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I’m a frequent listener to NPR, and I count on it for much of my news, as do many people in our area. My local station is WSKG.
So I was shocked to hear a report this morning that was so egregiously misleading, that I had to write in to NPR as well as WSKG. I suggest you do, too. The more response we get on this, the better.
This is what I sent to NPR as a correction to it’s report on “Morning Edition” and as a comment to WSKG this morning:
Water Problems From Drilling Are More Frequent Than PA Officials Said
by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica – July 31, 2009 11:29 am EDT
http://www.propublica.org/feature/water-problems-from-drilling-are-more-frequent-than-officials-said-731
"Trust us - we're the experts."
Letter to Editor Daily Star July 2009:
It was refreshing to see Dick Downey finally coming clean in his latest letter to the editor. Apparently he thinks it’s not your right to ask questions – just trust him and the Natural Gas Industry. He’d like you to believe that you should accept any risk that would potentially make him some money.
Downey insists that the risks are minimal. This is an actual quote from Downey’s letter, “Ninety percent of the time the problem is corrected once the source is identified.”
WTF? Oh, I see, as long as that ten percent of screw-ups isn’t on his land, I guess he thinks that’s OK. And what about the sources that aren’t identified? Is someone who doesn’t mind sacrificing public safety for his own agenda someone you ought to put your trust in?
He’d have you believe that the dangers are ”… a circumstance that has little chance of happening…”
The only thing that has little chance of happening is landowners getting “free money” (as the industry’s representatives like to promise) or flunkeys for the gas companies telling you the truth. A more likely outcome will be the destruction of roads, aquifers, public services and some people’s health, simply in order to have a few people (mostly from out of state) make a killing off our gullibility. It’s happened elsewhere. But hey, trust them.
It’s not true that those who question the gas industry expect no risks at all. We just expect reasonable accountability and safeguards. Any sane person would. But lobbyists have gotten Big Gas exempt from the Clean Water Act, and they know that the state Department of Environmental Conservation is way out of its league when engaging this industry.
When someone tells you, “Just trust us – don’t ask questions,” does that make you feel that your interests are being looked out for? Really?
- Brian Foley
“A lie with a purpose is one of the worst kind, and the most profitable.”
-Finley Peter Dunne
It’s worth mentioning that once again, an apologist for the gas industry is trying to misdirect you from the truth. When Downey says:
Last year, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection reported less than a dozen cases of aquifer contamination…
He is not telling you that most of the wells he is talking about are vertical wells, not the horizontal fracturing that is at issue. This is most disingenuous, and is a rhetorical tactic people use when trying to hide the truth.
"It's OK - we'll all be dead before the world recognizes what a bunch of lying sacks we were."
There are no real, meaningful statistics about horizontal fracturing in New York State because it’s almost never been done. And statistics for other areas have been obfuscated by the industry, because they have no intention of letting the public know the truth. It’s not a conspiracy. They don’t need one. It’s just business as usual, like when the tobacco companies claimed that smoking is good for your health. Different product, same bullshit.
It’s like when other industry flunky’s tell you that this procedure has been done in New York State for decades. Of course it hasn’t. See “They Don’t Even Lie Well.”
Doubt is Their Product
This video is entirely relevant to how industry boosters and even scientists will sell their souls in order to sell you something they know is bad.
Spinning done with care
Recently there was an article on the Pressconnect website that was a typical piece of disinformation from another shill of the natural gas industry. It’s subtitle was “Hydraulic fracturing methods being misunderstood”. It was written by a stooge from the industry who wants to “set the record straight.”
Is this guy even remotely serious? How can we believe a pimp for the natural gas industry who wants to mislead us like this? He knows that the problem is with horizontal fracturing – not the procedure that he states, “has been performed safely and successfully in New York for decades, and there are about 13,000 active wells in New York today.”
There are almost NO horizontal wells in NY. horizontal fracturing has hardly ever been done here. The drilling that has been done here for decades has been vertical. And the the particular type of horizontal well that will be used in the Marcellus, the high well density that will be required, and the particular type of fracking that will be used do NOT have a long track record in NY (or anywhere else, for that matter). And there sure as hell aren’t “13,000 active horizontal fractured wells in New York today.” Not the New York on this planet, anyway.
There is a huge difference, no matter how they’d like to lead you to believe that there isn’t. Maybe they can’t tell the difference between horizontal and vertical, but you can.
The places that do have horizontal fracturing have a miserable legacy of the industry trying cover-up disasters, prevent legislation to regulate safety (they managed to weasel their way out of being regulated by the Clean Water Act) and prevent you from knowing what is in their secret fracturing solution, which they forcefully inject into the ground and tremendous pressure.
You can’t get to the truth about this stuff because the industry doesn’t want you to know the truth. It pays lobbyists millions to get itself exempted from regulations (remember Cheney’s secret meetings with these characters, when he wouldn’t even let the public know who he met with?)
Gill says, “At issue is the hydraulic fracturing process, which involves injecting a solution, consisting primarily of water…” Nice try. Once again he misrepresents the issue, which is not simply hydraulic fracturing, but HORIZONTAL fracturing (seems these industry experts really can’t tell the difference between horizontal and vertical – intentionally?)
I like the “…primarily water…” touch. Urine is primarily water, too, but I don’t expect that he drinks it. Once again, he misrepresents the issue. The main issue is not the water that is being injected (although it is salt-water, which has its own problems, but nothing compared to the poisons mixed in with the water).
