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Fracking neighbors try desperate measures as impact fee hopes dwindle
Gas drilling companies enjoy a culture of impunity as impact fee hopes dwindle.
Fracking neighbors try desperate measures as impact fee hopes dwindle
Mike Bennett, a farmer in Henderson Township, tried to convince his neighbors not to lease their land to gas drillers at a meager $35 per acre. But they went ahead anyway, and now he can look out his front window and see two horizontal fracturing wells being drilled — and a stream of 100,000-pound trucks rumbling down his road, which is only bonded for traffic up to 10 tons. After warning truckers, and calling police and town supervisors, Bennett took matters into his own hands last week: "They ran five trucks through and I could see they were lining up more over at the well," he says. "About 11 o'clock, here they come a whole parade, so I simply pulled my pick-up out in front of the truck, and everything came to a stop... . I think we had 11 trucks in the line." The police came out and issued citations to the drivers (Bennett is expecting his own citation in the mail, too); but they warned Bennett that the frackers' $600,000 to $800,000 tickets were likely to be reduced to almost nothing in court. And this morning, Bennett says, the trucks were already back on the road.
That's the type of atmosphere of impunity that anti-fracking activists say is enjoyed at all levels of the industry, nurtured by friendly courts and a Department of Environmental Protection that appears to miss some violations and downplay others.
It helps (if you're a fracker) that the impact fee legislation signed by Gov. Corbett last week takes away municipal powers to control wells via zoning — while giving them the power to decline collecting the new impact fee. Bradford County, already a major fracking hub, is among those considering skipping the fee, presumably in an effort to attract even more drillers.
Meanwhile some families are getting water shipped in and others have fled their homes altogether. As for Bennett, so far his water has tested clean; but given that his livelihood depends on the environmental soundness of his land and his water supply, he's wary. "If the water goes, we're finished. It will just be worthless. We won't have anything."
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