The LuLac Edition #1517, March 23rd, 2011

PHOTO INDEX: "WRITE ON WEDNESDAY" LOGO.

WRITE ON WEDNESDAY

CANNON'S LETTER

Plymouth activist and Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition member Scott Cannon is trying to have the Hanover Area School Board recognize the importance of the situation near the River regarding the transferring of water for gas drilling. Here is a copy of his missive, the second one mind you, to the school authorities.

Dear Hanover Area Board Members,
I sent you an email a month ago regarding the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority's proposal to build a gas drilling frack water treatment facility and their grounds by the Susquehanna River.
I attended the WVSA board meeting on March 15th and found out new information that should be important to the safety of the children in your school district. The WVSA attorney/consultant John Minora told me that the proposed facility would accept 10-12 large tanker trucks an hour for 24 hours a day. The trucks would come down from the northern counties through Route 29 in Plymouth Township, over the Cross Valley, onto the San Souci, and they would buy the car wash property in Buttonwood and build a connection road there to Breaker Road. If you do the math, that is 576 large 8,000 gallon tanker trucks back and forth a day, carrying toxic waste.
As you know, the Dallas School Board is fighting along with residents to keep a compressor station and now metering stations from being built 1,300 feet from their schools. They realize that putting a toxic industrial facility by a school is wrong. I am not sure that you are aware of the magnitude of this situation. Once this facility is built, it opens the door to expansion, and as you know, it is in a residential neighborhood and a school zone. I ask that you look into this matter, as it will be affecting your town for the next 30 years according to the drilling industries estimates on gas production in Pennsylvania.
The WVSA is currently conducting a feasibility study to determine whether or not to build this facility. Now would be a good time to speak up. There are 115 days left in the study.
My group, the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, sponsored a presentation by Dr. Conrad Volz, a scientist and public health expert to talk about gas drilling and this particular proposed treatment facility. Here is the link to the section where he talks about whets in the chemicals and why putting such a facility in the WVSA is a bad idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWwjWFcCIgY

The following letter is from Tunkhannock resident George Turner, P. G., a geologist and water treatment expert.
Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority (WVSA) plan to allow the building of a frackwater treatment plant along the Susquehanna River must be stopped
It’s absurd for the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority (WVSA) board members to even consider, let alone pick, someone to design, build and operate a natural gas wastewater treatment facility along the Susquehanna River, as was voted upon at Tuesday’s meeting.
Even though they say they aren't making a commitment, until they do more homework, it sure sounds like they already made up their minds.
The company chosen by the board says that water dumped into the Susquehanna will be treated to drinking water standards. While it is quite possible that frackwater can be turned into drinking water, the costs would be prohibitive.
Furthermore, if the water is treated to drinking water standards, then why does it need to be dumped into the Susquehanna at all.
It appears to me that what they want to do is to dilute their contaminated water with the treated sewage until it just barely meets the requirements of an NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit, and then dump it into the Susquehanna River.
This is just one more attempt to discharge contaminated water into the streams and rivers in our area. It was tried in Wyoming County at Lemon Twp. and Eaton Twp. Both were refused by DEP.
Isn’t it interesting that the WVSA already has a sewage treatment plant and NPDES permit already in place?
What these people want is access to the Susquehanna River, so they can dump contaminated water into it. All the rest is all smoke and mirrors.
When I was a boy growing up in Harding, I spent my summers in, and on, the river. At that time there were no environmental laws, and everyone who lived along the Susquehanna threw their garbage over the river bank. Susquehanna River
The river was one long dump used for the disposal of anything that was unwanted, from daily household garbage to old boats, furniture, and sometimes even whole cars. The bottoms of my feet are covered with scars from stepping on cans and broken bottles.
During the late 1950's and early 1960's the cleanup of the area began. The undaunting effort to remove the junk that was tossed into the river paid off.
In 2009, I took my Scuba gear and drifted down the river for approximately a mile, and I found only two pieces of construction debris that looked like aluminum siding. I found NO cans, NO bottles, and NO garbage of any kind.
To avoid the mistakes of the past, we need to be very vocal and very active in protecting not only our precious water resources, but our environment as well.
I don’t want to see us moving backward!
George E. Turner, P.G.
EatonTownship
570-836-1055
If you would like more information or would like us to schedule an information presentation, we gladly will. Please give me a call.
Sincerely,
Scott Cannon
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