Today is the second day families in Dimock, Pennsylvania are living without the clean water Cabot Oil and Gas had been providing them since the company had contaminated their wells. They have been left to their own devices to figure out how to get the water they need to survive.
The ironically named Department of Environmental Protection had already failed Dimock by allowing Cabot to talk them out of a pipeline that would have supplied clean water from Montrose. The company offered to install treatment systems on the affected properties instead and even though those systems have not been successful at removing the methane from the water, the DEP has failed the families in Dimock again by allowing Cabot to turn off the tap on Dimock
Recognizing an emergency in a way no Pennsylvania official or agency apparently ever could, the city of Binghamton, New York has offered to provide the families with fresh water as long as necessary. All they need is approval from the township supervisors. Cabot and what must be an anti-clean water group called Enough Already are pressuring the supervisors to turn down the offer. And it’s working.
Bad things seem to happen by the dozen in Dimock these days. The township supervisors are considering allowing a compressor station to be built there. Compressor stations have a pretty poor environmental track record. They’ve been known to contaminate air, water (too late!), and soil and they’re noisy. In fact, the case that made Erin Brockovich famous concerned a PG&E compressor station.
ACTION ALERT:
Here are several ways you can help…
1) Call the PA Attorney General’s Chief of Staff, Bruce Beemer, Esq. at 717-787-3391 and ask him to investigate the interference by Cabot and Enough Already in the delivery of water from Binghamton.
2) Call Scott Perry at the DEP’s Office of Oil and Gas Management at 717-787-4817 0r 717-772-2199 and ask him why township supervisors are able to block deliveries of clean water.
3) Attend the all-day rally in Dimock on Tuesday, December 6th. Bring sealed 1 – 5 gallon jugs of water that will be distributed to the families in need of clean water. Santa will be there, so bring the kids! A press conference will be held at 2 p.m. in Dimock. (An earlier press conference is being held in NYC.)
4) Attend the public hearing that evening on the compressor station at the Montrose High School, Montrose, PA 18801. For more information, email mwalker@cleanair.org or call 570-289-4790.
5) Donate to the Water for Dimock emergency fund.
6) Sign the petition on Water Defense’s site.