Coalition demands Obama’s representative on the DRBC vote “NO” on Nov. 21st: Army Corps of Engineers Press Conference
MEDIA ADVISORY
Contact: Tracy Carluccio, Delaware Riverkeeper Network 215-692-2329 tracy@delawareriverkeeper.org, www.delawareriverkeepernetwork.org
Iris Marie Bloom, Protecting Our Waters 215-840-6489 protectingourwaters@gmail.com, www.protectingourwaters.com
WHAT: Press Conference at Army Corps of Engineers Philadelphia Office
WHEN: Monday, November 14, 2011 at 12 NOON
WHERE: Wanamaker Building – 100 Penn Square East, Philadelphia PA 19107
** Use entrance marked South Lobby; up escalator to lobby
WHY: Broad coalition of groups demand that President Obama’s representative on the Delaware River Basin Commission vote “NO” on fracking on Nov. 21st!
WHAT DO WE WANT: Clean air and water; health for our own and future generations; safe union jobs — not boom and bust, dangerous fracking jobs; renewable energy, conservation and efficiency; a diverse, sustainable economy; protection for all our children, who are most vulnerable to chemical exposure. We refuse to let our river and our people be fracked.
Philadelphia: On Monday at noon, a broad coalition of organizations including labor, faith-based, sportsmen, business, physicians, national organizations and college/university populations from the states that make up the Delaware River Watershed – New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware – will hold coordinated press conferences in all four states. Pressure on the Obama Administration is being brought to the door of Colonel Christopher Larsen of the Army Corps of Engineers, asking that he, as a voting member of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), vote against regulations that would allow a controversial gas drilling method known as fracking in the Delaware River Basin for the first time.
Fracking to extract natural gas involves injecting large quantities of water, sand and over chemicals underground to break up shale and rock. Over 650 of the chemicals are known or possible human carcinogens. Fracking could pollute the Delaware River – a drinking water source to over 15 million people living in the region. Air pollution and climate damage, with sea level rise particularly threatening to Philadelphia, are also serious concerns.
The DRBC regulations, which would lift a 3-year moratorium and allow 18,000 fracking wells in the Delaware River Basin, will receive a final vote on Nov. 21. If the regulations are passed, they will pave the way for horizontal fracking in New Jersey and New York, bring more fracking to Pennsylvania and expose Delaware, the most downstream state in the Basin, to toxic fracking runoff.
PHOTO OP: As part of this coordinated campaign, the organizations involved will deliver anti-fracking petitions and letters from Delaware Basin residents to President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Obama’s DRBC Commissioner, Colonel Larsen.
SPEAKERS:
• Tracy Carluccio, Deputy Director, Delaware Riverkeeper Network
• Morgan Bartz, Student, Swarthmore College, PA
• Patty Eakin, President, Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP)
• John F. Scorsone, President of SolareAmerica
• Rabbi Melissa Klein
• Reverend Jesse Brown
• Iris Marie Bloom, Director, Protecting Our Waters
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Protecting Our Waters 
Fracking for natural gas is too dangerous, too expensive and unnecessary for our energy needs. The New York Times series called Drilling Down, documents the environmental and economic costs of fracking. Fracking is not cheap, clean or economical contrary to the ads on TV. And finally, Jacobson and Delucci in their Nov. 2009 article in Scientific American, outline a plan to convert the world to renewable energy without fossil fuel or nuclear power.
What we lack is the political will, according to their article. Is the 1% and their greedy energy companies, who don’t care about global warming or ruining our water supply that has bought our Federal and State governments and their regulatory bodies.