Word of Washington Co, PA, Judge O'Dell-Seneca's recent ruling that corporations do not count as people continues to spread.

CELDF invited to State College to teach Democracy School in June as residents continue to organize around stopping a possible gas pipleline through the borough.

Braden Crooks, founder of Groundswell in State College, PA, writes about what it takes to assert Community Rights to protect communities from fracking and create a sustainable energy future.

The Huffington Post celebrates Judge O'Dell-Seneca's historic ruling that corporations are not "persons" and recognizes CELDF's work.

STATE COLLEGE, CENTRE COUNTY - What started as a fight to stop a pipeline, is now a fight for community rights....Sunday, nearly 40 people living in the State College borough came together to talk about their next move, and to determine how to make their voices heard, again.

A Pennsylvania judge in the heart of the Keystone State’s fracking belt has issued a forceful and precedent-setting decision holding that there is no corporate right to privacy under that state’s constitution....CELDF's Thomas Linzey says “The ruling represents the first crack in the judicial armor that has been so meticulously welded together by major corporations."

State College, PA residents gather to determine next steps in leveraging their Community Bill of Rights to protect the community from a Columbia Gas pipeline coming through the borough.

State College, PA residents turn to their Community Bill of Rights as grounds to stop a proposed natural gas pipeline running through the borough. The Bill of Rights, adopted overwhelmingly by residents in November 2011, includes a right to a sustainable energy future, and specifically prohibits gas pipelines.

CELDF's Executive Director Thomas Linzey's Op-Ed in the Centre Daily Times: This is about borough residents' community right to a sustainable energy future, included in a Community Bill of Rights amendment to their Home Rule charter in 2011. Overwhelmingly supported by citizens, now it's time to enforce it.

State College residents are facing a gas pipeline running through their community. Resident Katherine Watt urges City Council to recognize this issue is about community rights to protect their own health, safety, and welfare, as asserted in their Home Rule Charter amendment establishing a Community Bill of Rights.

State College, PA residents insist borough City Council enforce Bill of Rights charter amendment to protect community members from proposed gas line. The Community Bill of Rights was adopted in November 2011 by 72% of voters.

STATE COLLEGE — The borough manager will not issue any permits for the construction of a natural gas pipeline planned to extend two miles under borough streets to reach Penn State’s West Campus steam plant. The decision comes at the direction of the Borough Council which, after a four-hour public discussion on the Columbia Gas project Monday night, unanimously approved a resolution directing the manager “not to approve any permit allowing construction of the proposed pipeline.”...[R]esidents [brought up] the environmental bill of rights added to the borough’s home rule charter by referendum in 2011. In part, it prohibits pipelines and other fossil fuel facilities “that would violate the right to a sustainable future” for the borough.

Penn State’s plan to convert its campus power plant to natural gas has crashed head-on into the rights of the citizens of State College, PA, as enumerated in Article XI of their borough charter. The plan to feed this power plant with fossil fuels, which sits on the boundary of Penn State’s main campus and downtown State College, calls for a high-pressure gas pipeline snaking through residential neighborhoods and past local businesses. The citizens of State College, together with citizens of neighboring Ferguson Township, have risen up against it.

JEFFERSON COUNTY-- A Pennsylvania farmer is pioneering the art of land preservation, in a unique application of a conservation easement on the property deed of his organic farm. By establishing certain deed restrictions and creating a Rights of Nature constitutional document, J. Stephen Cleghorn of Paradise Gardens and Farm has become the first farmer in the state to protect his land for all time using this method. Cleghorn established the easement in memory of his late wife, Dr. Lucinda Hart-González who died of lung cancer on November 14, 2011. On May 10 of 2012 Ms. Hart-González's ashes were scattered on the property and the farm was declared forever inviolate and off-limits to shale gas fracking. The easement is dated as of the first anniversary of her death. The easement was created with the help of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), a nonprofit, Pennsylvania-based law firm.

A few weeks ago the headline read, "James City injection well plans on track," and this in the face of the Elk County commissioners who unanimously rejected the proposal due to the inherent dangers of contamination and health threats to the people....The township supervisors of James City approved an ordinance meant to protect their own "pursuit of happiness."...The ordinance bans the depositing of waste from the extraction of shale gas....Seneca Resources...plans to ignore concerns of the people and impose their will.

Pennsylvania state lawmakers and regulators have tried to maintain a friendly relationship with the shale gas industry. But officials in some municipalities are working from a different script than their colleagues at the state level. In the northwestern part of the state, for example, Seneca Resources Corp. has run into a snag in its plans to drill a hydraulic fracturing wastewater disposal injection well in Highland Township, Pa., a municipality in an area where the company has active natural gas drilling operations....In January, Highland Township supervisors passed a community rights ordinance that essentially banned the planned injection well....In the summer of 2012, Highland Township approached the CELDF, a public interest law firm based in Mercersburg, Pa., over concerns about the planned introduction of fracking waste disposal injection wells, according to Ben Price, projects director for the CELDF. "The supervisors adopted a community bill of rights [drafted by the CELDF], asserting the right to clean air, pure water, healthy environment, rights of nature, right to local self-government, and they banned those injection wells," he said in an interview earlier this month.

