The anti-fracking activist barred from 312.5 sq miles of Pennsylvania
Court injunction brought in by oil and gas company makes even supermarkets off-limits for Vera Scroggins

Suzanne Goldenberg in Montrose, Pennsylvania 

Vera Scroggins has been banned from stepping foot onto any land leased by Cabot Oil & Gas. Video by Suzanne Goldenberg and Climate Desk Link to video: Fracking activist Vera Scroggins: 'I'm usually nice, but if they tell me I can't do something, I have to get stern' – video

Vera Scroggins, an outspoken opponent of fracking, is legally barred from the new county hospital. Also off-limits, unless Scroggins wants to risk fines and arrest, are the Chinese restaurant where she takes her grandchildren, the supermarkets and drug stores where she shops, the animal shelter where she adopted her Yorkshire terrier, bowling alley, recycling centre, golf club, and lake shore.

In total, 312.5 sq miles are no-go areas for Scroggins under a sweeping court order granted by a local judge that bars her from any properties owned or leased by one of the biggest drillers in the Pennsylvania natural gas rush, Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation.

"They might as well have put an ankle bracelet on me with a GPS on it and be able to track me wherever I go," Scroggins said. "I feel like I am some kind of a prisoner, that my rights have been curtailed, have been restricted."

The ban represents one of the most extreme measures taken by the oil and gas industry to date against protesters like Scroggins, who has operated peacefully and within the law including taking Yoko Ono to frack sites in her bid to elevate public concerns about fracking.

It was always going to be an unequal fight when Scroggins, now 63, made it her self-appointed mission five years ago to stop fracking in this, the richest part of the Marcellus Shale.

Just how unequal became clear on 21 October when the case of Cabot v Scroggins came before a local judge, Kenneth Seamans, in the Montrose court house.

Cabot turned up with four lawyers and nine witnesses, employees of the company and the firm it hired to provide security. Scroggins represented herself. She told the court she had been unable to find a lawyer as the hearing had been called on 72 hours' notice.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/29/vera-scroggins-fracking-activist-pennsylvania