Public Comments

Kenneth Jaffe, MD

Meredith, NY

SUSQUEHANNA RIVER BASIN COMMISSION September 15, 2011

Thank you for the opportunity to address the Commission. I want voice my objection to permits to withdraw water, and to address the responsibilities of this commission in the light of new scientific information concerning hydrofracking and drinking water quality. I’ll start by referring to the SUSQUEHANNA RIVER BASIN COMPACT.

The Compacts Policy and Standard states that the Commission should act “in accordance with the best interests of the people of the basin and the states”  and “the commission may assume jurisdiction whenever it determines…. that the effectuation of the comprehensive plan so requires………  the commission may adopt such rules, regulations,  and water quality standards as may be required to preserve, protect, improve, and develop the quality of the waters of the basin.

What is missing from the agenda today is a discussion of the best interests of the people of the basin in “preserving and protecting water quality standard”  in the light of scientific information that has come to light in the past year concerning the risk of fracking to drinking water.

In August 2010, Dr. Philip Landrigan, nation’s leading authority on environmental health impacts on children, testified before the EPA. Dr. Landrigan is Professor and Chair of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and heads their Center for Children’s Environmental Health.  He told the EPA

“As pediatricians specializing in environmental medicine, we at The Center for Children’s Environmental Health are opposed to the current use of hydraulic fracturing not only due to the multiple known risks to children’s health, but also due to the substantial lack of research into the health effects of this practice. While this particular void in research is prominent and must be addressed, multiple health concerns have already been brought up by a wide range of individuals and groups, from rural communities to political bodies and environmental organizations to public health experts.”

That was a year ago.

The research void pointed out by Dr. Landrigan in August 2010 has been partially filled, making two things clear. First the information shows that fracking pollutes drinking water. Secondly that the void in our knowledge is even more dangerous and deep, that it appeared a year ago.

Days after Dr. Landrigan spoke, the EPA called a meeting in Wyoming where EPA Superfund Investigators, after studying drinking water contamination from gas drilling, spoke to residents of the town of Pavillion. They told the residents to not drink their water. They were told to leave their windows open when they shower or do laundry to avoid explosion. That might seem almost comical in the northeast in the winter, if it was not so meaningful, and disturbing.

In December 2010, the EPA in Texas filed suit against Range Resources under the Emergency Powers Section of the Safe Drinking Water Act. The EPA scientific staff detailed how Range’s gas drilling activities had contaminated drinking water wells with methane, and powerful carcinogens, including benzene.  US Justice Department is enforcing the Emergency Order in federal court.

In May 2011 in PA, after poisoning the drinking water of 16 families in Bradford County, Chesapeake Company was fined almost a million dollars by the PA DEP. Still there has been no systematic government study of ground water contamination in PA.  And numerous reported cases of livestock illness and death associated with surface spills in PA that have gone uninvestigated by PA government.

In April 2011 the National Academy of Science published research led by Osborne at Duke that demonstrating that the contamination of drinking water wells with explosive levels of methane increased the closer the well is to a fracking site. This was a peer reviewed study—-the first peer review study that investigated the relationship between fracking and drinking water contamination. Neither government nor industry has funded any peer reviewed research on this issue. This study was funded by Duke University.

In July, a PA newpaper quoted Professor Terry Engelder of Penn State concerning drinking water contamination even with new triple cased wells, “as long as the state is finding violations,  you can take the next logical step, which is obviously they haven’t solved the problem.”

This month, NY DEC SGEIS acknowledges the fact that gas drilling poses a serious threat to drinking water, by banning drilling in certain surface water systems (NYC and Syracuse) and groundwater systems. They made a policy decision to protect drinking water from primary aquifers but not other sole source aquifers. This distinction is not based on science or law. This rules would protect the health of 300,000 NY users primary aquifers in the Marcellus region, but not over 800,000 users of non-primary aquifers exposed to the same risks. Many of these 800,000 people are in the Susquehanna River Basin.

What have we heard from industry in the past year?  The same story, that there is no problem, that it is impossible for drinking water contamination to occur from fracking.  Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of ExxonMobil, told Congress:

“There have been over a million wells hydraulically fractured in the history of the industry, and there is not one, not one, reported case of a freshwater aquifer having ever been contaminated from hydraulic fracturing. Not one.”

Given the many episode of aquifer contamination identified by government and academics, we know that Mr. Tillerson’s statement is a shameful falsehood. His statement, echoed, and echoed again by the gas industry, is in the sordid tradition of lead paint manufacturers and tobacco companies that for decades, and with full knowledge of risks, denied those risks, and poisoned people hiding behind  fake science and, more relevant to this discussion, government protection to continue their practices.

Most jarring are statements last month from former EPA officials to the NY Times that hundreds of cases of drinking water contamination were known to industry, but investigators were barred from seeing those records, as court settlements sealed these public health impacts and hid them from officials. This information gives us, and you, a fuller idea of the extent of industry’s knowledge of drinking water contamination, and their use of secrecy to hide the extent of the drinking water pollution from public scrutiny.

With what we have learned in the past year, the scales should fall from your eyes. It is past the time when you could say you do not know that the drinking water quality and the health of the people in SRB are under attack by the current policy on hydrofracking.  You have the facts to tell you this process is not safe.  It is also time to acknowledge that you do not yet know the full extent of the threat.