While the Pennsylvania Supreme Court continues to deliberate the constitutionality of restrictions to local, Marcellus Shale, zoning regulations in the state’s new drilling law, a handful of communities across the Commonwealth are trying a unique approach to keep the industry away. “Community Bill of Rights” ordinances have been adopted by cities as large as Pittsburgh to ban fracking, and as small as Highland Township, Elk County, to prevent an underground wastewater injection well. About 500 people live in Highland Township, a forested, rural area near the Allegheny National Forest in the northwestern part of the state. In January, Highland Township Supervisors passed the “Highland Township’s Community Rights and Protection from Injection Wells Ordinance,” essentially banning a planned injection well proposed by Seneca Resources....The ordinance was drafted with help from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund....

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is still pitching a perfect game. The public interest law firm has not been hit with an official legal challenge to one of the many "bills of rights" it has drafted for towns whose residents want to keep shale gas drilling out of their communities....The ordinances drafted by the CELDF for Ferguson Township and other communities are rights-based, making them different, for example, from the ordinances adopted in dozens of New York municipalities, including the towns of Dryden and Middlefield, N.Y., which banned hydraulic fracturing using traditional planning and zoning approaches. The city of Pittsburgh is the highest-profile municipality to adopt a rights-based anti-fracking ordinance drafted by the CELDF. The next community expected to take up the rights-based mantle, with the help of the CELDF, is Youngstown, Ohio....Industry attorneys are scratching their heads over the CELDF's unique rights-based approach to the issue of environmental protection and community empowerment.

As a concerned resident of Ferguson Township for more than 30 years, I was an active participant in petitioning to get the Community Bill of Rights and fracking ban amended to the Home Rule Charter in order to protect our rights to clean air and water and a healthy environment. The action of the Board of Supervisors to consider filing a declaratory judgment of complaint against our right of self-governance was egregious, intolerable and unjustifiable. The action, at the board’s Jan. 21 meeting, to simply remove the item from the agenda without discussion or resident input on the basis of “legal matters” was business as usual (i.e. no transparency) on the part of the board. The Bill of Rights was passed by a fair and legal process. The voters spoke. If the board is unwilling to enforce the will of its own electorate by attempting to nullify the amendment, its members should feel free to step down.

On January 9, 2013, in otherwise quiet Highland Township in Elk County, Pennsylvania, officials signed a community rights bill into law stopping the deposit of fracking waste within the township. Seneca Resources...had planned to inject its “production fluids” (oil and gas drilling and fracking waste) into an injection well about 2,200 feet from Crystal Springs....Injection wells have a history, both long and recent, of failing ....So, residents of Highland Township asked their municipal officials to say “No.”...Highland Township is the latest on a list of over 140 other communities that have said ‘no’ to factory farms, waste incinerators, corporate water withdrawals, and now fracking by passing rights-based ordinances....Rights-based ordinances are simple but formal, and they’ve been penned with the help of Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF).

Highland Township now has an ordinance that bans deposits from the drilling of Marcellus Shale natural gas wells. Township Supervisors Charlie Vaughn and Paul Burton St. [sic] agreed Wednesday to adopt the ordinance, which is seen as a way to stop Seneca Resources from disposing of "produced water".... A township "citizens group" previously called for the supervisors to enact the ordinance. The law is based on an ordinance that reportedly has been adopted in other municipalities in the state as an environmental-protection type measure to establish "a Bill of Rights." The ordinance, in part, claims that the "injection" of waste from Marcellus Shale wells would "pose a significant threat" to the "health, safety and welfare" of township residents.

This evening, the Board of Supervisors of Highland Township in Elk County, Pennsylvania, unanimously adopted an ordinance that establishes a community Bill of Rights, and forbids corporations “to deposit, store. ‘treat,’ inject or process waste water, ‘produced water,’ ‘frack’ water, brine or other materials, chemicals or by-products that have been used in the extraction of shale gas onto or into the land, air, or waters within Highland Township.” This prohibition specifically applies to disposal injection wells. The ordinance recognizes rights to pure water, clean air, a sustainable energy future, the recognition that the people of Highland at all times enjoy and retain “an inalienable and indefeasible right to self-governance in the community where they reside.” It also recognizes natural communities and ecosystems to have “inalienable and fundamental rights to exist and flourish within Highland Township,”...

Same story. Different day. People are threatened by an activity that will injure them, and they work overtime to pass a law that bans the activity. An affected corporation—or industry association—then sues the municipality, contending that the community can’t prohibit what the state allows, and that the ban violates the “rights” of the corporation. The upshot of these machinations is that the municipality then either repeals the ban or is bankrupted trying to defend it. Most likely, the insurance corporation for the municipality brokers a deal in which the municipality agrees not to enforce the ordinance in exchange for the corporation dropping its lawsuit. Day after day, issue after issue, community after community, this machine has been humming along happily (for some) ever since the late 1800’s. All under a structure of law so perfectly constructed that very few understand how it actually works in practice. Under a structure of law that lawyers, law professors, elected officials, judges and established activist organizations call “democracy.”

LUTHERSBURG - The fight against a proposed disposal injection well in Brady Township continued at last night's board of supervisors meeting. Resident Marianne Atkinson spoke on behalf of an overflow crowd who is against locating the well in the Highland Street residential area. Atkinson asked the Board of Supervisors to consider adopting a community bill of rights ordinance to protect the health, safety and welfare of township residents. The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund would write the bill of rights ordinance and could defend it in court at no cost to the township, she said. The only costs the township might incur are mileage and court filing fees, she said. "I'm not confident we have anything to present to the Environmental Protection Agency that will stop the injection well," said Atkinson. "It seems like a CELDF ordinance is our best and only hope."

