People Who Care Are Reaching Out To Protect Our Land

Friends of  VA, WV, PA, MD — Hands Across Our Land

Join us on August 18, 2015, as we take a stand to protect our land and communities from the unnecessary and unwanted onslaught of new natural gas infrastructure.

The Hands Across Our Land activities in Augusta, Nelson, and Buckingham Counties in VA are timed so that participants can move from west to east and be at each action:

Hands Across Our Land – Augusta County, VA — Tuesday, August 18; 3:00 p.m. Braley Pond, 3:30 p.m. at the George Washington National Forest sign on 250
For directions to Braley Pond, click here. The group will meet at Braley Pond and then shuttle to the next stop at the George Washington National Forest sign on 250 (there is very little parking at this site, so please plan to take the shuttle with the group). Contact Deirdre Skogen (deirdre.skogen@gmail.com) or Ernie Reed (lec@wildvirginia.org) for more information.
Coordinator: Misty Boos

Hands Across Our Land – Nelson/Augusta Counties — Tuesday, August 18 at 5:15 p.m. Where: Rock bridge which connects the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive at Rt. 250 on Afton Mountain. We will meet at the top of Afton Mountain at 5:15 p.m., with photos at 5:30 p.m. on the rock bridge that joins the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Skyline Drive. This bridge has great history and certainly holds a special place in the hearts of Augusta/Nelson residents. It sits on the county line and has lots of available parking with an easy walk to the bridge. Nelson/Augusta coordinators are Marilyn Shifflett (Free Nelson) and Jennifer Lewis (Friends of Augusta). Contact freenelson3@gmail.com

Hands Across Our Land – Nelson/Buckingham Counties — Tuesday, August 18 at 6:30 p.m. Where: James River Bridge, Rt. 56, Wingina. It will be held at the bridge across the James River on Route 56 at 6:30 p.m., with photos at 6:45 p.m. Nelson’s Matt Dwyer and Buckingham’s Chad Oba are coordinating the event. Contact freenelson3@gmail.com

See entries below for “Hands Across Our Land” actions in other locations – Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and  elsewhere!

Dominion, Duke, Piedmont Natural Gas, AGL Resources, NextEra, EQT, Williams, Transco, Kinder Morgan and others would build their pipelines, well pads, compressor stations, and export facilities within feet of our homes, destroy thousands of acres of forested land, pollute our water supply, degrade our national treasures by crossing the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Appalachian Trail, and pristine national forests, all in the name of profit for the few on the backs of thousands of private property owners.

Stand with us as we hold Hands Across Our Land to protect our way of life! Each community participating plans a local event in their community to be held on August 18, 2015 at a location and time of your choosing!

This is a solidarity action to let the fossil fuel industry and government officials know that while we are separate grassroots groups we stand with each other across our country in opposition to the build out of new fossil fuel infrastructure.

Here is how it works:

Local group/community plans an event in their local community at a location and time of their choice on August 18, 2015.

Make signs! For example:

• “No Eminent Domain for Private Gain”
• “We’re Rural, Not Stupid”
• “Ban Fracking”
• “No Fracked Gas Pipelines”
• “We stand with Nelson County, VA”
• Or “We stand with Lancaster, PA”
• et cetera – you get the idea!

Use “Hands Across Our Land” in the Name your Action. Example: Hands Across Our Land – Nelson County, VA

Use the hashtag #HandsAcrossOurLand when using social media.

Use the HAOL FaceBook page to share the time and place of your event, and photos of the event as it occurs. Send us your email addresses, and if you use twitter, your handle, so we can coordinate social media coverage on August 18.

Promote your action on your Facebook pages and with the press. We have sample press releases for you to use. Give us local media information and we will send a press release to your local press about your participation in this action of solidarity! If your newspaper has a calendar section, list your event there.

Hold your event and make sure to have participants hold hands to promote solidarity and symbolically create a blockade to the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure.

