Mike Belleme for Rolling Stone Grant Township, Pennsylvania An unlikely crew of environmentalists who took on the powerful Pennsylvania fracking industry in a David vs. Goliath battle to keep an injection well out of their community have notched an important victory in their fight. Using a novel strategy — seeking legal rights for nature itself — the rural western Pennsylvania community of Grant Township has been battling for seven years to stop the permit for the injection well, which would have brought a 24/7 parade of trucks carrying brine, a toxic byproduct of oil-and-gas drilling that would be shot down the well and into a rock layer deep beneath the farms and woods in the area. Earlier this month, in a stunning reversal, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which in 2017 sued Grant Township for interfering with the agency’s authority to administer state oil-and-gas policy, revoked the permit for the injection well. “This decision is soooooo delicious,” says Stacy Long, a graphic designer and township supervisor who together with her mother, Judy Wanchisn, a retired elementary-school teacher, helped lead the charge to stop the well. “I am hopeful that the haters and naysayers will take note, and […]
Nature Scores a Big Win Against Fracking in a Small Pennsylvania Town
Latest Articles
Chennai resident sights two rare warblers at home on the same day
A Large-billed Leaf Warbler sighted in the greenery at an apartment complex in Pallikaranai on April 3, 2021. Photo: Sundaravel Palanivelu The city falls...
Calling All Volunteers for The Great Global Cleanup 2021
Our planet’s waterways, green spaces, and communities and are overflowing with litter . The problem is bigger than any individual can handle; it...
The solution to California’s rampant sea urchin problem is to eat them. I gave...
“Babe! I sprayed mouth everywhere!” I never thought I’d find myself screaming these words on a tranquil Sunday morning in my tiny San...
Wayanad sanctuary a haven for Asiatic wild dog
Dhole or Asiatic wild dog, an endangered large carnivore, in the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary. Study finds the sanctuary is host to nearly 50 individuals...
UK launches world’s largest ocean monitoring system
The U.K. government, under the Blue Belt program , has announced its plan to install underwater camera rigs for monitoring ocean wildlife in...
These endangered monkeys kept getting hit by cars. Scientists had a clever solution.
Zanzibar red colobuses (Piliocolobus kirkii) are one of the most endagered species of African primates. (Image credit: Tim R. B. Davenport) Endangered primates that...
