Truck traffic is a mundane yet no less horrendous byproduct of fracking. Imagine heavy tankers and Wide Loads roaring past your kitchen window every fifteen seconds, morning, noon, and night. Traumatic, right? Many compare it to an army mobilization. Track Traffic Procession — Longest One Yet, recorded in Montrose PA by veraduerga on July 29, 2012, gives you a pretty good idea of what drilling can do to an otherwise quiet town. The video was featured on the Bradford County-based blog Gas Wells Are Not Our Friends. In it, Vera sends a message to her neighbors in New York: “Keep it out.”
“Why do you have a camera?” asks a passerby.
“I’m recording it so people know what we’re going through. To tell the world, y’know, the nonsense that’s here…”
“Yeah, I don’t blame you.”
Deposit Truthland™ Nonsense Here
Vera also braved the truck traffic to attend a totally “truthy” screening of the gas industry infomercial Truthland in Deposit, NY. I’m pretty sure there’s nothing more obnoxious than arrogant gasholes bullshitting a shill-filled audience in a random auditorium, but you decide. Perhaps Energy In Depth has thought better of airing its propaganda on college campuses after the debacle at the State University of New York Buffalo earlier in July. Chip Northrup captured that scene brilliantly in Truthland Bombs In Buffalo, on No Fracking Way, a blog for New York and Pennsylvania hosted by ShaleShockMedia.org.
Apparently, the intimidating police presence didn’t go over very well among the SUNY students, and the Q&A was cut short. One can say it was “intimidating” because, according to Buck Quigley in Police vs. Questioner at Truthland Screening in Buffalo, NY posted on ArtVoice.com, there were seven armed police, wearing bullet-proof vests no less, for a crowd of 50 or so at the small Campus Art Center.
In Deposit, during the Q&A, Vera asks who is responsible for pollution caused by the 8H wells of Truthland‘s absent heroine, Shelly DePue? “I see that she’s not here, so I can’t ask her directly.” It’s a fair question considering that water wells in Franklin Township, within a mile of the DePue frack wells, are now erupting with methane and, also, she’d just sat through thirty-four-and-a-half minutes of DePue’s dreck. The gas guy, who looks a lot like a mid-life Dick Cheney and may or may not have been wearing Kevlar, responded:
“That’s Pennsylvania. That’s not New York… One of the things that makes New York different from other states is that when you hit shallow gas in New York – and some gas migration could possibly be a problem – when you’re drilling a well you have to stop. You have to kill the well… That’s why New York doesn’t have that problem right now. That’s probably the biggest reason why New York doesn’t have that problem.”
New York vs. Pennsylvania?
So it’s the PA DEP’s fault that the Truthland wells are reportedly polluting the surrounding water table? It’s NY DEC, not PA DEP, who’s getting gas right? Or is it because New York doesn’t have over 7,000 fracked wells, yet? Regardless, it would appear that a new industry tactic is to divide and conquer two neighboring states.
The gas guys in Deposit are repeatedly asked who is ultimately responsible, exactly where does the buck stop in the event of damage or disaster? It isn’t until the end of the Q&A, though, that they finally commit to an answer:
“Our leases hold the leaseholder responsible.”
One can only surmise that includes the disappearing Mrs. DePue.
Tags: Chip Northrup, Deposit, Depue Frack Well Violations, NY, shale gas drilling, Shale Shock, truck traffic, Truthland, Vera Scroggins
Keep Tap Water Safe 
August 14, 2012 at 10:19 am |
thanks, for posting this video of mine and sharing the info; we need NYer’s to know what is happening to us and they can come for citizen tours that I give weekly to see for themselves.