Standing together, united in our cause, we will make a difference!! You may contact us at freenelson3@gmail.com

Contact Free Nelson with questions or to plan an event in your community at freenelson3@gmail.com

Charlottesville: Hands Across Our Lands event at 4:30 pm at the Free Speech Wall on the Downtown Mall.

Front Royal: Protest Against Pipelines in Our National Forests and Parks. Gather at 4 pm at the Gazebo on Main Street. Brief speech by local anti-fracking activist, Tes Vogel. 4:30 begin marching up Main to N. Royal, then down to South Street Intersection, banner, drumming, chanting, holding hands across intersections with the signal permits. Should be over at 6 when a contingent will drive up to the Skyline pkwy for a photo with banner and mountains in background. Contact: Maya White Sparks, spiralgr@shentel.net

>>> Mark Laity-Snyder is coordinating in Franklin County VA (Mountain Valley Pipeline) Here’s a link to their event.

>>> Debra Carter is coordinating in Roanoke (Mountain Valley Pipeline). Here’s a link to their event.

>>> Michael James-Deramo is coordinating with the Virginia Student Environmental Coalition.

>>> Ann Marie Nau is coordinating Meyersville MD and Loudoun County, VA as they work together.

>>> Tina Badger and Ann Osimani are coordinators in Montgomery County, VA

>>> Deirdre Skogen (deirdre.skogen@gmail.com) has graciously volunteered to coordinate an HAOL action in the George Washington National Forest.

>>> Leslee McCarty is Greenbrier County, WV‘s coordinator. Hands Across Our Land action will take place at Ronceverte City Park. Bring your boat and meet at the boat ramp at 6 pm or walk up on the bridge over the river.

>>> Jessica Abramson is the Monroe County, WV coordinator. Monroe County is fighting the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline.

>>> Leslie Garcia is Hands Across Our Land coordinator for Calvert Citizens for a Healthy Community. CCHC is fighting Dominion’s liquefaction plant to export LNG at Cove Point in Lusby, MD.

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>>> Duane Nichols is Hands Across Our Land coordinator for the Mon Valley Clean Air Coalition meeting on the Monongahela River Bridge in Pt. Marion, PA at 12:30 PM (during the noon hour) and again at 6:30 PM. Private citizens and members of other organizations from northern West Virginia will join those from Greene, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland Counties in Pennsylvania. We will form a chain across the Bridge, thus joining “Hands Across Our Land.” Come on out if you can or send a representative.

To: NPR -- Think Twice About Fracking

National Public Radio should think twice about their “sponsors”

From a Post by Environmental Action, November 2014

Most Americans consider NPR an independent media organization, so it might surprise you that one of its biggest corporate sponsors is the American Natural Gas Alliance, a front group that exists only to promote some of the worst energy polluters in America.

The ANGA has been an NPR corporate sponsor for months, using its airtime to promote the misleading ‘think about it’ campaign that is in fact a promotion for the dangerous and destructive drilling process known as fracking.

NPR’s financial dependence on the fracking industry could be fouling its news coverage, just like fracking fouls up our air, water and climate. Fracking puts America on a path toward a bleak energy future, with polluted land, flammable tap water and earthquakes.

Meanwhile, clean, green energy sources like wind and solar can provide 99 percent of our electric, transportation and manufacturing power needs. No fracking required. Even better — every time we choose renewable energy over oil, coal and gas, we reduce emissions, lower the cost of energy and create jobs.

When trusted news outlets like NPR take money from ANGA and repeat their deceptive marketing claptrap — on OUR airwaves — we have to question their objectivity. Sign up here to tell NPR that when it comes to fracking, don’t even think about it.

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NPR is airing pro-fracking ads on our public radio stations and reducing their environmental reporting team by 80%.

When NPR started airing pro-fracking messages, I was annoyed. But now that they’ve also announced plans to close down virtually all their environmental coverage — leaving just one part time reporter to cover fracking, the climate crisis, and more —now I’m frankly alarmed.

