Another Natural Gas Ploy by the Plymouth Plantation
Meetings in Plymouth, New York have turned into a “let’s see who drove here today” phenomenon as natural gas opponents ask Pennsylvania residents to drive over an hour to talk for five minutes to a board who has already decided to wait on the DEC’s decision on natural gas development before making its own.
I recently attended another meeting in Plymouth, New York, Chenango County, to follow the natural gas conversation. I’ve been there on a few different occasions, not because they are considering a moratorium, but simply because there are a handful of people who constantly attend the meetings pestering the board on the topic of natural gas. The board seems to be waiting for the Department of Environmental Conservation to make some moves before they do, which is the smart thing to do to avoid the lawsuits we’ve seen in other towns.
What was particularly interesting at this meeting was the fact that some fairly well known folks had been enticed to drive more than an hour from Pennsylvania to speak for five minutes without knowing how much time they’d have. It was a case of mutual manipulation.
Each meeting one or two natural gas opponents from Plymouth manage to convince one or two outspoken opponents from Pennsylvania to make the long journey. We noted last time how inconsiderate this is. The guests they invite must drive approximately an hour and a half each way to come to the meeting. While this may not sound terrible, the board has made it clear they’ll only allow public comment for 30 minutes in total and each speaker only gets five minutes to speak. Once the 30 minutes is up, the meeting is no longer open for public comment. Therefore, none of the “presentations,” such as they are, constitute much more than brief comments although they’re often hyped as major talks.
This Month’s Speakers Are No Exception
This month, the lucky people duped into making the drive for a combined 10 minutes of time were the Mannings from Franklin Forks, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. We’ve discussed the situation with their property several times, but will give a recap for those not familiar.
The family recently entered into a rent to own agreement for a property located on a small parcel of land right off Route 29 near Salt Springs State Park, although they’ve lived there for a few years now. They claim their well has been contaminated with methane from nearby natural gas development, suggesting this caused the well to erupt last year, but completely overlook the submersion of their well in both the 2006 and 2011 floods that hit the area.
Initial isotopic tests show the methane in their well actually matches the signature of that found in Salt Springs State Park where documentation of water being lit on fire goes back to the late 1700′s. It goes without saying this was long before Marcellus Shale became a household name or even before the Drake Well was even developed. Further, WPX was able to recreate the eruption of the well (as can be seen in the following video), demonstrating it was actually caused by a mechanical failure. Everyone is still awaiting test results from the DEP to be released, but that hasn’t prevented the Mannings from making accusations far and wide with the help of activists like Vera Scroggins and Craig Stevens.
It’s unfortunate really. Here you have a family in the process of buying a home with a history of methane issues as is evident from the several water wells that have been drilled on the property. They are located outside the area of required water testing, which in Pennsylvania is now 2,500 feet, so there are no pre-drill water tests to offer as comparison. For context, the Mannings house isroughly a mile away from the nearest wells.
The family was at first cooperative in working with WPX, but upon the heels of Dimock’s safe water declaration, opportunists like Scroggins advised them to stop allowing the company on the property or to do further testing. This led the family to decline having their well repaired and instead they entered into a lawsuit. Now a problem that could have been fixed months ago has dragged on and the anti-movement in New York, fueled by individuals like Scroggins, has a new face to replace Dimock until testing shows otherwise. And, like the litigants in Dimock, if DEP testing confirms the methane in their water well was naturally occurring, they’ll be dropped just as quickly by the professional natural gas opposition.
Luckily, they live in a township where people are incredibly neighborly and life will hopefully go on in a friendly manner after the busloads of people have stopped coming to the small, rural community. But I digress…
Back to the Meeting
The meeting opened up to the public quickly. Many people in support of natural gas development spoke and a couple spoke against it.
When Tammy Manning spoke, she read from a letter issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) explaining there were high levels of methane in their water. She even quoted the part where the DEP noted they really won’t see any serious problems from high methane levels but also explained that, without venting the water, the methane could disperse in the home thus causing some hazard. She admitted the natural gas company has provided them a system to vent the home, which prevents this from occurring.
Whatever credibility Manning had created was completely forfeited when she then tried to tell the audience Gasland is accurate. We have debunked Gasland time and time again and now FrackNation has taken that debunking even further. She also attacked the movie Truthland, noting the woman featured, Shelly, lives very close by. She then offered what seemed to be a scripted accusation that Truthland had been produced to scam people. Well, we’ve gotten to know Shelly and her family pretty well and as a retired Christian school teacher we think she’d take exception to that statement.
Mr. Manning spoke next. He claimed their water turned black. Like so many others claiming water contamination from natural gas development it seems stories change all the time. According to Mrs. Manning, and original complaints, there were only high levels of certain things, including chloride, but their well turning black was never mentioned. He then told people he couldn’t use their stove or furnace, despite his wife acknowledging the well is now vented, thereby preventing methane from entering the house. He also claimed his family had been sick, but didn’t offer evidence of this either.