The problems are with those poisons that he conveniently didn’t mention. Does he even know what they are? If so will he tell us? The answer to at least one of those questions is: Of course not.
The fracturing solution is a secret, ostensibly because Halliburton holds a patent on it and is protecting it from infringement. Not because it has environmental toxins that would disrupt endocrine systems, cause cancer, or poison the environment in other unspeakable ways.
Oh, no, Halliburton wouldn’t mislead us about that. And Paul McCartney is dead, Nixon had a secret plan to end the Viet Nam war, Bill Clinton didn’t have sex with that woman, and Bush knew that Saddam had WMDs . And I’m the Pope.
If Gill is any example at all (and much evidence shows that he is – see http://otegony.com/they-dont-even-lie-well), then it would seem that “The men and women in our industry” don’t give a rusty goddamn about “the public’s concerns about how the process of extracting natural gas might impact our natural resources.”
This is a trend. It seems like the only tactic these guys have is to twist the argument into being about vertical drilling, and hope you don’t notice. See the above link in previous paragraph to see how this tactic is used over and over. There’s no way it’s a coincidence. It’s an industry “talking point.”
This predatory industry is beginning to compete with the tobacco industry for spinning and misleading.
Don’t be fooled into thinking a Landowner’s Coalition can help you, either. Coalitions are a bad solution. Getting the “best deal” from these guys is like getting “the best deal” selling your daughter into slavery. The industry lives for suckers. It comes in and lowballs you for pimping your land, then along comes a Coalition, and compared to the industry, their contracts seem “so much better.”
Well, tuberculosis might be better than lung cancer, but you wouldn’t be standing in line to sign up for it, would you?
America needs energy. America can get it from other sources. If you know anything about this country, then you know we can do anything if we really want to. Are we going to settle for a poison band-aid solution to a serious problem, just so some predatory companies from other states and countries can make some money off our gullibility?
Here is a short out-take of a very good presentation that was given at the TOMPKINS COUNTY COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS . It concerns what options towns and municipalities have concerning legal issues related to the extraction of natural gas.
(out-take not up yet – check out the full audio below)
March 30, 2009 presentation to municipal officials on issues related to the extraction of natural gas from Marcellus Shale, by Kimberly Shaw Rea, Esq. and Mark P. Millspaugh, P.E.
Listen to the audio of the full meeting of legal issues related to the extraction of natural gas (a bit over an hour long, 30 MB)
Watch the video of the full meeting of legal issues related to the extraction of natural gas (a bit over an hour long, 208 MB)
CDOG (Chenango Deleware Otsego Gas) has an absolutely brilliant resource page at http://un-naturalgas.org/organizers.htm
Check it out and find resources to help people understand the mistake they are making by signing a gas lease.
Anyone fortunate enough to be able to remember Walt Kelly’s Pogo Possum cartoons will know this quote well:
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
The history of the quote is pretty cool. It was first used on an Earth Day poster in 1970. Below are two versions of the original poster. I couldn’t find a better graphic of it online, but I think, with a little work, it could be used on websites, protest signs, etc.
Be careful, because the quote is a double-edged sword ( a tool Kelly was great at using.)
Sometimes we are our own enemies. And I don’t me “we” as in “them.” Sometimes the infighting within our ranks holds us back.
I’m not going to harp on this, because those who can, already know what I mean, and those who don’t know will never be convinced by facts or logic.
So let’s work on fighting “them” instead.
It might be nice to use these posters on Earth Day again, although I’m sure people do that every year.
The first two are versions of the 1970 Earth Day Poster.
Pogo 1970 Earth Day Poster
Pogo 1970 Earth Day Poster
This one is from the 1971 Earth Day poster:
Pogo 1971 Earth Day poster
My take on the issue:
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
Want to know more about Pogo, the quotation, and the poster? Check out these sites:
http://www.igopogo.com/final_authority.htm ZEROING IN ON THOSE POLLUTERS: WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US, By Walt Kelly.
http://www.igopogo.com/we_have_met.htm From the foreword to The Pogo Papers, Copyright 1952-53
This is one amazing video. Believe it or not, Fox News (Faux News?) covered a story that reflects negatively on a predatory industry.
Check out the story about the woman in Colorado who can light her water faucet.
I don’t know how anyone can be informed at all about this issue and not see what a horrible scam the gas-leases are. They cannot be “mitigated” by coalitions. They are just plain bad.
Resist them, don’t collaborate.
This week there are three local presentations on
Friday, 13 March, at 7 pm – Cherry Valley
Old School gym, two blocks west of the Cherry Valley traffic light on County Route 54
Sunday, 15 March at 2 pm – Cooperstown
Templeton Hall, 63 Pioneer Street
Monday, 16th March at 7 pm – Oneonta
St. Mary’s Parish Center at the corner of Walnut and Elm Streets
Presenters:
Ron Bishop, Chemistry Lecturer at SUNY Oneonta
James Herman, Hartwick property owner
Colleen Blacklock, Oneonta resident who has been researching gas drilling impacts on agriculture
Forum sponsored by Sustainable Otsego
For more information call 547-8586
Free and open to the public
March 11,2009
The former superintendent of Binghamton’s Water Department and another former water employee were arraigned this morning on state environmental law charges.
Read more at Pressconnects.com
March 11,2009
While the Ithaca wastewater plant’s owners deliberate whether to accept the liquefied remains of animal carcasses from Cornell University, the Cayuga Heights wastewater treatment plant is already accepting wastewater from gas drilling companies.
Blog at http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog/