Last Friday a Pennsylvania farmer was tossed in jail for
telling pipeline workers to cease illegally dumping sulfur water on his fields.
Yup, you heard that right.
When 73-year-old Joe Bezjak, of Nicolson Township in Fayette
County, PA discovered contractors with Laurel Mountain Midstream pumping sulfur
water onto his property, he did what any right-thinking farmer would do: he
asked them to stop. And that landed him in the pokey over the weekend.
The irony: the gas pipeline employees were working on Bezjak’s
farm against the court’s direction.
They, however, got a “get out of jail free” card.
From interviews with the press, it seems that last spring
Bezjak signed a contract with Laurel Mountain Midstream of Williams Companies
LLC to allow them a right-of-way for a 16-inch gas pipeline through his 700-acre
cattle farm. Bezjak raises Black Angus – about 200 head. At the time, the
pipeline company agreed to work with him to ensure that the construction work
did not interfere with his farming. A promise unfulfilled…
Bezjak and his neighbor discovered cut and broken fences,
stray cattle and dead calves. They also discovered a Bentonite spill in a local
creek, and reported the violation to the PA Department of Environmental
Protection.
A county judge ordered Laurel Mountain to replace fencing. But
because Bezjak and his neighbor had tried to run the pipeline folk off their fields,
he ordered the landowners to remain at least 50 feet away from the company’s
right-of-way until the project is finished.
At the same time, PA state environmental inspectors halted the project indefinitely, due to
the contamination from the bentonite spill.
So, when Bezjak saw pipeline workers – who weren’t supposed
to be on his land by DEP order – dumping pollution illegally, he did what any
right-thinking person would do. He told them to stop. He told them to leave. And
he was the one tossed in jail.
“I couldn’t stop myself,” he told the press. “I am not
against drilling but I do believe in being a good steward of the land.”
Read today's article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
Read today's article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
Last May in Springhill Twp. Fayette Co., the Headleys and friends the Carrs were held at gunpoint in the middle or the road in front of their property by 5 cars of state troopers over a dispute of trespassing by employees of the same Laural Mountain Midstream LLC, a Williams Company.
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