I met a woman recently who can light her tap water on fire (see the photo below). She told me that a natural gas company had built a drilling station on her ranch and after a year or so her dogs stopped drinking the tap water she put in their dishes.
The water smelled "chemically."
When she turned on her faucet there was a hissing noise like leaking gas before the water would come out. Neighboring ranchers told her that their kids came out of the shower with chemical burns all over their bodies. Another neighbor's water well shed burned to the ground.
On a hunch she took some of the tap water out to her shed and put a lighter to it. As she suspected, it lit on fire.
The story was so unbelievable that I spent the next couple of weeks looking into the natural gas industry and the extraction process they use called "hydraulic fracturing." The process involves pumping thousands of gallons of fracking fluid (a mixture of sand and soapy chemicals) into the ground to create enough pressure that a rock formation will fracture, allowing the natural gas to escape and then be extracted.
Turns out that a lot more people living close to natural gas wells could light their water on fire. In fact, there was a documentary made about all this recently. Here's an excerpt from the film of another rancher that can light his water on fire.
Most of the natural gas drilled in the US uses hydraulic fracturing because it is the cheapest and easiest way to get it out of the ground. The chemicals used in the fracking fluid that is pumped underground is also exempt from the Clean Water Act, making it a lot easier to dance around environmental restrictions.
In 2005, at the urging of Vice President Cheney, fracking fluids were exempted from the Clean Water Act after the companies that own the patents on the process raised concerns about disclosing proprietary formulas - if they had to meet the Act's standards they would have to reveal the chemical composition which competitors could then steal. Fair enough, but this also exempts these companies from having to meet the strict regulations that protect the nation's freshwater supply.
This was a sweetheart political deal and it probably doesn't surprise you that the the Vice President's former employer Halliburton is one of the largest players in providing hydraulic fracturing services to gas companies.
So why are people finding their tap water a fire hazard? The gas companies deny that it's their fault and because of this Halliburton loophole, it is pretty hard to prove otherwise.
There is a bill currently making its way through Congress that will hopefully close the Halliburton Loophole.
Let's hope it passes because if it doesn't, we're fracked.
Follow Kevin Grandia on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kgrandia
My husband and I started this petition to begin to Unite all 50 states against this unregulated industry.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/3/stop-unregulated-natural-gas-drilling
By the way, as per your question about solar power. The only electricity I use at my home is for my laptop, satellite internet dish, and charging up batteries for my camera, videocamera, and cell phone, that's it - no tv, no washing machine, no water heater, no refrigerator or freezer, no stereo, no flush toilet, no plumbing, no rotating tie rack. And I use an axe and maul to chop my firewood. And I love it.
If the world wasn't so messed and in need of more people speaking out against the destruction that is going on, I'd happily live my life on the side of a mountain in the northern rockies working slowly towards becoming completely self-sustainable, with no electricity like I was doing before.
http://www.blog.forestpeople.org
For example, the oil and gas production industry has been exempt from federal hazardous waste regulations since the law's inception in 1976 (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act - RCRA) which require other industries to have a "cradle-to-grave" tracking program of hazardous waste. RCRA requires hazardous waste to be officially registered and monitored, and is under strict handling requirements until it is disposed of at a hazardous waste facility or recycled into consumer products such as cement or fertilizer (yup!). Instead of these stringent regulations, the federal exemption allows the hazardous waste produced by the oil and gas production industry to be buried on site, as is allowed by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in the case of drilling waste. In fertile and lush rural Pennsylvania, these hazardous waste pits are left out in the open in people's backyards, protected by a flimsy orange plastic fencing that any young child can knock over. Later the radioactive heavy metal stew is buried in the same location, with a dash of cement added for safe measure. Most folks in rural Pennsylvania drink well water.
For more information on all the other federal environmental regulation exemptions for the oil and gas industry, check out the Environmental Working Group's report "Free Pass for Oil and Gas" here: http://www.ewg.org/reports/Free-Pass-for-Oil-and-Gas/Oil-and-Gas-Industry-Exemptions
https://secure.nrdconline.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1308