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when truth is scarier than fiction

beethoven

Well-known member
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-ruffalo/when-art-imitates-life_b_785665.html

When Truth Is Scarier Than Fiction

Mark Ruffalo

Actor/Director
Posted: November 22, 2010 07:11 PM

It sounds like a crazy conspiracy -- too extreme to be true. Flaming tap water, dead animals, secret chemical formulas, mysterious illnesses afflicting whole communities, and people afraid to speak up.

The November 11th episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation brought viewers to a small town taken over by -- industrial gas drilling. The storyline in "Fracked" follows the investigators as they attempt to uncover the truth behind two murders, but end up discovering a much bigger crime: an industry destroying people's lives with no accountability.

Although the story told on CSI is fictional, the parallels to real life are stark. In Colorado, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and several other states, the method of gas drilling called hydraulic fracturing has wreaked havoc on people's lives. Across the country hydraulic fracturing has been linked to many cases of water so polluted with gas that you can actually light it on fire.

Hydraulic fracturing (or “hydro-fracking”) involves pumping millions of gallons of toxic chemicals deep underground to break up rock formations and release pockets of gas. The process can lead to contamination of underground drinking water sources, as well as severe land and air pollution above ground.

Like in the CSI episode, many people who have been impacted by hydraulic fracturing have been forced to keep silent, signing nondisclosure agreements in order to receive small settlements—or even just deliveries of drinkable water. But the stories that have come to light don’t paint a rosy picture of the gas industry.

Last year in Louisiana, sixteen cows dropped dead within hours of drinking from puddles tainted with a mysterious green fluid in a pasture next to a fracking well site. Chesapeake Energy, the company that owned the rig, refused to identify the chemicals in the fluid.

In 2008, a woman who briefly came into contact with fracturing fluids nearly died from acute liver, heart, and respiratory failure. Cathy Behr, an emergency room nurse in Durago, Colorado, treated a worker from a gas well site who was caught in a chemical spill. Behr spent just 10 minutes with the patient upon his initial entry to the hospital—putting his chemical-laced clothing into a bag and helping him to clean off. Despite her limited exposure, she immediately lost her sense of smell and rapidly became gravely ill. As doctors fought to save Behr’s life, the company that manufactured the chemicals refused to reveal the composition of the fluid—calling the formula a trade secret.

And just a few days ago in Colorado, a woman who spent years in close proximity to numerous gas wells died after a prolonged battle with a rare form of cancer. Drilling rigs were located as close as 300 feet from Chris Mobaldi’s home in Rifle, Colorado between 1997 and 2004. Mobaldi was diagnosed with her first pituitary tumor four years after gas drilling began in the area, and experienced other rare ailments that indicated severe brain damage. Mobaldi’s doctors say that exposure to contaminants from the nearby drilling activities is to blame, but there have been no studies on the long-term health consequences of exposure to fracking chemicals. Now Mobaldi’s husband is seeking to donate her body for medical research and struggling to find anyone who can help.

As in the CSI episode, there are few resources to help the real life people who are fighting this nightmare in their backyards, and the industry is often completely unregulated and unaccountable for the devastation they cause.

Gas companies don't have to tell residents, state agencies—or even hospitals—what chemicals they use at drilling sites because hydraulic fracturing is specifically exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act through a provision nicknamed “the Halliburton Loophole.” Due to the Halliburton Loophole, and a host of other loopholes for the gas industry, the EPA has absolutely no power to regulate hydraulic fracturing.

In response to the situation, some states and towns are taking matters into their own hands and saying “No” to hydraulic fracturing. The City of Pittsburgh recently banned hydraulic fracturing within city limits by invoking its citizens’ rights to clean air and water.

But despite small victories, most politicians in our state capitols and Congress are ignoring the devastating warning signs: the sick people, the poisoned water wells. They want us to believe—and they believe themselves—that natural gas is a clean miracle fuel.

The FRAC Act—which would close the notorious Halliburton Loophole and force hydraulic fracturing to be regulated by the EPA—has gained little support in Congress. Instead, lawmakers in both parties are finding common ground championing legislation that would give $5 billion in subsidies to the natural gas industry. Outrageously, these politicians want to sell us on natural gas as the solution to climate change, the magic bullet for getting America off foreign oil, and as the “clean” alternative to offshore oil drilling. It is none of those things.

It’s time for politicians across the U.S. to wake up and realize that natural gas is not a miracle substance or a “clean transition fuel,” it’s a bridge to nowhere.

I got involved in this fight because hydraulic fracturing came to my home in rural upstate New York. But this is an issue that affects millions—and not just people in isolated farming communities. Gas companies want to put 30,000 gas wells in the area where 15 million people get their drinking water: that’s New York City, Philadelphia, half of New Jersey, and 80 percent of Delaware.

It sounds too crazy to be true, but it might happen if we don’t get organized to stop it now. The only way we’re going to defeat the gas industry and protect our water is if people become informed about these practices on a massive scale. Please encourage your friends to see the documentary Gasland. And click here to take action and urge leaders in Congress to dump the subsidies for dirty gas, and make the gas industry obey the basic laws that protect our water and our future.
 