All in all, the whole Manning presentation, husband and wife combined, lacked authenticity, almost as if they had been given a storyline to follow. They, in fact, did seem like victims. Not from natural gas development but due to special interest groups determined to exploit them for the sake of making ideological arguments or, as in Yoko Ono’s case, gaining attention for themselves.
Peter Hudiburg, a local anti-natural gas activist in New York invited the Mannings. The last time he invited a person from Pennsylvania to come up and talk to the board they him they would have to abide by the five minute limit. Despite this previous warning, Hudiburg said he was “shocked” by the rule. Of course, this isn’t the first time he was “shocked.” He had a couple drive an hour and a half one way to speak for five minutes at the last meeting as well. He was upset then. The rules are the rules, the board has always given each person five minutes to speak regardless of where they came from. He again tried, to no avail, to pressure the board to bend the rules for him.
Following the board reprimanded him for constantly trying to gain exception to the five minute rule, the board also reprimanded him for placing letters in the paper implying the town is against natural gas when they have not made such a determination. He tried saying he signed it personally as “Plymouth Friends of Clean Water” but no minds were changed. The board clearly knew who it was dealing with, even if the Mannings did not.
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Has anybody asked about the radioactive radon in the gas and how much consumers would be exposed to once they use it in their homes or businesses? Where is all this water going to come from? Where and how will the waste water be stored in perpetuity? What happens if their is a drought? Who has preference for the water? Who is going to monitor and inspect all of these wells and well pad sites? How much will that cost? How much will it cost to store all of the waste water and drill cuttings? Is their an emergency response crew available or near by to stop and contain a spill, accident or well blow out? Where will all of the drill cuttings be stored? Will the well brine or “produced water” or “spent water” or “flow back” or “well brine” be re-classified as having “beneficial use” and sold to the municipal and private road plowing and snow removal companies and agencies for ice and snow removal after a DEP form or memo is signed as being OK to spread on our roads to seep into our aquifers? How long will the well casings last? What happens when they crack or leak? Who is going to pay for replacing the well casings? What happens if the their is a well migration into the water table? How will you clean up the migration or an accidental spill from a well blow out or tanker spill? Will there be emergency crews near by on stand by? Why aren’t you considering investigating alternative fuel and energy economies as outlined in the Nov 2009 issue of Scientific American or the March 2011 issue of Energy Policy? We can power the entire planet, with existing technology without fossil or nuclear energy by 2030. The Germans will obtain 80% of their energy from renewable sources by 2016 and shut down their nukes by 2022. The Germans are “not starving and freezing in the dark.” Fracking is too dangerous, too expensive and totally unnecessary for our energy needs. The threat to the water supply of 15 million people in the Delaware Water Shed is not worth the risk of one cubic foot of gas extracted by fracking.
All you ever do, Paul, is spin a bunch of unsubstantiated accusations and speculations. See my last comment on Germany. Also, your radon accusation, as one example, has been rebutted several times on our site. See:
http://eidmarcellus.org/marcellus-shale/radon-rhetoric-of-anti-expert-on-natural-gas-rejected/11289/
And all you ever do is dismiss and not answer the questions. You just act like a paid spokesperson for the gas and oil drillers. If the chemicals they use are so safe, why are they exempt from the Federal laws? There is no future in fossil or nuclear fuel and you know it. The profits of the few at the expense, illness and death of the many. The fact of the matter is that fracking is not safe, it can not be done safely at any price, it is destroying the climate, there is no safe way to dispose of the frack waste, and it is totally unnecessary for our energy needs. I don’t think that the wastes from making wind turbines and solar cells are going to contaminate potentially permanently the watershed for 15 million people. How do you clean up the water table once it is contaminated? And who is going to pay for the clean up? It will be the taxpayers at best not the oil and gas drillers who will hide behind the fine print of their gas drilling leases and “proprietary” exclusion to disclose the names and nature of the poisons they are injecting into the ground. You can’t get rid of the waste water by injecting it underground, that can and has caused earthquakes. These are not lies or wild charges. People can look them up themselves and read about in the New York Times in the Drilling Down Series or the StateImpact.NPR.org/Pennsylvania coverage. Your industry has sold us a bunch of lies. First you tell us it is “clean”, “that we need this gas as a “transition fuel” until alternative energy can be developed.” And now your industry is asking to build or convert 19 ocean port terminals to ship the natural gas overseas. I thought we needed this gas for our “energy independence”? The people are waking up and they are rising up to stop your industry. There are more of us then there are of you. We are here to save the Earth, not exploit the Earth, for the quick fast buck and leave a mess for future generations. We will not go down without a fight and we won’t be silient.
