Aug 10, 2013 2 min read

Since Allegheny County commissioners are planning to tour Cross Creek County Park soon to see how “wonderful” drilling is there, I wanted to respond to points made in your June 27 editorial, “Improve park access, preserve quiet nature.”

While you made some valid points, many issues were glossed over or ignored. Let me address four points. Anyone who has been in Cross Creek County Park when convoys of tri-axle dump trucks are hauling stone to a new drilling pad would hardly call it a “quiet, peaceful enclave.” People for miles around can see the huge, smoky gas well flares in the park, so it is a reach to say “gas drilling activity is not visible from the picnic area or the water.”

When you say “its natural beauty needs to be protected,” that horse already left the barn with the 2012 lease addendum by our three “drill, baby, drill” commissioners calling for seven new drilling pads within eight years and more “No Trespassing” zones.

Finally, the editorial said there have been several spills and other incidents involving gas drilling on park property, but that “damage has been minimal.” Is the writer of the editorial a biologist or fisheries Ph.D with scientific proof? Perhaps you didn’t know “toxic tea bags” of drilling waste have been buried on multiple well pads in the park. Is that drilling waste too radioactive for landfills? Burial of this waste in the park is a clear violation of the 2003 lease which reads, “All trash, rubbish, or waste materials from each drilling site shall be removed and disposed of in a properly licensed solid waste site. All pits shall be filled with earth and developed per county specifications at Lessee’s expense upon completion of each well.”

Indeed, the moniker “Cross Creek Industrial Park” fits so well maybe Allegheny County can learn from our mistake.

Robert Donnan

McMurray