[Ssaninfo] Silencing Communities: How the Fracking Industry Keeps Its Secrets

[Christian Stalberg]

Silencing Communities: How the Fracking Industry Keeps Its Secrets 

Tuesday, 08 May 2012 13:46 By Mike Ludwig, Truthout <http://truth-out.org/>
| Report 

 Natural gas drilling in Dimock, Pennsylvania.
<http://truth-out.org/images/050812ludwig_.jpg> Natural gas drilling in
Dimock, Pennsylvania. (Photo: Helen
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/arimoore/4142093348/> Slottje /
shaleshock.org) The "Rogers" family signed a surface-use agreement with a
fracking company in 2009 to close their 300-acre dairy farm in rural
Pennsylvania. That's not the end of the Rogers' story, but the public,
including the Rogers' own neighbors, may never learn what happened to the
family and their land as drilling operations sprouted up in their area. The
Rogers did not realize they had signed a nondisclosure agreement with the
gas company making the entire deal invalid if members of the family
discussed the terms of the agreement, water or land disturbances resulting
from fracking and other information with anyone other than the gas company
and other signatories.

"Rogers" is not the family's real name, it's a pseudonym offered by Simona
Perry, an applied anthropologist who cannot reveal the family's identity.
Perry has been working with rural families living amid Pennsylvania's gas
boom since 2009. Mrs. Rogers initially agreed to participate in a study
Perry was conducting on rural families living near fracking operations. She
later called Perry in tears, explaining that her family could no longer
participate in the study because of the nondisclosure clause in the
surface-use agreement. She told Perry she felt stupid for signing the
agreement and has realized she had a good life without the money the
fracking company paid them to use their land.

 <http://truth-out.org/news/item/8740-gas-rush-fracking-in-depth> Perry has
been working with and collecting data
<http://globalcountryside.wordpress.com/>  on rural families living amid
Pennsylvania's gas boom since 2009 and she told Truthout that the Rogers
were not the only family who could not share their experiences due to
nondisclosure agreements. Perry said the nondisclosure agreements prevent
doctors and researchers from gathering valuable data on the health and
environmental impacts of fracking and have a chilling effect on people and
communities living near the rigs.

"As communities struggle to contend with these impacts and risks in their
daily lives, citizens are forced or sometimes unknowingly sign a
nondisclosure agreements, [and] they have lost their freedom to speak and
share their knowledge and experience with their neighbors," Perry said. "As
a result, whole communities have been silenced and repressed."

Doctors Demand Access to Fracking Data

Controversial hydraulic fracturing oil and gas drilling methods known as
"fracking" involve pumping water and chemicals deep underground to break up
rock and release oil and gas. Advanced techniques have facilitated an oil
and natural gas boom across Pennsylvania and beyond in recent years and
brought the drilling close to homes and farms.

Besides air emissions standards recently introduced by the Environmental
Protection Agency
<http://truth-out.org/news/item/8606-mike-ludwig-on-rt-are-epa-fracking-regu
lations-hurting-jobs> ,  fracking remains largely unregulated by the federal
government and has been linked to earthquakes
<http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=7245:regulators-s
ay-fracking-wastewater-well-caused-12-earthquakes-in-ohio>  and air and
water contamination across the country. Fracking companies disclose some of
the chemicals used in fracking fluid, but others - and their concentrations
- are often exempt from disclosure because they are considered trade
secrets. Other exemptions buried in state and federal law allow drillers to
avoid disclosing contents of fracking fluids after they return from deep
underground.

Dr. Jerome Paulson, a physician and director of Mid-Atlantic Center for
Children's Health and the Environment, said that the fracking industry has
told the public that the drilling procedure is safe, so there is no reason
to hide information on health impacts from public view. Nondisclosure
agreements with private landowners and disclosure exemptions, Paulson said,
are preventing doctors from doing their jobs and protecting the public.

"How do we provide appropriate treatment recommendations to who are ill?"
Paulson asked during a press conference last week. "For the population of
individuals who are healthy, how do we provide prevention recommendations
when we don't have the information?"

A spokesperson for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group that
represents fracking companies in Pennsylvania, was not available for
comment.

Headaches, Nosebleeds and Sealed Records

Chris and Stephanie Hallowich and their children thought they had found
their dream home when they moved onto a farm in Mount Pleasant,
Pennsylvania, but they did not know the prior owner had leased the gas
rights to a fracking company, according to Matthew Gerhart, an attorney for
the group Earthjustice <http://www.earthjustice.org/> . The family soon
found themselves surrounded by gas development as fracking companies
exploited the gas-rich Marcellus Shale that runs under much of the state.

The Hallowich family became outspoken opponents of fracking and said that
they and their children began suffering from headaches, nosebleeds, burning
eyes and sore throats as drilling operations expanded on their land and in
their neighborhood. The family tried to get the attention of the media,
state regulators and the gas companies, but ended up filing a lawsuit in
2010 and abandoning their home.

The lawsuit was settled in last year. The settlement hearing was closed to
the press and the gas companies persuaded a common please judge who approved
the settlement to permanently seal it from public view, according to
Gerhart, who assumes the settlement includes a nondisclosure agreement. Two
area newspapers, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
<http://shale.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/news/archives/24508-group-joi
ns-pg-effort-to-unseal-hallowich-settlement>  and the Observer Reporter,
have since sought access to the court records, but were initially denied.
Last week, the newspapers appealed the judge's decision denying them access
to the records to the state's Superior Court.

Dr. Paulson joined Earthjustice, Philadelphia Physicians for Social
Responsibility, and other groups in filing a brief in support of the
newspapers' appeal, arguing that the public deserves access to crucial
information about the potential health impacts of fracking.

"We're involved in this case because the gas companies insistence on
confidentiality is the tip of the iceberg, for one example of a pattern of
secrecy and in other contexts," said Gerhart, who hopes that the effort to
unseal the records will be a step toward greater industry transparency. "...
We need real data and access to the real people that are affected by
fracking."

The brief filed by Earthjustice and the doctors' groups lists 27 cases in
heavily fracked states such as Colorado, Arkansas, Texas and Pennsylvania
where details of the case or the settlement are being held out of public
light due to sealed court records and nondisclosure agreements.


 <javascript:return addthis_sendto('email');>  

Mike  <http://truth-out.org/author/itemlist/user/44659> Ludwig


Mike Ludwig is a Truthout reporter. Follow Mike on Twitter @ludwig_mike.

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