un-naturalgas.org weblog

Citizen-led ballot initiative to amend the Michigan state constitution to ban horizontal fracking, statewide

clearwater — Wed, 16 May 2012 05:59:20 +0000

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 14, 2012

.
Citizen-led Ballot Initiative To Ban Fracking in Michigan Begins

.
CHARLEVOIX, MICH. – A citizen-led ballot initiative to amend the Michigan state constitution to ban horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, statewide began this week. The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, a ballot question committee, received approval of its petition from the Board of State Canvassers. The proposed amendment would also ban the storage of wastes from horizontal hydraulic fracturing, preventing Michigan from becoming a frack wasteland. Michigan has over 1,000 injection wells and over 12,000 conventional gas and oil wells that could be converted for that purpose. The campaign website is: http://letsbanfracking.org.

Michigan is the only state in the nation where citizens are attempting to ban fracking by amendment to a state constitution. Vermont’s legislature passed a ban on fracking on May 4 and with the governor’s approval, became the first state to ban fracking.

The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan is required to submit 322,609 valid signatures from Michigan voters by July 9 to the Bureau of Elections, in order to place the proposed amendment on the ballot in November.

“Michigan’s constitution invites citizens to amend it,” said Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan’s campaign director LuAnne Kozma, of Novi, and a co-founder of the non-profit public interest group Ban Michigan Fracking. “We chose to form a ballot question committee and amend the constitution because we cannot count on our current elected officials to do the right thing. Proposed ‘frack reform’ bills in Lansing are only attempts to regulate and tolerate fracking and put studies in the hands of State regulators. New legislation (HB 5565) introduced last week, touted as a disclosure of frack chemicals bill, contains language that forbids physicians treating frack victims from disclosing the chemicals, even to patients. We knew we had to act to stop the toxic invasion about to devastate our state. We will not recognize Michigan in a few years, if we do not ban fracking,” said Kozma.

The citizen effort has the support of Vermont legislators Tony Klein and Peter Peltz who sponsored the Vermont ban bill. “It was clear in Vermont the dangers of fracking to our natural resources. In Vermont our natural resources are our number one priority, so it was not a difficult thing to prohibit fracking forever. It passed overwhelmingly,” said Klein. “We encourage all states, when they have the chance to do so, to ban this dangerous technique.”

New York ban groups also praised the amendment to ban fracking in Michigan. Maura Stephens, a cofounder of the Coalition to Protect New York and other grassroots groups, has been working on fracking issues for five years and will soon publish a book on the subject. “Only massive public resistance to fracking will stop the horrific industrialization of our beautiful states,” Stephens said. “This truly is a matter of life and death for your way of life.”

Earlier this month, a Michigan House of Representatives Natural Gas Subcommittee report recommended that the State lease all of its mineral rights, asserting Michigan’s “natural gas renaissance is upon us.”

The State auctioned off mineral rights in 23 Michigan counties on May 8 in Lansing, including the rights under Yankee Springs State Recreation Area (a state park) in Barry County and highly populated areas in Oakland County. Residents attempting to save their communities attended the auction, registered as bidders and tried, but failed, to purchase the mineral rights to the areas around Yankee Springs. The entire Lower Peninsula now stands to be fracked. Devon Energy is looking at the A-1 carbonate layers in Gladwin County along with other areas in the middle of the state. Encana is drilling the Utica-Collingwood shale in state forests, with several operations in progress and more pending. Densely populated areas such as Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, and Jackson– communities historically not affected by oil/gas drilling within their borders–are now facing the threat.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, which issues frack permits and at the same time, depends on revenue from the production of gas and oil, continues to publicly confuse the facts, claiming that hydraulic fracturing has been done for over 60 years, while not always informing the public that horizontal hydraulic fracturing is a new, as of 2002, experimental process, often referred to as a marriage of technologies between hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

To volunteer to circulate or sign petitions, see: http://LetsBanFracking.org
The petition reads: A proposal to amend the Constitution by adding a new Section 28 to Article I to read as follows: “To insure the health, safety, and general welfare of the people, no person, corporation, or other entity shall use horizontal hydraulic fracturing in the State. “Horizontal hydraulic fracturing” is defined as the technique of expanding or creating rock fractures leading from directional wellbores, by injecting substances including but not limited to water, fluids, chemicals, and proppants, under pressure, into or under the rock, for purposes of exploration, drilling, completion, or production of oil or natural gas. No person, corporation, or other entity shall accept, dispose of, store, or process, anywhere in the State, any flowback, residual fluids, or drill cuttings used or produced in horizontal hydraulic fracturing.”

