Inaccuracies in Friday's Time's Leader article on Dimock?

On Friday, I reposted an article written by Matt Hughes of Wilkes-Barre's Times Leader.  The article was in regards to Dimock finally getting some restitution.  Today, Sunday, I received a very, shall I say, "heated" email from one Michael Lebron of Damascus Citizens for Sustainability.

Despite the fact I quite clearly indicated the latter portion of the post was an article by Matt Hughes (and provided a link to the original article as well as the text and Hughes's email address), Lebron mistook Hughes's words for my own.  Lebron ended his email to me with these words:  "I am looking forward to seeing you to take off your celebrity-coated lenses by correcting the record on your blog. I am also looking forward to seeing Josh, copied here, ask you to do the same."  So, for whatever it's worth, even though the article in question was merely reposted on my blog and not my article, consider the record corrected--at least on my end.  What follows are Lebron's issues with Hughes's article.  Given the length of his email to me, my response to him will appear in a subsequent post.

Lebron writes that the Hughes's article is:

'...factually inaccurate, and I am dismayed - no, astounded - that this even made it to your corner of the blogosphere since Josh also knows it is inaccurate.

1- Josh Fox did not put this community at the center of the national debate, the Carter Road people themselves did, through their brave stance and actions over the last two years which has been picked up by countless reporters, especially Abrahm Lustgarten, Laura Legerre, and Tom Wlibur, as well as numerous websites and blogs, long before GASLAND was released.

2- Josh Fox did not distribute the signs. Leslie Lewis, her son and I came up with the idea. I designed and wrote them. Raye Levine, daughter of Joe Levine - co founder of DCS and along with myself also a board member - printed and mounted them. The Carter Road community gave them their blessing and I then distributed them to people who I contacted days before the press conf.

3- From your reporting you would think Josh Fox was not only the only person in the room, but that he is able to walk on frack water and turn gas wells into butterflies across our farmlands. Again, the Carter Road community and their legal representative, Leslie Lewis deserve credit for forcing this issue in their litigation and their hang-tough negotiations with the DEP: instead of settling for the status quo solution of quasi-industrial methane separators/filters, they asked for a pipeline to be run out to the nearest clean aquifer, and as a compromise, settled for municipal water. Not only is this unprecedented, but it begged what is the million dollar question for the state of Pennsylvania, asked rhetorically (since I knew the answer) by me at the press conference and POINTEDLY NOT ANSWERED by the Secretary. The question, because of its implications, did not go unnoticed by Laura Legerre, reporter for the Scranton Times Tribune, who chose to pursue it in her Oct 2nd story and managed to get an answer that is close to THE answer:

[LINK TO LEGERE ARTICLE ON TIMES TRIBUNE.]

Families suing Cabot over the contamination initially proposed that the department force the company to drill centralized wells and pipe fresh water to their homes before Mr. Hanger told them a public water line was "the only way to guarantee a permanent safe drinking water supply."

"If you drill another well, there's no guarantee whatsoever right now, given that we still have gas migrating through the geology, that that well won't become contaminated at some point," Mr. Hanger said on Friday.

Mr. Hanger's comments amounted to his bleakest assessment yet by the state of the aquifer that feeds the Dimock homes - four more of which were determined by the state in September to be impacted by methane from Cabot's extensive Marcellus Shale drilling in the township.

Regards,
Michael Lebron
NYSESS
DCS