Do you agree that public radio needs to reject money from the fossil fuel industry, and spend more time covering fracking and the climate crisis?

NPR has always said that we shouldn’t worry about the fracking ads, because they won’t impact news coverage. But last month, they announced plans to dramatically reduce their staff covering the environment and climate change.*

All this week, dozens of protesters have been sitting in, speaking out and even getting arrested over at the offices of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which is just a few blocks from NPR’s office. But they couldn’t spare a reporter even one day this week to cover the fact that FERC rubber stamping fracking projects that destroy towns, and being met with hundreds of protesters everywhere they go.**

We need to tell NPR that this is not acceptable. We need to show them that radio covering the fracking boom and the climate crisis is engaging, smart, and essential. And we need to ask the local affiliates from New York to Sacramento and everywhere in between, to join us in sending that message.

Thanks for tuning in to the planet, and tuning out pollution,

Signed: Drew Hudson and the team at Environmental Action

* Joe Romm, NPR Guts Its Environment And Climate Reporting Team, Becomes ‘Part Of The Problem’, Think Progress, October 24, 2014
** Hannah Northey, More activists arrested as climate demonstration continues at FERC, Energy and Environment News Greenwire, November 4, 2014

Bill Hughes of Wetzel County at Jackson's Mill Assembly Hall

Report on Energy Education Forum at WVU Jackson’s Mill Assembly Hall

By John W. Cobb, Retired from Marketing & Public Relations, November 12, 2014

A group of citizens in northcentral West Virginia organized a Public Meeting at Jackson’s Mill concerning the effects of coming energy exploitation in the area. It was held Tuesday, November 11, with a crowd of about 230, not counting the presenters and helpers.

The topics included truck traffic, water use and contamination, waste removal from the drilling site and what happens to it, tree removal, burning and site preparation, water buffaloes and supply when water is contaminated or lost by drilling. Loss of peace and quiet, being cut off from work and necessary support by closed roads, light and noise and odors were also discussed. The final presentations by Julie Archer of the Surface Owners Rights Organization and Diane Pitcock of the Host Farms program explained the function of these organizations and how to get information from them and become members.

All the information came from people who have been directly affected by shale drilling, primarily in Wetzel and Doddridge Counties.  The sole support came from donations from the organizing committee. Michael Barrack who resides in Harrison County presided. The helpers were Diana Gooding of Gilmer, April Keating of Upshur, as well as Myra Bonhage-Hale, Barbara Volk, Tom Berlin, Tom Bond and John Cobb of Lewis County.

The presentations made extensive use of pictures taken in the counties represented, actually hundreds of them. Pipelines, flaring, stream degradation, broken roads, wrecked trucks (a common occurrence) were seen in them. The size of the drill pads and the access roads and the fracking ponds, and the closeness to houses of these constructions could be seen from aerial photographs.

Around the walls were tables with pictures and information, each explained by someone familiar with the topic for the table. Handouts with information of various topics were present on tables near the entrance.

There were industry people in attendance, too. “Corky” DeMarco, Director of the WV Oil & Natural Gas Association (WVONGA) brought along a Charleston lawyer and another observer, and there was a CNX photographer who videotaped everything. The committee hopes these industry people were able to see fracking a little more as those who live in the midst of it do.

Several in the audience were already aware of the problems connected with extreme energy extraction which they will be living in the midst of in a few years. Far more were unacquainted with what is in store for the northcentral West Virginia counties.

There was an (unfortunate) shortage of elected officials, who need to be thinking about what they should be doing to protect the larger number of their electorate who will be directly suffering once the onslaught of the increased Marcellus drilling and two large interstate pipelines move in and across northcentral and eastern West Virginia.

Sadly, one elected official who was contacted afterward replied, “They told us when the bill came out that this was the best we could expect to get for our constituents. So I voted for it.”

