TOWANDA - Just a few days after a Chesapeake natural gas drilling site flowback fluid spill contaminated pasture land and spilled into Towanda Creek here, Attorney Todd O'Malley led a group of about four dozen protesters, many of them who have had their water spoiled - they say by natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale - in a protest across the street from Chesapeake's headquarters here Friday.
Amid shouts of "save our water," and "stop the drilling" as natural gas drilling trucks and heavy traffic rushed by on Fox Chase Drive, O'Malley, a workman's compensation and work safety attorney with offices here and in Scranton, said he was representing three families on Paradise Road in arbitration between the families against Chief, Cabot and Chesapeake, and "a number of other federal lawsuits."
O'Malley said he was not the only attorney involved in similar suits, which he said probably number in the hundreds.
"I have personally spoken to about 30 families, some on Leroy Mountain Road, but there are other law firms representing others and a greater number are not represented," he said.
O'Malley said though some of his clients have leased with drilling companies, they said they did it because they were "told by the companies that the land was needed because it would help them remove our dependence on foreign oil," he said.
Families blast gas exploration - SunGazette.com | News, Sports, Jobs, Community Information - Williamsport-Sun Gazette
