Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown has partnered with Clean Water Action and other environmental groups to host a forum on natural gas drilling in the water supply of Philadelphia. The Delaware River Basin Commission, which was created to protect the special waters of the Delaware River Watershed, has released a set of draft rules for hydrofracking for natural gas.

If these rules go into effect, natural gas drillers will put the water we all drink at the same risk from dangerous chemicals that have made so many concerned in other parts of the state. Many Philadelphians drink water taken from the Delaware River, with intakes downstream from many future natural gas developments.

Philadelphia groups and elected leaders are banding together to create a forum for spoken comment which will be transcribed and sent to the DRBC before the April 15th deadline for comments.

What: Public Forum on the Draft DRBC Natural Gas Drilling Rules
When: March 8th. Doors at 5:15PM. Forum Begins at 5:30PM. Ends at 7:30PM
Where: City Hall, City Council Chambers (Room 400)
Co-sponsoring organizations: Delaware Riverkeeper Network, PennEnvironment, Protecting Our Waters, Sierra Club Southeastern PA

There will be no pre-selected speakers. Councilwoman Reynolds Brown will open the forum and speakers will speak in the order that they sign up for the open forum. Each speaker will have three minutes, though they can submit written comments of any length and Clean Water Action staff will deliver those to the DRBC.