A Fracking Mess
After viewing this documentary, I was mortified and ashamed of what our species is capable of. If you think this is a free country... THINK AGAIN! The Bush/Cheney administration did everything in their power to take away as many freedoms as possible so doors could be opened to allow THE CORPORATE "BEING" to have free reign on getting at any type of resource no matter who or what was in the way. I know it's hard to believe that they would go so far as to ruin our planet if only to make another buck. But with every dollar they get a nickel’s worth of power. The Power to Destroy. If you haven't seen Avatar I recommend you rent it. It is a chilling glimpse into the future of what can happen to Mother Earth when all her natural resources are depleted. Think it a fairytale? Another... THINK AGAIN! Watch the trailer of Gasland below and The Daily Show featuring the filmmaker of Gasland, Josh Fox. Stay enlightened, information may be the only weapon we have to help save our planet against The Corporate World who will kill every living creature upon it, if they are allowed. thinkingblue
A Colossal Fracking Mess
The dirty truth behind the new natural gas. Related: A V.F. video
look at a town transformed by fracking.
Early on a spring morning in the town of Damascus, in
northeastern Pennsylvania, the fog on the Delaware River rises to
form a mist that hangs above the tree-covered hills on either
side. A buzzard swoops in from the northern hills to join a flock
ensconced in an evergreen on the river’s southern bank.
Stretching some 400 miles, the Delaware is one of the cleanest
free-flowing rivers in the United States, home to some of the
best fly-fishing in the country. More than 15 million people,
including residents of New York City and Philadelphia, get their
water from its pristine watershed. To regard its unspoiled beauty
on a spring morning, you might be led to believe that the river
is safely off limits from the destructive effects of
industrialization. Unfortunately, you’d be mistaken. The
Delaware is now the most endangered river in the country,
according to the conservation group American Rivers.
A V.F. video look at a town transformed by fracking.
That’s because large swaths of land—private and
public—in the watershed have been leased to energy companies
eager to drill for natural gas here using a controversial, poorly
understood technique called hydraulic fracturing.
“Fracking,” as it’s colloquially known, involves
injecting millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals, many
of them toxic, into the earth at high pressures to break up rock
formations and release natural gas trapped inside. Sixty miles
west of Damascus, the town of Dimock, population 1,400, makes all
too clear the dangers posed by hydraulic fracturing. You
don’t need to drive around Dimock long to notice how the
rolling hills and farmland of this Appalachian town are scarred
by barren, square-shaped clearings, jagged, newly constructed
roads with 18-wheelers driving up and down them, and colorful
freight containers labeled “residual waste.” Although
there is a moratorium on drilling new wells for the time being,
you can still see the occasional active drill site, manned by
figures in hazmat suits and surrounded by klieg lights, trailers,
and pits of toxic wastewater, the derricks towering over barns,
horses, and cows in their shadows.
The real shock that Dimock has
undergone, however, is in the aquifer that residents rely on for their fresh water. Dimock is now known as the place where, over the past two years, people’s water started turning brown and making them sick, one woman’s water well spontaneously combusted, and horses and pets mysteriously began to lose their hair.
Craig and Julie Sautner moved to Dimock from a nearby town in March 2008. They were in the process of renovating their modest but beautifully situated home on tree-canopied Carter Road when land men from Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas, a midsize player in the energy-exploration industry, came knocking on their door to inquire about leasing the mineral rights to their three and a half acres of land. The Sautners say the land men told them that their neighbors had already signed leases and that the drilling would have no impact whatsoever on their land. (Others in Dimock claim they were told that if they refused to sign a lease, gas would be taken out from under their land anyway, since under Pennsylvania law a well drilled on a leased piece of property can capture gas from neighboring, unleased properties.) They signed the lease, for a onetime payout of $2,500 per acre—better than the $250 per acre a neighbor across the street received—plus royalties on each producing well.
Drilling operations near their property commenced in August 2008.
Trees were cleared and the ground leveled to make room for a
four-acre drilling site less than 1,000 feet away from their
land. The Sautners could feel the earth beneath their home shake
whenever the well was fracked.
Within a month, their water had turned brown. It was so corrosive
that it scarred dishes in their dishwasher and stained their
laundry. They complained to Cabot, which eventually installed a
water-filtration system in the basement of their home. It seemed
to solve the problem, but when the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection came to do further tests, it found that
the Sautners’ water still contained high levels of methane.
More ad hoc pumps and filtration systems were installed. While
the Sautners did not drink the water at this point, they
continued to use it for other purposes for a full year.
“It was so bad sometimes that my daughter would be in the
shower in the morning, and she’d have to get out of the
shower and lay on the floor” because of the dizzying effect
the chemicals in the water had on her, recalls Craig Sautner, who
has worked as a cable splicer for Frontier Communications his
whole life. She didn’t speak up about it for a while,
because she wondered whether she was imagining the problem. But
she wasn’t the only one in the family suffering. “My
son had sores up and down his legs from the water,” Craig
says. Craig and Julie also experienced frequent headaches and dizziness.
By October 2009, the D.E.P. had taken all the water wells in the
Sautners’ neighborhood offline. It acknowledged that a major
contamination of the aquifer had occurred. In addition to
methane, dangerously high levels of iron and aluminum were found
in the Sautners’ water.
The Sautners now rely on water delivered to them every week by
Cabot. The value of their land has been decimated. Their children
no longer take showers at home. They desperately want to move but
cannot afford to buy a new house on top of their current mortgage.
“Our land is worthless,” says Craig. “Who is going to buy this house?”
MORE HERE
coinciding with the HBO release of his new documentary, Gasland.
He talks with Jon Stewart about the film, which exposes the toxic
chemicals being leeched into water supplies as a consequence of
the new natural gas drilling method sweeping the nation,
hydraulic fracturing. Some water supplies are so drastically
affected by the chemicals that residents are actually able to
light their tap water on fire.
Fox explains that we are currently in the biggest natural gas
drilling boom in history to which Stewart sardonically replies,
"Well, it's natural gas, so it's actually the healthy gas.
They actually sell it in whole foods. It's so tasty, this gas."
Fox further talks about the natural gas drilling industry's
deceptive tactics to buy the rights to drill on peoples' property
and their PR effort to smear the information in his film. He
describes the industry's exemption from certain regulations
through the "Halliburton loophole", to which Stewart
remarks, "That sounds like the worst sex position
ever."
WATCH Josh Fox on The Daily Show:
RNC Document Mocks Donors, Plays on 'Fear'
Please sign this very important petition "demand question time" (of our political leaders) HERE..
We really need more dialog from those at the top... The
Republicans have got to be made to realize they can't hide behind
"NO" any longer! thinkingblue
Let's keep our heads, while we continue
to watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!
"A SEARCH FOR TRUTH WILL FIND
INJUSTICE."thinkingblue
posted by thinkingblue at 9:38 AM
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