As a New Yorker who moved to the quiet countryside upstate a few years ago with my wife and three young children, I've been worried about fracking ever since I learned the word and heard this dangerous technology could be coming to town.
Where this risky gas drilling practice is already happening around the country -- including right next door in Pennsylvania -- we've seen grave consequences unfold: from drinking water contaminated with toxic chemicals and radioactive waste, to residents reportedly getting sick, livestock dropping dead, homes exploding, and property values tanking.
If that sounds like something straight out of an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation -- well, it is. But it's also a true story we've heard over and over again, nationwide.
Now, the big oil and gas corporations are knocking on our doors in New York, eager to frack here. My greatest fear is this story will be my own -- my wife's, my children's, and my neighbors' across upstate New York. We're outraged that these powerful outsiders want to come into our communities and pump toxic chemicals into the ground, right next to our water wells.
My friends in the city share our fears. They know that New York City's world-class drinking water could be poisoned and forever destroyed if fracking moves in.
That's why I've rallied a group of them -- Ethan Hawke, Zoë Saldana, Amy Ryan, Nadia Dajani and Josh Charles -- to team up with leading environmental groups and speak up. And speak up we have -- letting you into our kitchens, on a walk with the dog, fly fishing and even into our bathrooms to show you how much we love our safe tap water.
You see, as scary as fracking can be, there is good news here in New York. Governor Cuomo has a chance to get it right. He can show the rest of the nation how to protect families from risky drilling, so we and they are not left picking up the pieces of drilling gone wrong.
Our leaders in New York so far have been right to insist we understand the risks before we allow fracking to take place here. Instead of bowing to industry pressures to rush ahead and greenlight fracking without proper safety measures, the Governor should take all the time and resources necessary to ensure our drinking water is protected. That's an opportunity that other states didn't get.
The chorus of voices calling for Governor Cuomo to get it right is getting louder. Advocates like the groups behind Clean Water NOT Dirty Drilling (Catskill Mountainkeeper, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Earthjustice, EARTHWORKS, Environmental Advocates of New York, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Riverkeeper) who helped put this video together are working every day to make sure people in New York and across the country know the risks from fracking. It's not too late for you to join in.
My family moved to our quiet farming town on the Delaware River so we could enjoy a simple, healthy life outside of the bustling city. We want to enjoy that peace down the road, and know that the tap water we drink, and bathe our children in, is safe.
We're counting on Governor Cuomo to protect us -- and all New Yorkers who love their safe drinking water.'
Take action: Tell the state to protect New York's drinking water here.
Pass it on: Make a donation to help get this ad on the air here. And share this video with your friends who love their water on Facebook and Twitter.
Follow Mark Ruffalo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mruff221
David Suzuki: A New Kind of NIMBY: Nature in My Backyard
Susanna Murley: Is NYC Losing 30 Percent of Its Water?
Marcia G. Yerman: Fracking in New York State -- Is the Train Out of the Station?
"But there is in fact a documented case, and the E.P.A. report that discussed it suggests there may be more. Researchers, however, were unable to investigate many suspected cases because their details were sealed from the public when energy companies settled lawsuits with landowners."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/us/04natgas.html
Install cost, maybe $4K. Annual water bill, I'm guessing $500, tops. Maybe a little more. I'd be pretty surprised if someone in PA was paying a water truck an annual bill anywhere near as much as they were paying for home heating.
People will still buy your house. It's not worthless if it has a tank and not a well. Maybe 5-10% loss?
I understand people in the country can be sentimental about their individual water wells. You feel connected to the land. You feel violated if it gets messed with. That was *my* water. Like an endless supply of Sierra Spring in my backyard. And now it's gone. And I'm mad. I get it, my family lived it (sans personal celebrity).
But not every property in the country has a well. People live their lives with a buried water tank just fine. If someone screws up your well, and they pay you some money to fix the situation, and some more money on top of that for your trouble, maybe it's time to move on.
Ahh, now I see. Mr Ruffalo has spent some of his considerable fortune on a private well, and now he's worried something will happen to it.
Well you should worry, private wells are notoriously twitchy. What your real estate agent failed to tell you sir, is that that well is prone to all sorts of mishaps. Septic system failures, farm land runoff, even natural changes in the geology can corrupt your well. The history of private wells show *many* wells gone bad without any sort of nearby drilling.
