welcome to pathways i'm jenny hartshorn your host and i am excited today because you've all heard of david and goliath well this is the twenty first century version of that and it's an independent woman's fight to sa land from what she believes is a really a deadly thing happening against her and out of her control so without further ado i'd like to introduce jacqueline evans hello hi welcome to the show thank you for having me thank you for coming  i'm saying david and goliath because i do believe that you are fighting the pipeline the pennies pipeline yes for those of you who viewers who don't know what that is is a pipeline going through delaware attention and it's set up to kind of start in pennsylvania and it's trying to take gas through pennsylvania but somehow they bypassed and are going through new jersey to get to a water source where they're then going to import the gas so i'd like you to tell the viewers a little bit about how you first heard about the pipeline well i appreciate you having me here and david and goliath i really identified with that because you know i am gas from the marcellus shale and bringing it through pennsylvania into new jersey with a thirty six and pipe that is a high pressure pipeline one thousand four hundred  eighty p s i i believe and because it's in our state they will go with the federal safety regulations and use a weaker pipe than the state of new jersey would have them use if it was just in the state of new jersey and not in our state send we have a small farm that we've worked very hard to create and and this threatens that it threatens our safety our wellbeing our financial security you name it  the history and culture of our area everything that we know about our life is you know at risk right now so when you first heard about the pipeline coming through what what was the information you were getting and what made you decide to get on board with this whole thing well i first heard that there was a pipeline coming through and then oddly enough it was on my ex husband's farm and i got him in touch with people that i knew could help i was helping him in any way i could i was part of the fight then one day my neighbor came to my house and and i said oh you know so great to see you here and he looked very serious and sick and can we sit down and i just had a moment i looked at him and tears started going you know i coming out of my eyes i'm going to i said it's coming here isn't it and he said yes and i said across my property and he said yes and while you know it just hit me like a ton of bricks what does that mean then i want to tell the viewers when you said the pipelines coming across they're not going to lay a pipe across the top of your yard no no that means that they if they cross see one stream to go through with the sea ones the most protected water source in the united states that we have we have c one stream protection by the clear water act that's perfect protect those streams because they supply water for drinking and they're highly protected you can't i can't go there and cut a tree down but they propose to cut all the trees down and blast underneath you know they're putting underneath the stream and it will disrupt it in ways that will come across there they will drill in blast and they will it will make it so i can't even come into my property i have been farming with organic practices that will be gone my farmland assessment would be taken away i would no longer be able to have my animals there  it just eliminates everything and then my it's you know it when children can see it from their bedrooms it's i don't i don't even understand how they can they can do this but and close your house they're there through the blasting and drilling you know they i've seen through the lighting line you know they build these blast walls it's really it's very intimidating what they do and they take such a huge swath of land while they're doing it and then the heavy equipment compacts the soil up to ninety eight percent which is almost like concrete so nothing's going to grow again and there's been information from you know we're in a farming community from from the combine so with computers from a line that was put in i believe sixty sixty five years ago through west ham all and you can see that the crop is not the same where the line is underneath it how is it a fact that the grow it doesn't grow as much eat out you don't yield as much so the farmers not and so so the idea that we just put it all back in it's normal again is not true and then the chemicals that they're using to put it in are extremely harmful then we have an aco for underneath where i live and the rock formation that they will hit probably four feet down when they go to put this and you know that has the that you because i'm interested in how you develop this so these are the facts that are very scary that you've gotten to jump in and then tell us how long you've been fighting what did you start this project for high been fighting it since the beginning  husband's farm and you thought well i'll be involved as you know fort this cause wow it's close to home now and now it's coming in my eyes how different is that feel for you it's much more intense because now i'm in something known as the blast zone in fact i'm in i'm in the blast zone which is here that a lot but then there's something that's even more intimidating which i'm in is incineration zone with where i am our house anybody that's aren't accidents but we look at porter ranch and what those poor people went through in california recently you know with the children having to be you know nosebleeds from a leak in and health issues i think we will see turn into more serious health issues in the future because of how long they had that exposure where was there was ever a blast that wasn't a blast that was a leak but those people had to be displaced in the children had to go different schools for think six months but we had the blast the famous one in edison  i think that was in one thousand nine hundred four that was a stronger pipe same thirty six to mention with i think it was nine hundred and eighty somewhere around there in the one hundred range p s i that shut f hundred feet into the sky for two and a half hours before they could turn it off with safety valves every two and a half miles they're proposing it's every ten miles