Residents in the Abrightsville-Lake Harmony area do not have a pipeline problem, or a compressor problem, they have a democracy problem.

That was the opinion of legal activists who visited the area Thursday night to discuss the ongoing bid to run a pipeline through the area in order to transport Marcellus Shale gas.Representatives from the Pennsylvania Community Rights Network, a group that favors placing more rights in the hands of local communities, discussed how residents might overcome the frustration of the seemingly inevitable pipeline."There are fundamental rights that are the basis of our laws and government, and today in many cases those rights are being subordinated in the name of profit," said Ben Price, of the nonprofit Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.Joining Price were local residents who have experience fighting projects that would have had a substantial effect on their quality of life in boroughs like Tamaqua and Bowmanstown.PennEast pipeline has begun contacting residents about purchasing easements through their properties to make way for the project, to the dismay of residents. Unfortunately, even if residents refuse their offer, they often have no say when a pipeline project is proposed through their property because of eminent domain.The defense fund works with the Community Rights Network to provide options that some would call unorthodox, for communities when they are seemingly up against a legal wall. They offer their services at no cost to municipalities that are interested.Former Tamaqua borough council member Cathy Miorelli shared her experience fighting against a plan to spread human sewage sludge on farm fields. As a result Tamaqua passed an ordinance that gave legal rights to nature.Price said that was the first such law in the world - and has been copied in dozens of other cases including the constitution of Ecuador."We would never have been able to get it done without LDF and of course, the people," she said.Price said the current regulatory system does not give community members much right to fight against well-funded corporations - whether it's on environmental or labor issues."People have rights. Living things have rights. Corporations are a piece of paper. I refuse to believe that they have rights," he said.The defense fund helps municipalities get those rights down on paper by helping writing a "Community Bill of Rights."Those rights, according to Price, supersede the property rights that form the basis for government to use eminent domain for pipeline projects.But he said the most important thing for communities to overcome is their own "black hole of doubt.""We have to get over the doubt and if we get over that, it is possible to challenge the other things that prevent us from creating the communities we want to live in," he said.