It is time to stop being so credulous with an industry that has consistently lied to you and the public about safety. Frankly, by maintaining the status quo, the Commission runs the risk appearing as puppets of an industry that acts with a shameless and callous disregard to public health.

You are being asked—-to follow the SUSQUEHANNA RIVER BASINCOMPACT’s mandate

“to protect the water quality of the basin in accordance with the best interests of the people of the basin.” You should halt hydrofracking in the SRB, and not entertain resumption until thorough, unimpeded, objective scientific study of drinking water and health impacts is completed.

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Thank you for the opportunity to speak before the court.  When I first met Mr. Manross, the sentencing officer who prepared the pre-sentence report, he explained that it was essentially his job to “get to know me.”  He said he had to get to know who I really was and why I did what I did in order to decide what kind of sentence was appropriate.  I was struck by the fact that he was the first person in this courthouse to call me by my first name, or even really look me in the eye.  I appreciate this opportunity to speak openly to you for the first time.  I’m not here asking for your mercy, but I am here asking that you know me.

Mr. Huber has leveled a lot of character attacks at me, many of which are contrary to Mr. Manross’s report.  While reading Mr Huber’s critiques of my character and my integrity, as well as his assumptions about my motivations, I was reminded that Mr Huber and I have never had a conversation.    Over the two and half years of this prosecution, he has never asked me any of the questions that he makes assumptions about in the government’s report.  Apparently, Mr. Huber has never considered it his job to get to know me, and yet he is quite willing to disregard the opinions of the one person who does see that as his job.

There are alternating characterizations that Mr Huber would like you to believe about me.  In one paragraph, the government claims I “played out the parts of accuser, jury, and judge as he determined the fate of the oil and gas lease auction and its intended participants that day.”   In the very next paragraph, they claim,  “It was not the defendant’s crimes that effected such a change.” Mr Huber would lead you to believe that I’m either a dangerous criminal who holds the oil and gas industry in the palm of my hand, or I’m just an incompetent child who didn’t affect the outcome of anything.  As evidenced by the continued back and forth of contradictory arguments in the government’s memorandum, they’re not quite sure which of those extreme caricatures I am, but they are certain that I am nothing in between.  Rather than the job of getting to know me, it seems Mr Huber prefers the job of fitting me into whatever extreme characterization is most politically expedient at the moment.

"… those who write the rules are those who profit from the status quo. If we want to change that status quo, we might have to work outside of those rules because the legal pathways available to us have been structured precisely to make sure we don’t make any substantial change."

http://americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/tim_dechristopher.php

In nearly every paragraph, the government’s memorandum uses the words lie, lied, lying, liar.  It makes me want to thank whatever clerk edited out the words “pants on fire.”  Their report doesn’t mention the fact that at the auction in question, the first person who asked me what I was doing there was Agent Dan Love.  And I told him very clearly that I was there to stand in the way of an illegitimate auction that threatened my future.  I proceeded to answer all of his questions openly and honestly, and have done so to this day when speaking about that auction in any forum, including this courtroom.  The entire basis for the false statements charge that I was convicted of was the fact that I wrote my real name and address on a form that included the words “bona fide bidder.”  When I sat there on the witness stand, Mr Romney asked me if I ever had any intention of being a bona fide bidder.  I responded by asking Mr Romney to clarify what “bona fide bidder” meant in this context.  Mr Romney then withdrew the question and moved on to the next subject.  On that right there is the entire basis for the government’s repeated attacks on my integrity.  Ambition should be made of sterner stuff, your honor.

Mr Huber also makes grand assumptions about my level of respect for the rule of law.  The government claims a long prison sentence is necessary to counteract the political statements I’ve made and promote a respect for the law.  The only evidence provided for my lack of respect for the law is political statements that I’ve made in public forums.  Again, the government doesn’t mention my actions in regard to the drastic restrictions that were put upon my defense in this courtroom.  My political disagreements with the court about the proper role of a jury in the legal system are probably well known.  I’ve given several public speeches and interviews about how the jury system was established and how it has evolved to its current state.  Outside of this courtroom, I’ve made my views clear that I agree with the founding fathers that juries should be the conscience of the community and a defense against legislative tyranny.  I even went so far as to organize a book study group that read about the history of jury nullification.  Some of the participants in that book group later began passing out leaflets to the public about jury rights, as is their right.  Mr Huber was apparently so outraged by this that he made the slanderous accusations that I tried to taint the jury.  He didn’t specify the extra number of months that I should spend in prison for the heinous activity of holding a book group at the Unitarian Church and quoting Thomas Jefferson in public, but he says you should have “little tolerance for this behavior.”

But here is the important point that Mr Huber would rather ignore.  Despite my strong disagreements with the court about the Constitutional basis for the limits on my defense, while I was in this courtroom I respected the authority of the court.  Whether I agreed with them or not, I abided by the restrictions that you put on me and my legal team.  I never attempted to “taint” the jury, as Mr Huber claimed, by sharing any of the relevant facts about the auction in question that the court had decided were off limits.  I didn’t burst out and tell the jury that I successfully raised the down payment and offered it to the BLM.  I didn’t let the jury know that the auction was later reversed because it was illegitimate in the first place.  To this day I still think I should have had the right to do so, but disagreement with the law should not be confused with disrespect for the law.