and then when i talked to pennies they said well it might be more than that because there aren't many people where you live which is you know my children matter just as much as anyone else's but they are going to they're going with the volume is the easiest thing that they can get away with instead of our safety they go from pennsylvania to new jersey today being the pipeline pennies to corporations they then have the ability to go to for can ask for eminent domain to work being fed federal energy regulatory commission and problem with because because how can they regulate themselves that's basically what they're doing and they have a history of rubber stamping allocations and saying oh well you can fulfill all the requirements for the studies in the serving after the fact we believe you'll do that and then nobody checks in there's no consequences well you know i wouldn't let a surgeon operate on my heart saying why i believe you have an issue and i'm not going to do any tests to see if you do or if you'll survive this operation we're just going to go ahead and do it they want to just come through without doing all the things are supposed to do and jeopardize our health and safety and  take away our basically our property rights that's the only thing we have to defend ourselves his ability to say i will not let you on my land and then they want to take that away before they've gone through all the proper steps it's it's appalling he just kind of sometimes wonder is this america because this is you know this is the american dream of owning your own home but trying to just take hopefully ok economically it just won't make sense for them to do it that seems to be the only way to stop these pipelines going through a community concerned about what it's going to do to the environment we live in a beautiful neighborhood down and the township just don't want it and then you feel like when they say this to you that you don't progress otherwise it would be a defeatist in there is and you know i have to say when it when it came so close to home literally my home you know i just felt like oh my gosh what am i going to do what's going to happen to me what's going to happen to my children you were you did you join this group or you start i am one of the founding members and i'm on the steering committee and december seventh we had our first meeting and it was like something out of a movie were something's going on in town and everyone's coming to me and  called a meeting at him and he's the he's our president and the leader of our group and a great organizer and he pulled us all together for this meeting and i have to say i think pennies not only drew a bad line against  area through our state environmentally sensitive lands but also a bad line across so many wonderful people that we found in this one meeting that we had every on we needed for all our committees for this fight and we're such a strong focused intelligent group of people who are determined not to let this happen and yeah i hear there are some things as  now reminds me of that yeah as horrible as this might have you for you and it's a crash and so you're losing your property you feel as if you're being invaded but in a way you're being empowered by your community yes a yearning that i think i'm not alone in i i think we all feel that way and i've made amazing friends and learned so much in my children are learning you know about being a responsible member of your community and that things aren't so easy all the time they're not easy and you have to fight for what's right my daughter of my for was for my daughter you know with all the fighting i've been doing i've been painting banners and putting them up on because i'm an artist and that was the first thing that i did was paint a banner that was a saying and it says rape of utopia and i hung it on my garage and it felt pretty dramatic result of utopia i have three small children so i had to explain to them what that word meant when the both they asked what both those women rape and utopia and and  it was just the start of painting banners and the way for me to express myself and get my ideas out there and it and it felt good and it was empowering people were getting really into understanding that there's a pipeline going through it's not just me in the blast zone our town will be in an evacuation zone property values you know go down every is everyone's a fan don't you feel though with all that you know who would have ever thought we would have seen so the reality of this happening a field a little more real for you yes yes and it's and you just can't believe things like this happen i was born in berlin and occupied city with a wall around it was communism on the other side my mother was listening to this thing sounds like communism this can't be happening or sure this is right when i tell her the things that happened you know and it's been extremely threatening but like i said i we are so i am determined and hopeful that we are going to beat this well tell me about the friends you talk to there must be this situation where friends or family that you speak to in the pipeline you know as i happen are all now i oddly enough i haven't met anyone pro pipelined i'm friends with i do know of people in my community that are i've had friends tell me about friends that they said oh what's the big deal mostly the people there are pros and that i've heard about are people who have an idea about about the pipeline that's not true they think this is going to supply gas to make it cheaper it's not it's for export it's going to increase the price of gas new jersey we have a surplus of glass gas we don't need this we don't want it we didn't ask for it new jersey will pay a high price with our land being taken away farms being ruined homes people losing their homes people losing their retirement you know i know people that don't know when they could retire if this comes through the have to keep continue to work why is that because they won't be able to sell their house and downsize and sort of try to sell a house that has a pipeline going oh i couldn't sell my house right now if i philadelphia we are no longer on that list because this pipeline people come out and they say well i want to buy a house but don't take me into the towns where that pipeline is going through and you can't hide head that there are