In 2015, Grant Township adopted the nation’s first municipal charter establishing a local bill of rights with help from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). The Bill of Rights asserts environmental and democratic rights and bans frack wastewater injection wells as a violation of those rights:

All residents of Grant Township, along with natural communities and ecosystems within the Township, possess the right to clean air, water, and soil, which shall include the right to be free from activities which may pose potential risks to clean air, water, and soil within the Township, including the depositing of waste from oil and gas extraction. – Article I, Section 104, Grant Township Bill of Rights

Half a year later, Grant Township once again entered new territory and became the first community in the United States to legalize civil disobedience. According to Grant’s civil disobedience law, anyone who commits a nonviolent act in order to protect the community’s Bill of Rights has the legal right to do so – but not only that – the law also prohibits “any private or public actor from bringing criminal charges.”

As Public Herald reported in 2014, these groundbreaking laws are being tested in an ongoing legal battle with the industry — “Pennsylvania Ecosystem Fights Corporation for Rights in Landmark Fracking Lawsuit.”

And now the state is joining the fight — to benefit industry.

Last week, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued two new permits for frack wastewater injection wells – one in Grant Township and another in Highland Township in Elk County.

Highland has also adopted a local bill of rights banning frack waste injection wells.

On the same day the waste permits were issued, DEP filed lawsuits against both Highland and Grant seeking to nullify the democratically-passed bans.

“There aren’t many of us, and that’s why I think [the company] chose us,” Highland Township resident Marsha Buhl told Public Herald. “They probably think small communities are easier to bully or buy off.”

Suing communities is not something DEP does — Public Herald has found no record of the DEP suing townships over permits related to fracking — which makes it quite unprecedented.

At the same time the Department is suing communities who don’t want to become dumping grounds for industrial waste, DEP’s Environmental Justice Committee announced it’s hosting a series of listening sessions across the state to find out if current environmental justice policies are adequately representing the needs of communities.

Neither Highland nor Grant Township are included in the locations of DEP’s upcoming environmental justice tour.

“How ironic is it that the Department of Environmental Protection is coming at Grant Township with the full of its might,” Long said, “precisely because we want to protect our environment?”