The Penn­syl­va­nia Com­mu­ni­ty Rights Net­work (PACRN) is a statewide, grass­roots orga­ni­za­tion work­ing to ele­vate com­mu­ni­ty inter­ests above cor­po­rate inter­ests by advo­cat­ing the right to local self-gov­ern­ment. Accord­ing to the group’s website:

The cur­rent struc­ture of law in Penn­syl­va­nia sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly strips com­mu­ni­ties of the pow­er to adopt laws to pro­tect their health and safe­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly when those laws come into direct con­flict with cor­po­rate deci­sion mak­ing. This sys­tem thus pro­hibits com­mu­ni­ties from ban­ning projects and activ­i­ties that they con­sid­er dan­ger­ous and harm­ful — every­thing from cor­po­rate fac­to­ry farms to the land dump­ing of sewage sludge and ​“hydro-frack­ing” for nat­ur­al gas. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Penn­syl­va­nia com­mu­ni­ties have found out the hard way that the exist­ing struc­ture does not pro­vide a rem­e­dy for these prob­lems, and that a cor­po­rate minor­i­ty, with the bless­ing of the state, has almost whole­sale con­trol over our com­mu­ni­ties on almost any issue that real­ly matters.

For 15 years, PACRN has been work­ing along­side the Com­mu­ni­ty Envi­ron­men­tal Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) — a non-prof­it, pub­lic inter­est law firm that pro­vides ​“free and afford­able legal ser­vices to com­mu­ni­ties fac­ing threats to their local envi­ron­ment, local agri­cul­ture, local econ­o­my and qual­i­ty of life.” Thomas Linzey, a con­tribut­ing writer to Rur­al Amer­i­ca In These Times, is CELD­F’s exec­u­tive direc­tor and co-founder and serves as the organization’s chief legal counsel.

On March 29, CELDF issued the fol­low­ing press release:

Mer­cers­burg, PA: On Mon­day, the Penn­syl­va­nia Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion (DEP) issued per­mits to two pol­lut­ing cor­po­ra­tions. The per­mits sig­ni­fy the DEP’s approval of Seneca Resources and Penn­syl­va­nia Gen­er­al Ener­gy (PGE) inject­ing tox­ic frack waste­water into High­land Town­ship (Elk Coun­ty) and Grant Town­ship (Indi­ana County).

The per­mits are in direct vio­la­tion of demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly-enact­ed Home Rule Char­ters in both Town­ships. The char­ters were draft­ed with the help of the Com­mu­ni­ty Envi­ron­men­tal Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). They estab­lished local con­sti­tu­tions that define not only gov­ern­ment struc­ture, but also rights and pro­tec­tions in the com­mu­ni­ties. High­land and Grant’s char­ters pro­hib­it the deposit­ing of frack waste as a vio­la­tion of the com­mu­ni­ties’ rights to clean air and water. Res­i­dents adopt­ed the mea­sures because injec­tion wells threat­en drink­ing water sup­plies and have caused earth­quakes in Ohio and Okla­homa, lead­ing to their shut down.

On Mon­day, the DEP also sued both Town­ships, claim­ing the char­ters unlaw­ful­ly inter­fere with state oil and gas policies.

Let’s be clear: our state agen­cies, tasked with ​“envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion,” are legal­iz­ing harm­ful activ­i­ties by issu­ing per­mits to cor­po­ra­tions with his­to­ries of vio­la­tions. And, they are doing so against the will and sov­er­eign law of the peo­ple who live in the com­mu­ni­ty. Equal­ly egre­gious, those state agen­cies are now suing com­mu­ni­ties who dare to stand up to unjust laws that priv­i­lege cor­po­rate inter­ests above the com­mu­ni­ties’ health and safe­ty. The mean­ing of ​“cor­po­rate-state” has nev­er been more clear; it is painful­ly obvi­ous whose inter­ests our state agen­cies serve.

Grant Town­ship Super­vi­sor Sta­cy Long said, ​“Our com­mu­ni­ty wrote a new con­sti­tu­tion, with wide com­mu­ni­ty sup­port and input, to pro­tect our rights and our envi­ron­ment. And now we’ve been sued, not only by a cor­po­ra­tion that wants to prof­it by dump­ing tox­ic waste in our com­mu­ni­ty, but also by our own state ​‘envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion’ agency. Our fight con­tin­ues, but we also hope that the lat­est shame­ful actions by the DEP inspire oth­ers to stand with us, and stand up in their own com­mu­ni­ties, against unchecked cor­po­rate and state power.”

CELDF is proud to con­tin­ue stand­ing with both com­mu­ni­ties to resist efforts by Seneca, PGE, and the DEP to vio­late the rights of the peo­ple of High­land and Grant Townships.

Part of a larg­er movement

Penn­syl­va­nia res­i­dents and their local rep­re­sen­ta­tives are advanc­ing Com­mu­ni­ty Rights as part of the broad­er Com­mu­ni­ty Rights Move­ment build­ing across the Unit­ed States. Local com­mu­ni­ties and state Com­mu­ni­ty Rights Net­works are part­ner­ing with CELDF to advance fun­da­men­tal demo­c­ra­t­ic and envi­ron­men­tal rights. They are work­ing with CELDF to estab­lish Com­mu­ni­ty Rights and the Rights of Nature in law, and pro­hib­it extrac­tion, frack­ing, fac­to­ry farm­ing, water pri­va­ti­za­tion, and oth­er indus­tri­al activ­i­ties as vio­la­tions of those rights. Com­mu­ni­ties are join­ing togeth­er with­in and across states, work­ing with CELDF to advance sys­temic change — rec­og­niz­ing our exist­ing sys­tem of law and gov­er­nance as inher­ent­ly unde­mo­c­ra­t­ic and unsustainable.