When Pennsylvania organic farmer Dr. J. Stephen Cleghorn publicly announced plans to create a first-in-the-nation conservation easement on his land, with the aim of preventing hydraulic fracturing, he was hoping his act would encourage others to do the same. It’s been only a few days since Cleghorn made the announcement, and already other landowners have contacted him to learn more about his novel approach to keeping natural gas drillers at bay....“I am imposing here, in partnership with nature and the CELDF, a new protection that will make it impossible for the gas in the shale below us to be drilled because it cannot be done in a way that does not at the very least harm the ecosystems of the deep biosphere where the shale exists and certainly because it is done from the surface, it can harm the ecosystems at the surface, both through air and water pathways and we’re not going to let that happen,” Cleghorn said.

Paradise Community, Henderson Township, Jefferson County, PA, November 14, 2012 – J. Stephen Cleghorn, PhD, a Pennsylvania organic farmer, has become the first landowner in the United States to use a conservation easement to recognize and protect the rights of water, forest, and wild ecosystems. The easement then bans activities, like shale gas hydro-fracking, which would violate those rights, and elevates the rights of nature above the power claimed by extractive energy corporations to despoil the environment. Cleghorn is the owner of Paradise Gardens and Farm– a fifty acre organic farm that sits above the Marcellus Shale formation in Henderson Township, Jefferson County, Pennsylvania. Cleghorn established the easement in memory of his late wife, Dr. Lucinda Hart-González who died of lung cancer on November 14, 2011. In a ceremony held on May 10 of this year Ms. Hart-González's ashes were scattered on the property and the farm was declared forever inviolate and off-limits to shale gas fracking.

Voters in Ferguson Township, Centre County Pennsylvania adopted a Community Bill of Rights guaranteeing the right to clean air, pure water, a sustainable energy future, the peaceful enjoyment of home, the right of ecosystems to exist and flourish, and the right to exercise self-government in the local community. To protect these rights, the amendment also bans corporations from conducting shale gas drilling and related activities in the community.

FERGUSON TOWNSHIP — With five of eight precincts approving, voters passed a referendum to add an environmental bill of rights to the township’s home rule charter Tuesday. According to unofficial county numbers, the measure passed 4,235 to 3,883. The measure outlines citizen rights to things like clean air, clean water, and sustainable communities. It also declares a ban on natural gas drilling and all actions related to the fracking industry.

A referendum related to environmental rights set for a vote in Ferguson Township has drawn some controversy between the township and the provision’s supporters. Members of Groundswell PA, a group advocating for sustainable communities, successfully petitioned to get an environmental bill of rights on the Nov. 6 ballot for potential acceptance by residents. The group did the same in State College last year, and voters approved the provision. The measure would amend the township’s home rule charter to state that residents have rights to clean air and water, self-government and a sustainable energy future. It also would ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the process being used across the state to produce natural gas.

Pittsburgh and Southwestern Pennsylvania have had a long history of natural gas development. In spite of various technical differences, there are striking similarities between issues from our early history and the current debate over drilling in the Marcellus Shale. One of these concerns relates to the right of municipalities to enact regulations controlling natural gas operations within their boundaries without conflicting with state law. This is a major issue in regard to shale fracking for natural gas development today. But it was also prominent in the 1880s during the early days of traditional natural gas development and distribution.

With Marcellus Shale drilling taking hold in Pennsylvania, municipalities like South Fayette and Pittsburgh have enacted their own regulations curtailing it — attracting scrutiny and challenges from the industry. Meanwhile, activists like Wanda Guthrie are trying to push communities to get involved with the policies that shape the environment around them.... [Guthrie says about PA's Act 13]: "Even if they give rights back to the municipalities, we're still stuck with the Oil and Gas Act. It's kind of like we're going to have a fracking problem, anyway. From the beginning I've said, we don't have a drilling problem, we have a democracy problem."

Pittsburgh, PA (September 5, 2012) The Thomas Merton Center became the latest organization to sign onto The Chambersburg Declaration, which denounces the concentration of "wealth and greater governing power through the exploitation of human and natural communities," and declares that "environmental and economic sustainability can be achieved only when the people affected by governing decisions are the ones who make them." The Chambersburg Declaration calls for the convening of a People's Constitutional Convention with delegates chosen from every County and Township "representing municipal communities, who will propose constitutional changes to secure the inalienable right to local, community self-government free of state and corporate preemption."

Packer Township no longer has an ordinance that outlaws the use of sewage sludge as soil fertilizer. But, according to the board of supervisors, a new, stronger ordinance will soon be in place....Board Chairman William Swineberg said...[that] supervisors have decided, on the advice of attorneys from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund CELDF), to revoke the existing ordinance and prepare to adopt a stronger version of the law.

Recently, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania struck down key parts of Act 13, the now-infamous Pennsylvania state law that sought to nullify municipal zoning restrictions on natural gas extraction and gas “fracking” across the State....While the Commonwealth Court did rule to limit the reach of Act 13, the decision was not based on the right of communities to stop fracking. Instead, the Court ruled that the State couldn’t use the Act to force gas extraction operations onto land not locally zoned for it, because such coercion would interfere with the rights of neighboring property owners. It was thus a property rights decision, not a community rights one.

BELLEFONTE — The Centre County Election Board is considering how to word a referendum on the November ballot that seeks to ban natural gas drilling in Ferguson Township. Members of Groundswell PA have filed a petition seeking to amend Ferguson Township’s home rule charter by adding a community bill of rights, which they say will protect the local environment. Groundswell, the group behind a similar movement last year in State College, has collected enough signatures to place the petition on the November ballot. Ferguson Township resident Jeff Kurland, a member of the group, filed the petition with the county. The group aims to protect drinking water and air by preventing new natural gas drilling sites in the township.

