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We usually leave events to the events calendar. The announcement below is worth an exception because of its particular combination of pic and text: The industry and its lobbyists have been working the halls of state capitols and wining & dining local officials for a long time. The citizens were the last to know.
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Tags: lobbying
Editor,
A May 13 article reporting on a ‘press conference’ that said $11.5 million generated last year from natural gas production in the Town of Smyrna will be handed over to officials presented misleading and factually incorrect information.
Gas production may have generated $11.5 million, but that is revenue for Norse Energy, not Chenango County, the Town of Smyrna, or Sherburne-Earlville [School District]. No amount of money was “handed over” to anyone during the orchestrated gas drilling promotional presentation, nor will any money be turned over to any of the noted entities (Town of Smyrna, Chenango County, or the Sherburne-Earlville School District) at any time in the future.
While Norse Energy will pay roughly the amounts stated in taxes(Smyrna, $83,312; Chenango County, $151,019; and Sherburne-Earlville School District, $264,569) the implication, and likely the perception of many of your readers, is that the Town, County, and School District will receive an unexpected windfall. These entities (school, town, county) annually develop a budget and determine the tax levy based on their budget. Only the amount of the levy will be collected from taxpayers, no more, no less. Based on the stated $11.5 million revenue this year for Norse Energy, they will pay only about 4 percent of that in local taxes. While this is a benefit to other local taxpayers, it does not increase revenues for the district, the town, or the county.
The expansion in gas drilling, particularly the hydro-fracturing technique proposed for extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation (which is really what that show was all about), is not without controversy. The financial benefits of drilling versus the cost in the environment will be the subject of debate for some time to come. The handing out of over-sized fake checks may be good theater, but participating in the show implies endorsement of drilling and contributes to the false perception of windfall revenue for schools, towns and counties. Our Board of Education has made no such endorsement, and I’m sure the issue will be extensively debated in that forum before consensus is reached.
Tom Strain
Assistant Superintendent
Sherburne-Earlville Central Schools
From EnergyJustice.net
> SIGN THE PETITION <
The Kerry, Graham and Lieberman climate bill has become so compromised it’s rotten. Let Congress know that you are deeply concerned about climate change, and therefore support a vote AGAINST this bill. Tell them a much, much stronger climate bill is absolutely necessary!
When the House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act last year, many (including NASA climate scientist Dr. James Hansen) called the bill “worse than nothing,” and found themselves, sadly, opposing climate legislation. Why?? Because the bill failed to rise to the challenge, offered absurdly weak targets, provided ludicrous quantities of corporate handouts to polluters, funded a slew of dirty false solutions (carbon capture and sequestration, biomass burning, nuclear, etc). Overall, it sought to maintain business as usual, rather than putting the nation on the path to avoid catastrophic warming.
Many powerful industry and government interests view climate change not as a serious problem to be resolved by all means possible, but rather as an opportunity to maintain and enhance profits. They would seek to build more polluting incinerators, continue mountaintop removal and coal burning, expand industrial agriculture, drill our coastlines, mine uranium and build more nuclear reactors, leaving us to cope with more cancer, asthma and other health problems, and an altogether questionable future for our children.
When Senators Kerry & Boxer introduced a companion bill largely mirroring “worse than nothing,” it was entirely rejected by some Senators, who, unbelievably, fail to recognize climate change as a problem worth addressing, and are entirely beholden to their fossil fuel and other industry supporters. Kerry went back to the drawing board, this time inviting the participation of industry and the climate change deniers who have made it clear that in order to win the needed 60 votes, they would require fulfillment of their “wishlist.” We are now faced with a bill written to fulfill the wishes of the worst polluters and guaranteed to be FAR worse than nothing.
The Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill would even take away EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act — our one proven tool for regulating air pollution, which industry fears because it will be more effective than the carbon trading schemes in this legislation. The Kerry-Graham-Lieberman bill would even invalidate any state and local-level laws that are stronger than the weak policies in their bill!
