Published on April 3, 2017, in Public Herald.

As an elected official, it is Stacy Long’s sworn duty to protect her constituents. As a resident, and now as a supervisor of Grant Township in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, she and her fellow citizens have taken bold steps to fight against government and industry who want to force oil and gas waste into their rural community.

“This isn’t a game. We’re being threatened by a corporation with a history of permit violations, and that corporation wants to dump toxic frack wastewater into our Township,” Long told Public Herald last year.

In 2015, Grant Township adopted the nation’s first municipal charter establishing a local bill of rights with help from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). The Bill of Rights asserts environmental and democratic rights and bans frack wastewater injection wells as a violation of those rights:

All residents of Grant Township, along with natural communities and ecosystems within the Township, possess the right to clean air, water, and soil, which shall include the right to be free from activities which may pose potential risks to clean air, water, and soil within the Township, including the depositing of waste from oil and gas extraction. – Article I, Section 104, Grant Township Bill of Rights

Half a year later, Grant Township once again entered new territory and became the first community in the United States to legalize civil disobedience. According to Grant’s civil disobedience law, anyone who commits a nonviolent act in order to protect the community’s Bill of Rights has the legal right to do so – but not only that – the law also prohibits “any private or public actor from bringing criminal charges.”

As Public Herald reported in 2014, these groundbreaking laws are being tested in an ongoing legal battle with the industry — “Pennsylvania Ecosystem Fights Corporation for Rights in Landmark Fracking Lawsuit.”

And now the state is joining the fight — to benefit industry.

Last week, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued two new permits for frack wastewater injection wells – one in Grant Township and another in Highland Township in Elk County.

Highland has also adopted a local bill of rights banning frack waste injection wells.

On the same day the waste permits were issued, DEP filed lawsuits against both Highland and Grant seeking to nullify the democratically-passed bans. MORE…