The “Sons and Daughters of Liberty” (SDL) held a mock funeral for what they claim is the “death of the Pennsylvania commonwealth” on Tuesday afternoon in Market Square, and it didn't take long to see Gov. Tom Corbett's shale policy was a target for criticism. A satirical skit featuring members of the SDL playing Gov. Corbett and a Royal Dutch Shell representative accompanied the proceedings. The storyline of the skit involved Corbett granting Shell the $1.7 billion dollars in subsidies and tax breaks it said to receive for building an ethane cracker plant near Monaca.

While Easton’s proposed Community Bill of Rights is not officially endorsed by the West Ward Neighborhood Partnership’s steering committee, the ordinance comes out of a democracy school approved by the committee in November 2011. Hosted by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, the democracy school concept is a way for community groups such as the West Ward Neighborhood Partnership to learn more about organizing and engaging the public. “The school wasn’t about committing to a program or an agenda,” said Rep. Bob Freeman. “These are discussions about ways to empower local communities.”

Lower Mount Bethel Township has decided not to adopt a proposed ordinance banning the use of sludge on township farmland. The ordinance was presented to the township earlier this year by The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a Franklin County nonprofit organization that offers free legal advice. Though residents have asked the supervisors to take steps to limit or ban the use of sludge, the proposed ordinance has "absolutely no chance" of being upheld in court, solicitor Joseph Zator said.

As an activist in Easton, there is one crucial challenge I have encountered in trying to engage residents in any cause, regardless of the issue. Whether it’s fighting fracking for natural gas, sewage sludge fertilization, landfills—the challenge is fragmentation. People—good people—are very busy, working hard to sustain themselves and their families, and they have little free time to divide among additional pursuits. When they do commit to carving out time for meetings, there tend to be so many issues facing any given community, that each community will be fragmented in their efforts....But there is good news—a possible silver bullet that can streamline our efforts to eradicate the root of the disease, rather than wasting scarce time and precious energy running around fighting symptoms wherever they crop up. That silver bullet is to declare and establish local self-governance at the municipal level according to state constitutional rights, including the right to deny corporations the ability to invade communities and run roughshod over The People.

Members of the community who are pushing for the City of Easton to pass a Community Bill of Rights intended to curb the power of corporations within the city and elevate the rights of living people above those of corporate entities, considered to be “persons” under current state and federal law, returned to city council Wednesday evening with a revised proposal, entitled “Easton's Community Rights and Protection from Natural Gas Production Ordinance.” The new proposal specifically targets fracking for natural gas, and would make the practice and related practices illegal within city limits and calls for any corporation engaging in gas production practices in neighboring municipalities to be held liable for potential damages to citizens of Easton or its ecosystem. It additionally declares the right of city residents to enjoy the “right to clean air,” the “right to pure water,” the “right to peaceful enjoyment of home,” the “right to be free from trespass” with regard to “the integrity of their bodies,” and a “right to sustainable energy future.” [Note: scroll down to June 28th for full text of blog).

Dennis Lieb just wants what he believes is due every resident of Easton: more decisions made at the local level and fewer handed down from Harrisburg and Washington. He also wants the city to adopt a citizens' bill of rights — a list of demands for self-government: raising people above corporations; the removal of corporations from positions of influence; empowering neighborhoods; protecting the environment; and pretty much telling the state to keep its nose out of Easton's business....The bill of rights outlines nine points ranging from banning corporate influence in elections to rejecting the state's ability to supersede local control. Pittsburgh adopted a community bill of rights last year as part of a ban on natural gas drilling within the city.

Not content to leave Pennsylvania communities with any control over gas drilling within their borders, state legislators have stripped municipalities of their zoning authority under Act 13, choosing energy corporations over the people who elected them....It’s time we...stopped expecting any other outcome from Harrisburg. It’s time for a grassroots revolt aimed at enshrining the right to community self-government in the Pennsylvania Constitution, protecting local authority from the state. The work begins in our communities, with the adoption of local laws and home-rule charters directly challenging the legal doctrines that subordinate communities to the legislature, as well as the privileges that protect corporations from democracy. More than 100 municipalities across Pennsylvania have begun this journey, elevating the rights of people and communities above the rights of corporations and commerce. These municipalities recognize the need for community rights independent of the legislature and are coming together to form the Pennsylvania Community Rights Network.

Though sludge has made its first appearance on one Lower Mount Bethel Township farm, supervisors may look to a legislative remedy to make sure there's no encore....On Monday night, supervisors listened to a presentation from Ben Price, a project director with the Mercersburg, Pa.-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, who informed them of possible steps to prevent further sludge application in the township....Price told supervisors Monday that with the help of his agency, an ordinance could be drafted stressing "rights-based" reasons for why sludge should not be permitted on township farms. Price argued that if the township believes sludge to be harmful and detrimental to members of its community, an ordinance banning it could be implemented.

Drawing upon this nation’s Declaration of Independence as inspiration, Dr. J. Stephen Cleghorn, co-founder of the 50-acre Paradise Gardens and Farm organic farm that sits above the Marcellus Shale formation, is holding a press conference to declare—in defiance of any established laws which say otherwise—that his farm shall never be violated from above or below by unconventional shale gas drilling. He will seal his declaration upon the scattering of ashes that are all that is left of the farm’s co-founder, his late wife Dr. Lucinda Hart-González, who died of cancer in November 2011....Cleghorn will stand his ground against the corporate tyranny that is poisoning the state’s water and air while sickening its people and animals. “We need a new paradigm for how we live on this Earth,” states Cleghorn. “Let’s have a little rebellion. Individual acts of resistance such as mine are but part of an ongoing movement and organization to create a new foundation of law based on the Rights of Nature.”

