Excerpt from “Shalefield Stories - Personal and Collected Testimonies”
Published by Steel Valley Printers
January 2014
It started in 2008, they did a test well 600 feet* from our home. There are over nine well pads surrounding my home within a two mile radius. We’ve never had an issue with our water, ever.
Our water turned white. When you let it sit for about three hours it will have a sand in it. When it comes out of my faucet it’ll have like a sand and a green, mossy carpet and then it will gel at the top. I never had that problem before, never had water that looked like gelatin before.
It doesn’t turn white everyday, it could once or twice a month. In the last eight days it has changed five times. In October they were drilling a mile and a half away and my water was white, day and night, for a whole week. My daughter got sick. She ended up having sharp, stabbing pains and they’d move all around her stomach. She had a high fever for three days and diarrhea which turned to blood. She lost ten pounds in seven days. On the seventh day she asked me to take her to the hospital and they found a lot of fluid floating in her abdomen. They found her right ovary, her spleen and her liver were enlarged. The doctors said they didn’t know what she has.
My daughter left home to look for another one. She found a place in Tennessee and got a job. December 26th, she left me. She left Pennsylvania. While she was looking for another home she realized it was our water, because she started feeling better. Her fever, her diarrhea, all her aches and pains went away.
Chesapeake told me I am not allowed to talk about this white water. I’ve never seen my water gel, and when I told the guy from Chesapeake that he paused, and he says, “How far down in the jar does it gel?”
I have a rash, several rashes - the same ribcage rash that’s on my cows too. I don’t know what’s happening to them.
I called to report to DEP that my water had changed because my daughter got sick. They took all my information, I wrote requirements in order for them to come out. The fourth week they wrote me back and said because of my requirements they would not come out to test my water until I made no requirements on DEP. My requirements were that a hydrogeologist I hired be here to do split samples and that I be able to video the testing. Also, DEP insisted on bringing Chesapeake Energy, even though we didn’t know what had affected my water. I insisted that Chesapeake not be allowed on my property.
After what happened to my daughter, I went down to the EPA and I was going to talk about my concern with the food since I’m in the dairy business, but other people there set out their black and brown water. And I looked at it thinking, this is my water, this is why my baby left me. Then I told them her story. Another man, from Potter County, said the same thing - his water changed and he had sharp pains, diarrhea, and a high fever. He went to the doctor and they told him his spleen and liver are enlarged. Now, he has liver cancer. All I can do is hope that my daughter left in time.
- Carol French
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*Responsible Environmental Management of Oil and Natural Gas in New Brunswick Rules for Industry (February 15, 2013)
“The operator must not locate an oil or gas well head or a battery or a flare end, or a compressor station or a gas conditioning plant within: a) 500 metres [1640 feet] of an elementary school, middle school, high school, hospital, or nursing home; b) 250 metres [820 feet] of a dwelling; c) 250 metres [820 feet] of a place of outdoor public concourse such as a playground, fairground, outdoor theatre or campground; and d) 100 metres [330 feet] of any other permanent building, railway, pipeline, or public road.”
“Well pads are not permitted within 250 metres [820 feet] of a water well or a spring or a reservoir serving as an individual water supply, or within 250 metres [820 feet] of a surface water intake feeding into an individual water supply.”
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