Tuesday, December 21, 2010

REMINDER: City Council Meeting Tomorrow Night--El Warner to Introduce Anti-Fracking Resolution

If you don't want to drink water that looks like this, and don't want to have to buy and haul and ration water from a tank in your house for the rest of your life (and lose your property value with it), come out Wednesday night and join the fight!


Posted by: Noël Jones


Per my earlier post, if you will be in town tomorrow night, please carve out an hour of time to come down to City Hall (Alpha Building, One South Third Street, 6th Floor) and support Vice-Mayor El Warner as she introduces a resolution in support of Pittsburgh residents who recently beat Big Gas and passed an ordinance banning hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" from their city limits. This resolution will pave the way for Easton and other PA communities to do the same, as both Licking Township and Nockamixon have successfully done as well. See my earlier posts on fracking for more details by typing "fracking" in the search window or clicking the links above.


I hope to see you there tomorrow--this is important to protecting our access to free, clean, healthy water in our homes and our property values as well!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a no brainer. There is no place in Easton to worry about fracking. What you need to do is go to Forks and Palmer Township --- their northern end ar estill available.

peterkc said...

I haven't seen the resolution, but a strong community stand it sends a message to the state legislature and could help protect the sources of Easton's water. Forks & Palmer aren't likely sites for drilling either, but they should also be worrying about their water!

noel jones said...

Easton does not sit on the Marcellus Shale but that does not mean that natural gas drilling can't happen here. And we still stand to have our water contaminated if our citizens do not support the efforts of other PA citizens who are engaged in this David and Goliath battle with Big Gas.

It is going to take an all-out wide-spread message from voting contingencies around the state to get the message across to our representatives and senators in Harrisburg, as well as the Governor, Governor-elect, and our PA rep on the DRBC that it is not acceptable to simply enact a severance tax to plug holes in our state budget with money from the drillers if it risks contaminating the Delaware, and therefore our tap water--forever. Good-bye free tap water. Hello expensive tanks and bottled water. Good-bye property values.

We can't afford to sit on the sidelines on this one.

tunsie said...

I love El Warner......I love Noel Jones.....They are the bestest in the whole wide world.........anonymous

tachitup said...

Read & decide!

Sorry, not a very readable paste.
You can see a better view and other pending legislation at the City of Easton website....connect through the link on the Neighbors of Easton blog.

Resolution of the City of Easton, Pennsylvania No. Date: December 22, 2010 Introduced by: Elinor Warner WHEREAS local elected officials are responsible for protecting the health, safety, and welfare of residents of their municipality; and WHEREAS laws and regulations adopted by State government authorizing certain harmful corporate activities within our municipalities have gutted our ability to protect our residents and the natural environment; and WHEREAS those State actions constitute the empowerment of a corporate minority over our community majority, and thus violate our inherent right to local, democratic, self-government, and WHEREAS making the rights of our community subordinate to corporate and State decision makers is seen most clearly in the assertion of legal privileges and powers by gas extraction corporations focused on the Marcellus Shale formation to stop municipal governments from controller gas drilling within their communities; and WHEREAS the Pittsburgh City Council is determined to make a stand on behalf of the inherent right to local self-government, to the benefit of all of our municipalities; BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Council of the City of Easton supports the City of Pittsburgh’s adoption of its Community Protection from Natural Gas Extraction Ordinance; which bans corporate gas drilling while challenging the authority of corporations to override Pittsburgh’s assertion of local self-governing powers; and that the City of Easton calls for the constitutional recognition of the right to community local self-government in Pennsylvania. This is to certify that the above Resolution was adopted by the City Council on the above date. Attest: _______________________ Signed:_____________________________ City Clerk Mayor

noel jones said...

thanks for posting the resolution, tachitup--and to all those who came out to to the city council meeting tonight--I am happy to report that the resolution passed unanimously!

as the mayor and vice-mayor both emphasized, this is not just about hydrofracking, but is also about SELF-GOVERNANCE.

this is a great step in the right direction, and I am so happy that we have strong support of the mayor and city council on both these fronts.

Cathy said...

http://www.bradfordcountypa.org/Natural-Gas.asp?specifTab=4

For those who doubted that Penn State Ext is officially working with the gas companies and facilitating drilling (calling it the "gas rush" evoking the gold rush) please check out the website above - its Bradford County Pa's website. Penn State says they are just presenting the facts and are not biased. It would be useful to know what kind of donations have come to Penn State (or Penn State Ext) from gas companies in order to truly evaluate whether this institution for public education is really unbiased.

noel jones said...

thanks for the link, Cathy!