Protests, But No Arrests, At SRBC Hearing

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

March 15, 2012 | 3:30 PM

Yesterday, we told you fracktivists were ready to protest at this morning’s Susquehanna River Basin Commission meeting in Harrisburg. The SRBC approves water withdrawal permits for natural gas drillers, and recently issued new guidelines aimed at limiting protests at its meetings.
As Pennsylvania Public Radio’s Mary Wilson reports, there was sound but no fury at this morning’s meeting: shouting and protests, but no arrests.

The roughly 25 anti-fracking protesters in attendance at the Susquehanna River Basin Commission were quiet, almost sedate, for the first 25 minutes of the public meeting.
When the commission’s final agenda item was announced – project applications – there was an audible rustling from the gallery seats.
Then, as the commission moved to vote to approve water withdrawal permits, seven protesters stood up and brandished signs reading, “Pledge to protect the Susquehanna.” They chanted, “I pledge to protect the Susquehanna,” for the remaining three minutes of the hearing. Others remained seated in the gallery but chanted along.
The commissioners continued with their reconsideration of project applications – 60 in all, of which three were approved and 10 were tabled.