They’re poisoning our future
, who lives in southwestern Pennsylvania, has written for SocialistWorker.org previously about battling energy company EQT over the company's claim to a natural gas well located on his property. Here, he provides readers with an update.
HERE I sit in the beautiful Great Bear Rain Forest in British Columbia, Canada, where fossil fuel corporations such as EQT are run out of town before they can get a foot in the door. It is incredible to witness such a beautiful place as this where nature is equal or superior to man.
I asked the Nuxalk First Nation folks why they put a chain on a pipeline company trailer and hauled it out of town when the company's intention was to train local folk with 85 percent unemployment to be pipeliners in the fossil fuel energy field. Their answer was simple. "Ron, our biggest inconvenience is when we bend down to drink from our creeks, streams and rivers, we have to push the salmon aside. Why do we want $50,000 or $100,000 in our pockets and risk loosing this?"
Now, back to "part three" of EQT's irrational, deceptive, greedy, uncaring actions in retaliating against us for speaking truth to power and for protecting our grandchildren and those yet to be born from EQT's hubristic behavior to fulfill the corporate greed that is rampant around the world threatening the future.
It is obvious that EQT and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP, or "Don't Expect Protection") are working together to carry out this plugging of our gas well 100 feet from our only water source, 25 feet from the stream, and close enough to four neighbors who also may lose their water. (We lost our crystal clear ice cold spring that I hand-developed due to plugging of another gas well 300 feet from our spring).
We have been in court several times since my last update ("Nothing but greed drives them") was written, and the results have naturally been in EQT's favor.
At present, EQT is on-site to plug our well as the presiding judge refused to stop the plugging until our contesting it is heard in court. EQT allowed the company plugging the well to disconnect the gas line from the wellhead to the house (where the lease stated the gas was to originate from) and leave it on top of the ground in an unsafe manner for our renters. They refuse to connect it to a meter in the proper manner, stating it is not their responsibility.
The DEP could care less, and the only recourse we have is to continue filing objections and demanding hearings from both EQT, the DEP and the courts. EQT and their lawyers are extremely irritated at us for our continued resistance to their bullying behavior.
The bottom line is that EQT and the DEP are upset with the fact that Giulia, my spouse, has been handling all our efforts pro se and, after years, they still cannot stop her. This reflection was verified when we received an e mail from EQT's attorney that mistakenly included e-mails to many EQT employees negatively referring to Giulia's actions.
THERE ARE two important factors to keep in mind here: First, EQT chose to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for attorneys fees for plugging our well, for the probable loss and pollution of our and four neighbors' water wells, and for continued liability--when all they had to do was sign a one-page paper from the DEP turning the well over to us, giving us the responsibility to plug our well should it ever go dry or develop leaks, and having us assume all liability, thereby allowing EQT to merely walk away without spending a dime or hurting a soul. Why wouldn't they take this route?
Second, we own the mineral rights under our property and this well, and will not be selling the coal or leasing away our gas to EQT, Range, Rice, Chesapeake, or any other planet-destroying, greedy, fossil-fuel energy corporation.
What these two realities mean to us is that EQT has something up their sleeve in their relentless efforts to spend all this money and ignore the health of this planet, as well as of the local community that they profess is very important to them. Perhaps the "law" in Pennsylvania is set up to steal our gas once the plugging is done that will entail paying EQT for the registration on the well after it is plugged. By the way, EQT and the DEP are dead-set on a type of plugging that ensures that coal and the gas from Marcellus/Utica shale can be extracted.
On August 15, EQT commenced plugging this well--even though they knew the well is not depleted and that there was pressure in the well. They could not adequately explain what they would do with the gas when they take the cap off to plug the well.
EQT stopped the plugging operation, as our renters got sick from the gas in the house. EQT wanted to put our renters up in a hotel 30 miles away, with no food allowance or settlement. Our renters are disabled, watch four grandchildren on a daily basis and have animals. They refused this voluntary confinement, resulting in EQT wanting to put the escaping gas in a tank and release it over the hill. So, in order to plug a well that is not depleted, leaking or impaired, EQT starts by polluting the air with methane before the plugging even starts.
To hell with the air, wildlife, birds, local community and their own grandchildren. EQT and the DEP are hell-bent on plugging this well. Why? EQT is playing this out and refuses to state what the "noble cause" of their actions may be. Our guess is retaliation and greed. The unforgivable consequences of EQT and the DEP's actions are resulting in depletion and destruction of the future generations' air, water, quality of life and safe energy.
Stay tuned for part four of this hubristic heinous action of EQT, which exemplifies the behavior of fossil fuel energy companies in general across the globe.
