Spend money on climate crisis, not risky schemes
Thanks to Anya Litvik for reporting on the “problem” at CNX’s Utica shale well at Beaver Run (Feb. 3, “State, Crews Monitoring Problem in Deep Gas Well”). Finally, a full week after CNX realized that they had been sending whoknows-what into who-knows where (including residential gas lines) and threatening the water supply of 120,000 households, the Department of Environmental Protection acknowledged that the well was out of control.
In a more reasonable world, residents would not be left guessing about the significance of a “parade of trucks” racing to the well pad in their community. In a more reasonable world, the DEP would have gone house-to-house explaining the emergency and ensuring that every resident had the facts and the resources to keep himself safe.
Just as, in a more reasonable world, the Allegheny County Health Department would not have waited two weeks to issue a bland “stay indoors” advisory after U.S. Steel lost pollution controls on its Clairton coke plant.
In an even more reasonable world, the DEP would have had a true “first responder” plan for the Utica well, instead of surrendering to the driller’s self-serving assessment of “no environmental impact.”
The ACHD would have required a detailed contingency plan for putting the Clairton plant into “hot idle” before it granted an operating permit, instead of waiting for an actual emergency before being told that it’s just too difficult for U.S. Steel to comply with the terms of that permit.
Yet, in a truly reasonable world, we’d put our engineering talent to work on the climate crisis instead of evermore-risky schemes for going after ever-deeper sources of hydrocarbons. We’d have made an informed, democratic decision before taxing ourselves to build an ethylene plant upwind of our city, and we’d spend that money on schools and health care.
Many of us are working hard to bring a more reasonable world into being for our children and grandchildren. Until that happens, we can demand that our “watchdog” agencies tell us the truth in a timely fashion, instead of spreading platitudes, propaganda and pablum.
JOHN S. DETWILER
Squirrel Hill