FRACK NO!
Save our region from the worst environmental disaster in history!
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WHAT TO READ |
WHAT TO WATCH |
WHAT TO DO |
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Here are the Simple Facts: 1) In 2005 the Republican controlled U.S Congress, aided by the Bush-Cheney EPA (under Christy Todd-Whitman), exempted the gas industry from the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and dozens of other Federal environmental laws - laws which took decades to craft and enforce. Without these protections, gas companies across the United States, were free to use technology leased from Halliburton (yes. Dick Cheney's Halliburton), and have begun a systematic and ruthless destruction of much of the water supply of our country - from Colorado to Wyoming, Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Ohio. Now they've invaded Pennsylvania and are massed along the border of New York's Southern Tier getting ready to drill thousands of wells - only held back temporarily by New York State's flimsy and very poorly enforced environmental laws which are currently under review (below). 2) Horizontal gas drilling and subsequent hydraulic fracturing (known as "fracking") is a method of extracting natural gas from shale, a layer of the earth's crust close to 2 miles below the surface. The well is drilled vertically until it reaches the shale. It then levels off and drills through the shale horizontally. Then 3 to 5 million gallons of fluid are forced into the shale under tremendous pressure. The gas companies claim fracking fluid is simply sand and water - but in fact it contains over 200 chemicals, 50 of which have been shown to cause neurological and endocrine disruptions in humans as well as cancer. But because they are not subject to the laws that govern every other industry the gas companies do not have to reveal to anyone - not even the EPA - what is in the fracking fluid. 3) Deep under ground the shale reacts to the pressure of the fracking fluid by releasing many small pockets of natural gas - sort of like shaking up a bottle of soda. This gas, and the fracking fluids, along with salty brine that has been laying dormant for millions of years comes barreling back to the surface under tremendous pressure. But now the fluid has a new constituent in it - radioactivity. The Marcellus Shale, for one, is the area of the earth's crust where radioactive elements have concentrated over the eons. These include solids like uranium and thorium as well as radioactive gases such as radon. 4) According to the gas industry these fluids and gases come back to the surface without contaminating ground water - but that has not been the case around the country. There have been many accounts and proof of these materials escaping from the pipe or bypassing the pipe altogether and fouling wells, streams, and even causing explosions at the surface in barns, cisterns, and houses. 5) But even if the majority of these pressurized gases and fracking fluids reach the surface these hazardous materials need to be contained and disposed of. And don't forget we're talking about 3 to 5 millions gallons. New York State, for one, has only three waste water treatment plants that are capable of handling these sorts of materials but even if there were 3 hundred of such plants they could not handle these sorts of volumes. So what happens with these materials? According to many reports and evidence, the fluids are dumped in huge vinyl lined pond called evaporation pits where the water evaporates away leaving a deadly concentrated slurry of fracking poisons and radioactive waste. There is repeated evidence that gas companies have often simply plowed the evaporation ponds into the ground and covered them up with soil - or taken some of this sludge and disposed of it god only knows in whose backyard or in some isolated illegal dumping spot. 6) To drill one well requires at least 600 truck trips carting in the 3 to 5 millions gallons of water (and where does all that water come from? Good question - but not many good answers). These are the largest tanker trucks on the road today weighing in excess of 80,000 pound per and these round the clock tanker trips wreek havoc on local roads, many of which were never constructed to handle such loads. And the huge compressors which run round the clock create more emissions in one day than a small city would create in a year. Not to mention the fact the natural gas (methane) is 9 times more polluting than carbon dioxide and even the gas companies admit that 3 to 5 per cent of the gas is lost in during the recovery and compression stage. 7) But what is even more alarming is the SCALE of these operations. Since these are not traditional gas wells which tap large pockets of underground gas - each fracking well only releases proportionally a small amount of gas. So it's only by drilling wells in large numbers that there is any real payoff. The gas companies are proposing that there may be as many as 10,000 "pads" constructed in the Delaware Basin and the Southern Tier of New York (which incidentally encompasses the New York City watershed and reservoir system). And each of these "pads" can contain up to 10 wells. And each of these wells are fracked not just once but 10 to 15 times during the life of the well.. Here is some of the math, done conservatively, to give you a small idea of the vast scope of this disasterous drilling strategy. 50,000 gas wells will require: a) 150 BILLION gallons of water
drained out of local lakes, rivers, and aquafers brought in - and this
is for one fracking per well only (multiply up to 10 times) These numbers are so overwhelmingly huge that they seem ridiculously, impossibly large. But these are based on drilling profiles from other areas of our country. It will change our region on the scale of a World War. And the gas companies PR about how natural gas is so clean and easy and comparatively unobtrusive is so belied by what's happened in these other states. The track records of these gas companies is frankly deplorable and part of the public record for years. (please consult videos). 8) The regional water systems that are threatened by
these gas fracking operations serve 34% of the people of New Jersey, 42% of
the people of
Pennsylvania, 81.5% of the State of Delaware, and nearly 70% of New York
State's population. We are talking about the survival water needs of nearly 30
million people.. 9) The Delaware Basin and Southern Tier of New York - one of the most naturally beautiful and productive regions of the country will be reduced to a industrial wasteland - it's landscape will resemble other parts of the country such as West Virginia and Colorado and Texas but on a much larger scale as the gas deposits here are quite large.
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MAYOR TILLMAN of Dish, Texas
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Take Action! Don't depend on the next person to do it! Take a few minutes TODAY and help preserve the water, the air, and the land of New York and Pennsylvania! TAKE ACTION NOW! The
deadline to comment on the DEC's document - the draft Supplemental
Generic Environmental Impact Statement - is DEC. 31! Go to
http://www.shaleshock.org/take-action-now/
to sign petitions. CONTACT GOVERNOR
PATERSON: Tell him to withdraw the dSGEIS because it is utterly
inadequate to safeguard New York’s environment and public health. Email:
governor@chamber.state.ny.us;
Phone: 518-474-8390. To get on our EMAIL LIST
for news updates etc. send us an email at: WEBSITES TO VISIT
UN-NATURAL GAS:
CATSKILL MOUNTAIN KEEPER
DELAWARE RIVER KEEPER:
DAMASCUS PA CITIZENS
PRO PUBLICA:
TOXIC TARGETING:
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VIDEOS 1) This 6 1/2 minute video that will show you what could come here, and remind you what we have to lose! By Mara Alper, shown at the "Life Is Water" concert at the State Theatre this past Saturday night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHBjw2hZ4U4
3) Trailer and Clips from SPLIT
ESTATE by Debra Anderson. This amazing movie brings this billion
dollar rape of our country's water supply down to earth - and we see the
everyday people and their lives under this threat: 4) Ron Gulla, a farmer from Hickory, PA. who represents what can happen when a gas lease is undertaken: |