I’ve been curious why the lamestream media has been slow to cover the Stop The Frack Attack! rally on Saturday in DC. After all, there were several thousand protesters. (I was there, I counted them.) Then I was reminded that no major news network, not even CNN, covered the largest public protest in Japan’s history earlier in the month, either – 100,000 people opposed to more nuclear power for that Fukushima-shocked nation. Similarly, the media ignored ensuing protests in Tokyo, though the story was finally picked up by Reuters and The Washington Post after protesters vitalized a key gubernatorial election there. Has ANGA threatened to pull their eight billion ads? Philip Bump examines the troubling phenomena of an under-performing media willfully ignoring the news in A Weekend Of Protests Barely Makes The Papers on Grist.org. (more…)
I may have been the 5000th protester, but I got to shake Josh Fox’s hand and thank him for keeping our tap water safe! For every person who made it to the Stop The Frack Attack! rally in Washington DC, many more were there in spirit. This movement is growing!
Filmmaker Josh Fox With A Cluster of Reporters
“This issue’s not going away,” said filmmaker Fox, flanked by reporters on the march. (more…)
A single sane voice in the lamestream media? As early as 2010, msnbc‘s Rachel Maddow has been asking the seemingly obvious questions no one else wants to ask. (more…)
“Research has revealed that there is trouble in truth land. One of the Depue wells (8H) is severely flawed with a bubbling annulus. An annulus is the cemented layer between layers of steel, you know, the one that ‘never leaks’ and can survive cannon-type explosions as seen toward the end of the “Truthland” movie. Two more of the Depue wells (2H and 6H) have Pennsylvania DEP violations, which are shown below. Needless to say, it’s not going nearly as well as all the ‘experts’ interviewed in the Truthland movie led Shelly to believe it would!”
Read more details, and see copies of the Depue H8 DEP inspection violaiton reports, at Marcellus-Shale.US
Has The Truthland™ 8H Frack Well Ruined The Water Table?
Scott Cannon’s video camera is loaded for bear.
Routinely stonewalled by state agencies like the DEP, Resources Environmental, Fish and Boat, or the many other offices they’re told to call, Pennsylvanians have been quick to recognize that it’s up to them to put the impacts of industrial shale gas drilling on record. Official documentation of the damage inflicted by the industry on land, air and water may be slow to emerge, if ever.
Filmaker Cannon and Gas Drilling Awareness Coalitionhave long chronicled the devastating impacts of shale gas development in the epic The Marcellus Shale Reality Tour series. Here, the fifth installment covers events occurring in Franklin Forks, PA, not long after several frack wells were drilled nearby. It’s a perplexing and pathetic irony that four of those wells are on property owned by the Depues, the perky Truthland family seen sprawled across sofas, slamming Gasland, referring to it as “this little movie.” Y’know, the ones with the bubbling annulus. (more…)
STOP THE FRACK ATTACK! in Washington DC ~ Saturday 7.28.12
Clearly, this thing’s gonna be The Thing. In fact, STOP THE FRACK ATTACK promises to be the biggest anti-fracking rally in the United States. Ever. Fractivists around the country, and around the world, are psyched. A new rallying cry from Josh Fox and Mark Ruffalo doesn’t hurt, either. (more…)
Publicity for the anti-fracking movement and the upcoming anti-fracking rally in DC – Stop The Frack Attack! – has been outstanding. Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon singing Don’t Frack My Mother, and it’s quickly exploding on YouTube. Real Time’s Bill Maher had both Mark Ruffalo and Rachel Maddow on the same show, the season finale no less. Steven Colbert is now even more infamous for locking horns with Pennsylvania Gashole-in-Chief, Tom Ridge, thanks to Fox’s newly released short film, The Sky Is Pink. And no one can stop smiling after David Letterman announced, “We’re screwed!” in a recent anti-fracking rant. Even Business Insider picked up the clip.
