EPA Cancels Water Delivery to Dimock, Pennsylvania

Source

Allentown, Pennsylvania - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency abruptly changed its mind Saturday about delivering fresh water to residents of a northeastern Pennsylvania village where residential wells were found to be tainted by a natural gas drilling operation.

Only 24 hours after promising them water, EPA officials informed residents of Dimock that a tanker truck wouldn't be coming after all. The about-face left residents furious, confused and let down - and, once again, scrambling for water for bathing, washing dishes and flushing toilets.

Agency officials would not explain why they reneged on their promise, or say whether water would be delivered at some point.

"We are actively filling information gaps and determining next steps in Dimock. We have made no decision at this time to provide water," EPA spokeswoman Betsaida Alcantara said in an email to The Associated Press.

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Wow.

Imagine having flammable fumes coming out of your drains? Imagine having no clean water? imagine having no one care.....

I don't understand why we are letting companies getting away with this stuff. These are our homes, this is where we raise our children and are supposed to feel safe.

This practice of fracking needs to stop. It has too many side effects to continue and it is now harming too many people.

Another story about the same town...

Source

Federal regulators are considering trucking fresh water to households in a Pennsylvania town where residents say wells have been polluted by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for natural gas.

Only a month after declaring water in Dimock safe to drink, the Environmental Protection Agency is reconsidering action after residents supplied the EPA with hundreds of pages of data that link water pollution to fracking.

Two residents of Dimock, a town of some 1,400 in the northeast corner of Pennsylvania, told Reuters that the EPA said water would be delivered on Friday, but the agency indicated it was still considering the issue.

"No decision has been made by EPA to provide alternate sources of water," an EPA spokeswoman said in an email on Friday. She added that the agency was trying to understand the situation in Dimock where state regulators recently halted deliveries of fresh water.

A Dimock, Pennsylvania resident who did not want to be identified pours a glass of water taken from his well after the start of natural gas drilling in Dimock, Pennsylvania, March 7, 2009.

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That picture tells it all. When I first looked at it I thought it was rotten milk, only to read that it was water. And to read that the picture was taken in 2009?!

Well this news story was from 2 days ago and showed some promise about these townsfolk getting clean water. But, I guess not. Two days later we get the title of this OP.

Pathetic.

Any thoughts?

Pred...

Sickening.

Fracking has been shown to cause minor earthquakes, destroy all piping in the ground around the frack site, destroying natural soil, water and air. Its worse than drilling for oil.

Gas at this rate is not the future, but the past.

reply to post by predator0187


This water problem in PA was the crux of the movie, "Gasland", due to the mindless fracking being done by the greedy, shortsighted, sociopathic energy industry.

These residents need to fight back and quit being so nice. Maybe a effin drill site needs to be demolished to garner attention to this inhumane travesty taking place all over america. And the tainted water is only one connected issue here as there are disposable pools of pollution dotting the landscapes too. Big oil is big bs.

I want to see someone step up and put their money where there mouth is like this guy

www.guardian.co.uk...

reply to post by iggy50


Just like what some Canadians did up north to oil pipelines. Home made bombs made short work of those pipelines. Im not saying we should do that.

Ah. Of course, no one is liable.

Earthquake damage due to fracking? No one is liable.

Liability isn't a compelling factor anymore, when it comes to addressing the problems that crop up around our energy industries. When the majority benefits from FUBAR'd energy policy, how do we hope to address this stuff?

You can sue, but even if you won (which you won't), the central problem of sustainability remains. Soon come; the tapped out water tables, the brown-out days, the breadlines.

All totally unnecessary.

Edit to add:

Sabotage is just shooting your cause in the nuts. Independent, local alternatives; funded publicly through open-donation funds (maybe net-based, while we still have it) is a better route. Reaping the sweet methane from your landfills, not that expensive, high output.

Originally posted by MeesterB
I want to see someone step up and put their money where there mouth is like this guy

www.guardian.co.uk...

That's what I'm talking about

that's awful! those people need water. i wouldn't want to bathe in that and certainly not use it for cooking. i would be LIVID if i lived there!

reply to post by predator0187


They probably contaminated the other source of water too.

