“natural” gas is NOT “clean energy”

From the Safe Water Movement’s petition to support a total ban on gas drilling in low-permeable deposits in New York State:

1. With a failure rate of between 2 to 8 percent, horizontal drilling and hydrofracking pose an unacceptable risk to our drinking water and the quality of groundwater, aquifers, lakes and streams.

13.Recent preliminary assessments reveal that “natural” gas is not “clean energy” but rather just another polluting, non-renewable fossil fuel contributing to global warming”

Links about dirty gas:

The Dirty Truth Behind Clean Natural Gas (from the National Wildlife Federation)

Gas is dirty energy and may be dirtier than coal ( regarding Australia)

The Dirty Truth Behind Hydrofracking (from Environmental Graffiti )

The Dirty Truth Behind The New Natural Gas ( from Kentucky Rural Water Association) ( a comprehensive overview )

The Dirty Secret of Shale Gas (from Motley Fool)

Public Health Impacts of Oil & Gas ( from No Dirty Energy )
(Take the PLEDGE)

Cornell’s Howarth Warns EPA… (good links )

Come to GAS STOCK!

GAS STOCK Environmental Concert – Festival – Rally Free to the Public NEPA Citizens in Action is sponsoring an Environmental Concert/Festival/Rally which is intended to bring light, education and political pressure on the Marcellus Shale gas well drilling situation in our communities. The event will be held on August 21st, 2010 at the Luzerne County Fairgrounds in Lehman, PA from 12 noon until 7 pm. This is a family event, alcohol free and free to the public. The event committee is seeking food and product vendors. Your product should contribute to a “green” lifestyle to be considered for inclusion. For further information, call Dorene at 570- 328-1551 or e-mail; Deedee7@epix.net We are also seeking talented street performers and bands who are willing to donate their time for the cause. Please contact Roxie at or e-mail; Roxiep9@aol.com We also welcome the participation of any organization concerned about the quality of life and future of water quality and availability here in PA. For information, call Mary at 570-676-4919 or e-mail; emhenzi@ptd.net See you there!

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You are trailer trash until they need you

Goons
wanna bees
and baby
kissers,

they are in charge.

Users
bruisers
and the uninspired,

they call the shots.

Preppies
lawyer-ed
and uncaring,

see only themselves…

Do you love this world
and rejoice in it?

Or do you relish the smell of diesel?

Do you love
democracy?

Or do you love
this privileged form of governance?

(It seems the difference
between God and a fallen preacher.)

Even if

Even if one manages the drilling like an angel, and has the luck of God… even if, there are inspectors hanging from every rig… and ten feet of regulations at each worker’s side, even if… even if…

It will not change the inexorable facts that with each fracking: we retire millions of gallons of drinking water from the earth’s scarce supply, and we saturate the air with pollutants.  Also, we horizontally fracture miles of rock  below us, and fill those sharded caverns with a toxic slurry of brine, radioactivity, and nasty chemicals.  That is the present state of reality.  Even if we don’t want to believe it.

Selective Citizens’ Voice

The Citizens’ Voice chose a holiday weekend Saturday to squeak out its opinion that: Drilling’s OK, but commonwealth must be protected. Below is their piece followed by my letter to them.

Development of the Marcellus Shale gas formation has followed lines that generally have applied to resource extraction throughout the nation’s history.

There are substantial economic benefits and substantial environmental costs. Folks doing the actual extraction work hard and play hard, bolstering the local economy but not always in accordance with local cultural and behavioral standards. Some people profit; some people suffer losses through affected property values. The government plays catch-up because the industry drives the market and the technology.

All of that has played out in the early days of the Marcellus Shale Development. Yet there also is a broad, sensible and achievable consensus that the gas can be extracted in a way that boosts the economy without devastating the environment.

The problem is that the political debate, as political debates often are, has been driven from the ends of the spectrum rather than the middle.

As a bill in Harrisburg to establish an 8 percent “severance” tax on gas extraction has begun to move, for example, anti-tax Republicans have claimed that it would stifle further development of the Marcellus Shale field. It’s a remarkable assertion, because similar taxes just about everywhere that gas drillers operate have done nothing of the kind. Rather, those taxes are considered by the industry as part of the cost of doing business.

The plan is for an 80-20 split of the proceeds among the state government and affected local governments, which could use the money for regulatory enforcement and to mitigate the impact on roads on other infrastructure.

In Harrisburg this week, state police contended that crime has increased in drilling areas, a downside to the boom that few had anticipated. That requires continued vigilance, and also is a good argument for the severance tax, part of which could be directed to law enforcement in affected areas. It also should be an incentive to expedite the training of more local workers for jobs in the expanding industry.

Industry estimates indicate that gas extraction could be a major industry across much of Pennsylvania for as long as a century. Lawmakers should move now to ensure that the commonwealth at large benefits from the boom, and that the environmental and social costs are mitigated.

Not OK

Regarding your May 29 editorial titled “Drilling’s OK, but commonwealth must be protected”: You conclude by stating “Lawmakers should move now to ensure that the commonwealth at large benefits from the boom, and that the environmental and social costs are mitigated.”

