Evicted Trailer Park Residents Lament the Loss of Their Homes

By -
From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
JERSEY SHORE, Pa. -- On hot days, twins Amanda and Chevelle Eck splashed in the Susquehanna River behind their trailer in the Riverdale Mobile Home Park. 
Anytime their mother, Deb, worked late at her discount-store job, neighbors would meet the girls at the school bus stop and treat them to popsicles. 
In less than five months, that community has disappeared as residents were evicted from the park, forcing some to surrender their mobile homes. 
“Basically, part of my family has been ripped away,” Eck said in early June. “And I’m not giving up my home, too.... I bought that thing with sweat and I earned every damn penny I’ve put into that place. I just don’t happen to own the ground it sits on.” 
Deb Eck and her 10-year-old twins left Riverdale on July 7, towing their trailer to another mobile-home park. 
In late February, Aqua America and Penn Virginia Resource Partners became the owners of the 12 acres Riverdale sits on. The partnership will use the parcel in a $50 million plan to build a water-pumping station and 36-mile pipeline with the capacity to carry millions of gallons of water daily from the Susquehanna to natural gas wells. 
This small park of 32 trailers, home to an oft-ignored and marginalized population, has become yet another flash point in the national debate over the impact of natural gas drilling and the industry’s methods. 
Some say it is the first example of outright evictions because of Marcellus Shale operations in the drilling hotbed of Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia.

No one asked 
The Riverdale trailer park provided affordable homes to a cluster of working-poor families and the elderly of Jersey Shore, a borough of 4,300 people between Lock Haven and Williamsport. 
Most residents owned their mobile homes and paid $200 a month to lease the land.
They learned of the project that would eviscerate their community when a story ran in the local newspaper in February. 
The majority had neither the desire nor the means to leave. No one bothered to ask them, they said. 
The Lycoming County Planning Commission approved site plans to build a pump station on the Riverdale land on Feb. 16. 
The park land owners, Richard and Joanne Leonard, sold it to the partnership for $550,000 on Feb. 23, according to Lycoming County assessment records. The land was last valued by the county assessment office at $439,890. 
The trailer-park’s manager recently waved off a reporter asking for comment. 
Shortly after the land sale, residents received eviction notices.
Read the rest of the article here.

Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter!

Popular posts from this blog

Fracktivist in Dimock Releases Carefully Edited Video, Refuses to Release the Rest

By -
Image
From Energy in Depth: There is something very strange going on along Carter Road, in Dimock, Pennsylvania, and I’m not speaking of natural gas, methane migration, contamination, litigation or even the extensive water testing there by the EPA and others.  No, I’m talking about a new “Watergate” conspiracy, complete with 18 minutes of missing tape (well, video, actually). It seems the ever-present Green Party member and  naturist   Vera Scroggins  (a/k/a  Vera Duerga ) has posted a video of Craig Sautner meeting with the EPA.  Mysteriously, the video is but 14 seconds in length, cutting off conversation in what is obviously mid-stream.  It raises a question Craig Sautner, like  Ronald Reagan in Kings Row , might have asked, “Where’s the rest of me?’  Carter Road, isn’t Kings Row, of course, (at least not until you arrive at  the mansion Scott Ely, one of the Dimock litigants, is building with his royalty money ), but there appears to be...
Read more

The Second Largest Oil and Gas Merger - Cabot and Cimarex

By -
Image
       Due to investor pressure, the U.S shale drillers are being pushed to improve financial and operational performance after a few years of poor returns. Even though the industry has improved its numbers, when compared to last year, investors still want more to be done for them to earn more money.      That's why two mid-tier shale drillers, Cabot and Climarex, have decided to merge in order to eliminate $100 million in annual costs, which means more money for the investors. This all-stock transaction is valued at about $7.4 billion, which is relatively high for the oil and gas sector.      The new entity will be renamed and the headquarters located in Houston, Texas. Cabot shareholders will own 49.5 percent of the new entity, and Climarex the rest.       The Cimarex-Cabot merger will address the investor's demand for a higher amount of returning cash. The initial plan is to pay a 50-cent-per-share special dividen...
Read more

Do You Know The History of Fracking?

By -
Image
  In 2018, 59% of total oil production in the U.S came from hydraulic fracking, which means it accounted for more than two-thirds of domestically manufactured gas. By 2024, fracking will reach an astounding $68 billion market value! Of course, fracking is not a new drilling method as you can trace it back hundreds of years. That's why we want to consider the history of hydraulic fracturing (fracking). We will be stating historical facts about it and focusing on the major historical occurrences that have influenced modern-day fracking. Pre-Fracking Days The idea of fracking started back in 1862 when Edward A.L. Roberts (Civil War veteran) witnessed Confederate soldiers exploding artillery rounds into a canal that obstructed a battlefield. At the time, Edward A.L. Roberts called it superincumbent fluid tamping. On April 26th, 1865, Edward A.L. Roberts began experimenting with exploding torpedoes, which consisted of lowering a torpedo containing an amount of powder from fifteen to tw...
Read more