Hydro-Fracking — ever heard the term? I hadn’t til I was in upstate NY this last year and asked about it. This isn’t an easy subject and it’s certainly not a pretty or fluffly topic to hear about but it’s one that could affect you, your family, the house you live in, the water and food you drink and eat and the animals that are part of your live– even the very air you breathe.
I have a commentary from someone who lives in an area where corporate America is trying to start “fracking” and also 2 videos that give you more information about what its PLUS a link to one that show how quickly fracking can affect you (in as little as a week, there could be serious health repercussions).
While we need alternative energy sources, we need SAFE alternative energy sources– not ones that put everyone around the area at risk for toxic pollution via air, earth and ground water.
Go ahead and call me NIMBY. When it comes to fracking, the Not In My Back yard accusation doesn’t even begin to describe my opposition. There should be an immediate moratorium on the natural gas-extraction process of fracking. Hydrofracturing, also referred to as fracking and hydrofracking, is a hot topic these days. It shouldn’t happen in anyone’s back yard, front yard, or in proximity to bodies of water, farm land, wildlife areas, places where people breathe, bathe, drink, live, etc.
The number of fracking wells in the US is soaring. The gas industry paints a pretty picture of the process. They make promises of untold wealth to people who sell the mineral rights to their property, while assuring them that the process is safe, clean and unobtrusive. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
A Facebook page, No Fracking Way, provides endless examples of the nightmare that is spreading, unchecked, throughout much of the country.
There are plenty of online videos and articles that describe what is happening. The best one I’ve seen can be viewed here: http://tinyurl.com/3np52g5. It features scientists, a former gas company executive, a fracking miner, and a number of people who are living with the effects of fracking. I guarantee that you will be horrified, frightened and furious.
Fracking is a process for removing natural gas from underground deposits; it uses poisonous chemicals and requires the transportation of millions of gallons of poisonous liquids on roads that traverse farmland, populated areas, water supplies, etc.
Gas companies are spending millions of dollars to lobby for their cause, bribing and threatening, and lying about the dangers inherent in the process. The problems are not “potential” or worst-case scenarios—they are environmental disasters that are already being played out across the country.
NY, Pennsylvania, Delaware and NJ are currently grappling with how to set guidelines to regulate fracking. The fact is that the process should be outlawed altogether. Without water to drink, air to breathe, soil in which our food can be grown, vast supplies of natural gas are useless.
The tragedy shown in the video is not unique. It’s happening to people who are helpless, voiceless and powerless. It’s up to all of us to speak for them and remember to vote for candidates who will stand up to this assault on the environment.
For a more personalized account of what has happened to one family, take a look at this: http://preview.tinyurl.com/5w6r8kd. If you have a heart, this will break it.
Last year, 60 Minutes aired a 13-minute segment on fracking. (View it here: http://tinyurl.com/6dh8oqh)
The first half is devoted to the marvels of fracking.
The second half delves into the nightmarish reality, including pictures of cows that died after “fracking fluid” contaminated their pasture and tap water that bursts into flames because of methane contamination.
(The industry claims that the recipe for the fluid used in fracking is proprietary and that they do not have to disclose the exact ingredients, many of which are carcinogens and other toxins.)More and more banks are refusing to provide mortgages on properties on which mineral rights have been transferred to a fracking enterprise. They are even refusing to mortgage properties that are near such land because the value of such properties is a small fraction of its pre-fracking value. And if your property isn’t near a fracking site, you still have the opportunity to “enjoy” the consequences as millions of gallons of “recaptured” fracking fluid are trucked to treatment areas across the country.
NOT IN MY BACK YARD? NOT IN ANYONE’S BACK YARD!
While this isn’t happening in California (yet — or to my knowledge it isn’t), it doesn’t mean that I don’t have some concern for other parts of the country– other parts that raise crops that I eat, that have air that others breathe as the weather pushes contaminated air across the country.
The last video was gut-wrenching.. and to realize that within about 10 days, people were really ill. In only a few days to have a healthy man reduced to using a nebulizer in the middle of the night to breathe indicates that the air is contaminated or he’s being exposed to contamination somewhere through his day.
You can make a difference. You can contact your local, state and national legislators and ask them to investigate and provide significant controls on these companies– because it’s just like BP handling the oil well explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s not totally fixed yet — and many spots are still contaminated. Would you move there? I wouldn’t.
Please make your voice heard.. because despite the jobs that it might provide, would you want that family member who has that job to die from the contamination or anyone in your family to die from that contamination? Is it worth it?
Stevie Wilson,
LA-Story.com
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