Neighbors in Penn-Trafford protesting against drilling site
Protesters from Penn-Trafford were in front of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection office in Pittsburgh afraid a fracking site will create a ghost town.
The well pad is along First Street in Trafford. A sign on the property has the Apex Energy LLC company on it.
“The courts and the Penn Township leaders and our regulators say this is only temporary, it’s not with all those wells,” neighbor Larry Irr said.
The group said 2,823 residents live within 1 mile of the proposed fracking site, and more than 900 live within half a mile.
“I don’t want this well pad to be built because it’s simply too many people, too close to people,” neighbor Gillian Graber said. “We have definitive evidence that’s affirmed by the attorney general that this will be harmful to our residents.”
Graber went inside the DEP building to deliver a letter requesting a public hearing and listing the concerns from the residents, which includes quality of life and negative impacts on their air, land and water.
“We would like to see, No. 1, a policy change at a larger level,” Graber said. “But we would like to see it start with this particular well pad, for them to deny it.”
Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 requested a comment from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the company applying for the permit to use this well pad.