please take action right now. The comment period ends soon.
www.picnicsnotpipelines.org

 

Stories from the front lines

7 - 9 pm

Tuesday, June 21st

Loyalsock Community Center Gymnasium

(former Becht School, Sheridan St entrance)

Weston Wilson, retired EPA Scientist 

This former EPA employee explains the history of hydraulic fracturing, energy industry exemptions from environmental laws, how wells fail, and why a comprehensive study is needed. 
Tara Meixsell, author of Collateral Damage
An author and citizen activist who chronicles the lives impacted by gas and oil development and her part in effecting political and legislative change in her home state of Colorado.  
Rick Roles, Colorado ranch owner
A Colorado ranch owner relates the story of gas drilling on his property in Rifle, Colorado.
Jeff & Jodi Andrysick, farmers & filmakers 
Producers and directors the documentary film “All Fracked Up”, the Andrysicks will describe how citizen action helped prevent the installation of a frackwater disposal well just 1/2 mile from Keuka, a NY Fingerlake. 

Admission is free.

Donations to cover speakers’ expenses gratefully accepted.
Sponsored by: Responsible Drilling Alliance
 www.ResponsibleDrillingAlliance.org

 

Designed to Deceive

 

Researched and written by RDA Working Group member Jon Bogle

 

Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry’s “Marcellus Shale Fast Facts” is designed to deceive by giving the illusion that the Marcellus gas industry has produced several times more jobs than L&I's own statistics indicate. Our tax-funded state agency is being used as a public relations and advocacy arm of the Marcellus industry.

 

We have grown accustomed to the Marcellus Shale Coalition regaling us with wildly exaggerated claims of the jobs, taxes, and economic development from gas drilling.  Shockingly, their new exaggerations come directly from the current Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry’s web page. This new product of the Corbett administration is meant to give cover to the meager reality of Marcellus job
creation.

 

Labor and Industry states: “Marcellus Shale industries total employment is 141,000…”

 

Marcellus Shale Coalition spin: “According to data presented by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry to the Governor’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission, there are some 141,000 employees statewide in Marcellus Shale and related industries…”

 

FACT:  This quoted figure of 141,000 is a composite of the employment in the core drilling, pipeline, and ancillary industries. Only a small number of enterprises and workers in the ancillary industries are employed in Marcellus' work.

 

In 2010 there were 18,000 employees in the six industrial categories that make up the core drilling and pipeline workers. Not all of these, however, work in the Marcellus play. Pennsylvania’s “traditional” vertical gas well industry has been claimed as Marcellus numbers. Pennsylvania has over 50,000 producing gas wells, second only to Texas, drilled by this native industry.

 

The 21 industrial categories that make up the ancillary industries have almost 123,000 employees.  These are statewide figures and only a small number of the employees in these industries are engaged in Marcellus shale work.  Anyone who works in a sewer plant, does environmental consulting, or provides engineering services anywhere in Pennsylvania has been counted as a Marcellus industry worker.  We would have to believe, for instance, that the services of almost 37,000 engineers were needed to drill 1440 wells last year.

 

Labor and Industry’s 10-page document acknowledges this fact, just once in fine print, with this understatement: “While the vast majority of Marcellus Shale employment can be found in these
industries, not all establishments in these industries are necessarily involved in Marcellus Shale.”

 

Labor and Industry states: “48,000 new hires within the Marcellus Shale core and ancillary industries”

 

Marcellus Shale Coalition spins:  “nearly 48,000 new hires have been made into Marcellus jobs since the end of 2009, with 9,000 men and women hired in the first quarter of 2011 alone…”

 

FACT:  There are far more “new hires” than there are “new jobs”. From 2008 to 2010, jobs in the core industries grew by 8,685 and the ancillary industries added 1,938 (only 10,623 additional jobs in three years.) These “new hires” appear to be mostly replacement workers and then, as stated above, only a minority of those were actually employed in Marcellus activities. 

 

Marcellus Shale Coalition spin:  “more than 70% of these new hires call Pennsylvania home…”

 

FACT:  If 70% of the 48,000 new hires were from Pennsylvania then approximately 14,000 came from out of state.  Since this is more than the job growth in the reported industries, it would appear that some Pennsylvanians were replaced by out of state workers.

 

CONCLUSION: The Marcellus play accounts for a tiny fraction of the state’s 6.3-million person labor force, and core drilling and pipeline workers are primarily from out of state.  

 

Note: All statistics quoted are from PA Dept. of Labor and Industry’s “Marcellus Shale Fast Facts”

 

South Side Citizens’ Meeting

 

7:00 pm - June 20th

South Williamsport High School

 

The South Williamsport zoning board convenes next Monday night to consider the request of Fracqua Resources LLC , located on Sylvan Dell Road. The company is requesting permits to operate a consumptive water withdrawal site and a frack water recycling plant.  If granted, this is sure to bring excessive truck traffic, significant property devaluation, as well as a host of health, safety and nuisance issues throughout South Williamsport and Armstrong Township.  Industry trucks would travel the Market St Bridge, Maynard St. Bridge, Southern Ave, and Route 15 as needed.   Truck traffic would certainly create congestion and delays and present a challenge to residents, school buses and visitors. Those in close proximity to this industrial development could have health challenges related to air quality and would certainly have significantly diminished quality of peace, quiet, and enjoyment of the neighborhood and surrounding environs.  Additional hazards could be posed during high water as the area slated for development is located in the flood way and has flooded in the past.

 

Please plan to attend this meeting and voice your concerns.