Dimock Township residents plan rally, press conference
www.timesleader.com/news/Dimock-Township-residents-plan-rally-press-conference.html
Jan. 11, 2012
Residents of Dimock Township, Susquehanna County, and members of two advocacy groups have scheduled a rally and press conference in Philadelphia in an effort to gain U.S. Environmental Protection Agency action on what they contend is drinking water contamination caused by natural gas drilling.
Two activists groups – Protecting Our Waters and Frack Action – issued the following press release, and included a letter sent to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, posted here.
Health and Science Professionals Letter to EPA
Dimock Residents, Public Health and Environmental Advocates Urge EPA to Send Water to Dimock:
“These families must not endure another day without access to safe drinking water!”
Who: Residents of Dimock, Protecting Our Waters, Frack Action
What: Morning rally and press conference:
1. Demonstration asking EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to “do the right thing” by delivering clean water to victims of gas industry water contamination
2. Press Conference featuring residents of Dimock, PA, including Craig and Julie Sautner; and public health and environmental advocates
When:
- Friday, January 13, 2012
- 8:30am: Rally
- 9:00am: Press Conference,
- 9:30am: Lisa Jackson speaks at Town Hall (inside)
- Where: outside Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19103
Background: Nineteen families in Dimock, Pennsylvania have suffered from contaminated drinking water for over three years. Despite enormous pressure brought to bear on them to sign a legal agreement requiring them to fall silent regarding their drinking water contamination, caused by Cabot Oil and Gas, eleven of the families have not signed a “non-disclosure clause” and therefore have maintained their freedom of speech. In December the EPA received documents showing the intensity and toxicity of these families’ drinking water contamination. The EPA has responded by telling the families, according to Craig Sautner, that “they absolutely don’t want us using our [water] wells at all.”
Yet Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has not only reneged on a promise made by former PA DEP Secretary John Hanger to provide all the affected families with a clean and permanent supply of drinking water, but it has allowed Cabot to cease providing safe clean drinking waters for these families. The families are becoming increasingly desperate, since Cabot’s last delivery was on November 30th.
Last week, several of the Dimock families received phone calls from EPA Region 3, based in Philadelphia, assuring them that EPA would begin delivering safe clean water to them by Friday or Saturday. No delivery has happened and the EPA has, at this time, backed down from that promise.
“Water is a fundamental human right,” said Alex Allen, Associate Director of Protecting Our Waters.
Biologist, author and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber wrote a letter signed by 26 physicians and health professionals on Monday, December 9th (attached), which said, “we call on EPA to assure that the families of Dimock do not endure another day without access to safe drinking water.”
A partial list of the contaminants in the drinking water of Dimock is here: http://protectingourwaters.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/protecting-our-waters-goes-to-dimock-whats-in-their-safe-water/ and a list of contaminants specifically in the Sautners’ water is here (scroll down): http://protectingourwaters.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/urgent-comment-by-5-pm-wednesday-11112-on-new-york-state-impact-statement/