The Delaware Riverkeeper Network champions the

rights of our communities to a Delaware River and

tributary streams that are free-flowing, clean, healthy
and abundant with a diversity of life.

www.delawareriverkeeper.org

Delaware River
Watershed by State

New York State = 2,362 sq mi; 18.5%

Pennsylvania = 6,422 sq. mi; 50.3%
New Jersey =2,969 sq mi; 23.3%
Delaware =1,004 sq mi; 7.9%
DE Bay = 782 sq. mi

Freedom of speech
Freedom of the press
Freedom of religion
Right to peaceable assembly
Right for the people to keep and bear
arms
Due process rights
Private property rights

Our right to pure water, clean air

and a healthy environment

Culm Pile in Scranton, PA, 1910. Photo Credit Horgans of Scranton and
Library of Congress

Throughout the 1800s, timber barons cut down nearly all of Pennsylvanias
forests. They were joined by the charcoal industry; an ironworks furnace
cleared roughly an acre of trees every day to make charcoal, a key
ingredient in the iron making process.
http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/MontAlto.html

Photo found at: http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/kochel/classes/susqriver/september21.htm

There is no more shocking example of greed and utter disregard for

public welfare than the ruthless devastation of the forests of Pennsylvania
by the lumber companies between 1840 and 1900.
Quoted in A Century of Forest Resources Education at Penn State, agricultural historian S. W.

Smoke Pollution in Pittsburgh, 1941.

Photo credit: Archives Svce Center,

Figure 1. -- Fish kill from acid mine pollution, October 9-14, 1961,
North Branch, Susquehanna River, near Sunbury, Pa. It was estimated
that over a million fish were killed including 15,000 walleyes and
14,000 legal-size bass. Photo: Johnny Nicklas, Pa. Fish Commission.

Article 1, Section 27 of the

Pennsylvania Constitution:

The people have a right to clean air,

pure water, and to the preservation of
the natural, scenic, historic and
esthetic values of the environment.
Pennsylvanias public natural
resources are the common property
of all the people, including
generations yet to come. As trustee
of these resources, the
Commonwealth shall conserve and

February 3, 1971
Passed house 199 0
February 15, 1971
Passed senate 45 0
May 18, 1971
Placed on Ballot
Voters approved
By a vote of 4 to 1
1,021,342 to 259,979

42 Years
Until December 2013

Enter
Shale Gas
Extraction
Mid-2000s

Photo: Dick Martin

Per Well:

5,000,000 Gallons Water Per

Well

+
1/2 % to 2 % chemicals/additives

25,000 to 100,000 Gallons

Chemicals

Pennsylvania Alone

Nearly 9,000 Wells Drilled=

45,000,000,000 = 45 Billion
100,000 Wells Industry Hopes For
=
500,000,000,000 = 500
Billion

Gluteraldeh
yde
Diesel

ochloric Acid
Ethylene Glycol
Polyethylene
Glycol
mixture

Methanol

Acetic Anhydrid

Toxins Drawn From the

Geology
Chloride
Bromide
Sulfide
Barium
Strontium
Benzene
Toluene
Frack Fluid (slurry)
additives
Proppants

Methane
Naturally Occurring
Radioactive Material
Uranium - 238
Radium- 226
Thorium 232

Mercury
TDS making flowback 5 to
8 times as salty as sea
water. (sea water ~
30,000 40,000 ppm
TDS)

Spring water - Clearville, PA 2009

Residents report it smells like motor oil
(Fracktracker)

Wastewater

Triple Play of Problems

1.Poor performance and government oversight
2.Inadequate regulations
3.Unmet technical and environmental challenges

Injection wells used

primarily nationwide
PA produced 1.2 billion gallons
in 2012

Frac Fluid Spill at Cabo

Gas Well, Dimock, PA,

Health Impacts from Shale Gas

Emissions

Climate Change

New Hope, PA Delaware River 06

Example of a Wet Ditch Crossing:

Tennessee 300 Line Extension
Project across the West River
Branch, Lackawaxen

Wet Crossing Lackawaxan River 9-8-11

Communities Overwhelmed
Industry Wanted and Got
More

Photo: Skytruth

Act 13

Argued
Shale Gas Inevitably
Destructive on Communities
and the Environment
Law
Violates
Our

Environmental
Rights
Robinson Township, Delaware
Riverkeeper Network, et al v.
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania., --A.3d ---, 2103 WL 6687290 (Pa., Dec.
19, 2013)

The industry uses two techniques that enhance recovery of natural

gas from these unconventional gas wells: hydraulic fracturing or
fracking (usually slick-water fracking) and horizontal drilling. Both
techniques inevitably do violence to the landscape.
p. 8

Courtesy of
ALLARM

By any responsible account, the exploitation

of the Marcellus Shale Formation will produce
a detrimental effect on the environment, on
the people, their children, and future
generations, and potentially on the public
purse, perhaps rivaling the environmental
effects of coal extraction. p. 118

The public natural resources implicated by the

are
resources essential to life, health, and liberty :
optimal accommodation of industry here

surface and ground water, ambient air, and aspects of

the natural environment in which the public has an
interest.

Article 1, Section 27 of the

Pennsylvania Constitution:

The people have a right to clean air,

pure water, and to the preservation of
the natural, scenic, historic and
esthetic values of the environment.
Pennsylvanias public natural
resources are the common property
of all the people, including
generations yet to come. As trustee
of these resources, the
Commonwealth shall conserve and

PA Supreme
Court
Recognizes:
Right to pure water, clean air, healthy
environment
Inherent & indefeasible rights -- not given
but acknowledged by constitution
Belonging to present and future generations
To be protected by all levels of government
Robinson Township, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, et al v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.,
, Dec. 19, 2013

What
Next?

Healthy Environment is a
RIGHT

Expect
It!

For the Generations

Art. 1, Section 27
Applies to all environmental
issues

 [E]nvironmental changes, whether

positive or negative, have the potential
to be incremental, have a compounding
effect, and develop over generations.
The Environmental Rights Amendment
offers protection equally against actions
with immediate severe impact on public
natural resources and
against actions with minimal or
insignificant present consequences that
are actually or likely to have significant
or irreversible effects in the short or
long term.

Constitutional
Environmental
Rights

Not every state has

one but should be
(35/15)
Matters what they
say

Matters What They Say

Minnesota
.. Navigable .. shall be common highways and
forever free to citizens of the United States without
any tax, duty, impost or toll therefor. Art II Sec. 2.

Hunting and fishing and the taking of game and fish

are a valued part of our heritage that shall be
forever preserved for the people and shall be
managed by law and regulation for the public good
Art. XIII, 12

Matters What They Say

New Mexico

The protection of the states beautiful and healthful

environment is hereby declared to be of fundamental
importance to the public interest, health, safety and
the general welfare.
The legislature shall provide for control of pollution and
control of despoilment of the air, water and other
natural resources of this state, consistent with the use
and development of these resources for the maximum
benefit of the people.
Article 20, Section 21

Matters What They Say

Pennsylvania

The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the
preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic
values of the environment.
Pennsylvanias public natural resources are the common
property of all the people, including generations yet to
come.
As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall
conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the
people.
Article 1, Section 27 of the

PA Supreme Court
Our right to pure water, clean air and a
healthy environment is inherent and
indefeasible and must be protected for
present and future generations.

Robinson Township, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, et al

v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania., Dec. 19, 2013

Website:
www.delawareriverkeeper.org
Blog:
delawarerivervoice@blogspot.c
om
Twitter:
DelRiverkeeper
Facebook:
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