“New Report Raises Red Flag for Bats from Shale Gas Drilling”
Bristol, PA – The Delaware Riverkeeper Network released a new report authored by a bat expert at Bat Conservation International considering and documenting many potential impacts shale gas development and fracking can have on bat populations living in the Delaware River watershed. According to the report, the water withdrawals, water pollution, air pollution, and massive land disturbance associated with shale gas development pose serious threats for bat populations, including the little brown bat and the federally endangered Indiana bat. The report notes that bats have been significantly impacted by White-nose Syndrome and as a result are at increased risk from human impacts such as shale gas development. The location of the Marcellus shale, now the targeted shale formation for drilling across Pennsylvania, New York and elsewhere, overlaps some of the areas hardest hit by White-nose Syndrome. (more…)
Does The Corbett Administration Hate Nature As Much As They Hate Environmentalists?
Not all Pennsylvanians are prepared to accept the governor’s latest executive order for a fracking “Permit Decision Guarantee” without crying foul, as Kevin Begos of the Associated Press reports via Businessweek in Foes: Pa. State Permit Order Threatens Environment.
StateImpact’s Scott Detrow appears to concur that Corbett’s new decree is a potential political misstep in How Will Corbett’s Executive Order Change The Marcellus Permitting Process? on August 13, 2012. Though he barely hints at it, Detrow’s article earned him a proper bitch-slapping in the Comments section by the governor’s hyper-conservative energy czar, Patrick Henderson, who takes to task both StateImpact and the AP for their apparent and willful lack of “context.” (more…)
In the face of a frightful dearth of genuine environmental stewardship at top Pennsylvania state levels, New Yorkers living in Marcellus towns have been scrambling to proactively manage the imminent shale gas issues confronting them – from water management to truck traffic and emergency preparedness, to the negative impact on their taxbase. The Marcellus Effect chronicles the town of Caroline’s struggle to protect its water supply near Ithaca New York in How Far Is “Safe” When Protecting Aquifers?
Simultaneously, one of New York’s most picturesque finger lakes strives to maintain hard-won environmental gains as residents and fans organize to fight off an ill-advised gas storage facility planned for the abandoned salt mines located beneath it. You can learn about the citizen-led struggle to Save Seneca Lake in writer Elaine Mansfield’s moving video, Angry Faces, Placid Water: Fracking, LPG Gas Storage, and Seneca Lake produced by Owl Gorge Productions.
“The oil and gas industry plans to build an enormous liquid petroleum gas storage and distribution depot in abandoned salt mines under Seneca Lake near Watkins Glen, one of New York’s most popular scenic tourist attractions. Part of the Marcellus Shale hydrofracking nightmare, this huge facility threatens the pure water of Seneca Lake with petroleum gas and salt pollution, would burn off excess gas with a towering flare stack, produce air pollution, and be a visual and noisy blight along this gorgeous lake. Worst of all would be the constant risk of gas explosions. Local resident, writer, and activist Elaine Mansfield eloquently presents this issue in Smith Park along the shore of Seneca Lake.”
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. (more…)
Online petitions aren’t ba-a-ad, but nothing’s more valuable than hard-copy signatures. Lots of `em. Because people who are willing to put their name to paper are also more likely to go out and vote. That’s why PennEnvironment has been busy spear-heading the largest anti-fracking petition in Pennsylvania.
“Powerful gas industry lobbyists and their allies in Harrisburg are pushing through policies that would expose our environment and communities to the dangers of Marcellus Shale gas drilling. But they’ve got a fight on their hands — thousands of Pennsylvanians are joining our call to help stop gas drilling from contaminating our drinking water, polluting our air, destroying our forests and threatening our health.”
Already more than 50, 000 petitioners are calling on legislators “to support a moratorium on further shale gas extraction in Pennsylvania until it is proven safe for our environment and the public’s health.” The current goal is reach 100,000 so ask all your friends to sign it, too!
“Last year, two thousand people flooded the streets of Philadelphia to confront the mega-corporations that are playing fast and loose with public health. Protect our communities and stand up for justice! Protect air, water, farms and food. Fight against climate change by fighting unconventional dirty drilling. Make sure our voices are even louder this year, and more clear: No Fracking. No Cracking. Send this industry packing! Don’t let them frack our future!”
Get the very latest on events, speakers and educational sessions at shalegasoutrage.org. Want to volunteer? Please contact this amazing grassroots organization at protectingourwaters@gmail.com.
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…)
Keep Tap Water Safe 