.
Links:
Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan

http://LetsBanFracking.org

Ban Michigan Fracking
www.banmichiganfracking.org
Michigan House Bill 5565 (Physicians gag-order bill)

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(v5fzuf2quwfkkeb0ik05v145))/mileg.aspx?page=BillSta

tus&objectname=2012-HB-5565
Michigan Board of State Canvassers draft minutes to April 26, 2012 meeting

http://www.mi.gov/documents/sos/4-26-12_DRAFT_Minutes_383873_7.pdf

Michigan House of Representatives Natural Gas Subcommittee Report, April 2012

http://gophouse.com/publications/80/NaturalGasReport.pdf

Essay: Bottled Greenwash

clearwater — Tue, 15 May 2012 05:52:06 +0000

Essay: Bottled Greenwash

By Anthony Henry Smith

Some may think Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. should recuse himself from NY Governor Cuomo’s 13-person committee on fracking simply because he is the governor’s ex brother-in-law, but how many are aware of an additional conflict? If fracking poisons any part of the state’s drinking water supply, public reaction will certainly result in increased profits for Kennedy’s not-for-profit bottled water company and for his associates in the for-profit bottled water industry who even now are importing water from places almost as remote from one another as they are from New York.

Kennedy’s idea of selling water and donating all profits after expenses to environmental causes is contradictory on the face of it. The manufacture and distribution of bottled water does more damage to the biotic and physical environment than the so-called profits could possibly mitigate.

Glaciers in Norway are melting due to global heating. Some of this melt water is shipped by tanker to North America where it is distributed widely as bottled water. On the other side of the planet, potable water from the South Pacific island nation of Fiji is shipped to 40 countries around the world, even though those who live and work there have suffered from water shortages.

The distribution area for exotic water includes New York, and fracking obviously would greatly increase bottled water sales in the state. Fracking in New York is all the more likely if Kennedy, who has recently and only half-heartedly spoken out against fracking nationally, continues to waffle on fracking in New York

When Kennedy was scheduled to appear for a radio interview on Susan Arbetter’s April 23rd“Capitol Pressroom” program on Northeast Public Radio, he was late, which automatically gave a lot of airtime over to an experienced communications professional who supported fracking by repeating the industry’s examples of magical thinking propaganda. He actually implied that New York somehow benefits because many parts of the US are forced into sacrificing their well being to increase profits in the energy industry. Now it was New York’s responsibility to do the same. He said we need to do a “gut check.” I did the moment he said it and can’t repeat here what my guts told me to write in response. Neither my guts nor I were there to tell him directly. Neither was Kennedy.

When Kennedy did finally arrive, he spent what little of his time was left giving the views of frackers without seriously opposing them.

What are we to make of such conduct? This was not lying on Kennedy’s part, since lying consists of identifying the truth and stating its opposite. This appears to be a total disregard for the truth, an all too common manipulative device identified by Harry Frankfurt; concisely and well described by Frankfurt in the opening of “On Truth,” which is quoted in the first paragraph of this link. (See: http://politicsandlanguage.wordpress.com/2011/06/09/the-essence-of-bullshitting

Arbetter opened her interview by directly asking Kennedy to state where he stood on the issue of fracking. His half-hearted response spoke volumes, suggesting that although he had been for fracking and now opposed it, he might support it if the regulatory agency were strengthened to do its job. When Arbetter asked if he thought the DEC was that regulatory agency Kennedy simply ignored the question and changed the topic. With minutes left to go, Arbetter stated “I need to know from you (in) what aspects the DEC’s review was inadequate.” The inadequacy of Kennedy’s reply was in itself remarkable. At the very moment when he had finally exhausted the topic of “roads,” Time politely drew the curtain as it must, forcing Kennedy to an immediate close with the truncated words “health issues” still clinging to his lips. But as the Royal Society has been saying since 1660, Nullius in verba. (Take nobody’s word for it.) Click on the link below and listen for yourself. And while you’re listening, notice how professionally Susan Arbetter conducts this interview with one who is not only late, but unapologetically so.: http://blogs.wcny.org/the-capitol-pressroom-for-april-23-2012/

