EASTON, Pa. — Activists from organizations aimed at protecting the Delaware River gathered Wednesday outside Nature Nurture Center in Easton to support a ban on fracking in the Delaware River Basin.
Officials from the Delaware Riverkeepers Network, Catskill Mountainkeepers, Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania, Environment New Jersey and Damascus Citizens for Sustainability spoke outside the center, where the Delaware River Basin Commission met later in the morning.
“We’re here to tell… the Delaware River Basin Commission that as long as you stand with we the people, as long as you continue to defend our watershed from the ravages of fracking, we will stand with you.”Maya van Rossum, leader of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network
“We’re here to tell… the Delaware River Basin Commission that as long as you stand with we the people, as long as you continue to defend our watershed from the ravages of fracking, we will stand with you,” Maya van Rossum, leader of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said.
The commission voted in 2021 to outlaw the use of hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, to extract natural gas and other mineral resources from the Delaware River’s nearly 14,000-square-mile watershed.
The ban has survived multiple legal challenges, including one brought by a group of landowners which a judge dismissed in February.
Fear of ban reversal
However, efforts to reverse the ban have not disappeared.
In March, U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan Jr., R-Pa., convened a roundtable meeting with local political leaders and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Chief Lee Zeldin.
There, according to a news release from Bresnahan, participants discussed ways to build up a natural gas industry in the Delaware River Basin and “expressed concerns” about the commission’s fracking ban.
There is no legal way for federal officials to unilaterally lift the fracking ban, but there's concern that federal officials could try to circumvent the commission.Maya van Rossum, leader of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network
Undoing the ban would require support from a majority of the commission’s members: the governors of Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware, plus the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ North Atlantic Division Commander, representing the federal government.
The Trump administration has voiced a desire to boost fossil fuel extraction, but the federal government holds only one vote to the states’ four.
Their governors would vote to keep the fracking ban in place, van Rossum said, meaning the odds of such a reversal are “zero to none.”
There is no legal way for federal officials to unilaterally lift the fracking ban, van Rossum said.
However, she said she is concerned that federal officials could try to circumvent the commission.
Impact communities downstream
In recent years, new research has uncovered mounting evidence linking fracking with health risks.
In 2022, researchers from the Yale School of Public Health found that Pennsylvania children living within two kilometers of a fracking site were nearly twice as likely to develop a type of childhood leukemia.
According to a 2021 paper, living near fracking wells is linked with a greater rate of hospitalization for heart attacks.
“Air and water pollution do not respect man-made geographic and political boundaries.”Taylor Jaffe, program manager for Catskill Mountainkeepers
A pair of studies released in 2018 and 2020 found pregnant woman living near the wells were more likely to give birth to a premature or low-birth-weight baby.
A study from the University of Texas at El Paso found that, in Oklahoma, living near more fracked wells is associated with lower life expectancy and a higher risk of cancer, heart disease and lung disease.
Though the Lehigh Valley would not see new drilling if the ban is lifted, fracking upriver could impact communities downstream, the activists said.
“Air and water pollution do not respect man-made geographic and political boundaries,” Taylor Jaffe, program manager for Catskill Mountainkeepers, said.