My public statements about jury nullification were not the only political statements that Mr Huber thinks I should be punished for.  As the government’s memorandum points out, I have also made public statements about the value of civil disobedience in bringing the rule of law closer to our shared sense of justice.  In fact, I have openly and explicitly called for nonviolent civil disobedience against mountaintop removal coal mining in my home state of West Virginia.  Mountaintop removal is itself an illegal activity, which has always been in violation of the Clean Water Act, and it is an illegal activity that kills people.  A West Virginia state investigation found that Massey Energy had been cited with 62,923 violations of the law in the ten years preceding the disaster that killed 29 people last year.  The investigation also revealed that Massey paid for almost none of those violations because the company provided millions of dollars worth of campaign contributions that elected most of the appeals court judges in the state.  When I was growing up in West Virginia, my mother was one of many who pursued every legal avenue for making the coal industry follow the law.  She commented at hearings, wrote petitions and filed lawsuits, and many have continued to do ever since, to no avail.  I actually have great respect for the rule of law, because I see what happens when it doesn’t exist, as is the case with the fossil fuel industry.  Those crimes committed by Massey Energy led not only to the deaths of their own workers, but to the deaths of countless local residents, such as Joshua McCormick, who died of kidney cancer at age 22 because he was unlucky enough to live downstream from a coal mine.  When a corrupted government is no longer willing to uphold the rule of law, I advocate that citizens step up to that responsibility.

This is really the heart of what this case is about.  The rule of law is dependent upon a government that is willing to abide by the law.  Disrespect for the rule of law begins when the government believes itself and its corporate sponsors to be above the law.

Mr Huber claims that the seriousness of my offense was that I “obstructed lawful government proceedings.”  But the auction in question was not a lawful proceeding.  I know you’ve heard another case about some of the irregularities for which the auction was overturned.  But that case did not involve the BLM’s blatant violation of Secretarial Order 3226, which was a law that went into effect in 2001 and required the BLM to weigh the impacts on climate change for all its major decisions, particularly resource development.  A federal judge in Montana ruled last year that the BLM was in constant violation of this law throughout the Bush administration.  In all the proceedings and debates about this auction, no apologist for the government or the BLM has ever even tried to claim that the BLM followed this law.  In both the December 2008 auction and the creation of the Resource Management Plan on which this auction was based, the BLM did not even attempt to follow this law.

And this law is not a trivial regulation about crossing t’s or dotting i’s to make some government accountant’s job easier.  This law was put into effect to mitigate the impacts of catastrophic climate change and defend a livable future on this planet.  This law was about protecting the survival of young generations.  That’s kind of a big deal.  It’s a very big deal to me.  If the government is going to refuse to step up to that responsibility to defend a livable future, I believe that creates a moral imperative for me and other citizens.  My future, and the future of everyone I care about, is being traded for short term profits.  I take that very personally.  Until our leaders take seriously their responsibility to pass on a healthy and just world to the next generation, I will continue this fight.

The government has made the claim that there were legal alternatives to standing in the way of this auction.  Particularly, I could have filed a written protest against certain parcels.  The government does not mention, however, that two months prior to this auction, in October 2008, a Congressional report was released that looked into those protests.  The report, by the House committee on public lands, stated that it had become common practice for the BLM to take volunteers from the oil and gas industry to process those permits.  The oil industry was paying people specifically to volunteer for the industry that was supposed to be regulating it, and it was to those industry staff that I would have been appealing.  Moreover, this auction was just three months after the New York Times reported on a major scandal involving Department of the Interior regulators who were taking bribes of sex and drugs from the oil companies that they were supposed to be regulating.  In 2008, this was the condition of the rule of law, for which Mr Huber says I lacked respect.  Just as the legal avenues which people in West Virginia have been pursuing for 30 years, the legal avenues in this case were constructed precisely to protect the corporations who control the government.

The reality is not that I lack respect for the law; it’s that I have greater respect for justice.  Where there is a conflict between the law and the higher moral code that we all share, my loyalty is to that higher moral code.  I know Mr Huber disagrees with me on this.  He wrote that “The rule of law is the bedrock of our civilized society, not acts of ‘civil disobedience’ committed in the name of the cause of the day.”  That’s an especially ironic statement when he is representing the United States of America, a place where the rule of law was created through acts of civil disobedience.  Since those bedrock acts of civil disobedience by our founding fathers, the rule of law in this country has continued to grow closer to our shared higher moral code through the civil disobedience that drew attention to legalized injustice.  The authority of the government exists to the degree that the rule of law reflects the higher moral code of the citizens, and throughout American history, it has been civil disobedience that has bound them together.

This philosophical difference is serious enough that Mr Huber thinks I should be imprisoned to discourage the spread of this idea.  Much of the government’s memorandum focuses on the political statements that I’ve made in public.  But it hasn’t always been this way.  When Mr Huber was arguing that my defense should be limited, he addressed my views this way: “The public square is the proper stage for the defendant’s message, not criminal proceedings in federal court.”  But now that the jury is gone, Mr. Huber wants to take my message from the public square and make it a central part of these federal court proceedings.  I have no problem with that.  I’m just as willing to have those views on display as I’ve ever been.