Just because this is a so-called “climate bill” doesn’t mean it is a good bill! Tell your senator and representatives to vote AGAINST this rotten bill because it fails on every count. Demand a much, much stronger climate bill that will embrace targets that meet the mandates of climate science, put an end to dirty energy, restore ecosystems, protect our health and fulfill our obligations to the international community.
For more information, and to sign the petition, visit
Tags: climate change, greenhouse gas
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“Canadian pipeline companies are considering requests from U.S. producers to reverse the flow of their export lines to bring natural gas from the prolific Marcellus shale into Ontario, displacing some Alberta suppliers who have dominated the Central Canadian market for half a century.” - U.S. Gas Producers Eye Ontario Market
Tags: export, market, natural gas
“Men have an indistinct notion that if they keep up this activity of joint stocks and spades long enough, all will at length ride somewhere in next to no time, and for nothing; but though a crowd rushes to the depot, and the conductor shouts ‘All aboard!’ when the smoke is blown away and the vapor condensed, it will be perceived that a few are riding, but the rest are run over—and it will be called, and will be, ‘A melancholy accident.’” – Thoreau
Tags: Thoreau
The editor of the O&G industry magazine World Oil was fired for defending a petroleum geologist’s columns indicating shale gas yields are overstated (that wells aren’t actually producing as industry advertised… not even close).
Below are 3 links to articles regarding this incident. The 1st reports on the firing; the 2nd is the editor’s explanation for his firing (posted on the columnist’s blog); and the 3rd is the column, which (due to pressure from industry to suppress the publication of a shale gas play production chart) was pulled from the November issue of World Oil.
http://www.aspousa.org/index.php/2009/11/umbrage-in-the-gas-patch/
From Perry Fischer, former World Oil Editor:
http://petroleumtruthreport.blogspot.com/2009/11/letter-from-perry-fischer-former-editor.html
Facts are stubborn things: Arthur E. Berman November 2009
http://www.aspousa.org/index.php/2009/11/facts-are-stubborn-things-arthur-e-berman-november-2009/
Now, why might large publicly traded drilling companies wish to suppress analysis indicating actual shall gas yields aren’t even close to what the prospective investors and leasors think they are?
Petrohawk has only $526 million in current assets, and $5.88 billion in non-current (not liquid) assets. Shareholder equity is $3.28 billion (6.2 times current assets and equal to 51% of total assets). Petrohawk desperately needs its shareholders to believe its tall tales.
- David J Cyr
Unnatural Gas: The Inflated Promise of a Not-So-Clean Fuel
Meanwhile, in competing with Big Coal for the affections of Congress, the newly formed America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) launched an $80 million advertising and lobbying campaign earlier this year to promote its “clean, abundant, American, reliable, and versatile” product. As climate bills work their way through Congress, ANGA’s efforts appear to be paying off.
Risking our water so we can burn more natural gas will not be the planet’s miracle climate cure. For the United States to achieve necessary reductions in greenhouse emissions – estimated at more than 80 percent – will require not more energy production, even if somewhat cleaner, but deep cuts in energy consumption.
Coal must be phased out as quickly as possible, but more gas won’t accomplish that. While electric utilities’ gas consumption doubled from 1996 to 2007, coal use continued its steady climb.
What if, with shale drilling, we could achieve another doubling of gas-fired electricity generation, but this time eliminate an equivalent amount of coal-fired generation? Even that steep escalation of gas drilling would cut the utility industry’s carbon emissions by only 12 percent and the nation’s total carbon emissions by just 5 percent, based on Energy Department figures.
Financier T. Boone Pickens recommends running our vehicles on natural gas. But substituting natural gas for gasoline in all vehicles would reduce the nation’s total carbon emissions by less than 9 percent. Converting all gasoline-powered vehicles would consume more natural gas than electric utilities, homes and businesses combined. Consequences for the nation’s water would be disastrous.
