Earth First Protesters Convicted, Fined for Blocking PA Drill Site
A couple of radical “Earth First” protesters were fined $400 each last Friday in a Lycoming County, PA court, having been convicted of creating a hazardous situation by “crossing the line” according to the judge. The conviction stems from a case we reported to you last year when a group of nutters shut down an Anadarko drilling site in Lycoming County by chaining themselves to a 12-foot long, shrapnel-filled concrete pipe they had laid across a road (see Protesters Shut Down Anadarko Drill Site in Lycoming County, PA). First responders had to risk their own lives to cut them free, through concrete intentionally embedded with shrapnel (we wouldn’t have been as understanding or gentle as the first responders). Just to show you how big a splash a few committed psychos protesters can make, one of the two fined for $400 (and ordered to perform 50 hours of community service) in Lycoming County last week was also one of the idiots protesters who endangered fans at the Indianapolis Colts/Carolina Panthers NFL game by rappelling down from an upper deck to unfurl a big sign opposing the Cove Point LNG plant (see Cove Point Protesters Disrupt Monday Night Football Game on TV). Same dude–a serial lawbreaker…
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Not long after she took office, Pennsylvania’s Democrat Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, brought criminal charges against XTO Energy for an accidental spill in Lycoming County, PA that happened two years before she was in office (see 
A major defeat for Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling groups, including THE Delaware Riverkeeper, was just handed down by the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court in a Lycoming County zoning case. In Gorsline v. Board of Supervisors of Fairfield Township, anti-drilling neighbors, including Brian and Dawn Gorsline, Paul and Michele Batkowski and others (collectively “Gorsline”) sued to stop a conditional use permit granted by Fairfield Township to allow Inflection Energy to construct a well pad on the property of Donald and Eleanor Shaheen. The case was weak, but the lowest court in the PA court system–the Court of Common Pleas (i.e. county court)–said the ninny nanny neighbors had a right to strip away the Shaheen’s property rights to allow drilling on their own property. The PA Commonwealth Court obliterated the faulty reasoning of the lower court and has, significantly, redefined how courts should interpret the results of the Act 13 zoning lawsuit that allows local municipalities the right to restrict shale drilling. The Commonwealth Court decision (full copy below) has kicked the legal legs out from under those seeking to use an amicus brief filed by THE Delaware Riverkeeper in the Act 13 case…
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection announced an agreement/settlement with three Marcellus drillers operating in the northeastern portion of the state. The three–Chesapeake Energy, XTO Energy and SWEPI (i.e. Shell) were fined a collective $374,481 for methane migration related to their drilling activities at three locations (three different counties) in 2011 and 2012. The bad news is that 13 private water wells between the three incidents were negatively affected, along with several local creeks. The good news is that the problems are all fixed. Methane migration is an eminently fixable condition. Here are the details for each fine, including what happened and where it happened…
Yesterday MDN told you about the new, negative tone being set at the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection by its new leader, Sec. John Quigley, by fining Range Resources for a case of methane migration (see 
Last September Range Resources was assessed a then-new record high fine of $4.15 million for a series of leaking frack wastewater impoundments in southwestern Pennsylvania (see