signs everywhere people you know percent in delaware township when this first came up said no we will not let you on our land we have fought this so hard about that because of that sort of interest and you said there was a point where you had to keep the surveyors from the property tell yes i think i've   which was you know really to divide us to get us upset and fight amongst ourselves but it didn't work it pulled us more together but i there they were out on my property and i had to call  police that was on duty to take a report and i have video tape of it and so they're standing on my land and he's saying while they're on the edge of the road as i own to the other side it's been determined now that that is trust passing the privately or own corporation who who's going to just they are going to benefit they're the ones that are going to make billions of dollars at our expense i can't buy stock in their company you know i there it's in they're going to export it and then crease the price of our gas and then you know jeopardize our health and possibly put arsenic in our water supply where where is the good in any of this it's not going to be like a little pipeline that goes to lambert them but you were living on your farm and raising your sheep in your chickens and those wonderful things your kids are going to school there what ages right now they're nine and eleven so how is life different in the in the evans home at which made me literally say when the high school yes serving ariel serving and they denied it but i have a letter from the f a a saying that they were doing this and then they their response was well all their contractors that are flying but that's not us well it is it's related to their project and so we've had these planes circling and circling and circling helicopters and it makes all of us so anxious and it's hard as you know we haven't seen down having dinner and there are out there flying this is not normal activity in our skies change things have changed and it's taken time away from them i have to have conference calls i have press conferences at the house you know the you know they're getting used to the fact that this this is like a new job for me you know i have to fight this my ex husband extremely supportive of it and he says you know it's not just about mommy's property or daddy's property you know we're fighting this for everyone and i see it that way you know stop it first of all it's not about moving in or having them change it somehow this is such someone else's we are we just we want no no we're not it's not oh not in my backyard right we're not an in the group we are lawyer steve richardson from wiley rhine and washington d c top notch attorney and our group what we're doing is we all i pay to be members and so instead of me taking this on financially by myself just for my property i'm part of a group that's much more affordable and we're stronger as a group than we would be individually and we you know we are fighting this on so many different levels says i know me or actually keeping the pipeline from going through your point but stopping it altogether we have our legislation in effect are you feeling like there should be well we're we're we're going to sue them we're not waiting for them to come in and say oh well now for has given us our approval or we are going to exercise or eminent domain this is eminent domain was meant for you know you want to put a highway in something that's for public use this is not for public use and if they do that they've basically eliminated that public use from the fifth amendment and i don't understand how a private corporation is allowed to do that or how how are they allowed to do that i don't know have meetings that we have meetings every where you can't be speaking in carving county i never i've never been out there i'm really excited to go out there and see you know i we feel for the people the marcellus shale also because of this happens that's just going to just assumes it's a done deal it's not a done deal and i think they're surprised i don't think they really thought they were going to get that i think they're get you know they come up with i guess that they they kind of you know they created almost a perfect storm by the line they drew through all these wonderful people and well i want to ask you to look at the camera and ask for what you want i mean if you need i would i would like every land owner in new jersey in pennsylvania that's against us to go to facebook and look at our page halt h a l t hyphen penney's sed we can go to our web site as well and join us come to our meetings and learn about what you can do to fight the pipeline and what your rights are and just say no to a contract the contracts there are not worth it you give up so much is there any legislation coming through that people could vote on currently i don't know that our website will have that but i do want to say one other thing is the when when pennie sends out these contracts for instance mine they haven't sent me one but i think that's because i'm fighting so hard mine would say you know maybe they'll give me four thousand dollars for my trouble and then i'm left with a form that i can't farm a house i can't sell i almost  safe i wouldn't want to live there i probably wouldn't be able to put my kids through college because i can't get a mortgage or sell my house and penny stocks to imply that if you make a deal with them it'll be better for you than if you go to  and i take issue with the whole takes issue with that that is absolutely not true a judge is a fair person i would hope and i would not punish you for not cooperating with pennies to g a to get a lease on the land you have far more rights to protect yourself and you can find all that information out on our website and at our facebook page and i could see the passion in your face i wish you the best of luck thank you i mean you know it made the best woman survive thank you this is another show of pathways thank you so much and see you next  time what upsets me the most is the big use of eminent domain and this is an involuntary risk none of these people asked for this and they don't have a choice but one thing that everyone from tree hugger to a government coming in for we're the benefit of a private corporation is wrong this is not a done deal pennies can be stopped we can do this