During the interview Kennedy told Arbetter that “a lot of people like myself look at natural gas as a bridge fuel” and then went on to explain that he now thought differently. Apparently his change of heart did not come timely enough to enable Riverkeeper to engage a credible staff scientist for their September 2010 report titled “Fractured Communities.” Riverkeeper’s remarkable choice was William Wegner, a convicted environmental felon, perjurer, and tax fraud who has been described by a Riverkeeper board member in terms usually reserved for bargain basement specials: “I believe we got a very brilliant man at a discount price because he made a mistake.” (Brock, Pope, “RFK Jr.’s River of Trouble,” Talk Magazine, October, 2000, p 58)

Eight years of wildlife smuggling can hardly be dismissed as a simple “mistake,” especially when combined with perjury and tax fraud. These are not qualities one might reasonably expect to find in persons working on the staff at Riverkeeper.

Wegner’s prison sentence seems to have done little to improve his ethical sense. The resume Wegner submitted to Riverkeeper accounts for his period of incarceration without referring to the fact of the incarceration itself. Wegner describes work he performed and omits the significant information that he performed this work while he was serving time as a prison inmate. Wegner submitted this resume to Kennedy, who accepted it and then forwarded it to Boyle, who totally and immediately rejected it.

By the way, whatever did happen to Robert H Boyle, the authentic founder of Riverkeeper, the single individual who actually created the concept of Riverkeeper in America and the Waterkeeper Alliance back in the days when Kennedy was still busy living his life as a drug addict? Did he retire? Is he still alive? How is he being recognized and honored by a grateful environmental community for his lifetime of dedicated accomplishment? That polymath and naturalist who famously and compassionately trusted and mentored Mr. Kennedy in Kennedy’s time of adult crisis; what ever became of him?

When the Riverkeeper board voted 13 to 8 to accede to Mr. Kennedy’s demand to hire Mr. William Wegner as staff scientist over Boyle’s objection, Boyle resigned on the spot and 8 other board members followed him in resignation. But take nobody’s word for it. Evaluate it for yourself in this link to: Robert Worth, A Kennedy and His Mentor Part Ways Over River Group, The New York Times, Sunday, November 5, 2000 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/05/nyregion/a-kennedy-and-his-mentor-part-ways-over-river-group.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Also see: Pope Brock, RFK Jr.’s River of Trouble, Talk Magazine, October, 2000, p. 53-58.

By including Mr. Kennedy’s participation as a member of the committee to advise him on fracking, Governor Cuomo advances the illusion that environmental activists of all stripes have a voice in this forum, simply by virtue of Mr. Kennedy’s presence. Kennedy can publicly and half heartedly oppose fracking, while Cuomo can respectfully agree to disagree and overrule Kennedy. The environmentalists have been heard!

Can Riverkeeper or Waterkeeper Alliance possibly break ties with an oligarch who can raise large sums of money, even while he is out to make the world safe for exploitation by his associates in the greenwashed bottled water industry?

How can they not?

May 13, 2012
Poughkeepsie, New York

See also http://gasmain.org/resources.htm#A%20Grassroots%20Perspective

A message from the makers of the upcoming film, “Holy Terror”: Lifting the Veil, April 2012

clearwater — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 06:38:31 +0000

Holy Terror Farm is a paradise of sorts on the banks of Terror Creek in the Western Colorado Rockies. Bushels of fresh fruits and vegetables of every sort, species, and color sprout from this soil every season (yes, even winter!). And all the water that irrigates the orchard, garden, and pastures here is siphoned directly from the pristine flows of Terror Creek, a tributary of the Gunnison River.

Sign greeting visitors to Holy Terror Farm

Since buying the farm in spring 2010, Alison and Jason have doubled the number of trees in the orchard and quadrupled the garden space. They feed the home first, and excess produce is sold online mostly, thru a farmers market called Local Farms First. But the “chemical free” orchards here would no longer be able to make that claim reliably if gas wells were erected on the banks of Terror Creek. Who would want to eat that food anymore?

Natural gas pipeline warning sign, Silt, CO

The farmers in this valley have a great thing going here! And Alison isn’t the only one threatened; the BLM leasing proposal for gas drilling includes parcels that border schools, parks, and orchards all over the valley. It can be taken as a given that these two industries cannot coexist side-by-side. So why is it permissible for one industry to come and kick another out that was here first? That permission is representative of the fact that our federal and state governments, under the direction of industry experts, have put energy production before food production.