TexasBred

Well-known member
Gas wells are actually fractured with water. There are indeed some chemicals added for specific purposes. I live on income from oil and gas wells. I can go to the Texas Railroad Commission site, access well records and see exactly what and how much of each was put into the fracturing operation as well as HOW and WHERE it was disposed off when removed from the well after fracturing. It's so easy for a so called "journalist" to find a couple of idiots to quote as experts, write an article about something that 99% of the people know zilch about and they all believe every word they read. Pull your head out of your ass and educate yourself on the subject.
 

beethoven

Well-known member
http://ezralevant.com/2010/11/canadians-dont-trust-greenpeac.html

Canadians don't trust Greenpeace
By Ezra Levant on November 23, 2010 12:15 AM | Permalink | Comments

Speaking of the oilsands, here's my latest Sun column about a new opinion poll on the subject:

Leger Marketing has done a new poll asking Canadians about the oilsands.

Canadians believe technology will solve the challenges of the oilsands - but they're not confident technology can solve the problems of offshore oil in places like the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea.

Confidence in oilsands technology is probably wellplaced.

To pick just one example, since 1990, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted to produce an average barrel of oilsands oil has fallen by 38%.

And it's not just CO2. Underground "in situ" oilsands production doesn't use any fresh water, and it doesn't create a large blemish on the surface of the land. Canadians know our OPEC competitors don't care about a clean environment, but the oilsands do. The poll is encouraging for that reason alone.

Canadians also told Leger they care about the economy - not surprising given the recent recession. And 44% of Canadians say our national economy depends on the oilsands, as opposed to 28% who say it doesn't. Those 28% probably don't realize their pension funds are invested in oilsands companies, which are as large as the financial sector on the TSX.

And 44% of Canadians say oilsands development benefits all Canadians, as opposed to 29% who say it only benefits Albertans. That 29% probably doesn’t know there are more people working for the oilsands in Ontario - from Bay Street finance jobs to heavy equipment manufacturing - than work for the Big Three automakers.

And, as Liberal Sen. Bill Rompkey said in the Senate earlier this month, there are plenty of communities in Newfoundland where half of the income in town comes from the oilsands.

Leger also asked Canadians who they look to for environmental information. Greenpeace was suggested as one answer, and Canadians were allowed to choose as many answers as they liked.

Only 13.8% of Canadians said Greenpeace, and just 10.1% said they listened to Greenpeace about the oilsands in particular. The media loves Greenpeace, and dutifully acts as their stenographers.

But Canadians know Greenpeace is about as credible as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the radical vegetarian group more about stunts and showboating than actual informed debate.

Only one in 10 Canadians look to Greenpeace for information about the oilsands — probably the same number that look to a palm-reader or Ouija board.

Leger says the number one phrase Canadians choose to describe the energy sector is "job-creating." But the number two phrase is "environmental disaster."

There are real environmental disasters in the world: Nigeria, with nearly 2,000 unremediated toxic oil spills that will never be cleaned up; Nigeria and Iraq flare off so much natural gas, you can see it at night from space.

The idea of reforesting a mine, as over 60 sq.-km of oilsands have already done, is unthinkable in OPEC countries.

They're dictatorships that don't value human life - why would they value plants?

And that's another thing: Leger asked about the environment. But they didn’t ask Canadians to compare the ethics of the oilsands to OPEC when it comes to human rights, fair wages or war and terrorism.

Canada's oilsands have a lot more persuading to do. But the Leger survey says ordinary Canadians haven't bought the anti-oilsands propaganda served up to them by the CBC, or foreign lobby groups like Greenpeace.
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
Actor Mark Ruffalo has been placed on a terror advisory list by U.S. officials after organizing screenings for a new documentary about natural gas drilling.

The "Zodiac" actor arranged showings for "GasLand" earlier this year and voiced his concerns about the practice in relation to the national water supplies.

But his efforts to raise awareness and demand a stop to natural gas drilling reportedly attracted the attention of officials from Pennsylvania's Office of Homeland Security - and he recently discovered it had landed him on a terror alert watchlist.

But Ruffalo is taking it all in his stride and has laughed off the idea he could be a threat to security.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/dailydish/detail?entry_id=77671#ixzz16dhqpelB
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
I live 25 miles south of Gillette, Wy. the "Energy Capitol" of the nation. We have methane wells allover the ranch and surrounding area along with oil and the majority of coal used in the U.S. The Belle Fourche river is about 25 yards behind the house and on to the north end of the ranch. A person can't go fifty yards along the river without seeing methane bubbles coming to the surface. Its been that way since people have lived in this area. The methane comes out naturally. We are on a well system at the house and when you first turn a faucet on it will spit and sputter. That's the gas getting out of the pipes. Hold a match to it and it will flare up. The water itself won't burn though. As far as the fracking methods used, I couldn't tell ya. I do know that we haven't experienced anything bad with chemicals. What bothers me the most is all of the water they pump out of the ground to get the gas. They will build a pond or put in a tire tank for the rancher but the extra water just goes out on top of the ground and evaporates in the wind. We just came out of a BIG gas boom in this area along with a drouth. For some reason the two seemed to coincide. This area has a lot of water but its underground and meant for subirrigation. Get a gas company exec to admit that and I will kiss his butt. They won't say it.
 
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