“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…)
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.
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…)
Gas Industry Still In Denial
Shale gas extraction isn’t simply dangerous, it’s toxic. Uninsurable. And it’s not just Nationwide who denies rig operators commercial coverage. Fraccidents and industrial workplace accidents related to fracking have spiked. (more…)
This is big. When Nationwide Casualty Insurance Company, a large US commercial and personal insurer said the risk involved in underwriting fracking operations is “too great to ignore,” the gas industry’s fangs came out.
Energy-In-Depth spokesperson, Simon Lomax, emailed Associated Press reporter Rik Stevens, snarking, “Practical implications aside, the fact that the company would send out a statement this reckless, and this uninformed, should tell us a lot.For starters, it tells me that I won’t be buying home and car insurance from this company.”
Nationwide‘s “recklessness” does say a lot, but not what Willy Loman, er… Simon Lomax would have us believe. The insurer simply cannot afford to clean up the gas industry’s toxic messes. Maybe if producers are forced to self-insure, in the same way they are encouraged to self-regulate, they’ll be more careful. I understand that US shale gas production is already the most regulated in the world, better than OPEC nations, but when our air, land, water and health are routinely damaged by a single industry, and DEP enforcement is feeble at best, you certainly can’t blame Nationwide for doubting that gas industry assurances will cover it. Insuring fracking operations is too much of an unknown. (more…)
Gotta hand it to our sneaky, fathead governor. The ban on unconventional gas drilling in the South Newark Basin has been as divisive as a new Duke water study.
Since the Bucks and Montgomery county moratorium was tucked into the new state budget, which was signed on July 2, 2012, the articles, posts and Op-Eds decrying the hypocrisy of the measure have been proliferating like crazy. The Inky editorial, Fracking Ban Is About Our Water, says it all. Turns out, when you slyly slip seven all-important paragraphs into a late draft of an already cumbersome state budget, as did Sen. Chuck McIlhinney [R-Bucks], the body politic leaves for summer recess with a sour taste in its mouth. Reporters Michael Macagnone and Angela Couloumbis lay out the details in Local Drilling Moratorium Rankles Rest of State on Philly.com. (more…)
Natural gas drilling is complicated. I’ve been known to go on about it long past the point of being polite. Woe to those who ask a simple question because there are no simple answers. Yet if you care deeply about our environment, about public health and the health of future generations, it’s difficult not to get a little impassioned when the subject comes up. Thankfully, it comes up a lot more often. When I’m fortunate enough to have the ear of a state official, I keep it brief but I let them know I’m alarmed by specific impacts of Shale Gas Production. I stick to the facts, and mind my manners of course.
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…)
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…)
Anti-Fracking Petitions Proliferate in PA and Around the World
There are tons of anti-fracking petitions floating around these days. A few years ago, it would have been a challenge to find one, but now they’re like fish in a barrel. Some have gained heavy traction, like PennEnvironment’s “Protect Pennsylvania from Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling” which has more than 35,000 signatures, yet lawmakers of both parties regularly remark that they tend to pay “internet petitions” scant notice.
“Nobody pays attention to them,” confirmed State Senator Daylin Leach [D-17th] at an informal discussion on gas drilling issues hosted by PennEnvironment in Upper Merion earlier this year. I guess I already kinda knew that but I’m optimistic by nature and, after all, it’s only a few clicks, right? If nothing else, I’ll lend a little moral support to the petitioners? Leach recommends letters and petitions on paper, and calling on your legislators.
Still, maybe lawmakers ought to at least take note of the sheer number of online anti-fracking petitions. If nothing else, it’s an indication that the public is trying to tell them something. There are way more petitions than I could possibly list here, of course that didn’t stop me from trying! Please let me know if I missed yours.
Keep Tap Water Safe 