WASHINGTON, January 6 (Sputnik) — Eight peaceful protesters were arrested and charged with trespassing in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania on Monday as an anti-fracking community group attempted to stop exploratory drilling for a natural gas pipeline, community organizers told Sputnik.
“Eight of us were arrested, I’m one of the people. Lancaster County is my home and my family has lived here for ten generations. This pipeline will disrupt our rural way of life and a lot of people’s livelihoods will be damaged,” Nick Martin, an anti-fracking community organizer said.
Forty residents of the Conestoga and Martic townships and the Lancaster American Indian Movement have been protesting for more than a year against the development of the Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline that would bring gas from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania to another pipeline to the Cove Point terminal in Maryland.
Protesters demanded to see a permit from Williams Partners and requested police compel the company to show the permit, Martin said.
Instead, after several warnings from the police to disperse, eight protesters who stayed behind were arrested, including Carlos Whitewolf, Chief of the Taino Yukayeke Ma'Oconuco Native American Tribe in Lancaster County. The protesters were slapped with a $1000 bail, given a future court date, and compelled to sign a document that they would not trespass again.
The organizers now vow to continue the struggle. The county is developing a rights based ordinance, Martin said, meaning that communities will have the right to decide over the federal government or state against any fossil fuel project. Although Lancaster country sits outside the oil and gas drilling heartland of the Marcellus Shale, its impact is spreading to other communities.
“We recognize that fracking is bad for people that live in Marcellus Shale and now we are seeing impact of that in Lancaster County,” Martin told Sputnik. “This is my community and I believe we have to protect land.”
Thousands of fracking wells dot the Pennsylvania landscape above the Marcellus Shale, the development of which has pitted environmentalists and communities against the energy industry. To bring the gas to market a series of pipelines are being planned on the US East Coast.