Luckily, it’s not just the lamestream who’s buzzing. Facebook is alive with carpool information and bus ticket sales. Can’t wait.
Rep. Jesse White’s Search For An ‘Honest and Fact-Based’ Discussion
There’s nothing irrational about wanting to protect our land, air and water from the ravages of industrial shale gas drilling. Today, Truthland is making the rounds with sponsored viewings in drilling regions across the state. I suppose the showings are meant to mimic the viewings of Gasland that fractivists regularly host in their homes. Make no mistake, Truthland was created by and for the Gas Industry, so they could have an artsy puff piece, sort of a mockumentary answer to Josh Fox’s powerful, Golden Globe winning, Academy Award-nominated film. But serious propaganda it ain’t, and if the ramifications of people believing this dreck weren’t so serious, one might even say it’s a gas. Truth is, Truthland only generates more exposure for Gasland, and makes us impatient for the promised sequel, Gasland2. Until then, Fox fills the factual void with this emergency short film, The Sky Is Pink.
Rep. Jesse White [D-46th] recently attended a viewing of Truthland in his district “to learn” … (more…)
“They’re poisoning you, and they’re telling you there’s nothing wrong…”
Gas companies don’t have to win the debate over whether fracking is safe or not, they only need to run out the clock. To argue the point seems kinda moot when they’re fracking away anyway. There are more than 200,000 fracking rigs in the US and, according to StateImpact’s frack map app, nearly 7,725 of them are in Pennsylvania. Yet if there’s no honest debate, who really wins and who loses? If you happen to live in a drilling-free county (you know who you are), consider taking a moment to listen to the people who live among the 7,725 rigs. Their experiences make it difficult to maintain that more fossil fuels and deadly dangerous drilling jobs are such a great thing.
The Woodlands by Rich Waters from Butler County, Pennsylvania
“When you’re so used to being healthy, it’s not fun getting sick and not knowing why.”
Uploaded by NatureAbounds:Residents in Butler County, Pennsylvania share their fracking experience. Film shared courtesy of Nature Abounds’ friend Rich Waters, a local photographer and videographer who is documenting how fracking is changing the lives of his neighbors in Southwest Pennsylvania. (more…)
Wanna see a gas industry executive lying like a dirty rug to an understandably concerned citizen at public Zoning Board meeting in Pennsylvania? Watch.
“Shouldn’t have any in it,” drones Chief Gathering’s expert witness, an employee whose name is not readily apparent, in response to questions about specific toxins from a resident concerned about the air impacts of a newly permitted Glycol Dehydration Unit near her home in Monroe Township. She wanted to know if Chief’s new unit would emit benzene, toluene or formaldehyde. He said the station will emit only methane. She also asked if the emissions would affect her children’s asthma. She was told, simply, “I don’t believe it does.”
Something smelled off to Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition Luzerne County, who picked up on Chief’s misinformation right away. They submitted data, along with the gas guy’s testimony, to two highly regarded experts seeking their take on this brand of bullshit from industry boots on the ground. GDACLucerne then posted the responses with the video on YouTube. It’s footage like this that makes the gas industry wince, and want to ban citizens from videotaping public township meetings. (more…)
Once again, PennEnvironment has smashed the barrier between Big Green and grassroots by eloquently framing the case for a moratorium on fracking in Pennsylvania. This week, PennEnviro presented a series of videos entitled Marcellus Shale Stories. Each clip features citizens speaking out, succinctly describing one aspect of the complex story that is Industrial Shale Gas Drilling. Together, their experiences are a testament to the devastating toll that shale gas production is presently exacting from unwitting Pennsylvanians like you and me.
