Category: Uncategorized

Rights of Nature

Though industry lawyers are accustomed to involvement from conservation groups and others affected by alleged environmental harms, this was far from a standard intervenor motion. The filing came from the environment itself — the Little Mahoning Creek and all the water and land ecosystems that feed into it. The motion — which also lists a more traditional party, the grass-roots East Run Hellbenders Society — invokes “rights of nature,” a doctrine that purports to give certain legal rights to elements of nature, including trees, mountains and entire ecosystems.  More …

Clean Stream Law

The state environmental agency had never examined injection well permits through the prism of the Clean Stream Law before, said DEP spokeswoman Amanda Witman.

When Wanchisn’s group made their case, “in an abundance of caution DEP rescinded the permit,” Witman said. More … 

“Personhood” of an ecosystem

A battle over personhood is brewing in the tiny rural community of Grant Township in western Pennsylvania’s Indiana County. And that fight is now in the courts, where a federal judge will have to decide whether the “personhood” of an ecosystem trumps the “personhood” of a corporation.  More … 

Indiana Gazette coverage of revoked permit

EAST RUN — State environmental regulators have revoked a permit allowing a natural gas and oil drilling company to dispose of well-site waste fluids in a remote area of northern Indiana County.  More …

DEP reverses approval

The Department of Environmental Protection took the unusual step of reversing its approval of a frack waste water disposal well in Indiana County this week. The decision took both the energy company and the opponents of the disposal well, by surprise. More…

Grant Township sued

PITTSBURGH – A gas and oil drilling company sued a Western Pennsylvania township, claiming an ordinance passed to ban the disposal of drilling byproducts like fracking fluids and briny water is illegal and trumped by state and federal law. More … 

Starting a Revolution

A couple years ago, in Grant Township, PA, (population 700), residents awoke into a nightmare where an oil and gas corporation was seeking permits to force a Class II injection well into the community.

Read more here.

Charter voted in

Last night, the people of Grant Township adopted the country’s first municipal charter establishing a local bill of rights. The Grant Bill of Rights codifies environmental and democratic rights, and bans frack wastewater injection wells as a violation of those rights.

Read more here.