Help Butler County Families Hurt by Gas Drilling Now!

Please help the families of Connequenessing Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania get the clean safe water they deserve. Over the past two weeks we’ve published two heartbreaking stories coming out of Butler County, “Black Water + Purple Water = A Fracking Nightmare” and “Drilling Spills in Over a Dozen Creeks.”  In fact, we first reported about Kim McEvoy’s black water and Janet McIntyre’s foaming water, her family’s vomiting, and her dog dying back in September.

Now, AP, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune, and other traditional news media are finally starting to cover this story. Hundreds of people have written to the EPA to urge these families be given clean safe water. Even Congress is paying attention.

But the situation, nonetheless, has gotten even worse. Six more families, including three families whose well water was bright orange last time they looked, are being cut off by REX Energy from their clean replacement water buffaloes next week.

Kim McEvoy’s daughter Skylar in the McEvoys’ kitchen: Connoquenessing Township, Butler County PA February 4th 2012. Photo: Iris Marie Bloom

Twelve families in Butler County will be without clean drinking water starting Wednesday, February 29th. That’s the day that gas-drilling company REX Energy will stop delivering clean water to the Butler families.

We call on you to stand up for these innocent families by taking a few minutes to:

1. Sign the letter to the EPA urging clean water be provided, along with  extensive testing so that water, air and health are protected.
2. Make a donation that will directly fund clean water deliveries to the Butler County families. By donating to “Water LOVE,” the Emergency Water Fund established by Protecting Our Waters, you’ll be giving a lifeline to some of the hardest-hit families in Pennsylvania’s shale gas disaster. Your donation is 100% tax-deductible through our 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor, EVOLVE Foundation.

Protecting Our Waters is working directly with the impacted families, local organizers with Marcellus Outreach Butler, and good-hearted souls such as farmer Stephen Cleghorn who already donated his own water buffalo to the McIntyre family. If EPA, the Department of Health, or any other entity intervenes to make sure emergency water deliveries to these 12 families continue, we will use any funds raised to provide water for the next fracking emergency. No families in Pennsylvania should ever have to suffer like this.

Janet McIntyre reported yesterday that she hadn’t slept for two days, since her neighbors got their letters from Rex Energy saying their water deliveries will be cut off starting next week. One man has already died, and the rest of the neighborhood is living in a state of emergency. Janet suggested we call the fund “Water LOVE” — Life’s Outpouring in a Vital Emergency. Water is life and there’s no doubt these families need love as well as water. Thanks everybody!