Fracking sure has been getting exposed lately. I hope this outrage doesn't die off.

reply to post by predator0187


The EPA is...EVIL. How uncaring, unreasonable, unTHINKABLE, INHUMAN!

We don't need no stinking fracking! At the risk of annoying some, but since I still await answers to My questions regarding My passing on of My thread about free energy and its implications (no poverty, no hunger, no war, no power elite...no poisoned water tables!), I will invite any who have not yet seen My thread to read it:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I am aghast that any Human could make the choice of denying WATER to these beset People. Maybe They're not Human...

Originally posted by pasiphae

that's awful! those people need water. i wouldn't want to bathe in that and certainly not use it for cooking. i would be LIVID if i lived there!

Oh, I agree. There is no way I would want to be showering in that water, nor bathing my kids, let alone cooking dinner. Could you imagine boiling pasta? Gross.

Think about summertime, the kids couldn't even play in the sprinklers.

Pred...

reply to post by predator0187

Any thoughts?

wonder if that water would make a decent Molotov cocktail?

Sounds to me like damage control. If the EPA delivers water, they are acknowledging a significant problem with fracking, which could be used against the energy industries. I bet some big energy folks stepped in to stop the EPA. How could one claim the practice is safe, yet have water delivered by the EPA at the same time? Tis a shame if this is the case, but regardless, more attention has been drawn to the issue and more folks are questioning the potential side effects of fracking.
ETA:

It's not clear how many wells in the rural community of Dimock Township were affected by the drilling. The state has found that at least 18 residential water wells were polluted.

Additional Source

Originally posted by speculativeoptimist
Sounds to me like damage control. If the EPA delivers water, they are acknowledging a significant problem with fracking, which could be used against the energy industries. I bet some big energy folks stepped in to stop the EPA. How could one claim the practice is safe, yet have water delivered by the EPA at the same time? Tis a shame if this is the case, but regardless, more attention has been drawn to the issue and more folks are questioning the potential side effects of fracking.

I agree with your post, I mean that how hard is it to load up a convoy of tankers with water and deliver it.
It seems to me it is a lot more logistically sane then fighting war after war halfway across the globe.
No offense meant to any body here but &^%$## they have pizza huts and burger kings in war zones.
Load up those water tankers and if there is no problem the cost would be less than one transport air craft to the middle east.
Regards, Iwinder

Don't take it out on the EPA. Take it out on the drilling companies.

Originally posted by babybunnies
Don't take it out on the EPA. Take it out on the drilling companies.

Oh yes take this out on the EPA, that is their job and that is what they are paid to do.....protect the environment.
If they were doing their jobs this fracking crap would never be happening and ruining peoples lives.
Regards, Iwinder

I might be missing something here, but why should the EPA be responsible for bringing them water, when it was the energy industry that poisoned it in the first place? Shouldn't THEY - being they are the ones profiting from the fracking - pay for, and ship in, fresh water?

The EPA is a tax-payer funded agency, so if they have to provide the water, then it's another form of subsidy to the energy industry, which already has enough subsidies courtesy of the tax payer.

Originally posted by speculativeoptimist
Sounds to me like damage control. If the EPA delivers water, they are acknowledging a significant problem with fracking, which could be used against the energy industries.

That's what I think too. If they deliver fresh water, they can no longer pretend that nothing is wrong anymore.

If the EPA delivers water to the village, it would be the clearest sign yet regulators are concerned about the effect of drilling on drinking water there.

www.reuters.com...

It appears the EPA is no different to the FDA. Just government agencies working for private corporations.

Originally posted by MeesterB
I want to see someone step up and put their money where there mouth is like this guy

www.guardian.co.uk...

He is insane and the journalists should be charged for inciting murder.

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
I might be missing something here, but why should the EPA be responsible for bringing them water, when it was the energy industry that poisoned it in the first place? Shouldn't THEY - being they are the ones profiting from the fracking - pay for, and ship in, fresh water?

The EPA is a tax-payer funded agency, so if they have to provide the water, then it's another form of subsidy to the energy industry, which already has enough subsidies courtesy of the tax payer.

No one has time to wait for court cases yet, the emergency is NO WATER, and that must be provided by Government immediately. They are paid to manage the system. They can sue the company for recompense.