{"id":32321,"date":"2018-03-14T07:28:10","date_gmt":"2018-03-14T12:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32321"},"modified":"2018-03-14T07:28:47","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T12:28:47","slug":"in-pittsburgh-a-community-bill-of-rights-helped-ban-fracking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32321","title":{"rendered":"In Pittsburgh, a community bill of rights helped ban fracking"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shareable.net\/blog\/celdf-and-pittsburghs-community-bill-of-rights-banning-fracking\">In Pittsburgh, a community bill of rights helped ban fracking<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"blog-header-image\">\n<div class=\"field field--name-field-blog-image-top field--type-image field--label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field__items\">\n<div class=\"field__item even\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shareable.net\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/blog-header-large\/public\/blog\/top-image\/CELDF.jpg?itok=2pE45rb7\" alt=\"\" \/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<footer class=\"node__submitted\">\n<p class=\"news-date moment-processed\">\n<\/footer>\n<div class=\"node__content\">\n<div class=\"field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden youtube-processed\">\n<div class=\"field__items\">\n<div class=\"field__item even\">\n<p><strong>Here&#8217;s the problem:<\/strong>\u00a0In 2010, the oil and gas industries operating in Pennsylvania were acquiring land leases that would allow them to extract natural gas using the process known as &#8220;fracking.&#8221;\u00a0Many rural municipalities had been targeted already for this activity, and the state Legislature had enacted laws forbidding local governments from limiting or banning the industrial activities related to fracking. The people of Pittsburgh were alarmed to learn that a few larger open spaces \u2014\u00a0and even small parcels of land in the city \u2014\u00a0had been quietly leased for fracking. The nine members of the city council were hearing from their concerned district constituents and one of the council members put out a call for advice to environmental groups, land-use law firms, and other experts. A group discussion ensued in which nearly 30 organizations participated. The overarching question raised by the council member was, &#8220;How can Pittsburgh protect its people, environment, and water supply from the toxic effects of industrial gas extraction in the city?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Here&#8217;s how one organization is working on the problem:\u00a0<\/strong>After hearing advice from organizations suggesting appeals to state regulatory agencies and recommendations for new local zoning laws that might limit fracking to designated &#8220;heavy industrial zones,&#8221;\u00a0the council member asked another important question, &#8220;Don&#8217;t these proposed &#8216;solutions&#8217;\u00a0actually allow fracking, rather than stop it?&#8221;\u00a0The almost unanimous answer that came back was that &#8220;it&#8217;s illegal to stop the fracking, because of state preemption. The best you can do is try to limit the harm.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Pittsburgh, a community bill of rights helped ban fracking Here&#8217;s the problem:\u00a0In 2010, the oil and gas industries operating in Pennsylvania were acquiring land leases that would allow them to extract natural gas using the process known as &#8220;fracking.&#8221;\u00a0Many rural municipalities had been targeted already for this activity, and the state Legislature had enacted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,6],"tags":[19276,19275,331,19274,11563],"class_list":["post-32321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-liberty","tag-ben-price","tag-community-bill-of-rights","tag-fracking","tag-pittsburgh","tag-shareable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32322,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32321\/revisions\/32322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}