Stephanie Hallowich in National Geographic

Stephanie Hallowich has had one of the worst experiences with natural gas drilling in PA and she has also been one of the loudest voices, speaking out for her family and others in the same situations. Her story was picked up by National Geographic and can be found at the below link.

She had this to say about it:

Our story went on National Geographic today.  It will take awhile to get through.  I needed a few tissues to get through it.  Please feel free to forward it to as many people as possible!

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/10/photogalleries/101022-energy-shale-gas-drilling-pictures/#/energy-marcellus-shale-environment-hallowich01_27145_600x450.jpg

I was fortunate enough to meet Stephanie earlier this year while visiting and touring Ron Gulla’s farm in Washington County, PA. We stopped by Stephanie’s home and I was horrified by the smell first off and the close proximity of  dehydrator tanks and a compression station, not to mention the wells…all within a 100 yards or less of her home. I couldn’t imagine being her family or having children trying to play in their backyard near this industry. You can find out more about Stephanie and her family at the above article from National Geographic or check out Faces of Frackland.

THANK YOU STEPHANIE!

Lisa Addresses Lincoln Place homeowners about Marcellus Shale

The below links are from the Lincoln Place Action Group in the Pittsburgh area. I met some of the folks who put this event together while traveling in Washington County. Lisa Graves (the speaker) is a resident of the Pittsburgh area where they are currently signing leases for drilling and she is a member of the Environmental Quality Control Board.

Part 1-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQQy5ZU2qKY

Part 2- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq9QAiyrAJM

What PA residents think of Range Resources

Here is some excellent video of the meeting with range Resources that took place in Washington County, PA today. Thanks txSharon!

http://txsharon.blogspot.com/2010/04/7-videos-what-pa-residents-thinks-of.html

Just a few Faces in Frackland

It is so easy to feel overwhelmed and powerless in this struggle to get the real story about drilling for natural gas into the eyes and ears of the residents in the areas where this is happening. For this reason I decided to take a larger step in getting closer to the truth.

This past weekend I took a trip to Washington County, PA to visit some of the folks in Hickory. This is the site of some of the very first hydro-fracked wells that existed in PA.After all, some of these wells went in back in 2005 so it seems that by this point they should all be millionaires living the good life, the economy should be well on the upturn with plenty of jobs…..at least this is what the gas industry keep telling us will be.

I have to say that isn’t quite how it’s gone down for the residents there.

I met with Ron Gulla who lost his 141 acre farm due to water pollution and dirty drilling practices by Range Resources.  Terry Greenwood and his wife are also farmers who have lost at least 7 cows due to contaminated pond and spring water. They are wondering when they might get sick too. Terry’s royalties are just enough to cover the cost of him meeting with his lawyer for 1 hour per month! He stuck in a perpetual lease signed in 1921.

Hickory Pa stinks…literally! Would you like to know what the smell of toluene, benzene, butane, ethane, propane and other NGL’s (natural gas liquids) smell like? Do you know what it’s like to go out your backdoor and walk 30 feet to the top of the ridge and get hit in the face with a blast of this stuff coming from a compressor station less than a mile from your house? Stephanie Hallowich sure does. After spending about 20 minutes in her yard I felt sick to my stomach and had a headache. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have to live there!

Wayne and Angel smith live near Clearville, PA and they’ve lost livestock as well as beloved pets due to contaminated drinking water. Both Angel and her husband Wayne are sick themselves. They’ve spent over $10,000.00 on a system to treat their water which they also use to water livestock. They hope this system is working on their water problems but what’s going to clean the air that is full of contaminates from a nearby gas storage facility? Both Spectra Energy and the DEP have been called out many times to test and view these issues and each time they have turned a blind eye to the problems in this valley.

For more information on any of these people and their stories please click on their names.

In the future you will be able to find all their faces at http://pafaces.wordpress.com/

We will post a new face and new story each day. If you have a situation that you want others to hear about please contact me through a comment on this blog or directly from the site below.

http://pafaces.wordpress.com/

Neighbors take a stand on noise, odor of gas drilling

Sunday, March 14, 2010

By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Mount Pleasant residents Dencil Backus, JoAnne Wagner and Bill Forrest stand near two “condensate” tanks, which are part of a compressor station complex in the village of Hickory , in Mount Pleasant , Washington County.

Just outside a fence enclosing a field on Debbie Hanes’ farm near Hickory in Washington County sits a noisy, smelly, two-story natural gas compressor station, running 24/7 and lit up at night like a minor league baseball park.

The rumbling noise of the four compressors in what’s known as the Fulton Station is audible a little more than 700 feet away at Ms. Hanes’ home in Mount Pleasant and to other residents of Washington Road up to a half-mile away.

MarkWest Energy Partners built the boxy, steel-clad building in 2008 for $4.4 million to collect gas from then-burgeoning Marcellus shale drilling and push it through a growing pipeline system to a processing plant eight miles to the southeast in Houston .

The station, which was expanded from two to four compressors last year without public notification, emits an industrial chemical odor into the bucolic countryside. At least once a day the operation produces a startling “belch” — a pressure release from valves located less than 50 feet from Ms. Hanes’ property line that is loud enough to spook humans, as well as her donkeys and horses in adjacent fields.

“We have farmland all around our property and the compressor station creates a huge change to the character of this neighborhood,” said Ms. Hanes, a member of a Mount Pleasant citizens committee that seeks more local input into future drilling operations. The committee has proposed an amendment to the local zoning ordinance aimed at regulating some of the noise, lighting, odor and air pollution impact associated with Marcellus shale gas drilling facilities.

Read the rest of this article here:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10073/1042737-58.stm#ixzz0iBughgSV