“Athens 8” Criminal Protesters Receive Slap on Wrist by OH Court
Eight loud, obnoxious and anything-but-peaceful protesters were arrested in February near Athens, OH for trespassing and illegally blocking the entrance to an injection well site (see Break the Law in OH, Get an Award – Anti-Drilling Nuttery on Display). The eight alleged criminals–charged with criminal trespass–have successfully pleaded their crimes down to disorderly conduct and let go with a slap on the wrist by an Ohio court.
One of the protesters, a “sustainable” organic farmer, Gilbert (Kip) Rondy, someone who operates “unheated greenhouses” (apparently that’s a badge of honor instead of a sanity test), read a statement to the judge that attempts to excuse his and the other protesters’ lawless actions by saying they had to do it to protect Mother Earth. This one will give you a chuckle like it did us…
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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.
In one of the biggest (perhaps the biggest) fines levied by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), Halliburton has been fined $1.8 million for storing and treating hydrochloric acid (HCl) at a facility in Homer City, PA (about 50 miles from Pittsburgh). The HCl shipped and treated at the Homer City site happened over a 13-year period of time from 1999-2011, meaning most of it came from conventional natural gas well sites, although some it likely came from Marcellus Shale sites too (the conventional/unconventional split is not identified in the DEP paperwork). Marcellus drilling in PA didn’t ramp up until around 2006-2007. The DEP says Halliburton had claimed exemption from the state’s Solid Waste Management Act of 1980 for their Homer City facility, saying they were shipping and storing very small amounts of HCl at the facility when in fact that was not the case. Based on their false claim, Halliburton was given a pass on inspections, paperwork filing, signage, and the requirement to use certified hazardous waste haulers on more than 250 truck trips in and out of the facility–hauling HCl. Halliburton was in the wrong, they now acknowledge it (having been caught), and they’ve been levied a steep fine.
MDN has long chronicled the bad actions of Ben Lupo, the guy who directed one of his employees to dump thousands of gallons of frack wastewater down a drain that eventually ended up in the Mahoning River near Youngstown, OH (see