Non-hysterically narrated by PennEnvironment‘s Erica Staaf, Marcellus Shale Stories is more than a catalog of the ill-effects of gas drilling. It’s an anthology of cautionary tales from Pennsylvania’s Sacrifice Zone, and it underscores the serious need for a moratorium on new drilling permits until comprehensive socio-economic and environmental impact studies are conducted. Otherwise, we are all vulnerable to:
Adverse Health Impacts
Water Contamination
Declining Property Values
Compromised Agriculture and Food Safety
Loss and Fragmentation of State Forest Land to Gas Drilling
Destruction of Scenic Landscapes Adversely Impacting Tourism
Downstream Pollution in Cities and Neighboring States
In case you didn’t notice, Pennsylvania already has a “Sacrifice Zone.”
Don’t believe it? Then I suggest you ask Rebecca Roter, who discovered months ago that her home is to be engulfed by the heavily industrialized business of shale gas production. Since then, Roter has been doing everything possible to obtain information on the scope and nature of a planned, GP-5 permitted compressor station project near her home in the Susquehanna region. She’s determined to protect the land she loves from air pollution, pipelines, noise, clear-cutting and truck traffic, but so far her efforts have only been stymied by the PA Department of Environmental Protection and other state agencies.
Roter recently initiated the Facebook Group, Constitution Pipeline Ferc Comments Needed NOW! PA NY eminent domain is coming! which is devoted to finding a path to real environmental protection from this project for her region. The group is currently petitioning the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to mandate Dispersion Studies and regular ambient testing for this facility. (more…)
Been reading Wendy Lee’s heart-wrenching coverage of events surrounding the eviction of residents from the Riverdale Mobile Home Park in Jersey Shore, PA. It’s surreal to me that this is happening in Pennsylvania, USA, and the lamestream media has basically ignored the story. Thankfully, Dr. Lee and others have recorded their impressions of the injustices there.
Whether or not you think Aqua has a right to develop this facility, and syphon 3 million gallons of fresh water per day from the Susquehanna River Watershed, what happened in Riverdale is not only emblematic of the dramatically altered nature of police enforcement in Pennsylvania, it’s also a troubling reminder that a private entity owns the public’s fresh water supplies. Above all, it calls into question who has more value in our society, corporate citizens or individual citizens? We already know who has more political clout. (more…)
What Did The Delaware River Ever Do To Tommy Corbett?
PA Governor Tom Corbett wants to drill the iconic Delaware River Watershed… Y’know, the river George Washington crossed to win American independence, the river that currently sustains 15.6 million people and countless species, the river that already generates $22 BILLION for the Pennsylvania economy each year, according to the University of Delaware. Our guv’na is the poster child for greed, corruption and neo-con ignorance. He looks (and acts) like a stupid frat boy, yet when it comes to shale gas, he’s devious as all hell. It’s like he’s date-raping every river, meadow, forest and mountain in the state.
Tim Darragh gets us up-to-speed on the behind the scenes machinations of Patrick Henderson, Corbett’s state-funded Energy Executive, in Pennsylvania Lobbying for DRBC Fracking Rules in The Allentown Morning Call:
“‘That’s been a frustration since the November meeting was canceled,” said Corbett spokesman Patrick Henderson. ‘We have been having discussions with the DRBC staff as recently as this week’ ” (more…)
This week, one of EcoWatch.org’s Most Read Items was a post by Andy Rowell of priceofoil.org entitled Fracking Boom Kills Renewable Energy Industry. Commenting on a trio of pithy headlines from The Guardian newspaper, Rowell concludes, “Gas, especially shale gas, is likely to undermine renewable investment. Anyway, gas is now being seen as low carbon by the EU, and will receive subsidies that should have gone to kick-start the clean, renewable revolution. This is despite the fact that shale gas is no cleaner than dirty coal.” (more…)
A number of countries have taken action to curtail “seam gas fracking,” yet the fight to permanently protect land, air and water from extreme fossil fuel extraction rages on. Here, an overview of the global state of fracking opposition, brilliantly compiled and regularly updated by Johnny Linehan at FrackingHell (UK). (more…)
Keep Tap Water Safe 