The government’s memorandum states, “As opposed to preventing this particular defendant from committing further crimes, the sentence should be crafted ‘to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct’ by others.”  Their concern is not the danger that I present, but the danger presented by my ideas and words that might lead others to action.  Perhaps Mr Huber is right to be concerned.  He represents the United States Government.  His job is to protect those currently in power, and by extension, their corporate sponsors.  After months of no action after the auction, the way I found out about my indictment was the day before it happened, Pat Shea got a call from an Associated Press reporter who said, “I just wanted to let you know that tomorrow Tim is going to be indicted, and this is what the charges are going to be.”  That reporter had gotten that information two weeks earlier from an oil industry lobbyist.  Our request for disclosure of what role that lobbyist played in the US Attorney’s office was denied, but we know that she apparently holds sway and that the government feels the need to protect the industry’s interests.

The things that I’ve been publicly saying may indeed be threatening to that power structure. There have been several references to the speech I gave after the conviction, but I’ve only ever seen half of one sentence of that speech quoted.  In the government’s report, they actually had to add their own words to that one sentence to make it sound more threatening.   But the speech was about empowerment.  It was about recognizing our interconnectedness rather than viewing ourselves as isolated individuals.  The message of the speech was that when people stand together, they no longer have to be exploited by powerful corporations.  Alienation is perhaps the most effective tool of control in America, and every reminder of our real connectedness weakens that tool.

But the sentencing guidelines don’t mention the need to protect corporations or politicians from ideas that threaten their control.  The guidelines say “protect the public.”  The question is whether the public is helped or harmed by my actions.  The easiest way to answer that question is with the direct impacts of my action.  As the oil executive stated in his testimony, the parcels I didn’t bid on averaged $12 per acre, but the ones I did bid on averaged $125.  Those are the prices paid for public property to the public trust.  The industry admits very openly that they were getting those parcels for an order of magnitude less than what they were worth.  Not only did those oil companies drive up the prices to $125 during the bidding, they were then given an opportunity to withdraw their bids once my actions were explained.  They kept the parcels, presumably because they knew they were still a good deal at $125.  The oil companies knew they were getting a steal from the American people, and now they’re crying because they had to pay a little closer to what those parcels were actually worth.  The government claims I should be held accountable for the steal the oil companies didn’t get.  The government’s report demands $600,000 worth of financial impacts for the amount which the oil industry wasn’t able to steal from the public.

That extra revenue for the public became almost irrelevant, though, once most of those parcels were revoked by Secretary Salazar.  Most of the parcels I won were later deemed inappropriate for drilling.  In other words, the highest and best value to the public for those particular lands was not for oil and gas drilling.  Had the auction gone off without a hitch, it would have been a loss for the public.  The fact that the auction was delayed, extra attention was brought to the process, and the parcels were ultimately revoked was a good thing for the public.

More generally, the question of whether civil disobedience is good for the public is a matter of perspective.  Civil disobedience is inherently an attempt at change.  Those in power, whom Mr Huber represents, are those for whom the status quo is working, so they always see civil disobedience as a bad thing.  The decision you are making today, your honor, is what segment of the public you are meant to protect.  Mr Huber clearly has cast his lot with that segment who wishes to preserve the status quo.  But the majority of the public is exploited by the status quo far more than they are benefited by it.  The young are the most obvious group who is exploited and condemned to an ugly future by letting the fossil fuel industry call the shots.  There is an overwhelming amount of scientific research, some of which you received as part of our proffer on the necessity defense, that reveals the catastrophic consequences which the young will have to deal with over the coming decades.

But just as real is the exploitation of the communities where fossil fuels are extracted.  As a native of West Virginia, I have seen from a young age that the exploitation of fossil fuels has always gone hand in hand with the exploitation of local people.  In West Virginia, we’ve been extracting coal longer than anyone else.  And after 150 years of making other people rich, West Virginia is almost dead last among the states in per capita income, education rates and life expectancy.  And it’s not an anomaly.  The areas with the richest fossil fuel resources, whether coal in West Virginia and Kentucky, or oil in Louisiana and Mississippi, are the areas with the lowest standards of living.  In part, this is a necessity of the industry.  The only way to convince someone to blow up their backyard or poison their water is to make sure they are so desperate that they have no other option.  But it is also the nature of the economic model.  Since fossil fuels are a limited resources, whoever controls access to that resource in the beginning gets to set all the terms.  They set the terms for their workers, for the local communities, and apparently even for the regulatory agencies.  A renewable energy economy is a threat to that model.  Since no one can control access to the sun or the wind, the wealth is more likely to flow to whoever does the work of harnessing that energy, and therefore to create a more distributed economic system, which leads to a more distributed political system.  It threatens the profits of the handful of corporations for whom the current system works, but our question is which segment of the public are you tasked with protecting.  I am here today because I have chosen to protect the people locked out of the system over the profits of the corporations running the system.  I say this not because I want your mercy, but because I want you to join me.

After this difference of political philosophies, the rest of the sentencing debate has been based on the financial loss from my actions.  The government has suggested a variety of numbers loosely associated with my actions, but as of yet has yet to establish any causality between my actions and any of those figures.  The most commonly discussed figure is perhaps the most easily debunked.  This is the figure of roughly $140,000, which is the amount the BLM originally spent to hold the December 2008 auction.  By definition, this number is the amount of money the BLM spent before I ever got involved.  The relevant question is what the BLM spent because of my actions, but apparently that question has yet to be asked.  The only logic that relates the $140,000 figure to my actions is if I caused the entire auction to be null and void and the BLM had to start from scratch to redo the entire auction.  But that of course is not the case.  First is the prosecution’s on-again-off-again argument that I didn’t have any impact on the auction being overturned.  More importantly, the BLM never did redo the auction because it was decided that many of those parcels should never have been auctioned in the first place.  Rather than this arbitrary figure of $140,000, it would have been easy to ask the BLM how much money they spent or will spend on redoing the auction.  But the government never asked this question, probably because they knew they wouldn’t like the answer.

