Damascus, Pennsylvania, is home to me. I grew up there on a farm my great-grandfather established in the late 1800s and his grandfather is buried in the Hillside Cemetery there. I graduated from the same Damascus High School my parents did and had some of the same teachers. My mother, my brothers, my son and grandson all call it home, too. I own land there that I leased for energy development long before I ever heard of Energy In Depth. I’m related to most of the folks who live in Tyler Hill and my mother taught school in Damascus Twp. most of her life. I know what it means to be from Damascus. Lately, however, I notice a lot of other people who have lived there but a few years, or who only have second-homes there, claim it as their own. And as is so typical in gentrifying communities, the newcomers claim to speak for it: not just their part of it, but all of it.

Some of these folks, whose numbers have been proven by elections to be a distinct minority, have organized as the “Damascus Citizens for Sustainability” (“Damascus Citizens”) to oppose natural gas development. This is surely their right, but when they attempt to co-opt the good name of my home to engage in advocacy on matters which have nothing to do with Damascus, someone has to call them on it.

http://eidmarcellus.org/marcellus-shale/damascus_cac_repor/12948/