One anti-fracking activist’s life is about to get a little bit easier.
A Pennsylvania judge on Friday loosened a court injunction restricting the movements of Vera Scroggins, who was banned from setting foot on property owned by or leased to Cabot Oil & Gas Co. in Susquehanna County — and therefore unable to shop at her favorite grocery store, go to the nearby hospital, or visit some of her friends.
Scroggins has been lauded by environmentalists — and has become notorious among oil and gas operators — after years of giving fellow activists, local residents and even celebrities tours of local hydraulic fracturing operations.
Cabot contended that Scroggins had often trespassed on the company’s property, endangering herself and others.
The company got a local court injunction last October aimed at keeping Scroggins away, and it became a hot-button issue in activist circles because of its scope. Cabot owns or has leases on 40 percent of the land in the largely rural county — a total of 300 square miles. That land includes grocery stores, a hospital, malls, and the property of Scroggins’ friends.
The new injunction, issued this week by Susquehanna Judge Kenneth Seamans after Scroggins appealed, still bars her from active fracking sites. But it allows her to go to many non-fracking sites, such as her local hospital and grocery store, even though Cabot has leases there.
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