That's why people pay extra to get on municipal water. Or they pay for a water truck service to fill a white tank. (Which actually isn't very expensive, so don't worry, you'll be fine).
But, confusing the fragility of a small private well with the much more robust municipal water supply of a major city is not honest, Mr. Ruffalo. This is propaganda. What does or does not happen to your personal water well is very different from what will happen to NYC.
I went and visited the people whose lives have been destroyed by this. I have talked to them. Their lives are ruined. Their homes worthless, their water forever useless.
You have such loathing, contempt and arrogance for me and the people that are victims of an industry that has been cruel and equally as arrogant and contemptible. Why? Have people come to so low a point that they have lost all compassion for those around them that are being mistreated and suffering? .
I do this because I happen to care about my community. Your posts are full of aspersions and innuendo. Unfortunately, my voice carries a little bit farther then most. I feel I have a responsibility to give back some of what has been given to me. That is why I do what I do.
Your organization paints a very simple message. "Clean water versus dirty drilling". Presenting the issue in such simple terms is completely unfair to the drilling industry.
I'd like to see people employed with good jobs and decent salaries. Most people don't have the financial wherewithal to put off work for two years. The shale industry is quite high tech, employs lots of careful, talented people, and represents what many people think of as "American Ingenuity".
I also dislike environmentalism acting as knee jerk anti-industry reactionaries. When *every* form of resource extraction or industrial activity gets met with foot-stamping screams of "dirty dirty dirty", then environmentalism ceases to be a thoughtful, mature contributor to adult conversation.
The New Yorker (of all magazines) wrote an article about shale drilling recently. They presented the industry as being innovative and high tech, fueled by nerds in trailers using high tech gadgetry to guide a drill bit 5000 ft down with precision once thought impossible. They mentioned the pollution issues, of course, but they did not agree in the slightest with your "dirty drilling or clean water" assessment. On sum, they seemed fairly optimistic about the development of this energy source.
Luckily, the voice of well respected news organizations like the New Yorker also carry "a little bit farther then most.". Perhaps even farther than yours.
"Home worthless" was hardly the result.
We installed a white tank. It was buried good and deep. A truck filled it up once or twice a month for the next 6 years. Then my dad sold the property (at a nice markup) and we moved to someplace with reliable water.
I don't have contempt for people who are suffering. I have contempt for people that exaggerate their problems, to their detriment of other people's livlihoods. Most people don't grow up in the country. They don't understand that private wells can fail for 1000X different reasons, and it doesn't represent some massive catastrophe.
Apparently there are fundamental rights and protections that all US citizens have as inalienable rights. One of those would be the sovereignty of our own bodies. It's the reason a doctor has to have a signed consent form to operate on you, for example. Well, apparently the underlying issue here is that we did not give permission to these companies to put anything in our blood, or our lungs, or our liver, and by extension nor did we permit our common water supply to be polluted or altered in any way, or our air, our soil, on and on.
Yes, these companies can get a permit to drill. They have legal access. They have grant to mineral rights, even extraction of all the assets. What the attorneys were laughing about was they have us so turned around we don't see the forest for the trees; it's more about the rights that these companies do NOT have.
NY consumes about 5% of the nations natural gas. PA another 3.5%, that's 8.5% total.
If we cut all natural gas off of the state of NY & PA we can stop fracking in PA and NY.
Unfortunately most of their natural gas is used for home and electricity but with global warming they should be OK.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_cons_sum_dcu_SNY_a.htm
We can call it the great no fracking zone, or no heating zone, or the great no lights on Broadway zone.
New Yorkers are smart they come up with a name!
http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/guidance/wetlands/CWAwaters.cfm
Water that makes it's way back to the surface is covered by the Clean water Act more importantly it is covered by the SDWA:
http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/class2/hydraulicfracturing/wells_hydroreg.cfm
With the SDWA the EPA has the authority to regulate the spills at the surface and the dumping of any water that comes back to the surface.
then the tp's go out and fight for the Oil interests.
No concern about environment. ALL about profits
The Oil companies have sworn an oath to look at for their profits, and our clean water doesn't fit.
They will trash this earth with technology that is hundreds of years old to keep their monopolies.
im from water.ca would you do a summary for our media?on your water situation?
thats an amazing list of bad news.good luck.