EPA Will Deliver Clean Safe Water to Dimock!

Breaking news: Craig Sautner of Dimock, PA just called to announce that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will bring clean safe water to his family this week, most likely tomorrow. His wife Julie had just received the call from Trish Taylor of EPA Region 3. The EPA has confirmed the presence of many metals, ethylene glycol, and chemicals which should not be in household water used for showering or drinking.

Craig hopes that at least 11 of the other affected families will also receive clean safe water deliveries shortly. *Update: EPA Press Release promising water deliveries to four affected families is here.* The EPA had previously promised water deliveries, then made statements to the press that they would not deliver water to the affected families, which prompted Protecting Our Waters to organize a demonstration and press conference last Friday in Philadelphia, urging EPA head Lisa Jackson to immediately deliver clean safe water to the affected families in Dimock.

Here are some of Craig Saunter‘s initial comments:

The data speaks for itself. I guess science did its job, and I guess us people up in Dimock weren’t lying after all. Let science continue to do its job! This is good, this is good.

You wouldn’t believe the hassle I had all last Sunday: I had to put 5-gallon jugs into the water buffalo [the large plastic containers used for replacement water, now ubiquitous in fracked areas]. It all froze up; the water buffalo water froze and the pump was all frozen; I had to get help, and my family could finally take showers starting at 4 pm. It’s been like that every Sunday, Christmas Day, New Year’s… you wouldn’t believe what we’ve been through. My family had rashes from some of those chemicals… Oh my gosh, what a relief! I’m ecstatic!

I hope they don’t build up our hopes and let us down again.

Congratulations to everyone who has worked so hard to make sure justice is done here — starting with the absolute minimum of ensuring clean safe water for Dimock residents whose water was first contaminated by Cabot Oil and Gas in September 2008. We appreciate all those who’ve donated water to Dimock residents after DEP cut off the water deliveries last November. We thank NRDC senior attorney Kate Sinding for her excellent letters to the EPA. Now we are on the edge of our seats to hear the good news that the water has actually been delivered!

Much more work remains to be done, for unfortunately Dimock is not the only Dimock. It should not take so much hard work and pressure to have basic fundamental rights respected, and no one should have to be ecstatic just because clean safe water is made available to keep their family safe from toxic gas drilling contaminants. Let’s keep turning the world right-side up.

As Martin Luther King said, “The arm of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”