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Famed author of "Satanic Verses" speaks at Wilkes.
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The Times Leader timesleader.com
WILKES-BARRE, PA
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20, 2011
Judge approves bath salts ban Temporary injunction against eight merchants comes after they don’t heed request.
merchants on Tuesday, banning the sale of the highly hallucinogenic legal substance known as By EDWARD LEWIS bath salts. elewis@timesleader.com District Attorney Jacqueline WILKES-BARRE – A Luzerne Musto Carroll filed the injuncCounty judge approved a tem- tion request, saying the sale of porary injunction against eight bath salts is a public health risk.
Pa. acts to block drill water treatment
She noted in the petition and during a late morning news conference that more than 100 people under the influence of bath salts have recently been treated in the emergency room at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Plains Township. A hearing for a permanent countywide ban is scheduled on
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District Attorney Jacqueline Musto Carroll talks about a preliminary injunction issued Tuesday that bans bath salts sales in the county.
Monday before President Judge Thomas F. Burke Jr. Musto Carroll said the temporary ban prohibits the sale of bath salts containing certain chemicals used to manufacture the synthetic substance. Chemicals used in the making of synthetic bath salts were See SALTS, Page 11A
CLARK VAN ORDEN/THE TIMES LEADER
Residents say no to frack water 1-800
dial may result in surprise
In other major gas-drilling states, drilling wastewater is largely injected underground.
One firm controls quarter of 1-800 numbers; many redirect callers to phone-sex lines.
By MARC LEVY Associated Press
HARRISBURG — Citing potentially unsafe drinking water, the state called on companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale natural gas formation to stop taking wastewater to 15 treatment plants by May 19. "Now is Tuesday’s anthe time to nouncement take action was a major in the to end this change state’s regulapractice." tion of gas drilling and came Michael Krancer the same day acting DEP Secretary that an industry group said it now believes drilling wastewater is partly at fault for rising levels of bromide being found in Pittsburgharea rivers. Gas drilling that uses millions of gallons of chemical-laden water has rapidly grown in the past three years in Pennsylvania. In other major gas-drilling states, drilling wastewater is kept out of rivers largely by injecting it deep underground into disposal wells. But in Pennsylvania, some See WATER, Page 14A
By DAVID B. CARUSO Associated Press
PETE G. WILCOX/THE TIMES LEADER
Bill Falls of Hanover Township holds up photographs of his grandchildren at Tuesday’s Wyoming Valley Sewer Authority meeting while scolding the board members for their interest in possibly treating waste water used in the drilling process for natural gas.
WVSA treatment plant idea meets resistance By MATT HUGHES mhughes@timesleader.com
HANOVER TWP. – The plan to build a natural gas drilling wastewater treatment plant at the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority met with heavy resistance from township residents and environmental advocates at the WVSA board meeting Tuesday. The sanitary authority has consulted PA Northeast Aqua Resources to conduct a feasibility study on building a plant to
treat wastewater produced by Marcellus Shale gas drilling. John Minora of PA Northeast Aqua Resources said the initial study is complete, and the sanitary authority is now working on a second study with Red Desert/Cate Street Capital, a company seeking to build the plant next to the WVSA’s current facility. Public comment at the meet-
INSIDE: Gas drilling big topic at legislative breakfast, Page 4A
laterally against building the plant, and questioned board members’ knowledge of the drilling wastewater treatment process. “These are my grandchildren,” said Bill Falls, of the Lyndwood section of Hanover Township, as he held up photographs of two children. “I live right across the street, and I put up with the smell every day; now I have to put up with this?
ing began with Scott Cannon of the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition asking the board to “agree that this is a bad idea and put it to rest right now,” and ended with a chant of “no plant” ringing through the audience of about 75 people. Speakers in the public comment segment, which lasted just under an hour, spoke uni- See WVSA, Page 14A
Old local railroad beds on track for new mission Proposal would make walking trails out of East Side rights of way once used by industry. By EILEEN GODIN Times Leader Correspondent
WILKES-BARRE -- Abandoned railroad beds created when coal was king might be given a new lease on life thanks to a proposal to convert them to walking paths. The Wilkes-Barre proposed trail and greenway expansion
INSIDE: The goal of the trails’ plan is to link up sites. Page 14A.
can benefit Wilkes-Barre and neighboring municipalities by drawing in residents as well as tourism, said Janet Sweeney, project manager with the Northeast Pennsylvania Environmental Council. She knows of studies showing trail systems can generate tourism and increase spending in local businesses. Plan details show the existing Luzerne County Levee trail would
master plan, unveiled Tuesday night at Wilkes University, will use neglected and abandoned railroad beds to create trails connecting existing trails throughout Wilkes-Barre, and Plains, Hanover and Wilkes-Barre townships. Who will foot the bill and when the trails will be developed have not been determined yet. But having trails and greenways See TRAILS, Page 14A
NEW YORK — For years, teenagers across the U.S. could call a toll-free hotline if they had embarrassing questions about AIDS and safe sex. Dial the same num- Critics of the ber now and you company say get a recording of giggling it isn’t the women offering phone-sex to talk dirty to that bothers you. them, but the “We both have big appe- acquisition of tites for sex,” so many numthey purr. bers. “Pinch us and poke us. Spank us and tease us. We love it all. ... Enter your credit card number now.” Those naughty misdials, and countless others like them, appear to be no accident. Records obtained by The Associated Press show that over the past 13 years, a little-known Philadelphia company called PrimeTel See 1-800, Page 7A
INSIDE A NEWS: Local 3A Nation & World 5A Obituaries 8A Editorials 13A B SPORTS: 1B B BUSINESS: 8B Stocks 9B Weather 10B C TASTE: 1C Birthdays 3C Community News 3-4C, 7C Television 8C Crossword/Horoscope 9C Comics 10C D CLASSIFIED: 1D
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