From in these times: Fracking injection wells, which blast millions of gallons of water mixed with chemicals deep underground to expand fissures in the rock, have triggered earthquakes and polluted drinking water in several states. In order to prevent energy corporations from dumping toxic wastewater in their communities, two Pennsylvania townships drafted local constitutions banning the practice.

Providing another example of how far down the corporate rabbit hole state and federal governments have gone, on March 27 the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)—the state agency with the mission “to protect Pennsylvania's air, land and water from pollution and to provide for the health and safety of its citizens”— sued these townships for interfering with the oil and gas industry. 

The Pennsylvania Community Rights Network (PACRN) is a statewide, grassroots organization working to elevate community interests above corporate interests by advocating the right to local self-government. According to the group’s website:

The current structure of law in Pennsylvania systematically strips communities of the power to adopt laws to protect their health and safety, particularly when those laws come into direct conflict with corporate decision making. This system thus prohibits communities from banning projects and activities that they consider dangerous and harmful—everything from corporate factory farms to the land dumping of sewage sludge and “hydro-fracking” for natural gas. Unfortunately, Pennsylvania communities have found out the hard way that the existing structure does not provide a remedy for these problems, and that a corporate minority, with the blessing of the state, has almost wholesale control over our communities on almost any issue that really matters. 

For 15 years, PACRN has been working alongside the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF)—a non-profit, public interest law firm that provides “free and affordable legal services to communities facing threats to their local environment, local agriculture, local economy and quality of life.”  Thomas Linzey, a contributing writer to Rural America In These Times, is the executive director and co-founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) and serves as the organization’s chief legal counsel.

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