Responsible Drilling Alliance is hosting Keep it WILD in Ralston, PA on September 8th to preserve Rock Run and the Old Loggers Path area of the Loyalsock State Forest. For details, check out our blog: Keep it WILD.

To pull this event off, we need your help! RDA is calling for volunteers to fill the following positions:

• volunteers with vans or SUVs to shuttle people to trail heads
•  volunteers to manage parking lots
• volunteers to stand at trail heads
• volunteers for clean-up before and after

If you're interested in volunteering, please e-mail us with your telephone number and interest. Thanks for your support, and hope to see you there!

by E. Richard Bonham

E. Richard Bonham's Reliquaries

Reliquaries are the containers that store and display religious relics. Since the relics themselves were considered "more valuable than precious stones and more to be esteemed than gold," it was considered only  appropriate that they be enshrined in finely crafted vessels, or reliquaries. These precious objects constituted a major form of artistic production across Europe and Byzantium throughout the Middle Ages.

I have created this "Reliquary" to symbolically protect Pennsylvania's water and wild life from hydraulic fracturing, which poses extreme risks to our environment.  The Marcellus Shale drilling sites could mean the pollution and destruction of  many of our streams and rivers and the extinction of some of Pennsylvania's unique wildlife.

During the coming two decades, Pennsylvania will lose enough forest land to build a couple of large cities. The forest won't be lost in a single large chunk, but to thousands of small sites that are cleared to drill natural gas wells and connected with hundreds of miles of new roads and pipelines. Across Pennsylvania, 38,000-90,000 acres of forest will ultimately be cleared for wells seeking to tap the Marcellus Shale formation. Another 60,000-150,000 acres of forest will be lost for new pipelines.

Penn­syl­va­nia has a long his­tory of caus­ing long-term envi­ron­men­tal dam­age, for short-term gain.

My Reliquary is fabricated from bronze, brass and silver. The outside box is 4 3/8" square and 3" high. The sides and top of the box are pierced and hand engraved with swamp maple leaves. The medal which is "locked" inside the outer box is 4" in diameter and 2" high. The outside of the medal shows a tree frog sitting on a swamp maple branch in late spring. The inside of the medal depicts a bull frog dining on a dragonfly while sitting on lily pads. Under the frog, in the water, sits a crayfish with a sunfish. Everything has been hand fabricated. None of the pieces were cast.

"We hope the power of the river, this beautiful river, will change the heart of Governor Corbett," said Delaware Riverkeeper's Maya van Rossum.

GP5-41-679: PVR NEPA Gas Gathering, L.L.C. (100 Penn Tower, Suite 201 & 202, 25 West Third Street, Williamsport, PA 17701) on July 25, 2012, for the construction and operation of seven natural-gas-fired compressor engines, each rated at 1380 brake horsepower and equipped with catalytic converters, two 125 million standard cubic feet per day glycol dehydrators with 2.0 MMBtu/hr reboilers equipped with a 5.0 MMBtu/hr thermal oxidizer, six produced-water tanks each rated 12,600 gallons, eleven 300 gallon compressor oil tanks, one 4000 gallon compressor oil tank, eleven 300 gallon lube oil tanks, one 4000 gallon lube oil tank, one 330 gallon used oil tank, one 2000 gallon glycol tank, and twelve 300 gallon methanol tanks under the General Plan Approval and/or General Operating Permit for Natural Gas, Coal Bed Methane Or Gob Gas Production Or Recovery Facilities (BAQ-GPA/GP-5) at the Loop Hill Compressor Station in Penn Township, Lycoming County.

DEP Needs You!

If You See Something, Say Something

• Report violations to the DEP.

• For environmental emergencies, tell EPA, too. 

• Finally, let RDA know so we can follow up and inform the community.

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