Sunrise filming at a drill site as a new bore hole is started

There are two main reasons for this jacked up priority order, and the first is pretty simple: we have to move food, among other things, across the nation and overseas to the markets in which they’ll be sold. And movement of goods takes fuel. We’ve got an infrastructure that is far larger than is really sustainable and we don’t want to face that fact. The second reason is more important, and far more discouraging: energy sells for great prices overseas where nations don’t have the technology or reckless abandon necessary to cultivate their own fossil fuels.   So how do we address these two issues?

The first we can make serious progress on immediately: grow a garden! By eating locally, working locally, and investing in a localized community this will start to change. The stronger our localities, the less they have to lean on the larger national and international frameworks for their needs. The second issue is tougher to solve, especially in a capitalist society. It’s hard to tell a gas company not to sell its natural gas to Chinese markets for $16 when the unit price domestically is closer to $2.25.   There’s not much we can do to make this look like a good business decision. But lifting of the veil has begun; secrets about the failing financial model of shale gas are starting to be exposed to the public. Reserve estimates in the Marcellus and Barnett shale plays, once thought to be huge moneymakers, have been slashed by 80%! As we seek to expose the truth, our foot is in the door.

Cameraman Diego and Ham, Bacon, & Porkchop's closeup

Education is key here; we need to learn as a public what the problems and conflicts are in this industry so we start making better decisions on a legislative as well as a personal level.   One thing I know for sure since starting this project is that the energy industry is a great liar. And since it fills the bank quite well, our political leaders stand idly by or believe the lies themselves.   But this film is our little bit of education and we hope stories like it can help raise the knowledge base of the people. We’re learning so much about this conflict as we go along, and we want you to learn with us. Please help us get this film made!

http://vimeo.com/39817997

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/658194669/holy-terror-documentary-film

http://www.halffropro.com/directors-blog

.

Every Drop Counts

clearwater — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:47:05 +0000

Every Drop Counts

How can I conserve water? My answer may surprise you.

Last week , a City of Longmont water board member commented that he has a fiduciary responsibility to sell Longmont’s ‘surplus water’. Currently, Longmont leases out 600 acre feet of water per year to big oil for fracking and drilling.

Oil fracking and drilling within our community will swell to consume thousands of acre feet of clear water per year.

Simultaneously, Longmont is encouraging its citizens to reduce their use of treated water by 3500 acre feet per year.

So, if I have a leaky faucet I have two choices:

1. I can repair the faucet to reduce my consumption. This will increase Longmont’s ‘surplus water’. The ‘surplus water’ from my leak will be sold for fracking. The water will be mixed with toxic chemicals to produce fracking fluid. The fracking fluid will be injected miles under the ground into the Niobrara tight sand formations. Toxic water spurts back from the well, and needs to be quarantined. It is trucked hundreds of miles to disposal sites to be forced into two mile deep isolation wells. The mountain stream water that Longmont sold to the drilling company is irrevocably removed from the hydrological system (assuming that everything goes well). It will never again runoff the surface. It will never again soak down or
evaporate up into the water cycle.
2. I can let the faucet continue to drip. In this case my leaked water will soak down into the soil or evaporate into the atmosphere or drain to the treatment system. It is conserved within our natural environment.

So, what is the best way for me to conserve the water that is leaking out of my faucet?

Maybe I should just let it drip. Every drop counts.

Joseph Bassman
Longmont, CO

Donald L Hassig, Cancer Action Network, draft SGEIS comment

clearwater — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:36:27 +0000

Deputy Commissioner Leff takes the position that the best way to proceed with HVHF in New York State is to make a firm commitment to minimizing all exposures to harmful chemical substances released into
the environment by shale gas exploitation. I argued that considering the history of shale gas exploitation throughout the United States and the limited ability of the DEC to enforce laws and regulations already in existence it would not be possible for DEC to act in a sufficiently substantial manner upon any commitment to minimization of exposures. There are many pollutant carcinogen exposures associated with shale
gas exploitation that have not been addressed in those areas where this activity exists, including: (1) benzene, formaldehyde, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and soot particulates emissions of diesel trucks and compressors; (2) chemical carcinogens present in fracturing fluid and disposed of so as to contaminate surface and ground waters; (3) chemical carcinogens evaporating into the outdoor atmosphere from holding tanks utilized at gas well sites; (4) chemical carcinogens evaporating from HVHF waste water and entering the outdoor atmosphere; and (5) radioactive nuclides brought to the surface of the Earth in HVHF waste water.