The other number suggested in the government’s memorandum is the $166,000 that was the total price of the three parcels I won which were not invalidated.  Strangely, the government wants me to pay for these parcels, but has never offered to actually give them to me.  When I offered the BLM the money a couple weeks after the auction, they refused to take it.  Aside from that history, this figure is still not a valid financial loss from my actions.  When we wrote there was no loss from my actions, we actually meant that rather literally.  Those three parcels were not evaporated or blasted into space because of my actions, not was the oil underneath them sucked dry by my bid card.  They’re still there, and in fact the BLM has already issued public notice of their intent to re-auction those parcels in February of 2012.

The final figure suggested as a financial loss is the $600,000 that the oil company wasn’t able to steal from the public.  That completely unsubstantiated number is supposedly the extra amount the BLM received because of my actions.  This is when things get tricky.  The government’s report takes that $600,000 positive for the BLM and adds it to that roughly $300,000 negative for the BLM, and comes up with a $900,000 negative.  With math like that, it’s obvious that Mr Huber works for the federal government.

After most of those figures were disputed in the presentence  report, the government claimed in their most recent objection that I should be punished according to the intended financial impact that I intended to cause.  The government tries to assume my intentions and then claims, “This is consistent with the testimony that Mr. DeChristopher provided at trial, admitting that his intention was to cause financial harm to others with whom he disagreed.”  Now I didn’t get to say a whole lot at the trial, so it was pretty easy to look back through the transcripts.  The statement claimed by the government never happened.  There was nothing even close enough to make their statement a paraphrase or artistic license.  This statement in the government’s objection is a complete fiction.  Mr Huber’s inability to judge my intent is revealed in this case by the degree to which he underestimates my ambition.  The truth is that my intention, then as now, was to expose, embarrass and hold accountable the oil industry to the extent that it cuts into the $100 billion in annual profits that it makes through exploitation.  I actually intended for my actions to play a role in the wide variety of actions that steer the country toward a clean energy economy where those $100 billion in oil profits are completely eliminated.  When I read Mr Huber’s new logic, I was terrified to consider that my slightly unrealistic intention to have a $100 billion impact will fetch me several consecutive life sentences.  Luckily this reasoning is as unrealistic as it is silly.

A more serious look at my intentions is found in Mr Huber’s attempt to find contradictions in my statements.  Mr Huber points out that in public I acted proud of my actions and treated it like a success, while in our sentencing memorandum we claimed that my actions led to “no loss.”  On the one hand I think it was a success, and yet I claim it there was no loss.  Success, but no loss.  Mr Huber presents these ideas as mutually contradictory and obvious proof that I was either dishonest or backing down from my convictions.  But for success to be contradictory to no loss, there has to be another assumption.  One has to assume that my intent was to cause a loss.  But the only loss that I intended to cause was the loss of secrecy by which the government gave away public property for private profit.  As I actually stated in the trial, my intent was to shine a light on a corrupt process and get the government to take a second look at how this auction was conducted.  The success of that intent is not dependent on any loss.  I knew that if I was completely off base, and the government took that second look and decided that nothing was wrong with that auction, the cost of my action would be another day’s salary for the auctioneer and some minor costs of re-auctioning the parcels.  But if I was right about the irregularities of the auction, I knew that allowing the auction to proceed would mean the permanent loss of lands better suited for other purposes and the permanent loss of a safe climate.  The intent was to prevent loss, but again that is a matter of perspective.

Mr Huber wants you to weigh the loss for the corporations that expected to get public property for pennies on the dollar, but I believe the important factor is the loss to the public which I helped prevent.  Again, we come back to this philosophical difference.  From any perspective, this is a case about the right of citizens to challenge the government.  The US Attorney’s office makes clear that their interest is not only to punish me for doing so, but to discourage others from challenging the government, even when the government is acting inappropriately.  Their memorandum states, “To be sure, a federal prison term here will deter others from entering a path of criminal behavior.”  The certainty of this statement not only ignores the history of political prisoners, it ignores the severity of the present situation.  Those who are inspired to follow my actions are those who understand that we are on a path toward catastrophic consequences of climate change.  They know their future, and the future of their loved ones, is on the line.  And they know were are running out of time to turn things around.  The closer we get to that point where it’s too late, the less people have to lose by fighting back.  The power of the Justice Department is based on its ability to take things away from people.  The more that people feel that they have nothing to lose, the more that power begins to shrivel.  The people who are committed to fighting for a livable future will not be discouraged or intimidated by anything that happens here today.  And neither will I.  I will continue to confront the system that threatens our future.  Given the destruction of our democratic institutions that once gave citizens access to power, my future will likely involve civil disobedience.  Nothing that happens here today will change that.  I don’t mean that in any sort of disrespectful way at all, but you don’t have that authority.   You have authority over my life, but not my principles.  Those are mine alone.