RUSH TOWNSHIP — A fiercely contested referendum on home rule failed by slightly more than a 100- vote margin in Rush Township. Voters rejected the referendum, which would have formed a government study commission to explore the adoption of a home rule charter, by a count of 502 to 397....Mary Ann Williams, one of the leaders of the campaign to adopt home rule and a candidate for the government study commission, said the defeat was tough to swallow. “...Their win is not a mandate of the people by any means. If you look at the number we lost by, there are clearly some folks who want things to change here.”

One of Centre County’s biggest election day battles is taking place in Rush Township, where voters will decide whether they wish to convene a government study commission to explore implementation of a home rule charter. The 1972 Home Rule Charter and Optional Plans Law gives Pennsylvania’s municipalities the option to adopt a home rule charter, a form of governance that would give Rush Township additional powers to make local decisions. All registered voters in Rush Township will see the following referendum question on their ballots today: “Shall a government study commission of seven members be elected to study the existing form of government of the municipality, to consider the advisability of the adoption of a home rule charter; and if advisable, to draft and to recommend a home rule charter?”

RUSH TOWNSHIP — Political yard signs dot the lawns of most of the houses along the twisting road between Black Moshannon State Park and Philipsburg. In some cases, neighbors have put up signs directly facing each other, revealing an issue that has touched a nerve among residents in this large and sparsely populated municipality. On April 24, the date of Pennsylvania’s primary, residents will decide which side of the fence they stand on when it comes to home rule, a form of governance that would give Rush Township additional powers to make local decisions. “Home rule is a concept based on giving the people more of a direct say in the decisions the township makes,” said Joe Matson, a candidate for the government study commission that will be formed if residents approve the home rule referendum. “Whatever issues Rush Township faces down the road, people will be empowered to have a direct chance to say yes or no.”

In response to Tuesday’s letters to the editor about home rule charter in Rush Township, the taxpayers would be fools, according to Pat Couturiaux, if they did not vote to approve home rule. Kudos for Couturiaux; he has really shown his ignorance. People have died so we all can have a say in what happens in our lives, so get out and vote for home rule April 24 and control what happens in your front yard.

The April 24 primary election will have a question on the ballot for Rush Township residents: Should Rush Township change to a home rule type of government? The response must be, “Why?”

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — In the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Lincoln Place, opposition to Act 13 is strong. “I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that money can buy politicians, politicians can make laws and laws can ruin people’s lives,” Mark Schneider, of Lincoln Place, said. “I think Act 13 is a poorly written bill that completely usurps local authority,” City Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak, D-Carrick, said.

A disagreement regarding how best to protect Rush Township’s water from Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling has created a political fracture destined to spill over into April’s primary. Rush for Clean Water, an environmental group pushing for a ban on gas drilling, has acquired enough signatures to place a home rule charter referendum on April’s ballot. If approved, the initiative would create a commission to explore possible changes to the township’s existing form of government. The primary goal of the home rule movement, according to one of its chief proponents, is to let the township’s residents decide directly whether to enact a drilling ban. “It will give more voice to the people, so supervisors cannot have the final say,” said Mary Ann Williams, a Rush Township resident and leader of Rush for Clean Water.

In a handful of communities in eastern states, local anti-fracking activists have been heartened by recent lower court decisions that have upheld local zoning ordinances and statewide moratoriums to keep the controversial natural gas wells out of their towns. But in Pennsylvania, the epicenter of the controversial drilling, the legislature recently stripped all local zoning authority to prevent drilling, overturning the kinds of steps that have frustrated drillers in neighboring states. As a result, a different and riskier strategy is emerging in the battle to keep drilling at bay: local ordinances and organizing elevating the civil rights of communities and nature while limiting the legal rights of corporations.

Pennsylvania, where the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were signed and where the U.S. coal, oil and nuclear industries began, has adopted what may be the most anti-democratic, anti-environmental law in the country, giving gas companies the right to drill anywhere, overturn local zoning laws, seize private property and muzzle physicians from disclosing specific health impacts from drilling fluids on patients....“It’s absolutely crushing of local self-government,” said Ben Price, project director for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which has helped a handful of local communities—including the city of Pittsburgh—adopt community rights ordinances that elevate the rights of nature and people to block the drilling. “The state has surrendered over 2,000 municipalities to the industry. It’s a complete capitulation of the rights of the people and their right to self-government. They are handing it over to the industry to let them govern us. It is the corporate state. That is how we look at it.”

A ban on natural gas drilling through Marcellus shale is needed now more than ever in Whitehall Borough, some residents say. And local officials agree its time to take a stand against the growing industry. Gov. Tom Corbett last week signed House Bill 1950 into law, which sets state standards and eliminates local zoning regulations for drilling....A different approach to restricting drilling natural gas through Marcellus shale would be to ban it, asserting rights the state constitution provides for residents, including clean air and water, Scholl said. Baldwin Borough and Pittsburgh passed similar bans last year. "It rests on a completely different argument — that we're essentially not going to surrender our rights to a safe environment, to a safe community, because the state says so," Scholl said.

