Cities, the new hydrofracking victims

[Dover]

Despite devastating health risks, both parties are pushing to allow more drilling near urban areas


On the relatively rare occasions that city folk and suburbanites previously had to think about oil and gas drilling, many probably conjured images of grasshopper-esque rigs dotting remote landscapes like Wyoming’s mountain range, Alaska’s tundra or Oklahoma’s wind-swept plains. Most probably didn’t equate drilling with the bright lights of their big city, but they should have because urban America is fast becoming ground zero for the same fights over energy that have long threatened the great wide open.

With our nation’s still unquenchable (and still highly subsidized) thirst for fossil fuels, the false comfort of NIMBY-ism and the fairy-tale notions of “safety in numbers” is quickly vanishing in our cities, as controversial oil and gas exploration projects creep into metropolitan areas. Incredibly, this geographic trend is accelerating just as new drilling techniques are evoking serious concerns about excessive air pollution and about adverse effects on limited water supplies — problems that have plagued rural energy-producing regions for decades, but are sure to be even worse as they hit densely populated areas.

This year, worries have been particularly acute when it comes to hydraulic fracturing (aka “fracking”) — the process of pumping water, sand and potentially toxic chemicals into the ground to break up rock and release natural gas.

In May, Duke University documented disturbingly high levels of methane in groundwater near fracking sites in Pennsylvania. Weeks later, the Environmental Working Group uncovered a 1987 agency report confirming that fracking contaminated well and groundwater in West Virginia. For decades, the industry had been able to deny this critical case study and insist fracking was perfectly safe because, as the New York Times notes, the case’s details “were sealed from the public when energy companies settled lawsuits with landowners.” Now, though, the oil and gas industry cannot issue such denials with impunity — especially considering an even more recent EPA finding that the aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., contained “high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing,” as ProPublica reported earlier this month.

Yet, despite these findings, and despite at least some factions within the oil and gas industry finally acknowledging the validity of drilling critics’ health and safety concerns, various state governments are lately helping the oil and gas industry move fracking ever closer to major cities. ..cont'd

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/22/cities_the_new_hydrofracking_victims/

[Dover]

1. It's a BI-PARTISAN Frackfest

"Deflecting questions about their loyalties being tied to oil and gas campaign contributions, and downplaying health and environmental concerns, Republican and Democratic politicians typically cite both municipal budget crises and alleged job growth as their justification for supporting urban drilling. These are weak rationales, to say the least."

[valerief]

2. The .01% vs. the 99.99%. nt

[appleannie1]

3. That is what totally ruined our water well a number of years ago. We buy our

drinking and cooking water now. I have taken baths in water that was so black or so rust colored that you could not see the bottom of the tub.

[grntuscarora]

4. PA is stripping municipalities

of their right to zone gas drilling. Recently passed PA HB 1950 will force municipalities to allow drilling in all areas INCLUDING those zoned residential. The regs would force communities to accept well pads as close as 300 feet from homes and schools. The Senate version is not much better, evidently. PA is being sold out BIG time.

http://canon-mcmillan.patch.com/articles/proposed-marcellus-shale-legislation-gets-mixed-reviews

"Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, a nonpartisan, statewide policy research project, also bemoaned the new legislation.
Director Sharon Ward issued the following statement:
'Citizens and local officials are being steamrolled by lawmakers in Harrisburg who are giving in to industry demands for an end to local zoning authority over gas drilling in exchange for a tiny drilling fee.
House Bill 1950 strips authority from cities, boroughs and towns to regulate local gas drilling activity—a right protected by state law and upheld by the state Supreme Court. Property owners across the Commonwealth stand to be affected. Towns with active gas drilling will find their carefully considered zoning laws eviscerated, while property owners hundreds of miles from active drilling sites could find a pipeline running through their subdivision or a compressor station next to their playground, with no recourse.'"

[Kolesar]

6. There is a lot of suspicion about what the gas industry is doing

At least the fracking issue is getting press coverage.

[Nihil]

7. Welcome to the Third World!

Isn't it nice to see how willingly Americans have joined with their
global cousins in Nigeria, Ecuador, et al, in allowing corporations
to walk all over them with no regard for their health or safety?

See? All you cynics who thought that "Globalism" was just about
shipping your jobs off to cheaper places were wrong - it is also
about resource-raping your homeland, poisoning your children and
*then* getting you to pay through the nose for the privilege!

What a wonderful bi-partisan (a.k.a. "single party") government we
have developed! Remember: We have always been at war with Eastasia!

:patriot:

[freshwest]

5. A pox on everyone who profits off the destruction of our water.