Farm Show Anti-Fracking Rally

Today we arose at 6:15 a.m. to drive to an anti-fracking rally at the Pennsylvania Farm show.  Do you know it is still dark at 6:15?

We heard stories from farmers on the front line of the fracking activities–polluted water, still-born calves, compressor station explosions, health issues.  We heard that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania does little or nothing to alleviate the problems.  We heard that the fracking companies are arrogant, uncaring, ruthless.

We are experiencing some of the arrogance of the gas industry with the pipeline that is slated to run through our farm.  Here’s just one example.  PennEast/UGI representatives will approach a land owner and tell her, “All your neighbors have given us permission to survey,” or “All your neighbors have already signed agreements.”  When the land owner calls her neighbors, she finds out that nobody has signed anything.

I thought the irony was clear in today’s Times News.  The PennEast/UGI spokeswoman, who probably has never been in the field, said the company does not trespass.  At the top of the article was a picture of the surveying equipment above a no-trespassing sign.

Here is the way trust works.  Once you have been lied to, you will not trust that company ever again.  And we’ve been lied to more than once.