Stand Up for Monroe County, Greenville, WV. Photo credit: Elora McKenzie

Monroe County citizens gather to sign petitions on STAND UP FOR MONROE day December 10th, 2011. The Greenville location pictured in the photo above was one of 8 locations provided throughout the county by local businesses. To date (as of mid-December, the numbers have grown, update soon), the ongoing Save theWater Table initiative has gathered 515 signatures to restore our delegate and 820 signatures to ban shale gas development.

The petitions target two goals: 1) to uphold the democratic process and 2) to buy time for Monroe County until natural gas can be extracted without causing detriment to public health and to the environment. STAND UP FOR MONROE tables will continue to operate at the Union location in front of the Silver Birch, between the courthouse and gas station and at the Barn Store in Gap Mills.

At each location, there will be a table manned by 2 persons from 10am to 4pm.

Mark your calendars to come sign the petitions and Stand Up for Monroe!

If you would like to join us in manning a table, please send us an email with your preferred times and dates and a contact number so we can get in touch with you.

Loyal supporters of clean water,

We are at a very important crossroads, ladies and gentlemen of Monroe County and neighboring areas.  Gordy Oil has filed for an application do drill and ultimately, hydro-frack in Monroe County.  The site is off Boyd Road in Wayside.  This is all publicly known information.

The site is less than a mile from two different caves and Salt Peter Cave is not much farther away.  North of the site and south of the site are known karst regions.  There are residents local to the area that claim to know of a sinkhole that has been covered in within the immediate vicinity of the site.

The site sits in a field below a mountain ridge.  Water drains downhill, and downhill from the drill site is karst riddled topography – land perforated with sinkholes.  Functionally, that is no different than drilling directly in karst from a vulnerability perspective.

The Salt Peter Cave offers housing to the Indiana bat, an animal on the federal endangered species list, of which only SEVEN were observed in 2010.  The operation in that area could directly or indirectly impact the health of those bats.  There are nearby wild trout streams as well that could be impacted.

Current law only requires the drilling company to test and monitor water in a 1000 foot radius from the well site, yet water can travel for miles underground in our county.

There has not been a comprehensive study completed to consider the possible impacts of hydraulic fracturing on human or animal life in general, let alone in this particular area.

The EPA is conducting such a study (on fracking in general), and their initial results are expected in 2012.

In Charleston, the work continues to revise a new set of regulations for natural gas drillers that may (or may not) be voted into law before March 12th – but currently, those regulations are not in place, meaning we are operating under old, outdated, and insufficient regulations.

An approved permit now would mean the drilling company would be “grandfathered in” even if new regulations do pass.  For a period of two years, they could operate under existing, broken law.

Randy Huffman, a boss over at the DEP, has noted publicly that we do not have enough inspectors to cover the workload in this state.

There are 17 inspectors in the state and 55K active wells, and some 12K inactive wells (thousands of which must be capped and have not yet been).  Based on recent information, there are some 1500 new wells already permitted.  We cannot handle the current, active workload and yet we are still permitting new wells.  Why!?!

Let’s just take the 55K currently active wells.

That means in WV, we have 0.00030909 INSPECTORS PER ACTIVE WELL.

Even with good regulations (which we do not have), it is not possible to enforce regulations anyway because we don’t have the manpower to do so.  The DEP admits this, and is working on finding additional funding for more inspectors.  That funding and the resultant new inspectors do not currently exist.

The site is VERY close to sensitive and vulnerable karst; new regulations are still not in place; there are not sufficient DEP inspectors.

>> Please contact the permitting officers of the DEP Office of Oil & Gas and tell them SAY NO TO THE BOYD ROAD PERMIT!

Laura.L.Adkins@wv.gov

Bernardo.Garcia@wv.gov

Kay.K.Holtsclaw@wv.gov

James.A.Martin@wv.gov

Michael.F.Moore@wv.gov

James.A.Peterson@wv.gov

Gene.C.Smith@wv.gov

Office of Oil & Gas : Contact Page

>> Please contact the US Fish & Wildlife Service and tell them your concerns as well!

Bat specialist : barbara_douglas@fws.gov 304.636.6586 x19

Director : deb_carter@fws.gov 304.636.6586 x12

By Kate Coil for The Register-Herald : Mon Jan 17, 2011, 12:02 AM EST

UNION — Though acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin has announced he intends to utilize the natural gas of the Marcellus shale, residents of Monroe County, who live above the shale, say drilling into the area will decimate their culture, safety and even endangered species in the area.

Jill Fischer, co-president of the Save the Water Table organization, said drilling on the Marcellus shale puts citizens at risk.

“It sounds to me like Gov. Tomblin wants to exploit West Virginia,” Fischer said. “The state has been a supplier of the nation’s coal and supplies power and industry. Though we supply all of these corporations, if you look around at our income, health and other factors, we are at the bottom when compared to every other state.

“What has been exploited in West Virginia is not our natural resources but our people. We are facing a pretty hard thing. When it comes to them prospecting for drilling sites, Monroe County’s prospects aren’t good.”

Fischer said county residents are working to prevent hydrofracture drilling or “fracking” in their area. Fracking is a process in which a well is drilled several thousand feet into the ground. From that one well, several other well holes are then created in a variety of directions with multiple horizontal bores, covering a wide area underground.

Next, Fischer said around 1 million to 2 million gallons of water are injected into the well holes, augmented with various chemicals to release natural gas within the shale. Each drilling site requires 4 to 5 acres of land and are in constant operation.

Fischer said Save the Water Table has been working to energize the rural communities in Monroe County about the issue.

See the rest of this entry »

Location: Senior Citizen Center in Union, WV

Date & Time: Monday, November 29th, 2010 @ 5pm

Description: Gordy is holding an open house to communicate with the people of Monroe County at the Senior Citizen Center. Please attend to offer your comments!

Location: Circuit Courtroom in the Courthouse in Union

Date & Time: December 6th, 2010 @ 11am

Description: The Monroe County Commission monthly meeting will address, among other things, discussion of the hydraulic fracturing issue. Come out and hear the latest from our County leaders.