Natural gas is being hailed by some, including Pickens, as a high-energy “bridge” to a renewable future, and by others as sufficiently climate-friendly to be a “destination” fuel. But as gas’ environmental drawbacks become more evident, it’s looking more like a bridge to nowhere.
Read the entire piece at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/04-5
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Dear Pickens Plan “Army” -
In an article titled, “High Times for T Boone Pickens,” Time Magazine quoted Senator Howard Metzenbaum:
“Pickens makes a crusade out of what he’s doing because he can make a lot of money.”
And that was in 1985.
I don’t know about you, but I see a pattern emerging.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,961946-1,00.html
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CDOG Responds to NPR’s Un-Natural Gas Propaganda Campaign
In September, NPR’s Morning Edition broadcast a 3 day series on the issue of extracting natural gas from stone, the content of which suggested NPR is now just another Naturalgas Propaganda Resource. Below are links to the 3 days of NPR’s un-natural gas promotion, with a CDOG response below each link.
Link to Day 1, of NPR’s petro dollared propaganda campaign:
09/22/2009 Rediscovering Natural Gas by Hitting Rock Bottom
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113043935
CDOG Response to Day 1:
In your 09/22/09 Morning Edition story, Rediscovering Natural Gas by Hitting Rock Bottom, NPR framed the issue as gas drillers being nice small independent entrepreneurs struggling against an energy market dominated by big oil and big coal. That’s false. Those little gas drilling wildcatters are controlled by big oil and gas corporations, which use them to limit liabilities (evade deep pocketed corporation responsibility for purposeful pollution). The not so small “independent” Nornew, positioning itself over the Marcellus shale here in New York, is actually a subsidiary of the international O&G corporation Norse Energy, based in Norway.Your report focused upon increased estimates of possible gas quantities, without providing evidence of the quality deficits, like the water wells now being destroyed in Pennsylvania by this form of drilling.
The only downside to ripping remnants of gas from stone that the NPR reporter reported was that gas prices are too low, making it difficult for the optimistic “energy independence” drillers to make a profit from their [money] expensive operations. The National Propaganda Radio reporter didn’t report on any of the costs to the public that the drillers externalize. To be truly FOXworthy fair and balanced there was a brief reference to “many environmentalists” after which only an institutionalized, industrialized “environmentalist” position was offered.
Unconventional horizontal hydrofracturing drilling, to extract natural gas from low-permeable stone formations, is environmentally unsound. The Halliburton developed process focused upon solving the industry’s extraction problem… with absolutely no concern for the environmental costs to others, from the industry’s use of it.
The scale of the drilling (number of wells and hydrofractures required), that’s necessary to extract those myriad remnants of gas so tightly bound up within the stone, will over time have a catastrophic cumulative negative environmental and human health impact… polluting air, ground, and water in this desperate process of extraction intended to maintain our fossil fuel dependancy.
All of the enormous quantity of clean fresh water used in the hydrofracture process is permanently removed from the natural water cycle, because the chemicals added to it cannot be fully removed to change the toxic waste, which the process creates, back into the safe drinking water it was before the drillers abused it.
The massive amount of toxic waste created by the drillers, which they either do not leave in the hole, or (Love Canal) bury at the site, is taken to municipal sewage waste treatment plants, through which the chemicals then pass on to be dumped into our rivers… and eventually come out of our faucets.
Link to Day 2, of NPR’s petro dollared propaganda campaign:
09/23/2009 Who’s Looking At Natural Gas Now? Big Oil
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113080237
CDOG Response to Day 2:
The nice “small independent company” that developed the new production techniques to rip the last remnants of natural gas from stone, having the small guy innovation which NPR falsely claims beat BIG oil, was… Halliburton!If NPR considers Halliburton to be a “mom-and-pop” operation, then what does it consider to be a beastly overlarge corporation?
