Marcellus Shale Drilling Statement
The Friends of the Wissahickon is committed to its eighty-eight-year-old mission of stewardship of Philadelphia’s Wissahickon Valley Park, with a particular emphasis on water quality issues in the Wissahickon Creek.
FOW has partnered with our upstream neighbors at the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association (WVWA) and the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) to address issues of water quality in the Wissahickon Creek. In light of our organizational mission and commitments, FOW is particularly sensitive to the potential for diminished water quality in the Wissahickon Creek inherent in the rapid expansion of natural gas drilling operations that use hydraulic fracturing (“fracking” or “hydrofracking”) for natural gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale Formation.
The practice of fracking has a history of industrial contamination of waterways and reduction of green spaces, and will likely impact water and air quality in the Delaware River Watershed. FOW’s particular focuses and concerns are 1) to prevent any of the municipalities in the Wissahickon Watershed from accepting flowback waste products for treatment and prevent their introduction into the Wissahickon Creek, 2) to encourage further environmental studies on the cumulative impact of drilling for natural gas using fracking, and 3) to promote the introduction of stronger Federal and State oversight of the gas drilling process in our State.