Delaware Lawmaker Creates Online Petition to Oppose Fracking Along Delaware River

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

November 23, 2011 | 12:35 PM

Susan Phillips / StateImpactPA

A river gage, built in the 1930's, sits along the Delaware River in Milford, Pa. The gage continues to be used as a way to divvy up shared water resources for New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

Delaware state Representative John Kowalko, a liberal Democrat from New Castle County, says he has gathered more than 1,100 signatures on a petition that opposes drilling for natural gas in the Delaware River watershed. No shale gas exists in the state of Delaware. But the nation’s second smallest state recently became a major player in the shale gas debate after Governor Jack Markell announced his plan to vote “no” on the Delaware River Basin Commission’s new gas drilling rules.
Up until just a week ago, the battle over gas drilling along the Delaware River focused primarily on warring residents and politicians from Pennsylvania and New York. Delaware, however, would be downstream of any gas drilling that takes place in northeast Pennsylvania and the southern tier of New York state. The Delaware river provides drinking water to two-thirds of the state’s residents.
In a press release, Kowalko says his primary motive is preserving safe drinking water.

“There have been very serious concerns raised about the economic viability of shale-gas drilling and the public health and environmental impacts that would result with slick-water hydraulic fracturing in shale areas bordering the Delaware River Basin,” said Kowalko.

Kowalko says he has forwarded the petition to the Governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, as well as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. All four states and the federal government have an equal vote on the Commission.