Those little guy operators that NPR romantically astroturfed are the private contractor gas driller domestic equivalents, here at home, of what Blackwater is where fossil fuels can be found elsewhere.
National Propaganda Radio’s reporting implies that the remnants of natural gas, which the myriad tentacled energy industry has in recent years been so hazardously ripping from the earth, are ENORMOUS; but then NPR claims they’ve been deposits too small scale to have yet attracted large corporations. If the remnant areas were large corporation considered so profit inconsequential, then why has the Millennium Pipeline been built to and now through those areas? Would the vast matrix of gas drilling rigs and pads, packed close together covering the whole landscape from the Catskills for 350 miles or more all the way across the broad breadth of New York State to Lake Erie, which will be necessary for the industry to successfully unconventionally extract all that natural gas trapped down there too tightly within non-porous stone… be small scale?
NPR cloaks the socially irresponsible decisions of individual landowners in American Dream apparel, romanticizing those who place their communities in long-term nightmare jeopardy to personally short-term profit themselves. Is inviting a dangerous marauding invading occupier into your neighborhood a good neighborly thing to do? Is the energy industry’s economic draft persuading farmers to site chemical toxic waste production facilities on their farms the way a sane society would provide farmers an adequate income? Is embracing toxic waste production the way any sane society would provide farmers their only ability to have the healthcare they’ll need when the extraction chemicals used produce the effects they cause?
Link to Day 3, of NPR’s petro dollared propaganda campaign:
09/24/2009 With Little Clout, Natural Gas Lobby Strikes Out
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113138252
CDOG Response to Day 3:
By Day 3, NPR’s petro dollared propaganda campaign has become more subtle, providing some seemingly innocuous banter at the end, to reluctantly acknowledge the existence of some environmental “concern” regarding the type of drilling required to get the last remnants of gas from rocks that couldn’t be gotten before.That ripping of gas from stone with the Halliburton hydrofracking process is not something that “might cause some contamination.” It has in the past; it does now; and it will whenever and wherever it is used, regardless of how tight, or tighter the un-enforced regulations are typed upon paper. The hydrofracturing process is the underground equivalent of mountaintop removal. Both of those extraction procedures have devastating environmental impacts, with mountaintop removal’s just being more readily apparent, while hydrofracture of low to non-permeable tight-gas bearing rock is insidious… like the cancers that it produces.
Being corporate media, when NPR turned its attention to the “political reality” it too subtly sporting announcer focused upon the gas lobby not having as much game as the coal lobby. The Waxman-Markey Bill is the product of industry bribery, with the biggest bidding bribers being rewarded. Yes, like a losing coach would, former [in the pocket of the gas industry] Colorado Senator Tim Worth “chewed out” the gas industry players… for being too cleaner than coal, when bribing Congress.
The gas industry is not the energy constituency with “the most to gain and the most to offer.” No! Those with the most to gain are we, The People, and those with the most to offer are the other environmentalists, who urge us to focus on serious conservation first, and rapid deployment of pervasive alternative renewable energy solutions, with the relocalization of energy production being necessary to bring our carbon footprints down to a size we can survive in.
National Propaganda Radio is still maintaining the false dichotomy of needing to choose gas or coal, repeating gas industry favorable claims of “some environmentalists” with those “some” being the institutionalized industrialized “environmentalists” who claim these last remnants of gas, which are so environmentally damaging to extract, are needed as a bridge-fuel to transition away from coal.
However, those “environmentalists” have taken the wrong exit, onto a bridge to nowhere. Gas from low to non-permeable stone is not a bridge to “transition” away from fossil fuels, but rather a desperate means to maintain the energy industry’s profits from our fossil fuel addiction dependence.
This nation has often displayed how quick and vigorously it can exert huge human energy devoted to the murder and mayhem of wars purposefully designed to government spend enormous amounts of money earned by working people to provide obscene profits to the most ruthless few. We would not need to choose only between dirty coal that won’t become clean, and the remnants of gas that’s so dirty when extracted, if we as a nation treated climate change as a problem of truly existential graveness, which it is.
