Venango County Tea Party Patriots

A non-partisan, non-profit, non-member, association dedicated to educating the public and promoting the principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free market economics, and all other lawful activities.

marcellus shale

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Pennsylvania Famous for Protecting Her Rattlesnakes

Pennsylvania stands out among states in the region as having done a good job of protecting the timber rattlesnake, a state official said.

James Chestney, the venomous species coordinator of the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission, says the reptile is endangered or threatened in other northeastern states.

By contrast, he told The (Towanda) Daily Review, the commonwealth has “a good population” of timber rattlesnakes, which he attributed to good management.

Chestney was working on Saturday at the annual rattlesnake hunt at Monroeton Rod & Gun Club in Bradford County, where seven timber rattlesnakes caught earlier in the day in Bradford and Sullivan counties were on display in a pen along with two copperhead snakes. The event also featured food, music, a horseshoe competition and other activities.

Chestney said the “big mountain section” of Pennsylvania’s Northern Tier is “prime Pennsylvania timber rattlesnake (country). In fact, all five of Pennsylvania’s organized rattlesnake hunts take place in the Northern Tier, including one this weekend in Monroe Township in Bradford County, he said.

The area is also a center of a lot of natural gas drilling along the Marcellus Shale, and Chestney said the impact of drilling on the timber rattlesnake population is a concern.

The biggest threats to the population are development, which could include drilling, and “wanton killing” of the reptiles, but Chestney said companies have been working with the agency to protect the snakes.    Read more.

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New Auditor General Launches Marcellus Water Safety Audit

As one of his first acts, new state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale has launched a performance audit to determine how well state environmental officials have monitored the impact of natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation on water quality and waste disposal.

Mr. DePasquale, who took office Tuesday, sent a letter the next day to Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer informing him of the audit covering activities from 2009 to 2012.

Mr. DePasquale, a former DEP deputy secretary in the Rendell administration and Democratic House lawmaker, pledged to make this audit a priority during his campaign.

He reaffirmed that goal in his inaugural address.

“One of my first official duties as auditor general will be to initiate a performance audit of the Department of Environmental Protection to make sure our constitutional right to pure water is not compromised by natural gas drilling,” said Mr. DePasquale.

In the letter to Mr. Krancer, the auditor general said one of the audit’s preliminary objectives would be to determine the adequacy and effectiveness of DEP’s testing and reporting of water samples from drilling operations and response to any evidence of water contamination.

Another objective is to determine how the agency has monitored the handling, treatment and disposal of wastes from drilling operations.

Read more.

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Southeast PA Looks to Marcellus Shale as ‘Savior’

As Gov­er­nor Cor­bett and Har­ris­burg law­mak­ers try to lure a nat­ural gas pro­cess­ing plant to Beaver County, near Pitts­burgh, oth­ers seek to revive a shut­tered Sunoco refin­ery in sub­ur­ban Philadel­phia by con­nect­ing it to the shale gas boom.

The bor­ough of Mar­cus Hook may be one of the old­est Euro­pean set­tle­ments in the state, stretch­ing back to a Swedish trad­ing post in the 1640’s. But it has a long his­tory in the refin­ing busi­ness. In 1892, to serve Pennsylvania’s oil rush, the borough’s first refin­ery was built, fol­lowed by a 300-mile pipeline from the borough’s port to oil fields in west­ern Penn­syl­va­nia. Walk­ing down the streets today, the tidy homes are dwarfed by the giant pipes and tow­ers of the Sunoco refin­ery, which has oper­ated here for more than one hun­dred years.

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