Mayor Panto and Suburban Water Authority Establishing Baseline & Preparing for the Worst

Please submit a comment to the Delaware River Basin Commission by April 15th: Click here to go to the web page to comment on the proposed regulations they are trying to rush through so that new drilling can start before the EPA study is complete.

Posted by: Noël Jones


Amongst all the insanity of the day with regard to Pennsylvania's natural gas rush (see my two previous posts on this today) at least Mayor Panto is getting a jump on the issue by coordinating with


Suburban Water Authority to start testing for radionuclides every 6 months (rather than every 9 years as required by law) to establish a baseline and monitor any increases in radioactivity in our drinking water, once the drillers get the green light from Harrisburg and the DRBC to start drilling tens of thousands of new gas wells in the Delaware Watershed, which provides drinking water to 15 million of us in four states.


Here is Ed Sieger's article from the Express-Times on this new development.


Thank you, Mayor Panto, for taking this health risk seriously and taking precautions to help protect residents from the toxic waste of the fracking process along our river. And thanks to Vice-Mayor El Warner too, for proposing the resolution to support Pittsburgh on their ban on fracking within city limits!


Hopefully other neighboring community with follow Easton's lead, take safety precautions of their own, and pass resolutions and ordinances to support banning new drilling until the EPA study on cumulative health impacts is complete.


Even though the study is not complete yet, here is a quote from Sieger's article, drawing from a letter that the U.S. EPA wrote to the PA DEP--note that this letter was sent prior to today's announcement that Governor Corbett has ordered the end to all citations for drilling violations by DEP inspectors without prior consent from his administration:


"The EPA sent a letter to the DEP earlier this month applauding state officials for additional regulations and water quality monitoring.

But reports have showed that wastewater generated by gas drilling operations sometimes contains "high concentrations of materials that may present a threat to human health and aquatic environment," according to the letter.

The EPA specifically cites radionuclides and indicates it's important to "investigate the presence of these substances in the treated drinking water in affected watersheds and to inform the public as to whether and at what levels radionuclides occur in their water supply," according to the letter."