Prank signs on Turnpike rest area water fountains target fracking!

[Divernan]

They were so well done, they were up for more than two weeks before Corbett's Turnpike Commission yahoos discovered and removed them. Great article - read the whole thing.

Prank signs on rest area drinking fountains target gas drilling
Monday, June 27, 2011
By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The professionally printed sign bearing the banner message "SAFE TO DRINK" and affixed to a drinking fountain in the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Midway Service Plaza looked official at first glance, even if it seemed to state the obvious.

But something didn't look quite right to Tonya Markiewicz, who stopped in for a drink June 8 while on a trip to Philadelphia and New York City, and it had nothing to do with the stream of cold water arching from the fountain.

The message of the sign, which bore what purported to be a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection logo in the upper left hand corner and has since been discovered in several other turnpike service plazas, was coyly equivocal. It read: "This water is most likely safe. If you have any concerns about contamination due to hydraulic fracturing, expose water to flame."

That procedure -- unsafe at best and potentially fatal at worst if the water contained ignitable concentrations of methane -- was depicted in a graphic that shows a hand holding a lit match under a water faucet.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11178/1156490-503.stm#ixzz1QTcWs3cN

[blue neen]

1. Very good!

:thumbsup:

[livetohike]

2. Interesting that Hopey calls it a prank

Sounds more like the truth to me.

[JPZenger]

3. Click on the link to see the photo of the sign