What would some other environmentalists have to say?
We should stop spending trillions of dollars to fight wars over oil resources that are being used up by those wars fought over them. We should claw back the trillion dollars stolen by banksters. We should exert the same highly concerted human energy and ample money distribution, normally provided by this society only when engaged in global war, and direct that enormous effort and money into providing solutions for global survival… and make that transition from fossil fuel dependence to renewable energy independence be completed as fast as possible.
This nation, with the capacity to exterminate all life upon the planet with just a 20 minute war, surely has the capacity — if it can find the will — to make our planet sustainable in the years that is needed to be done, rather than waiting decades until it’s too late… and then can’t be done.
David J. Cyr
Delhi, NY
GPNYS SC member – Delaware County
Tags: Natural Gas Alliance, NPR
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While T Boone Pickens campaigns for the creation of the Natural Gas Nation, otherwise known as the T Boone-Doggle Corporate State, and politicians with a Green Wish sign on without critical examination, careful investors take a view that’s a little more cautious:
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What Could Go Wrong With Shale Plays
Posted: Oct 09, 2009 12:11 PM by Eric Fox
The industry and investment community is all worked up over the various oil and natural gas shale plays in North America, but little attention is given to what could go wrong with these plays.
The first issue is that not very much drilling has been done in some of the most promising shale plays. Since there is very little development and production history, it is difficult to determine the average estimated ultimate recovery (EUR), initial production (IP) rates and decline curves of wells here. Thus any estimates of the total resource potential are unreliable.
Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK), which has 510,000 acres in the Haynesville Shale, uses an average EUR of 6.50 Bcfe, an IP rate of 14.1 million cubic feet equivalent per day, and a first year decline of 85%. However, the oldest Chesapeake Energy well in the Haynesville Shale is only nine months old, and it is difficult to attribute this data to the entire play.
Experience Matters
On the other hand the Barnett Shale, which has a much longer development and production history than the Haynesville Shale, has a more reliable production and decline curve with which to evaluate the assets of exploration and production companies.
The Marcellus Shale also lacks a long history of development, and thus has the same problem as the Haynesville Shale in regards to the reliability of available data. One unique problem for the Marcellus Shale is its immense size. The shale underlies a huge area in terms of square miles, reaching into New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and even New Jersey. Most of the drilling to date has occurred in Pennsylvania, but little is known about most of the other areas.
There is no way to tell currently whether all this acreage will be as productive as the Pennsylvania acreage that has excited the industry. Eventually, the Marcellus Shale will evolve into a core and non-core, or Tier 1, 2 and 3.
Range Resources (NYSE:RRC) is one of the largest players in the Marcellus Shale and has 900,000 acres that are prospective for the Marcellus Shale. Another company that has not moved as far into developing its acreage is Gastar Exploration (NYSE:GST), which has 37,200 net acres under lease. The company plans to drill as many as five wells here by 2010.
Green Protests
Another issue that might cause a problem in the shale plays is the environmental issues associated with hydraulic fracturing, including the use of immense amounts of water and possible pollution when that water is disposed of.
Cabot Oil and Gas (NYSE:COG) recently had two spills of fracturing fluid in the Marcellus Shale that leaked into wetlands and a creek in Pennsylvania. The company was issued a violation notice by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for violation of several state laws.
Any permanent restrictive regulation on water use in the high growth shale plays might slow down development by making the permitting process cumbersome, or by making it more expensive to drill.
The Bottom Line
The industry and investors are rightly excited about the large amounts of natural gas in the recently discovered shale plays in North America, but this enthusiasm should be tempered by recognition of potential problems that could erupt. (To learn more, see our Oil And Gas Industry Primer.)