I’m not saying any of this to ask you for mercy, but to ask you to join me.  If you side with Mr Huber and believe that your role is to discourage citizens from holding their government accountable, then you should follow his recommendations and lock me away.  I certainly don’t want that.  I have no desire to go to prison, and any assertion that I want to be even a temporary martyr is false.  I want you to join me in standing up for the right and responsibility of citizens to challenge their government.  I want you to join me in valuing this country’s rich history of nonviolent civil disobedience.  If you share those values but think my tactics are mistaken, you have the power to redirect them.  You can sentence me to a wide range of community service efforts that would point my commitment to a healthy and just world down a different path.  You can have me work with troubled teens, as I spent most of my career doing.  You can have me help disadvantaged communities or even just pull weeds for the BLM.  You can steer that commitment if you agree with it, but you can’t kill it.  This is not going away.   At this point of unimaginable threats on the horizon, this is what hope looks like.  In these times of a morally bankrupt government that has sold out its principles, this is what patriotism looks like.  With countless lives on the line, this is what love looks like, and it will only grow.  The choice you are making today is what side are you on.

http://www.peacefuluprising.org/tims-official-statement-at-his-sentencing-hearing-20110726
http://www.tarsandsaction.org/

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/26-13

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The Time is Now: “4220 Or Fight!”
(Sen. Avella re Ban bill, May 2^nd Ban Rally)

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The gas industry talks the talk about being a good neighbor.  But do they walk the walk?  What are they really like to live with?  Calvin Tillman and Tim Ruggiero know firsthand from living up close and personal with the industry in Texas, and they’ve formed ShaleTest to help people across the country document the pre-drilling condition of their water.  The Truth Tour is a chance to learn what we can expect from the gas industry and how we can protect ourselves.

On the tour: Friday, 4/29

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To paraphrase the old saying,
with deliberate acts like this, who needs accidents?

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ShaleTest image

From the ShaleTest website:

ShaleTest.org: Is a Non-Profit Organization providing environmental testing services, public speaking engagements and educational materials to private individuals and groups whose lives are affected by natural gas development.

Purpose: To provide environmental testing of private individuals drinking water, air and soil, for those affected or potentially affected by natural gas development whose personal financial situation prohibit the costs of test.

Additionally, to provide testing of water where drinking water is sourced (area lakes, rivers, streams and other large bodies of water), for evidence of fluids and /or chemicals associated with natural gas development.  This may include the testing of potentially affected wildlife.

Also, to provide educational awareness to the public of the dangers associated with natural gas development.  This is to be accomplished by holding public meetings, speaking engagements, visual presentations and distribution of literature, pamphlets, books and other documents such as videos and pictures.

ShaleTest.org is a new national group that has a mission:  “To provide lower income and compromised individuals with environmental testing of their drinking water, air and soil that might have been impacted by natural gas development.  Our testing involves analyzing and measuring these elements for the presence of natural gas development fluids or associated chemicals and compounds. We also provide the public with educational awareness to the dangers associated with natural gas development.” Currently, ShaleTest has testing volunteers in Texas, Pennsylvania and Arkansas, and is recruiting in other states.

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http://shaletest.org/

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Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak here today.

A month ago, I was an average American citizen begging my government to save my air, my drinking water, and my community from the environmental devastation wrought by the natural gas industry across the country.  I wrote dozens of letters to my legislators (receiving very few responses by the way).  My husband and I sent several letters to the editors of newspapers and many were printed.  We started a blog to compile them and to provide information to others who might be interested in the topic.  We tried to parlay the success of the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, a group of people just like us living in Luzerne County, into a chapter devoted to natural gas issues in Wyoming and Lackawanna Counties. I wrote, printed, and handed out informational flyers at lakeside communities near my home.  And, I posted comments on Facebook and on the Susquehanna County Gas Forum.  I admit it, in print, I was very loud… I have been desperate to make my case to you.

Apparently, my voice was loud enough to rouse the attention of my government, but not in the way I had hoped.  Instead of my legislators paying attention to what I had to tell them, my government sicced the FBI, the Office of Homeland Security and the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response after me.  My government branded me an extremist….or possibly an eco-terrorist.  For WRITING a more balanced truth. For WRITING opinions that didn’t sit well with those in power.  And now, for exercising my right to free speech, a dossier on me may now be secreted in the halls of Israeli Intelligence for all I know.

Now, on top of it all, I’m told that in concert with these bulletins, the FBI was compiling a list of names of “dissenters”.  The FBI is a federal agency…so I ask…is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security now looking at me as a security risk?

For the first time in my life, I do not feel secure in my home.  I worry that what I say on the phone is being recorded, I wonder if my emails are still being monitored.  I am discomfited.  Almost frightened, you might say.  And not just because I’ve been spied on…..I feel this way because the very spies hired by my government have been so incompetent they saw me as a threat to the security of the state!…. On the one hand they were spying on me as an extremist; on the other they depicted me as a drilling advocate in their correspondence with Mr. Powers! .If they are so incompetent, then I wonder just how deep this incompetence goes….how many people out there have been told to watch out for me…that I’m a “person of interest?”  We know that Marian Schweighofer, executive director of the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance, had access to the information in those intelligence bulletins… according to one newspaper report, she sent a message to her members telling them “there was reason to believe” that the Office of Homeland Security was ”tracking the anti-drillers” as terrorists.  Is this why when some of us have stopped on the shoulder of a road to take a gander at the construction of or operations on a rig the security patrols have flown en masse at us to herd us back into our cars and away from the property?  So the question in my mind is not just who was on the distribution list for those bulletins…..The question is:  how far did the information in them travel?  How many people who have real or potential control over my life…first responders, local government, state government…MY NEIGHBORS …and, of course, the gas companies ….have been put on alert about me?  My small town is soon to be surrounded by gas wells….will their security patrols be alerted every time I get in my car?  How are you going to erase that alert in people’s minds?  This is not an Oops you can fix so easily.

