0.0024 of Berks County Population Opposes New $1B GTL Plant
Over the past several years MDN has told you about a number of gas-to-liquids (GTL) projects trying to get underway in the Marcellus and Utica Shale region. GTL converts cheap, abundant natural gas into motor oils and diesel fuel. Kind of like spinning gold from hay. One of those projects is a proposal by Canadian company EmberClear Corp. that wants to build such a plant in Berks County, PA–near Philadelphia. EmberClear proposes to spend upward of an eye-popping $1 billion to build a plant that will create 100 permanent jobs when it’s completed–to say nothing of the hundreds of temporary jobs needed to build it (see Another New Gas-to-Liquids Plant Coming in PA – Near Philly).
As soon as you announce such a project, wacko anti-drillers pop up (like a game of Whack-a-Mole) to oppose it. Such a group has formed in Berks County. Called the South Heidelberg Community Association, the group has gotten 1,000 people to sign a petition against this $1 billion economic miracle that would exist in their area. Let’s see, 1,000 people of the Berks County population of 411,442–or 2/10ths of one percent. Will this infinitesimally small number of people ruin it for everyone?…
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The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), along with the Act 13 law, has come under heavy fire from anti-drillers and the seven selfish towns who want to overturn Act 13. Even though the DEP is dedicated to the health and safety of the people and environment in PA, they’re regularly (falsely) accused of colluding with “industry” and throwing both people and the environment under the metaphorical bus. The latest accusations against the DEP stem from the Act 13 lawsuit remanded by the PA Supreme Court back to a lower court. Anti-drillers are doing their best to gut the protections afforded in Act 13 because they want the chance to re-do it and “do it right” (meaning onerous new regulations). And so after the seven selfish towns pulled on one Act 13 thread (zoning) and won, their action now threatens to unravel the entire law (see 
Last Monday a little known anti-driller with a potty mouth from northeast PA–Vera Scroggins–had her day in court. You may recall that Vera had repeatedly trespassed on drilling sites owned by Cabot Oil & Gas in Susquehanna County and a judge slapped her with a restraining order last year. Vera said the court order prevented her from sipping lattes at the local Price Chopper grocery store (land leased by Cabot) so she got herself a lawyer from the American Civil Liberties Union and asked the judge to reconsider (see 
The very twisted philosophy of so-called “Earth First” group members seems to be that humans are an infestation on Mother Earth, hence the name (full of self-loathing people, apparently). A group of Earth Firsters, most of them not from Pennsylvania, protested and shut down an Anadarko Petroleum drilling site in PA yesterday. Anadarko owns leases land in the Tiadaghton State Forest in Lycoming County, PA where they have an active drilling site (near Williamsport). Three of the protesters locked themselves to a solid concrete pipe embedded with shrapnel that reached across the road blocking the way to the drill site. The protesters had to be cut free at great personal danger to themselves and the first responders who cut them free. Five protesters in all were arrested.
Talk about biting (off) the hand that feeds you. Get this one: The dunderheaded City Council members of Dunkirk, NY (near Buffalo) voted yesterday to ban fracking. Not only that, they want the entire county to follow suit! City Council members recited, almost chapter and verse, the same worn-out old lies told in Gasland, the fictitious movie from Josh Fox. After reading their comments we’re left to think the sum total of research done by the braintrust in Dunkirk into fracking was to munch popcorn and watch a movie. They apparently bought it hook, line and sinker. What dolts.