As we prepare to observe Earth Day it seems appropriate to honor a working class woman, Vera Scroggins, who is an important anti-fracking activist in northeastern Pennsylvania. You may already know of another such activist from this region: anti-fracking protestor Tammy Manning of Dimock, Pennsylvania, a town with flaming tap water that was highlighted in Josh Fox's Academy Award-nominated "Gasland" documentary.

Vera Scroggins, working class grandmother [former nurse's aid], and anti-fracking activist from the anthracite coal fields of Schulkyll County, may not be nationally well-known, but she is nonetheless making an impact on restraining capitalism's exploitation of the environment in northeastern PA. She is committed to the anti-fracking movement. Fracking is the controversial process of injecting water, chemicals, and sand into the underground shale formation to extract oil and gas. It has brought about a gas boom in recent years in northeastern Pennsylvania, but also concerns about its impact on the environment. As this old Molly Maguire region is struck by high rates of unemployment and misery, another plague in this area is the prison-industrial complex, and the privatization of the regional criminal justice system [a local judge was sent to federal prison in the cash-for-kids scandal].

One may pose the issue this way: Vera Scroggins, you are hereby charged with conspiracy to commit free speech. How do you plead? That seems to be the way a Susquehanna County battle over hydraulic fracturing will play out if a Houston gas-drilling company gets it way, which is usually what happens in Pennsylvania when that company is involved. Cabot Oil & Gas is one of the Texas and Oklahoma gas-drilling companies coddled by the administration of Governor Tom Corbett and which gave Corbett millions of dollars in "political campaign contributions." The company dragged Scroggins into court in October 2014 after the anti-fracking activist started making waves in that county, conducting tours to show how she thought Cabot was ruining the countryside and water resources.

For five years, Scroggins has led tours of private citizens and government officials to show them what fracking is, and to explain what it is doing to the health and environment of the people who reside in this vicinity. The tours have attracted some people from New York State, where there has been a moratorium on fracking while it is determined just how much harm it causes. Pennsylvania took the opposite approach, encouraging rampant tax-free drilling first, and then waiting until later to see how bad the damage was. The New Yorkers in her tours included celebrities such as Yoko Ono and Susan Sarandon, who is known as a hard-charging activist, herself.

Vera Scroggins never planned to be among the leaders of a social movement, but her persistence in explaining and documenting what is happening to the people and their environment has put her there. Cabot's "take-no-prisoners" strategy in trying to silence her voice has led to even more people becoming aware of what fracking is-and the length that a mega-corporation will go to keep the facts from the people.

On Thursday, March 27, 2014, a Susquehanna County judge modified a court order that kept Scroggins from visiting friends and businesses because she was barred from setting foot on property owned or leased by one of the state's leading natural gas drillers. President Judge Kenneth Seamans handed down a modified and more specific order that prohibits her from entering onto Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. property, or that of its subsidiary, Gas Search Drilling Services Corporation and its access roads and well pads, and sets a 100-foot buffer from any well pad.

The modified order comes after Scroggins was in court Monday asking the judge to throw out his preliminary injunction [in place since October], that banned her from entering onto Cabot's leased lands in Susquehanna County. Cabot sought the injunction to keep Scroggins from trespassing, alone and with tour groups, on its access roads, wells pads and completed well sites. The old order also prohibited Scroggins from coming into physical contact with Cabot equipment, vehicles or structures. According to the new order, Cabot must mark the well pad locations with "No Trespassing" signage at the access roads' entrances to the sites, and signs that restrict access to authorized personnel only.

Both parties in the case were pleased with the judge's ruling, which bars her from active work sites, access roads, and Cabot-owned equipment. Cabot spokesman George Stark said the company never intended for the initial preliminary injunction to be so viewed so broadly.

"Cabot is satisfied by the court's decision to maintain an injunction against Ms. Scroggins. We've been clear, this is a matter of trespassing and we want to maintain safety," he says. "It's not about free speech or trying to limit somebody's movements."

Scroggins' legal team was also pleased. They were in court  asking the judge to vacate the order. One of her attorneys, Scott Michelman, a lawyer with Public Citizen Litigation Group in Washington, D.C., representing Scroggins, says they got 90 percent of what they wanted. "Today's revision of the proposed order is a big victory for Vera Scroggins," he said. "She can now go to her friend's homes, the grocery store, and hospital. It's really a repudiation of Cabot's attempt to bully an advocate who expressed views critical of their practices." Scroggins called it a "step in the right direction." "The restriction is less than Cabot wanted," she says. "We still think it's too restrictive, and we're reviewing options."

This court order replaces the injunction from October, but it's only temporary. The two parties are scheduled to meet in court again on May 1 to determine whether Scroggins will face a permanent injunction.

In the final analysis, the new injunction violates her rights of free speech by severely restricting her ability to document the practices of a company that may be violating both the public trust and the environment. According to the brief filed on her behalf, "The injunction sends a chilling message to those who oppose fracking and wish to make their voices heard or to document practices that they fear will harm them and their neighbors. That message is loud and clear: criticize a gas company, and you'll pay for it."

Scroggins said at a news conference after the hearing that she would not stop her activism against gas fracking, no matter what the court said. Asked if she was willing to go to jail, Scroggins said she was, if it was necessary to protect friends and family from the "contamination" of the shale gas industry. Declared Scroggins: "I feel they're trying to silence me."

For the past five years, Scroggins videotaped fracking operations in Susquehanna County and uploaded the video online. She has put more than 500 short videotapes online or onto YouTube to show what fracking is, and the damage Cabot and other companies are doing. "If I have to go to jail to protect my planet and my life, and to expose this industry, then yes." Cabot's attorneys say the move to restrict Vera Scroggins is for her safety and the safety of its workers.

 The anti-fracking movement has grown from hundreds slightly more than a half-decade ago to millions. Where the oil and gas lobby has been able to mount a multi-million dollar media campaign, the people who proudly call themselves "fractivists" have countered by effective use of the social media and low-budget but highly effective rallies. Where the oil and gas lobby has been able to pour millions of dollars into politicians' campaigns, the fractivists have countered by grass-roots organizing and contacting government officials and politicians, promising them no money but only the truth. If Cabot prevails in this specific dispute with Vera Scroggins, think what it will mean to people living in the rest of Pennsylvania. If a Texas gas-drilling company does not like what you say, it could slap an injunction on you for wandering into a hospital or other site situated above leased rock formations deep underground.

Photo:  anti-fracking activist Vera Scroggins      yahoo news/Google images