When I received the email from James Powers, my heart nearly stopped.  I asked myself first and foremost if I could have inadvertently done something illegal.  When I collected myself and really studied that last line of the email, I was absolutely infuriated.  Today I can tell you I am so outraged I don’t know what to do with my anger.  Here I was, trying desperately to get my government to put some controls on the natural gas industry invasion, and my government was admitting it was in cahoots with that industry.

When I researched the Bravo Group, a lobbyist group cc’ed in the email, I found out that it lobbies for Chief Oil and Gas and several other energy companies.  So not only was the Office of Homeland Security providing intelligence to the corporations about Pennsylvania citizens who might object to having their communities overrun by them….it was providing “intelligence” to the very people who lobby YOU, the legislators, on behalf of those companies.  To tell you the truth, the incestuous relationship between our government, the gas industry, the Bravo Group, and the Marcellus Shale Coalition is so clear to me I can’t believe it isn’t a top story in every paper in this state.  I suspect that every decision made by our government with regard to natural gas regulation is tainted by the industry’s deliberate attempts to blur the boundary line between itself and our government.  In Pennsylvania, the natural gas companies think they’re in charge….and I ask my government….ARE THEY?

Senator, I don’t know whether hydraulic fracturing horizontally through the Marcellus Shale can be done safely.  Nobody does.  What I do know is that currently it ISN”T being done safely.  There are hundreds of horror stories of water contamination, animal deaths, air pollution, people sick….many of which you as legislators have been carefully shielded from knowing about by the Bravo Group and the Marcellus Shale Coalition.  Your position insulates you from “we the people” – you are making decisions about the future of Pennsylvania with only half the story in front of you.  I hope to God this incident has shown you just how insulated you are…The lobbyists in question have made sure you haven’t learned the truth…just as they have tried to keep alleged “extremists” like me from telling you that truth.

I hope my legislators take a step back and ask tough questions and start reading between the lines when they’re presented with industry-spun facts.  Ask just how many non-disclosure agreements Oil & Gas has with individuals in our state.  Ask how many massive trucks will play chicken with Pennsylvania’s children’s school buses everyday.  Ask whether hunters who come to Pennsylvania will be able to eat what they kill since the well pads aren’t fenced and wildlife will drink from the salty wastewater pits. Ask whether the citizens ….the majority of citizens…..in many parts of this state want their small town ways of life turned upside down?

Now, about James Powers.  I’ve been listening to and reading about how this man should be fired.  I even stood with a group on the steps of this building last week where some of the speakers were calling for that firing – I stood there because the group’s opposition to forced pooling – another assault on our constitutional rights — was more important to me than worrying about Mr. Powers’ future…..But after the rally, I took the leader of that group aside and told him I didn’t agree with him about what to do about our homeland security director.  I tell you now what I tried to tell him – I honestly don’t know if firing James Powers is the right thing to do.

You see, in this country, we have an awful habit of making a fall guy out of the guy who was just doing his job.  I’m reminded of what our nation did to Lt. Col. Oliver North during the Iran-Contra affair.

Mr. Powers is an Army veteran…and since he and I were both commissioned to support and defend the U.S. Constitution, I like to think that perhaps Mr. Powers fought bravely to protect our citizens’ first amendment rights and argued with the powers that be – the director of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and the Governor – about how spying on US citizens exercising their rights to free speech and assembly was not the way to go.  I like to think he was simply overruled. As far as I’m concerned, he should be given some benefit of the doubt here – he wasn’t necessarily the one with the ultimate authority over hiring ITRR –  and I would HATE to give the oil and gas industry another win by sacrificing the due process rights Mr. Powers deserves as an American citizen.

Then again, maybe after all this, I am still hopefully naïve.

Finally, let me conclude with this:

Throughout history we have seen countries seduced all too easily by slick persuaders who’ve played on people’s economic desperation.  Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, pre-World War II Italy.  There, the hearts and minds of the people were captured by those who painted rosy pictures of the future while concealing a terrible dark side.  There they smothered the people’s rights to speak and write freely to expose that dark side.   There they destroyed reputations and shuffled dissenters off to where they couldn’t cause the government any trouble.  Like jail.  Like Siberia.

So, I am very grateful to this investigative body for its recognition of just how dangerous Pennsylvania’s attempts to suppress dissenters’ rights had become.  The very fact that we are here today tells me our country has not become a fascist state….that we still live in America.

Senator Baker… I applaud your efforts to get to the bottom of this debacle.  Go get ‘em.

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What a summer.  Gasland.  GasStock.  Forums.  Presentations.  Coalition building.  Rallies.

It’s been too busy to blog.

Apologies for the hiatus.

After some of the most pressing posts are taken care of, hope to do one that at least lists all the stories we couldn’t do justice to when they broke.

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Independent Weekender story, 6/9/2010:

Dimock looking at frack facility

Dimock Township Supervisors discussed plans for a hydraulic fracturing solution facility which will prepare hydrofracking solution for the gas well industry as well as storage for produced water awaiting shipping and/or treatment.

