Sample letter:  <300 words

Title: Your community may be become a fracked-gas haul route

Editor,

Your community may be about to become a haul route for fracked gas.  New Fortress Energy plans to process Marcellus shale gas into Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in Wyalusing Township, Bradford County, and convey it almost 200 miles overland (rail and/or truck) to an ocean port in Gibbstown, NJ.

LNG is a cryogenically reduced form of natural gas that, if vaporized from a container leak, quickly expands and can cause a deadly vapor cloud and an inextinguishable fire of a mile or more in radius.

Volumes projected by the company are substantial. There may be 300-400 filled tanker trucks per day leaving Wyalusing Township and an equal number of tankers returning.  Alternatively, the LNG could move by rail as a daily 100-car unit train.

This project does not promote U.S. energy independence. It promotes profits for its investors.  Your community gets no benefit, yet you will assume the safety risks, associated first responder expenses, and detriment to your business district, downtown ambience, and economy. Should there be a LNG truck or rail explosion, your community will incur the loss of life and property and the disaster-recovery expense.

A patchwork of state and federal environmental and highway regulations has allowed this industry to get a foothold before anybody has considered its wide-area and cumulative impacts.

Misbegotten federal rulemaking from 2019 to allow LNG to move by rail throughout the U.S., the result of pressure by the gas producers looking for markets, is on hold at the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). This rule needs to be rescinded.

Please contact Governor Shapiro to express your concern that Pennsylvania should not be sacrificed to gas exporters. Demand a moratorium on LNG-for-export projects. Engage with your municipal officials about how to defend your community from becoming wasteland along a haul route.