By Justin Nobel, Rolling Stone, June 1, 2017 [n.b. relevant to West Chester because of our Home Rule Community status, our environmental Community Bill of Rights passed by voters in 2015, and ongoing initiatives to defend our environment and health.]

Grant Township, Pennsylvania, population 741, has became the front line of a radical new environmental movement – and they’re not backing down

On October 24th, 2012, several agents from Pennsylvania General Energy, an oil-and-gas exploration company, met privately with local officials from the rural western Pennsylvania community of Grant Township. Fracking was booming in Pennsylvania, and PGE had been trucking tens of thousands of gallons of fracking wastewater to faraway injection wells in Ohio. Developing an injection well somewhere in Pennsylvania could save the company around $2 million a year, and Grant Township, a swath of woods and hayfields slightly larger than Manhattan and populated by a mere 741 people, seemed like an especially good spot.

Most of the meeting’s attendees – which included the three Grant Township supervisors, a rep from the local state senator’s office and an official from the county’s office of planning and development – will not speak about the event. But about 10 months later, one of the supervisors passed along a notice to a retired elementary-school teacher named Judy Wanchisn. In lettering so small “you need a magnifying glass to read,” says Wanchisn, the notice declared that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “plans to issue an Underground Injection Control (UIC) permit to PGE  . . .  to construct and operate one class II-D brine disposal injection well.” Wanchisn had no idea what that meant, but she could tell it was bad….

read more at Rolling Stone

Grant Township, Pennsylvania, population 741, has became the front line of a radical new environmental movement – and they’re not backing down

On October 24th, 2012, several agents from Pennsylvania General Energy, an oil-and-gas exploration company, met privately with local officials from the rural western Pennsylvania community of Grant Township. Fracking was booming in Pennsylvania, and PGE had been trucking tens of thousands of gallons of fracking wastewater to faraway injection wells in Ohio. Developing an injection well somewhere in Pennsylvania could save the company around $2 million a year, and Grant Township, a swath of woods and hayfields slightly larger than Manhattan and populated by a mere 741 people, seemed like an especially good spot.

Most of the meeting’s attendees – which included the three Grant Township supervisors, a rep from the local state senator’s office and an official from the county’s office of planning and development – will not speak about the event. But about 10 months later, one of the supervisors passed along a notice to a retired elementary-school teacher named Judy Wanchisn. In lettering so small “you need a magnifying glass to read,” says Wanchisn, the notice declared that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “plans to issue an Underground Injection Control (UIC) permit to PGE  . . .  to construct and operate one class II-D brine disposal injection well.” Wanchisn had no idea what that meant, but she could tell it was bad….

read more at Rolling Stone