A national report on the country’s “most endangered rivers”
ranks the Susquehanna number one. Jeff Schmidt of Pennsylvania’s
Sierra Club said that’s due to natural gas drilling along the
state’s northern tier. “The American Rivers [who publishes the
annual report] recognize – and Sierra Club recognizes – there
are other problems related to water quality in the Susquehanna.
But those problems pale in significance, compared to the over-
arching threat represented by Marcellus Shale drilling
throughout the basin,” he said. Schmidt and other
environmentalists are worried chemicals used in hydraulic
fracturing could migrate into the Susquehanna’s waterways, along
with methane gas. Here’s American Rivers’ full take on the
Susquehanna: “One of the longest rivers in America, the
Susquehanna River provides drinking water to millions of people
and supplies more than half of the freshwater to the Chesapeake
Bay. But the river and its clean water are threatened by natural
gas development, which produces toxic waste and re