CELDF comment: Eyes are on Harrisburg as pro-drilling legislation is debated. Conservation groups and others opposing the legislation focus on how stringent the regulations for drilling should be, lamenting the devastation that will be forthcoming and trying to make it a little less. No one is talking about the rights of communities and local officials to BAN drilling, and that any legislation by Harrisburg to strip that right is a usurpation of communities’ rights to protect their own health, safety, and welfare--for themselves, their children, and to protect the rights of nature. Are communities going to make a stand for their right to decide what happens, where they live? Or are they resigned to arguing about how much poison in the water is acceptable?

The Wilkinsburg council voted unanimously Wednesday night to send letters to local representatives in Harrisburg opposing legislation that would give drilling companies the ability to side-step local bans on Marcellus Shale gas drilling. The board also agreed to draft a formal resolution to denounce the House Bill 1950 and Senate Bill 1100....[Councilwoman Eve Goodman]...added that she doesn't trust corporations to self-regulate for the good a community when corporate profits are on the line.

PITTSBURGH — Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection undercounted the number of wells producing gas from the Marcellus Shale, frustrating industry, environmental groups, and elected officials, according to a newspaper report. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (http://bit.ly/weuty8 ) reported that an analysis of DEP data found 495 more wells producing gas, or ready to produce gas, than the DEP has recorded as ever being drilled, and that 182 of those wells don't even show up on the state's Marcellus Shale permit list.

NORTH ABINGTON TWP. - One month after a group approached supervisors about passing an ordinance banning natural gas drilling, officials said they wanted to wait and see what happens with two bills being considered by state legislators. In December, several residents attended the North Abington Twp. meeting to voice concerns about what effects natural gas drilling might have on the environment. They asked supervisors to consider an ordinance that would ban drilling, similar to one that has been presented to municipalities across the region.

"My job isn't to defend the government," Mr. Shields, 58, of Squirrel Hill, said in a farewell interview. "My job is to represent the people it serves."... Last year, Mr. Shields won his colleagues' support of legislation banning natural-gas production in the city. About two weeks ago, he won final approval of another bill aimed at holding drillers and government regulators liable for any pollution the city experiences because of production in upstream municipalities.

No disrespect meant for North Texas environmental activists who oppose Barnett Shale natural gas drilling and the hydraulic fracturing that comes with it, but people with similar views in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale are strong enough to have been given a name: "fractivists." People there even refer to them as a movement.

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. -- A supervisor in a small rural township in northern Lycoming County took matters into his own hands when a Marcellus shale drilling company kept using a road it had been told to keep big trucks off of. Daniel Roupp cut down a half dozen trees yesterday, blocking the gravel road. “I’m thinking we got their attention,” he said today. The drilling company, Range Resources, has resubmitted a plan for repairs to the road.

The president of Forest Hills Council wants state lawmakers, each and every one, to know that the borough disagrees with a bill that would transfer all regulation of gas drilling to the state. At a meeting Wednesday, council members passed a resolution to send state lawmakers a letter decrying the regulatory bills in the House and Senate, which have yet to be reconciled, as an assault on local governments’ rights. And President Frank Porco said he wants to know their voices are heard.

The Pittsburgh region needs an "environmental rights renaissance," city Councilman Doug Shields said Wednesday, defending a controversial anti-pollution bill that may not survive into the new year. With less than two weeks remaining in Mr. Shields' last term, council gave final approval Monday to his bill attempting to hold out-of-town natural gas producers liable for any pollution in the city or poisoning of its residents. It also would attempt to hold accountable federal, state or local governments that licensed the polluters.

The thumper trucks have come, drillers are looking at two sites for shale gas wells, and residents are concerned enough to ask the township to take action to protect Millcreek Township's quality of life. More than 80 people filled the fire hall...for the Dec. 13 Millcreek Township supervisors' meeting and when township resident Molly Greenawalt asked them to stand to show support for a [sic] ordinance, to ban drilling, nearly all did so.

Following hours of business before the Pittsburgh City Council, a measure introduced by Councilman Doug Shields on November 14th to ban municipal and state governments from licensing and permitting corporations to dump toxins from fracking activities into the environment that result in violations of rights recognized in City law by the new ordinance and by the Community Bill of Rights Ordinance banning corporate gas drilling on November 16th, 2010, came to a vote today, and gained the majority. The ordinance was adopted by a 5-4 vote and now goes to the mayor.

Representatives from more than 44 municipalities in seven counties met tonight in Green Tree for a first-of-its-kind Marcellus Shale town hall meeting to address legislation that is pending in the state House and Senate. Their message to lawmakers? Don't take away our local control. "We want to send a clear, unified message to Harrisburg that we are opposed to any language that would pre-empt municipalities," said Robinson Manager Richard Ward. "Pre-emption is not an option."

The solicitor's voice shook as he tried to explain to a hostile crowd that natural gas pipelines are perfectly legal. "If we have to have this," Tom Brennan said, "let's at least try to control it and have it on our own terms." With that, to scattered applause and more groans, the township supervisors here decided to end a war over natural gas pipes that bitterly divided this town, a gateway to the rich Marcellus Shale region. The compromise was a new, custom-tailored ordinance that banned high-pressure pipelines in residential neighborhoods, but permitted them in areas zoned for farms or factories. Now, it appears the township's painstaking effort to craft a compromise between warring factions added up to nothing.

RUSH TOWNSHIP — Draft ordinances to ban natural gas drilling in the township and protect fragile source water both were tabled Thursday — and only the source water protection plan will move forward. The Board of Supervisors met before about two dozen people at its regular meeting, during which it again discussed the ordinances, and several observers were unhappy with Thursday’s result.