By Eric Fox
Eric J. Fox, is the founder of Brittain Capital Management, LLC., which manages the Alesia Fund, LP., a Value oriented long/short investment partnership. You can read more of his views on investments at his blog – Stock Market Prognosticator. Mr. Fox also publishes a paid investment newsletter. Please visit The Unknown Stock Report for more details.
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From Environment & Energy Daily, 9/30:
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Boxer, Kerry brace for delicate talks as bill emerges today
The decision by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to seek steeper greenhouse gas emissions cuts than their House counterparts drew mixed reviews from senators yesterday, underscoring the challenges the pair will face after unveiling their climate bill today.
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“The draft includes new incentives for natural gas producers that were not in H.R. 2454, the sweeping House-passed energy and climate bill, as well as a modest nuclear energy title that Senate nuclear power backers — such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — hope to greatly expand.
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Plans to include new natural gas incentives drew attention as lawmakers last night began digesting the long-awaited bill.A new “clean energy” provision rewards companies that switch from power sources with higher emissions than the 2007 power sector average — such as coal-fired or oil-fired power plants — to cleaner fuels including gas.
The plan received high marks from Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) who said it is a “positive step.”
“Anything we do to promote natural gas would be a very, very smart thing to do,” Landrieu said. “The leaders are hearing from many different parts of the country how much natural gas is out there.”
Landrieu was among nine senators who sent a letter last week to Boxer lobbying for greater incentives for natural gas. Natural gas producers have been aggressively lobbying senators to win greater incentives for the fuel and have garnered support from some swing votes, including Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.).
Maybe Kerry, Boxer, Landrieu, et al, haven’t seen this article:
Eric Fox: “What could go wrong with shale plays”
Remember this, when you hear those slick commercials touting decades worth of natural gas from tight shales
or this one:
If 2% leaks, the CO2 impact of natural gas is the same as burning coal
or this one:
Must read: “How Neutral is the Potential Gas Committee?”
or this one:
Analyst: Gas shale may be next bubble to burst
But they should get up to speed. Imagine how mortifying it will be if we’ve switched over to natural gas for much of our energy generation and transportation, but somehow, greenhouse gas levels just don’t drop the way those industry-funded studies and think tanks said they would. Imagine how embarrassing it will be when it turns out so much taxpayer money was spent on infrastructure for natural gas delivery and consumption and then the infrastructure investment cost isn’t even paid off before the gas runs out. Can y’all say T Boone-doggle?
When Donna Lupardo, Assemblywoman, D-Endwell, 126th District, wrote this …
… MB wrote this:
Very disappointing bit of writing from Lupardo, who was, for a while,
one of the more reasonable people around as far as this issue is
concerned. I understand the appeal of these “middle ground” arguments.
I really do. In some cases, finding “middle ground” is exactly the
right thing to do. Unfortunately, all too often, the “middle ground”
isn’t really in the middle at all–rather, it is skewed very, very,
very far toward the side that has dollar signs sparkling in their
eyes–a side that is sometimes aided by nutty and/or gullible people
who are allowing themselves to be used.
For example, let’s take a look at the global warming issue. On one
side we have people who are paying attention to the vast amount of
scientific evidence that has been accumulated indicating that global
warming is occurring, is due to human activity, and if left unchecked
is going to make life on this planet a lot more difficult (to put it
mildly). On the other side, we have a bunch of people who think that
just because they can dig up a handful of credentialed people (I
hesitate to call them “scientists”) who tell us not to worry about
global warming, they can go ahead and cheerfully ignore all of the
science on the other side. Finding some sort of “middle ground”
between these two groups is like finding some sort of middle ground
between your rational Aunt Bessie who goes out to work every day and
then comes home and balances the checkbook and prepares a nutritious
meal for her family, and your loony-as-a-jaybird Uncle Everett, who
spends each day standing on the rooftop dressed in his Napoleon
outfit, alternately baying at the moon (whether the moon is up or not)
and dreamily picking out which horses he plans to bet on in tomorrow’s
races. Clearly, the Bessie/Everett household is going to run a lot
more smoothly if Bessie does all of the planning and never gives
Everett a cent.