To mitigate means to lessen. I guess more crime is OK, just not too much? Dead aquifers are OK, just not too many? You also claim there is a “broad” consensus that this gas extraction can be done without “devastating the environment”. Just where is this broad consensus? In the clubhouse?

That would be American

“The world’s whole petroleum resource is estimated at a million terawatts, which happens to be equal to the amount of solar energy that reaches the earth every day.” 

above quote from The Independent Home by Michael Potts

Just as the world is moving forward with sustainable and alternative energy sources and management, we are allowing our piece of it to be raped and plundered by Big Gas.

Just as the United States consumers are buying more and more locally, we allow our farmland to become an industrial zone.

We are willing to let a small minority of our fellow citizens pollute the resources one hundred percent of us use. What is sane or democratic about that? We all share this halo of air and water.

Our aim should be to make each home energy independent.  No monthly bills.  That is what we can leave our children.  That would be American.

the threat of democracy

If this evil and blatant usury of our land is not stopped by our elected and sworn representatives by listening to reason, constituents, and the constitution – if they wimp out on their duty to make sure anything done to this state is done right or not at all; if this illegal attack supplants democracy – then democracy will be wrestled back, one way or another.

There will be thousands of gas wells drilled over the next two decades using slick water horizontal hydrofracking – the Back Mountain as Industrial Zone

Gas Drilling Will Bring You:
Lower Property Values
Higher Taxes
Polluted and Unusable Water Sources
Toxic Waste (heavy metals, carcinogens, brine and radioactive materials)
Open Waste Pits
Undisclosed Chemicals
Endocrine Disruptors
Carcinogens Left Underground
Air Pollution
Depleted Water Habitat
Noise Pollution
Eminent Domain
Loss of Farmland
Loss of Tourism
Disrupted Wildlife Habitat
Higher Crime Rate
Increased Drug Use
Choking Truck Traffic
Broken Roads
Increased Accidents
Lower Quality of Life (why do you love this place?)
Earth Shaking
Fractured Bedrock Below (where 10 to 30 tons of chemicals per well, liberated radioactivity, brine, and heavy metals are left underground to slowly migrate toward your family’s water supply)

Educate yourself and take action to stop this now! The first well is drilling this August. Don’t be fooled by the propaganda you see on television and billboards. 1.5% percent of the county households will benefit, 98.5% will suffer.

NOTE – Add on top of this: mismanagement, acts of nature, maximization of profit, and out of state corporations. Then mix in weakened laws and a depleted DEP. And put it all in the context of rapid expansion. Isn’t this a case for MORATORIUM!?

drill the bitch

The beast is circling and beginning to take bites, a variance here, a clearing there. Soon will come a train of trucks carrying the rig. Like a missile on parade in Red Square, it might as well have a hammer and sickle on its side. The bit will drive into the bone of Mother Earth and leave her contaminated. This will happen in front of those who allow it.

Those who refuse to sign a lease will soon be tied down and forced to witness the rape. If big gov and big gas have their way, eminent domain will be granted to those who pipe the gas. You thought you could make a stand? Not in Corporate America (the former United States).

See Companies seek eminent domain status to lay gas pipelines:

NoCana

The new Don King

I was on television last night.  I was an audience participant on WVIA’s State of Pennsylvania live broadcast.  I asked a question on camera.  This was not easy for me.  I don’t like the limelight.  Last night’s show was hosted by Suzanne Kapral-Kelly.  Her guests were WILK talk show hosts Nancy Kman, John Webster, Sue Henry, and Steve Corbett.

When it was almost my turn, I was ushered to a spot marked by masking tape, directly in the line of fire.  Then before I could run away, all lights and attention swung to me.  I think I did okay.  It was my first time on the tube.   I kept it simple.  I thanked the WILK radio hosts for providing a platform to discuss the Marcellus Shale issue.  Then, I simply requested that both stations sponsor a debate between EnCana and the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition.  The dreaded GDAC.

I did this without consulting anyone else from GDAC. But I am sure each one would say, “Bring it on”! This gas play is so wrong in so many ways for our communities.

I remember the first and only time I heard representatives from EnCana speak.  They were making a presentation to the Back Mountain Community Partnership.  The Partnership is a group of  local township and state representatives.  EnCana  presented hydraulic fracturing as a benign and safe process.  You have seen the Chesapeake ads.  Makes it look like a park.  During the question period, there were some of us who began to ask reasonable questions about safety and environmental impact.  They became visibly defensive and dismissive.  The EnCana reps could not or would not provide answers to most of our questions and were then asked by the Partnership to report back in writing.  They did eventually submit an inadequate response in writing.  But that is a whole other story for a future date.  The point here is they don’t like questions.  They seem to expect us to be compliant and quiet. Watch the movie Split Estate to get a glimpse of EnCana’s dark side.

On the broadcast, Steve Corbett related how he has been unable to get anyone from EnCana to talk with him. They are about to change our world in a very surreal, industrial, and irreversible way – yet are too arrogant to address any of these potentialities with the public.

Even if you had the perfect company doing all the right things, fracking is still a dirty, radioactive, water wasting, toxin injecting, air polluting, community disrupting, waste producing, land damaging, infrastructure intensive, property devaluing, inefficient way to produce energy. Add on top of that a secretive and entitled corporation – you are begging for trouble.

Come on down EnCana! Name the time and place.