Town Hall Meeting 9/1/10

Please join us for a town hall meeting on Wednesday, September 1st to discuss issues pertaining to the Marcellus drilling in the state.

The meeting will be held in the basement meeting room of the Lincoln Place Presbyterian Church on Muldowney Avenue at 7:30 pm.

Attendees will State Senator Jay Costa, who will be on hand to help address any questions and concerns you have about this important issue.

Save the Date - 10/1/10

On October 1st there is going to be a conference for industry reps and pro-drilling concerns at the David Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh.

There is now a growing movement to organize a protest rally and march for those communities, organizations and individuals who are opposed to this drilling process. For more information, please visit their site:
http://www.marcellusprotest.org/

Thursday's Hearing

Last Thursday a community hearing was held in Larwenceville by Councilman Dowd to discuss Chesapeake Energy's plans to drill in city neighborhoods:
http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/blog/energy/2010/07/drilling_in_lawrenceville.html

Safety Hearings

In response to the recent series of accidents, today Senator Bob Casey held a hearing in Pittsburgh to review safety concerns regarding the drilling in the state.

http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stories/2010/07/26/daily7.html

Casey is also one of the sponsors of the Frac Act in the Senate and has been concerned about drilling in the state for a long time.

Well Explosion

http://kdka.com/local/gas.well.fatal.2.1821020.html

After attending the County Council meeting on Wednesday and listening to the industry representatives state repeatedly how safe this drilling process was, I find it slightly ironic that there is an accident at another local drilling site less than 48 hours afterward.

I do not mean to make light of the situation as two people lost their lives in the explosion.

The point is that this is a dangerous industrial process that has many short-term and long-term impacts to the communities and areas in which shale drilling is occurring and planned to take place.

What risks acceptable in this rush for gas in this state?

Update: As further information came to light about this incident, it was found that this site was not performing deep drilling in the Marcellus shale. It is however another example of the risks in any industrial operation, no matter how long the process has been in place.

Also of note, the nearest experts to deal with this type of emergency were flown in from Texas.
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/24367420/detail.html

County Council

Unfortunately there was not as much press coverage of last night's County Council meeting, however Channel had a short piece on it:
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/24346947/detail.html

I would have wished some of the citizens and environmental groups had done a more vocal presentation during the initial Q&A period. However the public comments were long, detailed and very impassioned about their views and we wanted to thank everyone who came out and spoke.

Also, the meeting was only recessed, not adjourned, so we will have more opportunities to make our voices heard on this very important issue. We will let you know when that is as more information becomes available.

City Council

There was a lot of coverage about the Pittsburgh City Council meeting on Monday regarding the drilling that is coming to a neighborhood near you.
http://kdka.com/politics/Marcellus.shale.drilling.2.1801042.html
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10194/1072396-53.stm

Please remember that there is a similar meeting with Allegheny County Council on 7/21 and with the DEP and EPA on 7/22.

For more info and to speak at the county meeting click the following:
http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/agenda/2010/20100721_Public.pdf

The DEP site is having issues at the moment, but as as soon as I can I will post more links about the meetings on the 22nd.

Make your voice heard.