We have, I believe, much the same sort of situation as far as this
shale gas mess is concerned. On one side are the people who have
looked at all of the problems
THAT HAVE ACTUALLY OCCURRED ALREADY IN THE REAL WORLD
as a result of this type of drilling, and on the other
side are people who a) don’t give a damn, and/or b) are willing to
believe in some sort of fictional universe in which some sort of
fictional technology exists that will allow some sort of fictional,
safe drilling. I have lost count of the number of people I have talked
to who have said that they started out thinking that perhaps there was
some safe way to do the drilling, until they did some research…and
then they decided that there is no safe way to do the drilling.
At the heart of the issue, as far as I am concerned, is the huge
number of wells required. According to everything I’ve read,
(including information from drilling-friendly sources), a shale gas
well depletes very rapidly; even when it is re-fracked, production
does not come back up to those high initial levels. That means that in
order to maintain a reasonably high level of production (and income)
from a given shale gas area, you have to drill more wells, and then
drill more wells, and then drill more wells, on and on and on. And
with a huge number of wells, even if each well has a very small
negative impact on the environment and on public health, the
cumulative impact is going to be nasty. (Let me just pause here to say
that the phrase “negative impact on public health” means that people
will get sick–perhaps very sick. Some of them may be people that
those in the “middle” or on the pro-drilling side know and love.)
Finally, after a given area is drilled out, the gas companies will be
off to the next area, leaving a huge mess behind. We have seen this
act before, with other extractive industries. Can Donna Lupardo or
anyone else point to a case in which it DIDN’T go this way????
I’m sure that we can all agree that it would be lovely if our area
could prosper from the drilling while simultaneously remaining a safe
and pleasant place in which to live. It would also be lovely if
tomorrow morning everyone woke up and found a large basket of cash on
their doorstep, no strings attached, and then went into the house and
turned on CNN to find that world peace had miraculously been
established and a perpetual motion machine invented. Unfortunately,
none of these things are going to happen–they are fantasies. And
there is no reasonable “middle ground” between fact and fantasy.
Period.
Please write Donna Lupardo and tell her there is no “middle” ground
here–it’s a bit like an election: either you vote for a given candidate, or you
don’t. Period.
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MB’s makes more sense to us.
Guest post by Jack Ramsden:
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I’m a big Tom Gjelten fan and a bigger National Public Radio (NPR) fan.
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But last week, I was troubled by their series on the new initiatives in natural gas drilling. There were three installments of a story by Tom Gjelten (09/22-23-24) and then an hour on the Diane Rehm Show on Wednesday, September 23. I listened to the Rehm Show and read the text on the three installments, plus a related story on “water worries” yesterday. This last story seemed to be an “oh yeah, but…” kind of a thing.
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Here’s the problem. A very distressed but articulate caller called in to the Diane Rehm Show and identified herself as “Victoria” from Dimock, PA. This was the day before PA DEP shut down gas drilling due to the three large spills, but after the spills happened and she referred to them in her call. The panel on the show had been talking about the good science and millions of successful wells and making me upset with every misleading statistic, so I was glad to hear from a resident of a drilling area.
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You know what Tom Gjelten called it? “Anecdotal evidence”! How can he have visited a drilling area, whether in PA, TX, or CO or where ever, and make all these statements about the science of hydro-fracking and then put off this woman’s statements as merely anecdotal? Did he talk to any residents that were at the grocery store buying their water? Did he drive on any of the roads that were literally pulverized by the huge trucks? Did he ask about anybody in the area that could set their tap water on fire out of the faucet?
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If this is the perspective that this reporter brings to this story, then maybe his other stories are suspect too. Maybe I shouldn’t be such a fan.
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113043935&ps=rs (link to 1st installment)
Tags: media bias, NPR
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