Shale gas exploitation is not currently possible without imposing a relatively large quantity of exposure to pollutant carcinogens upon New York State residents. At a time when cancer incidence is already far above an acceptable level as a result of exposures to pollutant carcinogens released into the environment by past and current polluting activities, shale gas exploitation is not acceptable. Our organization advocates for a ban on shale gas exploitation throughout the United States.

Please utilize the powers of the DEC to set about insuring that the public is provided with a scientific knowledge based portrayal of shale gas exploitation impacts on health. Will the DEC work in concert with the New York State Department of Health to produce a Health Impact Assessment for shale gas exploitation? Provision of such a document to the residents of New York State will build political support for the banning of shale gas exploitation in our state. Knowledge must be used to protect public health. We find ourselves living in a time of pollutant carcinogen exposure cancer epidemic. This is the time for minimizing exposure to all pollutant carcinogens. Please assist with the effort to reject shale gas exploitation in New York State.

Donald L. Hassig, Director
Cancer Action NY
Cancer Action News Network
P O Box 340
Colton, NY USA 13625
315.262.2456
www.canceractionny.org

In the way

clearwater — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 05:25:54 +0000

EDITOR: At 7 p.m. on Nov. 14, 2011, in spite of 22,094 comments objecting to this project, 35 bi-partisan Pa. state representatives, 2 state senators, the EPA, the Sierra Club, Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, and many other organizations across Pa., the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved and granted a certificate to Inergy/CNYOG to begin construction on the MARC-1 Pipeline Project. With this certificate, FERC has granted them the power to exercise eminent domain on private property owners who can not agree to their terms, or simply chose to say No to having a 30″ pipeline run across their property, even if it means the loss of use of that property by the property owner for agriculture, farming, recreation, or simply to have a safe, quiet property where we can raise our families, or pass on to future generations.

To add insult to injury, the environmental protections, setbacks from residential areas, upgraded materials and safety standards have apparently been removed from their application. They will primarily be using “class one” safety standards, which means minimum safety precautions and materials, minimum noise control [if any], and emission/pollution controls.

It will also be the enabler for virtually hundreds of unregulated gathering lines, an unknown number of compressor stations, and turn New Albany, Monroeton, Dushore, Laporte, Lake Mokoma, Sonestown, Muncy Valley, Beech Glen, Glenn Mawr, Picture Rocks, and Hughesville into a drilling corridor for the gas industry. This signals the end of agriculture, tourism, fishing, hunting, new home building, small businesses, as well as our way of life in the Endless Mountains. It will also have a devastating effect on property values, quality of life, public health and safety, while ultimately increasing property taxes to offset the damage to our already fragile infrastructure. Corporate profits will socialize the cost to those who live in the most heavily impacted areas.

This permit, along with HB 1950 and SB 1100 that will remove, and prompt the right of municipalities to enact their own regulations, ordinances, laws, protections, and safety standards regarding oil and gas development in and around our communities.

In short, life as we’ve known it is now over for Bradford, Sullivan and Lycoming counties, and life across rural Pa. This change will not be for the better. A 7- to 10-year “boom/bust” cycle, which we are already 3.5 years into, will leave rural Pa. a toxic and unlivable industrial and economic wasteland when all those “industry jobs” move on.

We owe our children, and our children’s children yet to be born, an apology for leaving this world in far worse shape than we received it, and for the burdensome financial responsibility for it they will inherit.

I’d like to remind everyone to take the opportunity to appropriately thank our obtuse local (Sullivan County Commissioners; Darla Bortz, Betty Reibson, and Bob Getz,) (Bradford County Commissioners John Sullivan and Doug McLinko) and state/federal lawmakers (Senator Pat Toomey and Congressman Tom Marino), who went out of their way to “urge FERC to overlook the concerns and interests of local citizens and approve the MARC-1.”

At this point, considering the FERC approval, and the horrific legislation poised to be passed, I no longer see a political solution, legislative remedies, or effective legal recourse to what is being forced upon us by the gas and oil industry with the consent of our elected leaders. Beyond an environmental problem, and a health and public safety problem, the bigger issue is that we have a democracy problem and a leadership problem in Pennsylvania that is bi-partisan.

Our system of government has morphed into a corrupt “corpocracy” whose goal is to control us by taking control of the essential ingredients of our existence: affordable and sustainable energy, pure water, clean air, and our sense of place.

