Gas Company Sues to Destroy Small Town’s Rights of Nature Law.
“PGE throwing another lawsuit at us to try to bring us to heel, when our community has overwhelmingly said ‘hell no’ multiple times.”
In a clear signal of how the fossil fuel industry feels about efforts to enact Rights of Nature protections that safeguard communities and the environment from the impacts of coal, gas, and oil development, an energy company has—yet again—filed a federal lawsuit challenging a local law in Grant Township, Pennsylvania.
This is the second time that Pennsylvania General Energy Company (PGE) has sued over the 2015 law, which aims to keep fracking waste injection wells out of the community of about 700 people.
Though the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) also previously sued the township, earlier this year—in what Rolling Stone described as a “stunning reversal”—the department cited the law when rescinding PGE a waste injection permit.
In March, the state department told the company—which is appealing the decision—that “Grant Township’s Home Rule Charter bans the injection of oil and gas waste fluids… Therefore, the operation of the Yanity well as an oil and gas waste fluid injection well would violate that applicable law.”
“We are over the moon that the permit was rescinded,” Grant Township Supervisor Vice-Chair Stacy Long said at the time. “However, we know the permit should never have been issued in the first place. We can’t forget that DEP sued us for three years, claiming our charter was invalid. Now they cite that same charter as a valid reason to deny the industry a permit. It’s hypocritical at best. Add this to the pile of reasons Grant Township did not trust the DEP to protect our environment, and why we’ve had to democratically work at the local level to protect our community.”
The historic development “also recognizes that local laws passed by other communities, whether related to fracking, pipelines, or injection wells, would also authorize the DEP to deny permits. This is a huge step forward for local resistance.” https://t.co/uCSRGPHvdl
— Simon Davis-Cohen (@SimonDavisCohen) April 1, 2020
Approved by over 70% of Grant Township’s voters five years ago, the law recognizes the rights of local ecosystems. The measure was drafted with help from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), which explains that Rights of Nature “is honoring and recognizing that nature has the right to exist, flourish, and thrive.” The global movement calls for shifting away from the view of nature as property that owners and companies can legally pollute and destroy…
See the full article HERE.
See CELDF’s press release HERE.
Photo credit: “grant township frack waste injection well-5” by Public Herald is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0