And, more of the same. Why don’t you address my comment on radon?
Radon is a decay product of NORM, Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material. It to is radioactive. Once you breath it in and it decays, it turns into radioactive lead. Your body ingests it and it ends up in your bones. As a low level radiation emitter of alpha particles, this is what causes mutations which lead to cancer. But as the usual propaganda, you just poo poo and tell the public it has such a short half life their is nothing to worry about and it has no harmful effects. All radiation is harmful, so why add to exposure for the life of the shale gas and it’s being piped into people’s homes? Why do they re mediate radon in people’s homes now when you go to buy and sell them? And now you tell the public not to worry about radon in natural gas from shale gas plays?
I have no idea where the drill cuttings are disposed and stored. But we are told to not worry about it is all taken care of and protected by the government. The PA DEP hasn’t informed me of that. The safest thing to do is leave this gas in the ground. We don’t need it. Only the greedy gas and oil companies want it. Ever since Love Canal, in NY, I don’t trust companies or the government to protect us. Corporations said similar things about nuclear power, that it “would be too cheap to meter”, that it was “safe, clean and economical.” That is all lies, just like fracking.
You keep speculating. The data show it is not a problem, as we explicitly documented in our series of posts on Resnikoff’s nonsense.
I remember the first time this couple was seen on the Internet, Vera made a video of it but in the interest of sequestering the truth she followed Bill Hustons lead and blocked me from her video library Just as Bill Huston did. This couple was coerced into replacing the Saunters by Vera showing up while the Gas company was there to mitigate as well as investigate the root cause of the gushing well, and on camera “Vera’s own video” as she was filming she kept telling these people to kick the gas company off there property and get a lawyer…That’s right the people trying to help solve the problem when it occurred were kicked off the property by Vera’s intimidation and the problem could have been solved by now! Maybe EID can access the video ? Thus giving birth to Saunters part two. You watch the testimony by Mr. Manning in the above video and you get a sense of what this is about… extortion and promises of tens of thousands of dollars in the head of a man who by his own word has just 1/3 of an acre of land who is complaining that those with lots of land get rich he gets nothing… Just watch the Video and ask yourself… why is it just members of the 1/4 acre club suing ???
Paul is just the typical anti ranting in favor of unreliable energy. He is simply clueless about the impacts of the forms of energy he endorses.
Wind turbine production produces much more radioactive waste than gas drilling and its actually causing real problems.
http://www.jlcny.org/site/index.php/news-articles./32-frontpage/1549-renewable-vs-natural-gas-
Paul, a few hippies may buy into your regurgitation of baseless remarks, but your ignorance is quite clear here. Try to learn a few facts about the unreliables you endorse, then come have an adult conversation.
You link is not working my friend. ;)
Well why don’t you tell that to the Chancellor, the German Parliament, the Bundestag and the German people? They will obtain 80 % of their energy from renewable sources by 2016 and shut down all of their nuclear power plants by 2022. I was visiting there last summer of 2012. Their economy is booming while their use of energy is declining. There are wind turbines and photovoltaic panels on every south facing roof top where ever you go ion Germany. They are not “starving and freezing in the dark.” I think it is very interesting that the German Parliament Building is powered by a combination of solar, wind, passive solar and biomass energy. You can witness it yourself by taking the tour if you are ever in Berlin. In contrast our US Capital Building in Washington, D.C. is powered by coal and the steam left over is used to heat it in the winter. Why is it the German people and their government have the” political will” to transition to renewable energy and ours does not? Could it be political campaign donations to our electic officials?
Paul, if you keep repeating these same unsubstantiated claims about “starving and freezing in the dark” which no one from EID ever said, I am going to ban your comments. We have rebutted your numerous false assertions multiple times with the simple fact Germany is building coal plants (lots of them), backing off on solar subsidies and pursuing natural gas development. You never, ever address those points and just keep repeating the same mantra. It’s growing old, so please address the points with facts. Why is Germany doing these three things if it’s not a recognition that reliance on renewables alone won’t work?
Also…….can you please link me to the wind turbine production/radioactive waste site? Thanks.
Fred, not sure why the link didn’t work, but here’s direct link to a presentation that has reference links:
http://www.jlcny.org/site/attachments/article/1549/If%20Not%20Natural%20Gas%20POWERPOINT-rev012013.pdf
some of the pages that reference the radioactive material problems:
21,22,41,50,51,52
Thanks! I’ll read it……..
Here is an article from a website that is called Cal Watch Dog, written by Chriss Street, that talks about the radioactive waste from the mining for Rare Earth metals needed to build wind turbines.