This morning, I awoke in the security of my “home.” Tonight, I will lay down in just a “house” that I happen to own that has not had safe potable water for two months, and may never have again. I no longer have a “sense of place,” or a feeling of “home” here, knowing that I have no voice, no rights as a PA citizen/property owner, and am of no concern to political/corporate the powers that be. I am, as we all are now in Pennsylvania, politically insignificant, and simply “in the way” of the gas industry’s corporate special interests.

John Trallo
Sonestown

Welcome to the un-naturalgas.org weblog

clearwater — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 10:32:14 +0000

.Thanks for visiting. Please also visit our main site:

un-naturalgas.org

including:

natural gas extraction FAQs

lies, damned lies & statistics

resources & documents

images & video

the organizers page

events calendar

already leased?

contact us or support our work

follow us on facebook

To see current posts, please scroll down past the ‘sticky’ posts here at the top of this page.

Want to post and comment at this blog? Please do! For how-to, see sidebar, “Purpose of this blog & how to participate.” Thanks!

Events calendar

clearwater — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 10:31:54 +0000

Harrisburg: Fix Dimock’s Water

clearwater — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:23:41 +0000

clearwater — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 11:22:38 +0000

.

Click on icon to go to Elizabeth Burns’ blog

Read about Rancho Los Malulos on this blog

See RSS feeds in right sidebar for her recent posts

Elizabeth has now been subpoenaed by Chevron
for publicizing their poor performance.

.

“Poisoned Places”: Tonawanda one of many proofs that regulation cannot protect us

clearwater — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 03:56:22 +0000

Our neighbors in Tonawanda, on the Niagara River in western New York State just south of Buffalo, were being poisoned for decades by a company that, unlike the gas/oil industry, does not enjoy exemptions from clean water, clean air, toxic waste laws and other regulations set in place to protect our environment and health.

For many years regulatory agencies DEC (NYS) and EPA (federal) ignored residents’ complaints of foul air and physical ailments, outrageously high rates of cancer and other diseases, and benzene levels 500 TIMES HIGHER than what is considered the highest acceptable level in state guidelines. Not only benzene, but other highly toxic chemicals were being released over decades into the air and water by a company called Tonawanda Coke Corporation. (No doubt others of the 50 or so industrial polluters that have PERMITS in Tonawanda contributed even more.)

.

From the piece:

Joe Martens, commissioner of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, defended the record of his agency, which eventually set up high-tech air quality monitors that documented extremely elevated benzene levels, leading to the enforcement actions. But he said such sophisticated equipment had not been available previously. So state officials had no way of knowing about the benzene, formaldehyde, and other toxic emissions seeping from leaks in equipment and piping at the plant, Martens said. “Hazardous air pollutants are difficult to detect. We didn’t have the equipment to do the type of detection — you know, police work — that EPA was able to do” later.

After reading this, what kind of idiot would say, “Hey, sure the DEC and DEP and EPA will protect us from being poisoned by industry”? Ask the people of Tonawanda, many of whom have become very sick and some of whom have died because of the toxins dumped on them by this single iron-smelting factory.

.

Yet we are to trust that the DEC and other flaccid regulatory agencies will protect us from Big Gas and related industries and their fracking and related machines? No way, Jose! We must tell the DEC and the governor that no amount of regulation is acceptable. DEC (and DEP and other states’ agencies) regulations are not acceptable. Only a full and total ban on industrial poisoning from fracking and other industries is acceptable.

.

Read the great investigative piece on Tonawanda citizens who fought back against the polluting company, which was FINALLY CHARGED IN CRIMINAL COURT because poisoning us and our communities IS A CRIME and thus should be in the criminal code. Every one of the corporate officers and senior staff should serve serious jail time and pay heavy financial damages to those they poisoned. Not that any amount of money could restore the poisoned people’s lives or adequately compensate for their losses.

This piece is part of a fine, scary, and eye-opening new series by the Center for Public Integrity in concert with Slate and NPR, called “Poisoned Places.”

As often happens during in-depth investigations — an unexpected discovery. Reporters learned that the EPA maintains a “watch list” that includes serious or chronic Clean Air Act violators that have not been subject to timely enforcement. Two versions of the internal list, never previously made public, were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. (More about the watch list here.)

Congratulations to the investigators, researchers, writers, editors, publishers, and funder of these important pieces. May they awaken people to the dangers we face and help them force change to protect and sustain the places we live, the air we breathe, and the lives we hope to continue leading.

