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Vogel supported fracking on state park lands; Joshua Sonntag - PennEnvironment intern; Beaver County Times; August 3, 2014.
It’s not clear where Mr. Sonntag lives. This letter indicates Philadelphia, but a posting on “Pittsburgh News” indicates Squirrel Hill and a letter on philly.com says Elkins Park, a northern suburb of Philadelphia.
You won’t be surprised to learn PennEnvironment believes in manmade global warming. A previous Sonntag letter was “Raccoon Creek needs EPA protection.” Other letters from PennEnvironment activists/employees include “Protect parks,” “Protect clean air standards,” “Altmire’s vote does not tell whole tale,” “Wind power beats drilling any day,” “Address mass transit needs,” and “Fund mass transit adequately.”
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“Our elected officials in Harrisburg recently passed what amounts to a death sentence for our state parks. The state budget deal, recently signed by Gov. Corbett, offensively contains an agreement that will not only see further leasing of our state forests for fracking, but for the first time, will put our state parks at risk as well.”
[RWC] I found Mr. Sonntag/PennEnvironment spammed this letter, as with his June form letter, changing only the targeted politician’s name and the local park. In addition to the BCT, I found versions in the Bucks County Courier Times, The Citizens’ Voice (Wilkes-Barre), the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and The York Dispatch. I wonder how many more of these form letters will surface.
“Our elected officials know that the overwhelming majority of Pennsylvanians do not support fracking under our state parks. But our elected officials, including our district’s own Sen. Elder Vogel Jr., still continue to put the fracking industry ahead of the will of his constituents. Instead, Sen. Vogel voted to sell out our state parks.”
[RWC] Unless he can live simultaneously in four senate districts, Mr. Sonntag/PennEnvironment appears to be lying here and/or in his other letters. In the four versions (in five outlets) of his letter I found, Mr. Sonntag/PennEnvironment referred to PA Sens. Lisa Baker, Robert Tomlinson, Elder Vogel, and Scott Wagner as “our district’s own” senator. Further, none of the targeted senators represent the places (Elkins Park, Philadelphia, and Squirrel Hill) Mr. Sonntag has given as his home since May or the PennEnvironment office locales (Philadelphia and Pittsburgh). Why should anyone believe anything Mr. Sonntag and PennEnvironment write? In fairness, perhaps Mr. Sonntag/PennEnvironment meant to write “your district’s” instead of “our district’s,” both in this paragraph and the next. Just kidding.
As for “the overwhelming majority of Pennsylvanians do not support fracking under our state parks,” I couldn’t find a supporting poll. Anti-fracking people like to assert a Franklin & Marshall College January 2014 poll supports this claim, but they ignore the question asked. Question MS5 states, “The state of Pennsylvania currently allows natural gas drilling in state-owned forests. About half of the state forests with natural gas deposits have been leased to natural gas drilling companies. Some state officials have proposed that all state forestland with natural gas deposits should be opened for natural gas drilling, but the state agency that manages the state’s forests believes additional drilling is likely to harm the forests. Do you favor or oppose opening more of the state’s forestland to natural gas drilling?” The results for this question were 52% “Strongly oppose” and 16% “Somewhat oppose.”
First, the question talks about DRILLING IN state parks, not “FRACKING UNDER our state parks.” As most of us know by now, drilling does not need to occur on a property to extract the gas below. Horizontal drilling is every bit as important to the Marcellus boom as fracking and makes it possible to access gas deposits as far as a mile (horizontally) from the drilling platform and production equipment. Second, the question asked about “opening MORE of the state’s forestland to natural gas drilling,” not if there should be no drilling at all in “our state parks.” Of course, the real problem is almost no “civilians” have enough good info to provide an informed answer, including me.
“Pollution knows no bounds and will not abide by the boundaries we’ve drawn for our state parks. Negative impacts like noise, water, and air pollution, habitat disturbances, and ecological deterioration will deter tourists, ruin recreational areas, and disperse wildlife. Parks like Raccoon creek state park, a wonderful refuge for our districts [sic] residents, are places we go to hike, fish, swim, and enjoy the outdoors. Once fracking comes, these places will be forever changed.
“Sen. Vogel should be ashamed for supporting such a distasteful budget.”
[RWC] In his previous letter, Mr. Sonntag provided nothing to support his position. In this letter, Mr. Sonntag is long on doomsday predictions and short on supporting evidence. Of course, this letter is not really about concern for state parks, tourism, wildlife, and so on. It’s about the religion of manmade global warming.
As I’ve written previously, companies harvesting our natural resources must do so in a responsible manner and must have the financial and technological wherewithal to handle worst-case scenarios. It is government’s responsibility to enforce these rules and to make sure everyone involved [businesses and government (local, state, federal)] is prepared (via drills, for example) to execute disaster plans. In the very, very unlikely case we can’t do this while providing a commercially-viable energy source, there should be no drilling until we can.
My position is the same as I took regarding Brady’s Run Park. If anyone should be ashamed, it’s Mr. Sonntag and PennEnvironment for both lying and making it so obvious.
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