from our friends at PA Forest Coalition:

If someone borrowed your car and returned it with a dented fender, you would understandably be upset. 

                     

But what about the billions of gallons of water that is being borrowed by industry and returned in a degraded condition? 

John Arway, our PA Fish & Boat Commission’s  Executive Director, makes a strong point to that effect in the latest issue of Pennsylvania Angler & Boater Magazine. http://www.fish.state.pa.us/straighttalk.pdf

Pennsylvania is blessed with over 83,000 miles of streams and almost 4,000 lakes.  In addition, there are 80 trillion gallons of groundwater which feed into our waterways.

The demand for our water is growing, with over 10 billion gallons / day being withdrawn daily.  Power plants, mining and Marcellus Shale development are using our water, without compensation.

Here is the link to your legislators. 

Just go to  http://www.legis.state.pa.us/    and enter your zip code in the upper-right corner.  Then contact your legislators and ask them why industry can do this to Our water and why shouldn’t they pay for what they use. 

Please relay legislative responses to Coalition-Secretary@comcast.net 

Since there won’t be an Impact Fee in the form of a severance tax, we have to get the attention of the legislators on this issue. Make this water-use  issue a priority for 2011 and keep in contact with your legislators, reinforcing your comments and asking for progress reports – Working with legislators is a little like training your dog, it’s not a ‘one-and-done’ message.

Yours in conservation,

Dick Martin, Coordinator www.PaForestCoalition.org 

The Pennsylvania Forest Coalition is a unique alliance of hunters, hikers, anglers, landowners, wildlife-watchers, paddlers, bikers, churches and conservation groups who are united in our concern for the good stewardship of our public lands. Caring for what God has created 

You can give up eating Gulf Coast shrimp, 

but you can't give up drinking Pennsylvania water

For an excellent presentation on hydro-fracking, see Dr. Tony Ingraffea's three-part lecture series 

Click here: Ingraffea: density, industrialization, hydraulic fracturing | un-naturalgas.org weblog