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Shale Gas & Public Health Conference: Gillian Graber, Protect PT -- We Need To Work Together, Pool Our Knowledge To Push Back Against This Industry That's Harming Our Communities

On February 27, the Physicians for Social Responsibility PA, the League of Women Voters of PA, and the Department of Environmental and Energy Engineering at Duquesne University hosted a Shale Gas and Public Health Conference in Pittsburgh and online.

The Conference brought together scientists, public health experts, industry leaders, and advocacy groups to explore the latest research and insights on unconventional oil and gas development, its environmental impact and associated health risks, and community wins and responses.

PA Environment Digest is highlighting the remarks of several speakers at the Conference on these important issues.

Gillian Graber

Gillian Graber is the Executive Director and co-founder of Westmoreland County-based Protect PT (Penn-Trafford).

As a mother of two, Graber is passionate about keeping children and her community safe from the impacts of fracking.

After an experience dealing with air pollution issues in her own home, she has first-hand knowledge of the health impacts that pollution can have on a family and how government agencies often ignore residents in distress.

She equips residents with the tools to feel empowered to fight against the fossil fuel industry.

Here is a transcript of her remarks--

Presentation

Hello, everyone. I'm Gillian Graber, Executive Director of Protect PT.

We started this organization 10 years ago. Never did I think I'd be here 10 years from the time this started.

I think I've been to every one of these conferences since I started organizing around shale gas development, just to learn as much as I could positively learn, while trying to understand what was happening to me and my family.

So, we started this organization in my living room and now, I have eight full-time staff members.

I have 12 dedicated board members.

We have multiple volunteers, wonderful supporters, and just really a lot of support for the communities that we work in.

Well Pads

So, this is Penn Township. This map, you can see, started with one well pad, that's the one near my house, and then two, three, four, five, six, seven, 10, 12 [well pads].

And this was the invasion of this industry in my community.

And over the past 10 years, I am happy to say, only four have been built yet.

I was asked by the industry, "Is your tactic to delay?"

I said, "No, my tactic is to stop. I want to stop this development from happening."

So, I feel like that is a big success, that we've been able to at least push back enough that there are only four well pads being built.

There are more being built every day. Some of them are zombies and may never be built.

But over the years, we just have to be vigilant, which is my main topic for today, being vigilant.

So, this is the Gaia Well Pad, one of the well pads in Penn Township, thank you to FracTracker for the wonderful footage here, situated near home schools and daycares.

And then, we have the Metis Well Pad in full frack. You can see this truck staging on the side in this rural community. This is right next to a golf course, where residents recreate every day.

And we realized that challenges don't just stop with a well pad.

Injection Wells

There are the waste drains. No, this is not just brine as you heard today, but the industry is looking for a place to put their garbage.

And so, they said, "Why send it all to Ohio when we could save money and keep it in Pennsylvania, right?"

So, Penneco [Environmental] Solutions started the first injection well in Allegheny County back in 2020.

And this is the first of three injection wells that is slated to be situated on the site.

Local people got involved. They spoke out. We educated folks on what an injection well was.

I was educated on what an injection well was by another wonderful organizer from Ohio.

And we started getting together with the folks in Plum Borough. They responded when they saw people were impacted.

And in, actually, 2022, we participated in local hearings for this foray, which was the second of the well pads slated.

We illustrated the health impacts that the residents experienced.

And the Plum Zoning Hearing Board said that they didn't think they had the right to say no, so they just approved it.

But we appealed to the Commonwealth Court eventually, and they said that the board does have the right to say [no].

And in fact, it is their duty to protect the residents.

So, they should have said [no], if they found that this was not the best thing for the residents.

So, we are back two years later at the same time, same place, at the local hearings, educating residents and collecting resident stories so we can tell them to the zoning hearing board, in hopes that they deny the second and eventually third well injection while that is slated for this site. [Read more here] [Read more here]

Drill Cuttings

But what about drill cuttings? We heard a lot about the waste from the site. The industry needs to find a way to dump their waste. This is a big problem.

So, why not Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill?

Over the past five years, we've been organizing with the community around the landfill.

We did health surveys. We compiled data and pressured public officials and DEP to protect the people who lived around the landfill.

While the tactics had some success, the industry is very clever, and they have help from their friends at other state agencies, who, instead of protecting us, worked with the industry to help them solve their problems, like the contaminated leachate at the landfill.

You'll see that the [Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill], they were piping their leachate to the Belle Vernon Water Authority, and they said, "Enough is enough."

This toxic and salty leachate that killed all the bacteria at their plant is no longer going to be sent here. [Read more here]

So, what did they do instead? They're going to have to truck it off site. But that costs them a lot of money.

So, "Hey, how about we evaporate it in the air? How about we take it and put it in the air?"

And all those toxins can get people even more sick than they already are.

So, we said, "No, let's not do that."

But they would rather deposit those chemicals and naturally-occurring radioactive materials on people's homes, backyards, and waterways.

Additionally, the landfill has an extensive history of violations. The community had little faith that they would carry this out, this leachate plan, with the appropriate concern and well-being for them.

But through persistence, commenting, and organizing and legal advocacy, we were able to pressure Westmoreland Landfill and DEP to withdraw their air permit in late 2024.

This is a big success for us in the community.

But polluters will be polluters, and Westmoreland Landfill applied for a new Title V air permit. And they just applied for a new NPDES permit to discharge their treated waste into the Monongahela [River].

As we heard before, I think it was Dr. Stolz who was talking about how polluted the [Monongahela] is?

