Activists Plan to Confront EPA Chief Over Dimock’s Water

Chip Somod­ev­illa / Getty Images

EPA Admin­is­tra­tor Lisa Jack­son (L) tes­ti­fies at a Con­gres­sional hear­ing in May, 2011.

Frack­ing oppo­nents say Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency Admin­is­tra­tor Lisa Jack­son should stick to the EPA’s promise and pro­vide fresh water to Dimock res­i­dents. An envi­ron­men­tal group plans to protest at a talk Jack­son is sched­uled to deliver in down­town Philadel­phia on Fri­day morn­ing. Jack­son will be speak­ing, along with Philadel­phia Mayor Michael Nut­ter and Brazil’s Min­is­ter of the Envi­ron­ment, at a forum on urban sus­tain­abil­ity.

Pro­tect­ing Our Waters, a Philadel­phia based envi­ron­men­tal group, is spon­sor­ing the rally, which is meant to put pres­sure on the EPA.

Please note that, far from being hos­tile to Lisa Jack­son and the EPA, we con­sider them impor­tant allies. But insid­ers have said to us, just as the Obama Admin­is­tra­tion has said to us, “How do you expect us to push back on the gas indus­try, which sends high-powered lob­by­ists to our offices lit­er­ally every day, if you don’t have large num­bers of peo­ple out in the street? Keep the pres­sure up!”

In 2009, the state Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion forced Cabot Oil and Gas to pro­vide Dimock res­i­dents with fresh water after it found the energy com­pany respon­si­ble for pol­lut­ing res­i­den­tial water wells. But in Novem­ber, the DEP, under the new Cor­bett Admin­is­tra­tion, told Cabot that it no longer had to pro­vide water deliv­er­ies. Since then, res­i­dents have been rely­ing on dona­tions. Last week, Dimock res­i­dents say they had heard from regional EPA offi­cials that the fed­eral gov­ern­ment would step in to pro­vide fresh water. But a day later, the EPA reversed itself. Also last week, DEP Sec­re­tary Michael Krancer sent a chid­ing let­ter to the EPA, sug­gest­ing the feds don’t know what’s going on in Dimock.