Locals join protest at the inauguration

MATT HUGHES

mhughes@timesleader.com

Cries of “No fracking way” and “What do we want? Clean water. When do we want it? Now” accompanied the inauguration of Gov. in Harrisburg on Tuesday morning.

More than 40 protesters from Northeastern Pennsylvania, including members of the Back Mountain-based Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition, joined the crowd of about 300 protesters who assembled on Commonwealth Avenue behind the state Capitol for the inauguration.

“This was one heck of a protest,” said protester Sandra Marie Serhan of Harveys Lake. “The conditions were horrific, with the ice and the snow getting here. Considering how endangered people were, they took that chance to come out here and protest.”

About 30 traveled by charter bus from the Wegmans lot in Wilkes-Barre Township to the inauguration.

The activists assembled at an approved location in Soldier’s Grove, about 75 yards behind the site of Corbett’s swearing in behind the state Capitol.

The activists’ cries and whistles were loud enough to be heard during the ceremony, prompting Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati to wisecrack that the First Amendment is “alive and well.”

Protesters said they opposed the governor’s acceptance of $1.2 million in contributions from the natural gas industry during his campaign for governor and alleged the former state attorney general has packed his administration with gas industry insiders.

They erected four 15-foot derricks off Commonwealth Avenue and held signs reading “Keep PA’s Water Pure” and “The Crowning of Tom Corporate, the Gas King.”

“There were 3,000 Republicans in those bleachers, and they can’t just hear from the governor what’s important; they need to hear from the people,” said Gene Stilp, of Middle Paxton Township, the Luzerne County native who organized the protest. “You have to open your lungs to be heard.”

“If he continues to surround himself with gas drilling executives and people in the industry, he’s only getting one side of the story,” protester Virginia Cody, of Factoryville, said of the incoming governor. “He needs to look at the independent science. … If he doesn’t pay attention to the science instead of the spun information that’s coming from the industry, he’s going to make some very bad decisions for the state.”

Cody, the retired Air Force officer who blew the whistle on the private Institute of Terrorism Research and Response, which monitored gas-drilling activists on behalf of former state Homeland Security Director James F. Powers, was one of 13 speakers at the rally. Others included Pittsburgh City Councilman Doug Shields, who spearheaded his city’s ban on hydraulic fracturing, and Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition founder Tom Jiunta.

Concerned about drinking water supplies, activists said they support a moratorium on the process of hydraulic fracturing until the Environmental Protection Agency completes its study of the gas-industry practice, preliminary results of which are scheduled to be released in 2012. They also support greater oversight by the state and oppose the practice of “forced pooling.”

“We’re about clean water, clean air and safe communities,” said Paula Chaiken of the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition. “We’re not protesting (Corbett).”