North Abington Twp: Several residents asked township supervisors to consider passing an ordinance banning natural gas drilling. A group of residents concerned about the effects natural gas drilling would have on the environment attended a township meeting Tuesday. They gave supervisors information on an ordinance similar to that presented to a number of municipalities throughout the region.

The Rush Township Supervisors held a public hearing last night to discuss the Source Water Protection ordinance, much to the dismay of almost all who spoke at the meeting. Previously, the supervisors have considered two ordinances; one presented by members of Rush For Clean Water that would essentially ban gas drilling altogether by creating a community Bill of Rights, while the SWP ordinance would be amending the township's Subdivision and Land Development Ordinance to prohibit land disturbance such as drilling in areas that provide fresh water for public water sources.

Municipal officials from 12 Pennsylvania counties sent a letter to state legislators Monday asking them to cut provisions from pending House and Senate Marcellus Shale bills that would limit or remove local zoning control over oil and gas drilling. The 46 officials, including five supervisors from Exeter Township, argue that the bills unfairly exempt oil and gas operations from local land use regulations or standardize limits on local control.

The Pa. State Association of Township Supervisors (PSATS) and five other local government organizations are urging lawmakers to reconsider language in House Bill 1950 that would strip local governments of all decision-making power over oil and gas operations in their communities, including where these operations could be located. The groups on Monday issued a joint memo to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, and proposed revisions intended to meet the Legislature’s goal of establishing uniform regulations while maintaining a reasonable level of decision-making ability at the local level.

A broad-ranging bill to regulate natural gas drilling in the state and impose a fee on drillers won a key state Senate committee’s support Monday but not the bipartisan backing the high-ranking Republican sponsor had hoped for. Only one Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee crossed party lines to join Republicans in endorsing the proposal from Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, of Jefferson. The full Senate is expected to debate the bill as early as Tuesday.

Marcellus Shale gas drilling spokesmen at an industry conference in Houston said their companies are employing former military counterinsurgency officers and recommended using military-style psychological operations strategies, or psyops, to deal with media inquiries and citizen opposition to drilling in Pennsylvania communities. Matt Pitzarella, a Range Resources spokesman speaking to other oil and gas industry spokespeople at the conference last week, said the company hires former military psyops specialists who use those skills in Pennsylvania.

Pittsburgh City Councilman Doug Shields wants to hold Marcellus shale drillers and entities -- including state government -- responsible for potential air and water pollution generated by natural gas extraction. Shields on Monday introduced what he called "toxic trespass" legislation. It targets Marcellus shale explorers who permit the release of chemicals associated with fracking and government entities that allow pollution that results from shale drilling. The legislation contains civil penalties and summary criminal prosecution of violators.

A year after pushing through a ban on natural gas drilling, Pittsburgh City Councilman Doug Shields plans to introduce legislation today that would hold drilling companies -- and federal state and local agencies that license them -- responsible for any contamination....Mr. Shields says neither the city nor Pittsburghers themselves should be contaminated by chemicals used in the drilling process, including the bromides in hydraulic fracturing fluid, often called "frack water."

On Monday, November 14, Councilman Doug Shields will introduce "Toxic Trespass" legislation. This legislation is designed to protect the health, welfare and safety of the people of Pittsburgh....While Pittsburgh has a drilling ban in place, its water sources are not protected from activity occurring upstream.

Right up to Election Day, Peters residents were receiving sleek fliers in the mail encouraging them to vote against a referendum to ban gas drilling in the Washington County community. The mailers weren't coming from local opposition, but from Houston-based industry group Consumer Energy Alliance.

By a ratio of more than 4-1, voters in an affluent Pittsburgh suburb said natural-gas drilling could go on in their township. In Tuesday's general election, nearly 5,200 Peters Township voters rejected a referendum proposal that would have barred drilling, compared with a little more than 1,100 who voted for a ban.

Republicans often say they are advocates of local control, repeating bromides such as "the people know better than the politicians or bureaucrats." But not when it comes to Marcellus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania. On this subject, the politicians and bureaucrats are poised to tell the people that they know best -- and never mind the local concerns of residents of municipalities across the state who will have to live with the results. Harrisburg knows best.

More than 61 percent of Newton Twp. voters who visited the polls Tuesday rejected a referendum that would have taken the first step toward a home rule charter. The referendum asked voters whether they wanted to set up a commission that would study the feasibility of adopting a home rule charter, which supporters believed would give residents more of a voice in the township's government. Tuesday's ballot also listed seven residents running for spots on that commission - many of whom said they wanted to explore the idea of home rule as a way of addressing concerns about gas drilling.

By a margin of more than four-to-one, voters in an affluent Pittsburgh suburb say natural gas drilling can go on in their township. In Tuesday's general election, nearly 5,200 Peters Township voters rejected a referendum that would have barred drilling, compared with just over 1,100 who voted for a ban....Jules Lobel, a University of Pittsburgh law professor who represented the anti-drilling group in court, said the issue concerned the "whole question of local control over one's life, over things that matter."

Last week, Republicans on the House Finance committee approved an impact fee on natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale. The bill passed on a party line vote, over the objections of Democrats who took issue with two of the bill's main features. One of the reasons Democrats gave for rejecting the bill was that it doesn't raise enough money. Under the Republican plan, Pennsylvania would have one of the lowest tax levies on gas drilling in the nation, raising substantially less revenue than other proposals in Harrisburg that have bipartisan support. A well in Texas would raise 5 times more revenue over its life span than a similar well in PA.

