BRISTOL PA – Days before the Citizens Marcellus Shale Commission is scheduled to release its final report and recommendations, Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, resigned from her post as a Commissioner for the group.

“While the final report will contain a number of good recommendations for reforming regulations needed to protect communities from the ravages of shale gas drilling, the Citizens Commission came up short in important ways including – it didn’t notice and implement its 5 statewide hearings so as to ensure full participation by all citizens who wanted to speak to the gas drilling issue; and it failed to give voice to the clear message and need that resulted from hearing testimony that there should be a stay on gas drilling until identified minimum protections for public health and the environment are first achieved,”  said van Rossum.  “In the final analysis, the Commission’s leadership insisted on what they deemed a politically palatable report, rather than one which fully served to seek protections from known harms and informational deficiencies associated with shale gas development.”  

Van Rossum says The Delaware Riverkeeper Network has worked for over four years to protect communities and their waterways from shale gas extraction.  A current moratorium on drilling in the Delaware Watershed has remained in effect for over two and a half years even with pressure from drillers who have leased large swaths of the Basin.

“Why should the Delaware River enjoy a stay/moratorium on drilling while other areas of Pennsylvania are allowed to be sacrificed, especially in light of the science and expert opinion showing irreparable harm where gas development is occurring, that the technology is inherently polluting, and that current regulations are not protecting Pennsylvanians?”, asks van Rossum

The Citizens Marcellus Shale Commission was first announced August 30, 2011, and held five hearings in September, the first held on just one day after public announcement of the Commission in the Pittsburgh area.