HYDROFRACKING: A Cautionary Tale from Western Pennsylvania

First-hand accounts on the effects of  Hydrofracking in the Marcellus Shale in Western PA, focusing on the effects on the Allegheny National Forest.

Bill Belitskus was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico and grew up on his family’s dairy farm in Southwest Pennsylvania.  He holds a degree in Psychology from Duquesne University and a Masters in Education from the University of Pittsburgh.  He is a Vietnam veteran who served in the U.S. Army in Military Intelligence.  He ran twice as an independent candidate for U. S.  Representative in the 5th Congressional District. He homesteads with his wife Mary and lives in the passive solar house they constructed on their 25-acre woodlot in Kane, McKean County adjacent to the Allegheny National Forest. He has been hiking, camping and recreating on the Allegheny for over 35 years and has been an active ADP member since 1996. For the past 15 years, Belitskus has been monitoring forest fragmentation, water degradation, air pollution, and the loss of recreational opportunities in the Allegheny National Forest caused by oil and gas drilling. He speaks from the unique perspective of a Pennsylvanian “whose state has jumped into shale gas drilling and fracking, feet first with eyes closed.” Bill has been sounding the alarm about the riparian rights of landowners to protect waterways and the dangers of consumptive water withdrawal from rivers, streams and groundwater by the oil and gas industry. In this presentation he address’s the PA  Legislature’s recent passing of Act 13, called the most anti-democratic, anti-environmental law in the nation, because it elevates the rights of gas companies above the civil rights of people and communities. This legislation gives gas companies the right to drill anywhere, overturn local zoning law, seize private property and muzzle physicians from disclosing specific health impacts upon patients from drilling contamination.