Despite the work of a very determined group of citizens, a referendum banning Marcellus Shale gas drilling was overwhelmingly defeated Tuesday in Peters, Washington County....A similar measure in the city of Warren, Warren County, also was defeated, though one in the borough of State College, in Centre County, was approved by voters there.

The amendment that would add an environmental bill of rights to the Home Rule Charter to ban commercial natural gas extraction ... passed in Tuesday’s election. “It is a tremendous victory,” said Braden Crooks, who started the drive to get the amendment on the ballot. “It is an incredible statement by the people of State College.”

Residents in the City of Warren voted soundly Tuesday against an amendment to the city's Home Rule Charter regarding the treatment of Marcellus Shale frackwater. The referendum vote 795 Yes and 1,316 No ends the West Side Alliance' bid to ban the treatment of frackwater and natural gas extraction within the city and prohibit the storage, deposit or transport of produced water, frackwater or brine within Warren, at least through an amendment to the city's charter.

Despite the work of a determined group of citizens, a referendum banning Marcellus Shale gas drilling was overwhelmingly defeated in the Washington County township of Peters tonight....The referendum was among one of the first in the nation in which voters had a direct voice in determining whether gas well drilling -- and hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" -- should be allowed in their neighborhoods.

While many voting precincts across Pennsylvania are reporting low turnout this general election day, poll workers in Peters said a referendum that would ban Marcellus shale drilling in the township is attracting a surge of voter interest. Residents are voting on a referendum that would essentially make all natural gas extraction activity illegal — and supersede all state and federal laws. A petition drive put the measure on the ballot in the Washington County community despite concerns of township officials that such a law would be illegal and result in expensive legal challenges.

By a vote of 72% in favor, the people of the Borough of State College, home of Penn State University, adopted an amendment to their home rule charter that constitutionalizes a Local Bill of Rights, and protects those rights by prohibiting natural gas extraction and associated activities.

Last month, Forest Hills joined a growing list of Pennsylvania municipalities to ban natural gas drilling. But while activists call the measure a win for the community, questions about whether the ban would withstand legal challenges still loom. Local concern over the hazards of hydraulic fracturing—a process by which drillers inject a mixture of water, sand and chemicals through a well at high pressure to fracture shale rock and extract natural gas—has escalated over the past few years. Following Pittsburgh’s ban on drilling last November, communities such as Baldwin, West Homestead and Wilkinsburg have adopted similar legislation.

Communities including the city of Pittsburgh have attempted to ban natural gas drilling by legislative action. But a referendum question on the ballot in Tuesday's election in Peters Township could mark the first time that a group of citizens has tried to force a ban by changing the community's home rule charter. The township council has opposed the effort.

Amid the sea of colorful, plastic campaign signs scattered around Peters are angrier, bolder signs flapping in the wind, screaming "VOTE NO!! Protect Your Township," and "Vote Yes! Protect Our Property Values." They are part of the battle for the hearts and minds of voters in this affluent municipality of about 21,000 residents. The fight, which has already garnered attention from the national media, pits residents and energy companies who advocate drilling in the Marcellus Shale gas formation against a citizens group that is seeking to ban it in Washington County's most populous municipality through a voter referendum on Tuesday.

A group in Newton Twp. concerned about the possible effects of natural gas drilling is asking residents to weigh in on whether to study ways to change their local government in the hopes of banning drilling altogether. Newton Twp. residents will vote Tuesday on a referendum that would allow the formation of a commission to study the existing form of government and consider the advisability of adopting a home rule charter.

The Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority on Friday accused four industrial wastewater treatment plants on the Allegheny River and its tributaries of increasing bromide levels in the river that supplies drinking water to nearly 500,000 people

The exact text of the ballot question: Shall Article II of the City of Warren's Home Rule Charter be amended to add a "Bill of Rights" enumerating rights to water, natural communities, sustainable energy future and local self government; banning natural gas extraction, except installed and operating wells; banning deposit, storage or transport of natural gas extraction by-products; and elevating the rights created under this amendment above those rights claimed by persons or corporations violating this amendment?

Residents of the City of Warren will vote Tuesday, Nov. 8 on a referendum that would amend the city's charter and ban the treatment of Marcellus Shale frackwater and natural gas extraction within the city, prohibit the storage, deposit or transport of "produced water" "frackwater," brine or other materials, chemicals or byproducts from unconventional development of natural gas from shale formation within Warren. What the referendum will allow and not allow within the city has been debated by the West Side Alliance, the group formed last year to oppose the proposed waste water treatment plant on the city's west end and petitioned the referendum for the ballot; the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which provides legal services for the West Side Alliance; city officials; some local businesses; and the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association.

Mr. Merrell recently posted an open letter to the people of Peters in which he made several assertions regarding the content of the ballot referendum. Based on the development of the western intellectual tradition in the last century in relation to environmental ethics, environmental law, and human rights, I respectfully disagree with several of his comments and conclusions. Further it is my contention that the referendum is not a meaningless document but the natural outgrowth of the western intellectual tradition that has its origin in the philosophies of the Enlightenment thinkers.

State College voters have an exciting opportunity on Tuesday. Together with two other communities, State College will have the first popular vote on a community bill of rights and natural gas drilling ban in the country.

Those walking into Rolling Hills Country Club Wednesday night to listen to speakers regarding flaws surrounding the amendment to the home rule charter being voted on Tuesday in Peters Township were greeted by the opposition with a hand out of their own. Inside, more than 30 people—including supporters, opposition, commissioners and curious residents—attended the special informative meeting held by Peters Township resident Suzanne Kennedy and her husband Jimmy Moran.