- Maura Stephens, independent writer, associate director of the Park Center for Independent Media, and a cofounder of Coalition to Protect New York

“We are dealing with an insurgency.” In your dreams, dude.

clearwater — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 07:55:43 +0000

To anyone who knows a little of the history and nature of the oil & gas industry, it will come as no particular surprise that a couple of gas industry executives, at a 10/31 – 11/01 conference in Houston, recommended the use of military psy ops techniques and former military psy ops operatives to infiltrate and influence communities in an campaign to “overcome public concern over hydraulic fracturing.”

Over and over, on every scale, from its dealings with everyone from homeowners to local government to state government, the industry has demonstrated a gross sense of entitlement. “What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is mine.” (Links later. ) But perhaps nothing exemplifies this so simply and directly as the statement of Matt Carmichael, Anadarko representative, (see photo above) who recommended his fellow industry executives, “Download the U.S. Army-slash-Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual, because we are dealing with an insurgency. There’s a lot of good lessons in there and coming from a military background, I found the insight in that extremely remarkable.”

His fellow executive, Matt Pitzarella, also pictured above, of Range Resources, seconded Carmichael’s advice: “One employee who works with municipal governments in Pennsylvania has a background in psychological operations in the Army. Since the majority of his work is spent in local hearings and developing local regulations for drilling, we’ve found that his service in the Middle East is a real asset.” (Story with audio clips here)

Of course, these statements reveal much that warrants commentary, but somewhere near the top is what Carmichael’s phrase, “We are dealing with an insurgency,” demonstrates about the gas industry’s self-perception.

Here’s Wikipedia’s definition of an insurgency: “An armed rebellion against a constituted authority (for example, an authority recognized as such by the United Nations).”

So if in the gas industry’s thinking, community resistance to the many hazards of gas extraction constitutes an insurgency, or illegitimate armed rebellion, then the gas industry considers itself a “constituted authority.”

Citizens everywhere have news for you, boys: yes, the very special treatment you’ve been getting for the last 100 years has made you a very spoiled, very large, and indeed very dangerous child. But you are not a “constituted authority” despite your wet dreams. And we are not a rebellion.

You are the outlaws. We are the citizens with whom the constituted authority ultimately rests.

One thing you got right: we are armed, with a weapon that history suggests you have little use for – the truth.

Kim Jastremski, subject in Applebome NYT story, responds

clearwater — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 23:37:38 +0000

.

My response to Peter Applebome’s NYT article, in which I outline 3 major complaints:

.

1.

I take issue with the way the article paints a picture of division in our community.  In fact, in my remarks to Peter Applebome, I made the point many times that, if anything, this issue has UNITED our community in the face of the gargantuan and wealthy gas industry and the few individuals who have fallen prey to it.  I was under the impression that Mr. Applebome was doing a story about grassroots efforts to fight fracking in upstate NY and the group I helped start called Middlefield Neighbors.  Middlefield Neighbors, which is the real story in my mind, was not even mentioned in the article.  I spoke with Applebome at length about the evolution of Middlefield Neighbors; the work we have done to educate and inform our town about fracking and gas leases in our area; the survey we conducted in which 84% of respondents were opposed to drilling, and only 6% for it; and the massive outpouring of support our Town Board received when they voted to strengthen our existing zoning laws and Master Plan.

.

I also invited 5 other much more educated and articulate members of Middlefield Neighbors and Sustainable Otsego to meet with Applebome in my home, and none of the over two hours of conversation we had made it into the article.  Applebome had his article in mind before he visited Cooperstown, and it is my sincere regret that I ever mentioned the piece of hate mail I received or the angry woman I encountered at the gym when she interrupted a private conversation I was having, because, as I told the reporter, these are in fact anomalies in what has been, in general, an experience of community building and unification, as Middlefield and other towns rise up against corporate greed.  I am ashamed at my naïveté, and that my words have been used to such ends, and I regret any problems this might have caused.

.

2.

Furthermore, it seems facile and beneath the reputation of the NY Times to trot out the tired old story that the fracking debate is an argument between wealthy, downstate yuppies and impoverished, native farmers. Peter Applebome should have known better and taken the time to report what is really newsworthy and exciting about the antifracking movement in upstate NY—that it has unified people from all walks of life, from all socio-economic levels, all of whom realize that this is the defining issue of our time.

.