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Forum held on impact of fracking in region — Oil and gas boom’s effects on air, water and roads discussed

From the Article by Jeremiah Shelor, Clarksburg Exponent-Telegram, November 12, 2014

Forum organizer April Keating said she wanted residents to have an opportunity to learn about issues related to the oil and gas industry. “This meeting is an attempt to give the public the other side of the story,” Keating said. “We have all heard of the economic benefits of gas drilling, but there are long-term consequences to what we are doing.”

Bill Hughes, head of Wetzel County’s Solid Waste Authority, gave an overview on a number of potential problems that oil and gas development can create for residents. Hughes said Wetzel County, where he resides, has seen a lot of oil and gas activity for a number of years, offering a good idea of some of the potential challenges it can create. “I’m just surrounded by lots and lots of wells. Most of the issues that could show up — Wetzel has probably seen them,” Hughes said.

Hughes discussed issues related to industrial traffic on rural roads, air emissions and radiation from drilling waste, among other potential effects of oil and gas development. “I don’t think we can simplify that natural gas is bad and coal is good, or coal is bad and natural gas is good. We all consume energy,” Hughes said. “The balance is the issue — to try to have the right regulations in place to protect air and water and land.” The long-term impacts of oil and gas development should be of particular concern for the state, he said. “There are six or seven drillers in Wetzel County,” Hughes said. “My grandchildren all live there, and we need to look at this in terms of the next 40 or 50 years. What do we want to leave for our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren?”

Jody Mohr, a Doddridge County resident and a member of the Doddridge County Watershed Association, also spoke. Mohr — showing a number of pictures of West Virginia residences relying on portable water tanks for extended periods of time due to issues that have developed with their wells — discussed the significant water consumption of hydraulic fracturing. She also gave specific accounts of water quality issues that had resulted from drilling and development.

Mohr said the oil and gas development in her county has created uncertainty and has had a noticeable effect on her quality of life, saying it has negatively affected her “sense of home.” “And I mean that sense of home that we all have. That enjoyment, that peace,” Mohr said.

Julie Archer of the West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization also spoke about potential issues that property owners should keep in mind when negotiating deals with oil and gas companies. Archer said these issues continue to be of importance, particularly with two major interstate pipelines potentially crossing through the area.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Update Report on Activities for Surface Owners in West Virginia

Submitted by Julie Archer, WV-SORO, September 13, 2014

Industry.Sponsored.Informational.Meetings [This Week and September 24]

The following industry sponsored informational meeting may be of interested to SORO members. Apologies for the short notice of this week’s meetings. I regret that I am unable to attend due to prior commitments and hope folks who go will report back on what they learn. If you hear of other meeting that we should alert our membership about please email details to julie@wvsoro.org. Thanks!

Tuesday, September 16 ~ “Consol Energy Public Meeting” at Jackson’s Mill, 6-8 PM

Representatives of Consol Energy are hosting the meeting to discuss the company’s oil and gas development plans for Lewis County and other proposed activities in the area.

Wednesday, September 17 & Wednesday, September 24 ~ Dominion Open Houses in Buckhannon & Durbin

Dominion has scheduled open houses for September 17 at West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon (Upshur County), and September 24 at the Durbin Volunteer Fire Department (Pocahontas County) for people to learn more about its proposed 42-inch Atlantic Coast Pipeline (formerly called the Southeast Reliability Project). From 5 to 6 PM, landowners within the proposed study corridor are welcome at each open house, and then from 6:30 to 8:30 PM the general public and other landowners can attend. View proposed route maps here.

(Speaking of pipelines: WV-SORO has posed new and updated resources on the website. Keep reading for more details.)

WV-SORO Membership Meeting Follow Up

Thanks to everyone who sweating it out with us (literally) in Salem on Saturday, August 23 at the WV-SORO Membership Meeting. (Apologies for the lack of AC — we had not idea it wasn’t working until we arrived at Salem International University that morning!) It was great to see so many of you whom I have met over the years, and to finally meet those of you with whom I’d only emailed or spoken with over the phone.