Well, let's pollute it some more, why don't we?

So, they're going to treat it and then put it in the [Monongahela], but where does that sludge from the treatment, the process, go?

We still don't know that. So, we must be vigilant and work and keep pushing our state agencies to do their job, and stop harming residents with toxic leachate from fracking waste.

Barging Waste

But the threat of oil and gas waste doesn't stop with landfills and injection wells.

The barging of fracking waste down the three rivers in Pittsburgh is another way to get this waste to Ohio.

And so, we organized with our partners, some of them here today, and we organized and came up with a plan to try to stop this from happening.

Currently, there is no waste barging that we know of, certainly not legally, but the industry is geared up to expand facilities in Ohio, like this one, along the Ohio River, for this exact purpose.

So, we, again, must be vigilant and keep organizing.

Tri-State Action

We responded by mobilizing partners, which sparked this tri-state oil and gas waste collaborative that highlights the importance of working, looking at the oil and gas industry as a whole from the extraction point to the downstream operations, and where waste is generated and where it's going.

So, in five years, the Oil and Gas Waste Club has around 22 members, many of them with successes of their own. Some of them are here today, you know who you are.

But there are always new strategies that the industry comes up with to threaten our health, water, waste, and air.

But this is a great depiction of the Oil and Gas Waste Club. We work with the three states because if we solve the problem here in Pennsylvania, what are we going to do with our friends in Ohio and West Virginia?

Conventional Injection Wells

What are they going to do?

So, the industry said, "Hey, how about converting these old conventional wells into injection wells?"

And so, by working together with municipalities, we're able to help local municipalities, advocate and educate them for protective ordinances.

You can see on the map here, the maroon dots and the orange dots are potential new injection well sites. These are low-producing or not-producing wells.

If you give this map to a municipality, we'll zoom in on the municipality and let them know, "Hey, these are potential sites."

It freaks them out, especially if they don't have an ordinance. So, then, we educate them on how to do that.

And I'm happy to say that the places in purple indicate successfully enacted ordinance based on education and advocacy.

So, we hope that one day, this whole map will be purple.

But right now, we've had successes in stopping an injection well up north in Clara Township, [Potter County], as well as helping Fayette County organize with partners to ensure that Fayette County and several other municipalities here in purple are protected from oil and gas waste injection wells.

Mobile App

And by developing new technologies, we are able to keep an eye on this industry.

With our mobile app, we're able to teach people how to watchdog in their community.

We can open up environmental monitoring opportunities and develop a new database that allows us to have a record of when the industry expert talks at a hearing, whether it be a local hearing or in court, and really tells lies about what is okay near people's homes and in their communities.

So, we've successfully developed an environmental monitoring program.

Working Together

Like I said, 10 years ago I started this in my living room, and now we are gathering evidence of these impacts, and we're engaging young scientists through internships as well.

And we engage in things like statewide campaigns, like [Lois Bower-Bjornson] was talking about, where we were able to put in a rulemaking petition accepted by the [Environmental Quality Board] late last year, calling for larger setback distances from oil and gas waste, or oil and gas infrastructure from homes, schools, playgrounds, and places of worship.

This will ensure that everyone in the state is further away from fracking, as is needed.

But we also mentor and fiscally sponsor other organizations, at least eight community organizations, empowering them to organize themselves, giving them the resources to be able to do that and be successful in their own communities.

And of course, we can't do it alone. So, working in silos doesn't really help anybody.

Working together is the best way for us to all be successful.

So, we need to work together and pool our knowledge and resources to push back against this industry that's harming our communities, and we will continue to be successful in the future.

So, thank you.

Visit the PA League of Women Voters Shale Gas and Public Health in 2025 - New Directions webpage for videos of the Conference presentation [when posted].

(Photos: Gillian Graber and a map of shale gas infrastructure sites in Westmoreland County.)

2025 Shale Gas Health Conference Presentations:

-- Shale Gas & Public Health Conference: Dr. Pouné Saberi, MD Speaks On How Healthcare Providers Can Better Serve Individuals Exposed To Health Threats From Shale Gas Development [PaEN]

-- Shale Gas & Public Health Conference: Alison Steele, Environmental Health Project - The Science Is In, Shale Gas Development Harming Public Health - Arming People To Prevent, Reduce Harm [PaEN]

-- Shale Gas & Public Health Conference: Lois Bower-Bjornson - What Its Like Living In Frackland - Residents Talk About Dealing With The Health, Environmental Impacts Of Shale Gas [PaEN]

-- Shale Gas & Public Health Conference: Bob Donnan - 15 Years Of Shale Gas Development Through Aerial Photos - Hiding In Plain Sight [PaEN]

-- Shale Gas & Public Health Conference: Gillian Graber, Protect PT -- We Need To Work Together, Pool Our Knowledge To Push Back Against This Industry That's Harming Our Communities [PaEN]

Resource Links - Health:

-- Frackland Video Tour, with Lois Bower-Bjornson, Clean Air Council

-- Part I - Environmental Impacts: State Dept. Of Health, Penn State Medical Webinars On Caring For Persons Living & Working In Communities With Oil & Natural Gas Extraction [PaEN]

-- Part II - Health Impacts: State Dept. Of Health, Penn State Medical Webinars On Caring For Persons Living & Working In Communities With Oil & Natural Gas Extraction [PaEN]

-- University Of Pittsburgh School Of Public Health Studies Find Shale Gas Wells Can Make Asthma Worse; Children Have An Increased Chance Of Developing Lymphoma Cancer; Slightly Lower Birth Weights [PaEN]