Somerset Regional Water Resources has submitted plans to the state Department of Environmental Resources and hopes to obtain the necessary permits for waste transfer and storage. The supervisors noted concerns with possible tank registration requirements.

The property, which is owned by Joseph and Nicole Vibbard, will include a large residual waste storage facility, as well as a structure designed for the storage and mixing of gas industry “products” with water before being taken to gas well sites. The property was formerly a veal farm.

Township secretary Paul Jennings said there is a 30-day time line if residents wish to submit comments to DEP about whether to issue the permits.

. . . . .
Switzer said that there are seven driveways in a row, including hers, on the left side of SR 3023, and that with the speed of traffic on that state road passing through Dimock, “It’s there but for the grace of God we haven’t been killed” pulling out of their driveways onto the paved road.

. . . . .
Norma Fiorentino asked if the supervisors knew what was in the water that Cabot Gas and Oil has been applying to the dirt roads in Dimock.

Resident Catherine Probasco said that the water she has seen being applied to Baker Road last summer was oily and foamy. The supervisors said that the calcium for dust control approved at last month’s meeting has been purchased and applied.

Ellis said that Cabot should supply the supervisors with a letter specifying in writing what is in the water they are applying to township roads. “The supervisors should make Cabot give them a report of what they are putting on the road, instead of always praising them.”

Sautner said that he was wondering, “now that the gas wells are here, are we considered residential still, or commercial, or industrial?”

Paul Jennings answered, “That’s up to the assessment office.”

Sautner replied, “Our water is ruined, our property value has dropped down to nothing, but my taxes went up. We are still paying high taxes like anyone else with clean water.”

Lettie Ellis said, “Why not invite the assessment committee to come here to address this?”

Switzer said that there needs to be someone looking out for safety. “A pipeline in Texas exploded today, and there was a blowout at a gas well site in Clearfield,” she said. “Luckily, not in a school yard. Not two hundred feet from a home, like the Carters.”

She noted that there have been 50 incidents of gas migration into water in Pennsylvania. Several residents agreed that if an incident of any kind arose on Hunsinger Road, a disaster would be likely, due to the conditions of that dirt road.
For complete story, click here

From: Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Subject: Prison time for activist over green jobs banner? We’re not kidding
Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 16:00:26 -0400

• If you personally know Ted and have shared experiences with him, tell the judge;
• Describe the urgency of the climate issue and the need to pressure our government to take action on it;
• Give your views on what would be a justice-based approach by the legal system toward nonviolent actions of the kind Ted took part in.

Please let other people know about this campaign. And it would be helpful if you could send us a copy of your letter to Judge Weisberg, or if you could let us know that you have sent a letter. You can email Ted at ted@chesapeakeclimate.org, or you could send by regular mail to Ted’s attention at CCAN, P.O. Box 11138, Takoma Park, Md. 20912.

–
Mike Tidwell
Director, Chesapeake Climate Action Network
www.ChesapeakeClimate.org

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Cineplex Rex

makes videos about gas drilling’s effects on communities.

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Right now, there are 57 videos on CineplexRex’s YouTube channel about drilling’s effects on communities:  water issues, air quality issues, property rights issues, property values issues, dust issues, privacy issues, safety issues, noise issues, odor issues, traffic issues, livestock issues, health issues … oh, and

lots and lots of tense meetings with citizens asking gas company reps questions about how their situations will ever be put to rights, and gas company reps making assurances they won’t follow through on… hearings, meetings with lawyers and state and town officials.

Notice how it’s always the gas company reps and the officials who are
at the head of the room, like teachers, and the affected citizens are in the audience, as if they were students in a classroom?

These are OUR homes.  Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
When do WE tell THEM how it’s going to be?

How about NOW?

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Frack Country Blues

Frack Country Blues posts feature original cartoons with salient commentary.

An excerpt from GreenMuze.com:

Ugly Reality of Fracking

4.19.2010

After her well water was contaminated by nearby fracking in 2006, Ernst decided to go public, showing visiting reporters how she could light her tap water on fire, and speaking out about Alberta land owners’ problems with the industry, especially Calgary-based EnCana. EnCana is Canada’s second biggest energy company (after Suncor) and is now also a major player in British Columbia, with hundreds of natural-gas wells in the province.

Ernst, a biologist and environmental consultant to the oil and gas industry, says EnCana “told us ‘we would never fracture near your water.’ But the company fracked into our aquifer in that same year [2004].” By 2005, she says, “My water began dramatically changing, going bad. I was getting horrible burns and rashes from taking a shower, and then my dogs refused to drink the water. That’s when I began to pay attention.” More than fifteen water-wells had gone bad in the little community.

Tests revealed high levels of ethane, methane, and benzene in Ernst’s water. “EnCana told us they use the same gelled [fracking] fluids as in the States.” Fracking has become a huge controversy in the US, with pending legislation that would impact its regulation.

Ernst says she heard from “at least fifty other landowners the first year” she went public, and she continues to get calls. Groundwater contamination from fracking “is pretty widespread” in Alberta, “but they’re trying to keep it hidden.” Canada has no national water standards and conducts little information gathering about groundwater.

Read the complete article at GreenMuze.com:  Ugly Reality of Fracking

Tip of the hat to FrackMountain for bringing this article to our attention.