Despite the lack of AC, overall the response we’ve gotten about the meeting has been positive and there is interested in SORO making it an annual event. Folks found the pipeline panel helpful and informative, but for many the best part was the opportunity to meet and talk with others with shared experiences and learn from each other. (See Tom Bond’s write up about the meeting for FrackCheckWV at /2014/08/25/wv-surface-owners-express-significant-concerns-at-meeting/.)

Since the meeting we have posted new and updated materials on pipelines and eminent domain on our website, including the updated version of Dave McMahon’s pipeline article/guide. You can access this information here — http://www.wvsoro.org/resources/advice/index.html#pipelines. If you prefer a hard copy of the guide, I’m happy to drop one in the mail to you — please reply to this email to request one.

We will be posting video of the pipeline panel and other presentations on our website soon, and will include more information about the meeting in our next news letter. In the meantime, we hope you will join at our next educational event, which is a follow up to last year’s Wellness & Water Conference. See details below.

Third Annual Wellness & Water Conference [October 3-4, 2014 in Charleston]

Please note: There is currently a glitch with registering online. If you are getting impatient to be registered call 304-522-0246 to register over the phone. If no one answers, leave a message with your name and number–speak clearly and slowly.

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Julie Archer, WV Surface Owners’ Rights Organization, 1500 Dixie Street, Charleston, WV 25311.  Phone: (304) 346-5891, FAX: (304) 346-8981;  julie@wvsoro.org

Web-site:  www.wvsoro.org

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Significant Impacts to Local Residents Found

Respiratory and skin issues are likely caused by air or groundwater contamination as a result of natural gas drilling & fracking

From an Article by Lauren McCauley, CommonDreams, September 10, 2014

People who live in close proximity to natural gas drilling sites are significantly more likely to report skin and respiratory problems than those who live further away, according to the largest survey to-date of the reported health effects of people exposed to fracking.

The study, “Proximity to Natural Gas Wells and Reported Health Status,”(pdf) published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives surveyed households with ground-fed water wells located in the Marcellus shale region in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Researchers found that 39 percent of households located less than one kilometer from an active natural gas well reported upper respiratory problems, compared with 18 percent located more than 2 kilometers away. Further, 13 percent of respondents who live within a kilometer of a well said they had rashes and other skin irritations, compared with just 3 percent who live more than 2 kilometers away.

Of the 624 active natural gas wells located in Pennsylvania’s Washington County, 95 percent were fracked — or injected with millions of gallons of water, sand, and a largely-unknown toxic mix of chemicals in order to extract gas from the shale deposits.

Despite assurances by the drilling industry and numerous government officials that fracking chemicals do not pose a risk to nearby populations, scientists and environmentalists have repeatedly voiced concern over the high volume of chemicals used in the process and the potential for both groundwater and airborne contamination. Further, the drilling industry has long-fought efforts to reveal the particular chemicals used in fracking, claiming that the combination of toxins fall under “proprietary information.”

The Yale-based research team notes that they did not collect data on whether individuals were receiving financial compensation for gas well drilling on their property, which they acknowledge “could have affected their willingness to report symptoms.”

Based on the findings of the survey, the researchers conclude that “airborne irritant exposures” related to natural gas extraction activities, including the flaring of gas wells and exhaust from diesel equipment, “could be playing a role” in the increased reporting of respiratory symptoms among people living in close proximity to the wells.

Possible explanations for the increase in reported skin irritations also include exposure to air pollutants, as well as possible well water contamination due to “breaks in the gas well casing or other underground communication between ground water supplies and fracking activities.”

Because of the relative newness of the wells (5-6 years), the researchers were unable to test for a correlation between drilling activities and more long-term health impacts, such as cancer. However, the team says that their findings underscores the need for further research on the possible health impacts of fracking activities, including longitudinal studies on chronically exposed populations.

See also: Marcellus-Protest