I personally am not a wealthy urbanite, although the article would imply that I am, and I am also not a newcomer to Cooperstown.  As I shared with the reporter, my family has been in this area since the turn of the 20th century.  My grandfather was a vet in Cooperstown since the 1940s. My grandmother was the Director of the northern Otsego County chapter of the Red Cross.  My father grew up in the house next door to mine.  I was born at Bassett hospital. I spent summers here with my grandparents my entire life.  On our visits with them, we would swim and fish at Otsego Lake, “help” my grandfather with the cats and dogs in the kennels, drive around from farm to farm with him on house calls, and roam the woods and streams.

.

But I really believe that all that is beside the point.  The point is that gas drilling is not going to help poor farmers solve their financial problems, or help anyone at all, really, aside from the executives at Gastem or Cabot or ExxonMobil.  As Ken Jaffe of Slope Farms in Meredith, NY, put it, “He said, she said” misses the story.  It is a story of overwhelming local opposition to hydrofracking. It is a story of gas companies attempting to use state government power to violate local land use regulations and voter sentiment, and impose their will on this region.”

.

Native or non-native, rich or poor, EVERYONE will be adversely affected if fracking comes to our area, which is why nearly everyone who lives here opposes it so strongly. If downstaters and Syracusans don’t oppose it as strongly, it is because Cuomo has protected those watersheds, in a move that clearly demonstrates that he knows high-volume hydrofracking is not safe, but he trusts that city dwellers don’t really care and will still vote for him later on. Applebome failed to mention this major story, which could have served to fill a gap in New York Times reporting.

.

3.

Lastly, the article’s implication that expression of opinions contrary to that held by the minority who want drilling has caused a tension in Cooperstown that might not otherwise be here is absurd.  The tension arrived when the gas men arrived and exploited the economic depression in our area, particularly exploiting the many farmers who signed. The idea expressed in the article that it is somehow unseemly or unladylike or ungentlemanly to cry foul at the situation and to attempt to educate the community about the injustice and the dangers of gas drilling, as experienced in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, smacks of censorship in the interest of preserving a mythical status quo of harmony that exists only in the minds of an elite few.

.

My husband, George Hovis, responded to this aspect of the article very well, so I will quote him here: “The article depicts divisiveness over proposed upstate hydrofracking in a mostly negative light, as if any individuals contributing to such discord are enemies of the peace. I am reminded of the many “moderates” in the U.S. South who cautioned Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to discontinue his protests against racial segregation because they felt such protests created tensions within Birmingham and other communities. Dr. King responded in his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” with regret that these individuals did not “express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations.” Although he “earnestly opposed violent tension,” King argued that there is “a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.” The same might be said about the struggle of residents in Cooperstown and across upstate New York, who are battling the gas industry’s invasion of their communities, awakening in the citizenry a belief that they can participate in democracy and stand up to corporate power. These citizens have discovered the abiding truth that they can do so not by deferring to politicians but only by speaking out publicly. I believe the vast majority of upstate New Yorkers who have participated in the opposition to hydrofracking would agree with the injunction: ‘Be civil, but do not be silent.’ “

.

I consider myself a person of peace, and I make every effort in my interactions with others to listen to their side and try to understand their point of view, but I will not be silent in the face of this threat to our water and our land.  As I told the reporter, “Fracking is not safe, and I couldn’t live with myself if I just sat back and let it happen here without raising my voice against the gas industry that values profits more than people’s health and the environment. Someday I will be able to tell my children and grandchildren that I did every possible thing I could to try to save our home.”

.

Although I am not writing this letter from the Otsego County jail (my current discomfort merely involves my picture on the front page of the New York Times and shame that I was not savvy enough to avoid being manipulated), you can rest assured that I would if it came to that, and that I will continue to be “civil, but not silent.”

.

Thank you all for the good work that you do and for your attention to my response. I am continually amazed to find myself in the company of such intelligent and creative people, and grateful for your strength and support.

.

–Kim Jastremski

An abbreviated version of Kim’s letter was published by the NYT: Antifracking Movement

For the story to which Kim Jastremski responds, see NYT story: Drilling Debate in Cooperstown, NY, is Personal

Your yard, your kids, their pipeline

clearwater — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 08:40:35 +0000

.
.

Pipeline in Dallas, PA

“Neighbor to Neighbor: Living the Drill,” No 1: Deposit, 10/23/11 – the video

clearwater — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 06:49:04 +0000

.