Read the signs
You don’t have to be Nostradamus to predict what happens to an area once a predatory industry decides it’s worth plundering. See the Donnan.com article about what Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling is doing to Hickory, Pennsylvania.
Here’s an except:
They say “fools rush in.” Are the good folks of Pennsylvania being caught unawares by all this? Will the citizens of New York State be the next to jeopardize their precious water resources? Whatever those answers are, they probably won’t be very long in coming.
Who wants to be next?
Marcellus Shale Pipe Dreams
A region is discovering that the price of the economic boom from natural gas drilling may be irreversible environmental damage and residents’ peace of mind
A telling article by Rona Kobell in the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay’s “Bay Journal” describes the bitter disappointment of communities who’ve been duped by the illusion of the “Natural Gas Boom.”
Excerpts:
When the natural gas companies descended on Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale two years ago, it felt like a Gold Rush. And everyone seemed to be hitting pay dirt…
But now, with nearly 700 Marcellus wells drilled throughout the state, the environmental costs of drilling are becoming clear… It has transformed some of the state’s most beautiful landscapes into industrial zones and brought hardship to some who thought it was their lifeline.
“The regular folk out here will never see the compensation they deserve, and their original water supply is forever gone,” Switzer said. “I’m never going to make any money on this. All I’ve lost is my soul.”
If you sign a gas lease…
If you want to know the real story, talk to people who have made the mistake that many are considering making now. Watch, for example:
Candace Mingins – Gas Drilling: Stories From the Front Line
“We had sold the land out from under our children and their children, and no amount of money is worth that.
“Unconventional gas drilling is a nasty business, and I venture to guess that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of lease landowner’s who as they learn what this new gas drilling entails wish that they had never signed.
“A contract between an individual and a multinational corporation is never on an even playing field.”
Letter to forward to your friends
A lot of us wonder what we can do besides sign some petitions, write some letters, etc (Although all of those things are good and necessary.)
One thing we can do is let our friends know about the predicament the gas industry and it’s cronies are putting us in, and how that predicament will soon be coming to a town near them.
A good way is to cut and paste the following message into an e-mail and send it to your intelligent out-of-state friends and family:
We Will Be Sorry
For a lot of people, the promise of “free money” doesn’t raise the red flags that it should. People want to believe in Santa Claus, and that they can win the lottery, even if they lose thousands of dollars buying lottery tickets year after year.
If someone offered those people all the thousands back that they had squandered, they’d take them in a minute (and probably throw them away again on more lottery tickets!)
The point is, that early on, people find all the reasons they can to convince themselves that something is good, even though they really know better.
Continue Reading »
BAN NATURAL GAS DRILLING IN NEW YORK STATE
The title is a little misleading. What we are trying to do is ban unconventional (high-pressure horizontal hydraulic fracturing) of shale deposits like the Marcellus and Utica deposits (or what the gas industry likes to call “plays”) in New York State.
Earthjustice Petition
The following is from the EarthJustice site. Please read it and click the link to go and sign their petition to the DEC to extend the public comment period on the Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) to 120 days.
The gas drilling industry is at New York’s doorstep, clamoring for access to underground reserves and demanding the right to blast millions of gallons of chemically-treated water into the earth to extract the gas.
And we’re facing the fight of our lives to keep them at bay while we determine how to keep New Yorkers safe from the toxic chemicals used in the drilling.
We’d hoped state officials would help. But they seem just as eager as industry to start the drilling—giving New Yorkers just 60 days to weigh in on the state’s plan to oversee what’s poised to be an unprecedented scale of industrial activity.
Among the deficiencies we’ve identified so far with the state plan: in the entire 800-page document there’s not a single rule that industry will have to follow. The state’s proposal gives state officials unbridled discretion to decide whether and when to impose protections. Without rules that are transparent, consistent, and enforceable, you better believe that drillers will lobby for exceptions at every turn.
Tell Governor David Paterson and the state Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis to extend the public comment period to 120 days. And while you’re at it, tell them we need the gas drilling industry to be following rules—not the toothless, piecemeal permitting approach outlined in the plan.
We’ve seen what happens when the government tries to speed up the approval process. Next door in Pennsylvania, drilling has ramped up quickly, with more than 1,100 permits in the first eight months of 2009. Last month, the state shut down one company’s operations after three chemical spills at one drilling site in less than a week.
At stake is the water we drink, the air we breathe, the soil in which we grow our food and the scenic landscapes that feed our spirit. Before the rigs move in from Texas, we need time to make sure these precious resources are protected.
Tell Governor David Paterson and DEC that industry doesn’t get to dictate the timetable for drilling—the people do.
The present situation with Fracking Natural Gas in Upstate New York
Listen to:
NY Moves Closer to Natural Gas Drilling Upstate
by Ilya Marritz on WNYC
This reportage gives you the scoop in a nutshell. Complete, accurate, and to-the-point.
NPR tries damage control
In a post ,Water Contamination Concerns Linger For Shale Gas
by TOM GJELTEN at the NPR website, NPR tries some damage control.
Good try.
After “Morning Perdition” so pitifully dropped the journalistic ball on this one, this was a nice attempt at CYA.
Too little, too late. Steve Inskeep and friends owe us a huge explanation and apology.
Imagine this:
- Newspaper headlines today: “NPR is a bunch of terrorists with radical ties to Al Qaeda!”
- Blurb on third page next day after getting swamped with negative comments, “NPR is maybe not a bunch of terrorists with radical ties to Al Qaeda!”
Of course that’s a ridiculous, twisted, unimaginable scenario. It would be ludicrous for anyone to imagine that. As ludicrous as what they’ve done by shilling for a dangerously not-ready-for-prime-time energy scheme.
Thanks, guys.
