Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced his appointments to a fracking safety panel late yesterday. While this panel might seem a step in the right direction to hold the gas industry accountable for fracking threats, it falls short of what is truly needed right now: a nationwide moratorium on fracking until thorough scientific studies are conducted to assess the risks posed by fracking to drinking water, public health and the global climate.
From a brief look at the makeup of this new DOE panel, I see several red flags already. If this is truly about determining the "safety" of fracking, where are the hydrologists, air pollution experts, ecologists and climate scientists? The composition of this panel does not live up to the commitment to science-based decision-making that Secretary Chu and President Obama repeatedly tout.
DeSmogBlog released an extensive report today, "Fracking The Future," documenting the fracking threats we know about (so far) and urging a nationwide moratorium on fracking. The risks are simply too great to allow fracking to continue right now. Just in the past few months, fracking has been linked with earthquakes in Arkansas, horrid air pollution in rural gas patches, a gas well blowout in Pennsylvania, drinking water contamination and health problems among homeowners living near fracking operations. Many of these impacted families are choosing to leave their homes out of fear of further disasters and health effects. These are unacceptable risks that must be studied further immediately.
Truly independent scientists from all relevant disciplines must examine the gas industry's fracking practices thoroughly to determine if the benefits outweigh the risks to our future.
Our report also reveals Big Oil's recent takeover of the unconventional gas industry, which is no longer comprised of the "mom and pop" small independent companies that the industry's front groups claim to represent. Instead, the gas fracking boom is largely dominated by some of the largest polluters on the planet, including BP, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Halliburton, and others. It turns out the so-called "clean" gas industry is really just the dirty oil industry in disguise.
The same corporations responsible for the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Exxon Valdez spill, the destruction of Ecuador's Amazonian rainforest and countless other pollution catastrophes, now want the public to blindly trust them, with zero federal oversight, as they pursue drilling for much riskier unconventional gas throughout the country.
While the oil and gas industry is hard at work trying to portray unconventional gas as "clean energy," in reality it is asking the public to commit to decades more reliance on a dwindling fossil fuel enterprise that, in turn, is virtually guaranteed to pollute our water, air and land, and further provoke a mounting global climate crisis.
It's time for a national moratorium. It's time to stop fracking the future.
Follow Brendan DeMelle on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bdemelle
Let's fix this country, make it safer, create jobs, save the middle class and mitigate terrorism all in one initiative.... WE NEED A GREEN TECHNOLOGY REVOLUTION
www.gaslandthemovie.com
Your suggestions would be a step in the right direction, though. You'd need to get past the free market purists first, of course. :-)
from cnn yesterday in NY and pa
http://money.cnn.com/2011/05/09/news/economy/natural_gas_fracking_duke/index.htm
Ive read before in CO where the water coming out of the tap started on fire.
I may not be smart. But I do know fire water is not good for you. No pun intended
quoted
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- A new study from Duke University found potentially explosive levels of methane in drinking water supplies located close to natural gas wells.
This is the latest peer review article on fracking.
The article says fracking shale gas is a valuable tool in getting a relatively clean fuel. However before drilling and fracking takes place a base line of contaminates in the ground water needs to be established. Because in the PA & NY area's there are already thousands of old wells already drilled and closed that can cause contamination of the local water. Also due to the numerous faults in the region fracking may cause water contamination and a base line is needed to tell the difference between natural contamination or contamination from old wells and fracking contamination. Last they said the fracking operations should regulated and give all the chemicals used to track contamination sources if they occur!
THIS IS BEST REPORT ON FRACKING I'VE SEEN.
http://www.propublica.org/article/scientific-study-links-flammable-drinking-water-to-fracking
I'm sure the pro-frackers will say something like the study wasn't large enough or it was done by non-qualified people, blah blah... Don't worry, there will be more studies - remember these are the same guys that said Love Canal was a safe place in the 70's... Lake Erie also... same guys...
Fracking is bad for myriad reasons but some of the more obvious ones are the fact that fracking fluid is a proprietary formula meaning the public will never get to see what chemicals are in it. The NG industry beat the Clean Water Drinking Act by way of our last VP, Mr. Cheney and received a pass on having to fully disclose their fracking fluid makeup. So basically we don't know what they are filling the ground with. Stop right there if you want. Don't pay any attention to the reports of contaminated drinking water, ruined property, the ability to light your running water on fire. Oh yeah, some NG lobbiest on here said that setting your water on fire proves nothing, that it is just methane... ahem... if I can light my water of fire it proves something dude... it proves my water is not fit to drink at the very least.
Stop Fracking!
I'm no "independent scientist" but it appears that the risks outweigh the benefits. What's being done to the people trying to live near these areas is outrageously harmful. Fracking should be illegal not just suspended.
The water you drink, the air that you breathe will poison you and your loved ones.
They are more Climatologist that don't believe in man made climate change than their are geologist that believe proper fracking causes damage to water tables.
Do also believe man made climate change is a hoax?
That is basically the way the way they do it now a days.
Just want to make sure it's clear that the process for fracturing shale to get gas out, is not the culprit there.
Only after the last fish has been caught,
Only after the last river has been poisoned,
Only THEN will you realize that money can not be eaten.
Fracking has been proven, REPEATEDLY to cause permanent damage to the water table. We have multiple alternatives to heat our homes, we have NO alternatives to fresh, clean water.
I think both Climate Change Deniers and Anti-Frackers are both wrong. But Climate Change Deniers have more evidence to support their case than a movie and a weak report out of Cornell University by a marine biologist and ab aerospace engineer!
So, yeah, we can eat natural gas, and a heck of a lot of people will starve if we don't have it.