It states:
“In support of his continuing political agenda, Al Gore joined Van Jones last week to argue for wind power’s “clean energy” as a replacement for fossil fuels’ “dirty energy.” Inconveniently for Mr. Gore, the truth is that mining and processing key materials to make the magnets in wind power turbines are releasing massive amounts massive amounts of air, water and ground pollution, including enormous quantities of radioactive waste into the global ecosphere.”
It also states:
“California was the world’s largest producer of REEs until 2002, when the huge Mountain Pass open pit mine was closed after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency determined that 600,000 gallons of highly radioactive mining wastewater had been spilled onto the surrounding desert between 1984 and 1998. The water contained highly concentrated amounts of radium, which has a half-life of 1600 years, and thorium, which has a half-life of 14 billion years.”
And one more quote from the article:
“So compared to the radioactive waste from wind energy to the radioactive waste in an “equivalent” nuclear power facility to produce the same amount of electricity, wind energy is dirtier — with 250 percent the amount of radioactive waste! The next time you hear someone promote wind energy as a renewable, sustainable, clean, green source of energy that will give us energy independence, ask if it will also help the earth glow in the dark.”
And one more thing:
“Note: The writer is indebted to John Droz Jr. for the technical research and analysis provided for this report. Mr. Droz has been a physicist and an environmental activist for over 25 years. He received undergraduate degrees in physics and math from Boston College and a graduate degree in physics from Syracuse University. John has been a participating member of the Sierra Club and the Adirondack Council.”
Read more at:
http://www.calwatchdog.com/2012/06/06/shock-wind-energy-goes-radioactive/
And here’s some more interesting information about Al Gore. He just recently sold the Current TV network that he owned for $500 MILLION DOLLARS to AL JEZEERA !!!
See this story and WATCH THE VIDEO which shows how the anti’s react to this news!!!
http://www.mrctv.org/videos/environmentalists-okay-al-gore-selling-current-tv-oil-money
There you go again, with fear and smear. I will get back to you on your other points and do my home work. But this is a democracy. And money shouldn’t be used to squash the debate and destroy the environment for private gain for the few.
Honestly Paul Roden,
How do qualify Donald Roessler’s assertions as being little more than “fear and smear,” but then somehow differentiate your own assertions of “destroy[ing] the environment for private gain for the few” as being a valid factual point?
Can anyone say ‘height of hypocrisy?’
I’d love to hear you explain exactly how the pollution caused by rare earth mining and processing, necessary for the construction of wind/hydro turbines and solar panels, is different or somehow more nobel than the pollution caused by oil and gas extraction and use?
Is it simply different because over 90% of rare earth mining and processing is done a great distance away from your backyard in the People’s Republic of China? How exactly will supporting Chinese jobs help to boost the current American economic and employment situation? What would moving the hundreds of thousands of jobs that oil and gas provide here in the US over to China do to improve the lives of Americans?
How could you sleep at night knowing that if you got your way, hundreds of thousands of families in this country would be reduced to unemployment, poverty, and more likely than not government assistance, our country would become even more dependent on global and political adversaries such as China and Russia, and in effect, we’d be exploiting the Chinese and Russian people, their environment, while all the while continuing to contribute to the globabl “destroy[ing] [of] the environment for private gain for the few.”
In essense, what would change for the positive if you got your way, exactly – because quite frankly, I only see negatives to your preferred outcome?!?!
So well said!!!
Fracking should be banned, period. If Vermont and several European counties banned it, them there’s a damn good reason why. If you frack-lovers want fracking so bad, then YOU go get your backyard fracked and drink your own well water and please, by all means, tell us how safe it is.
Tell us how clear, refreshing and clean your water is (sarcasm intended). Then, after your liver starts to swell, your pancreas enlarges and wonder why you suddenly got cancer – please, by all means, tell us why you support fracking. Let your goats, cows, horses and dogs drink that contaminated water, please, by all means, tell us why your livestock died. Why they had stillborns. Why they lost so much weight. Why they stopped producing milk and became infertile. Why your dogs all died. Tell us then, why you support fracking. The once quiet country roads will become a truck highway. The night sky so dark you can see the Milky Way, will become bright with light from the drilling tower and no more stars to see. The air once cool and fresh, now with the stench of disel and methane from the trucks. The quietness of rural life destroyed by sounds of the boom of the gas well drilling. The forests leveled, the streams polluted and dead fish rotting on the river from the chemicals poured into the fracking well. Please, tell us how safe it is. The cancer-causing chemicals poured with water deep into the earth, rises into the ground water. I could care less about some stupid movie, I care only for facts, and the facts say that FRACKING IS ALL ABOUT PROFIT. They don’t give a rats ass about health. They’ll do anything to dub down the truth with rosé colored glasses with a pocket of lies and deceit.
Please, tell me how safe fracking is, when you wonder why your child suddenly became terminally ill from your own polluted water and there’s a drilling well next door.
Nice to know how much you care, Dan.