1) Fracking a single well can require more than one million gallons of clean water. This depletes the local groundwater and can dry up nearby creeks. The waste water produced by fracking contains high levels of radioactivity that waste water treatment plants are not equipped to treat.
2) Dangerous fracking chemicals are kept secret. In many states big drilling companies don't have to disclose what chemicals they use in their fracking fluid--the mixture is a "trade secret". The effects on people's health is not though as independent analysts have identified 41 known chemicals in "fracking fluid" that are extremely toxic.
3) The "Halliburton Loophole". Thanks to intensive lobbying from then Vice President, Dick Cheney, Big Oil and Gas are exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Air Act.
4) You can light your tap water on fire. When the high explosions used in fracking shatters the rock in which the gas is contained, it can and has leaked into nearby household wells and drinking water. This gas can not only make you sick and even kill you, but is also highly explosive.
5) The number of fracking wells is growing at an exponential rate. Fracking is already underway in 28 states. Big Oil and Gas companies are racing to drill more wells before more people realize how dangerous this is to their health and safety. No one is safe from the spread of this dangerous drilling practice.
According to the Washington based Food and Water Watch, the nation's leading advocate for food and water safety, people whose homes are located near sites where corporations are extracting natural gas with a drilling method called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" for short- begin to suffer headaches, experience blackouts and cases of asthma skyrocket among their children. Horses go blind and cows drop dead. Today there have been over one thousand documented cases of water contamination near drilling sites and methane leaks related to drilling have caused houses and wells to explode, causing deaths, injuries and loss of property. This is not an exaggeration of the facts, these are the facts.
Air Pollution is also a by-product. High levels of Benzene have been detected seven miles west of Dish Texas, where the Barnett Shale is being fracked. Residents in Dish have complained of unexplained sickness in humans and animals since the drillers came to town.
Is this Clean Energy? Natural gas proponents call natural gas a "clean" energy because it emits fewer carbon emissions than other fossil fuels when burned. This is misleading. While it emits half as much carbon as coal and 70 percent as much as oil, it still emits carbon-it created a fifth of energy-related U.S. carbon emissions in 2008. Its production also emits large quantities of methane gas- a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. And the production of the fuel is not "clean" if it damages water, air and infrastructure.
The preceding factual information was provided by foodandwaterwatch. To learn more of the truth about fracking go to www.foodandwaterwatch.org
Editorial Opinion:
Exxon-Mobil, T. Boone Pickens, BP and others are in a mad rush to "Drill baby drill!" They do not care about the areas where the effect on the local environment is irreversible contamination, damage and destruction. The waste water treatment plants are not able to properly process the toxic volatile organic chemicals used to frack and the radioactivity of water is currently not even tested for in New York State. Some of the toxic chemicals will remain in the ground, toxic for thousands of years and potentially leaching into nearby streams and creeks.
Nassau County has just recently considered privatizing both Cedar Creek and Bay Park; two of their waste treatment plants that have been allowed to fall into serious disrepair. Is this part of the plan to quietly allow the private operators to "treat" the fracked fluids and then allow them to dump them into the bays without government oversight? Governor Cuomo has been walking a tightrope instead of weighing in and now has proposed starting fracking away from the water supply in towns where people want the fracking, because they need the money. This is all prior to the final environmental impact statement from the DEC. Mr. Cuomo is testing the political (fracking) waters and people need to let him know this is unacceptable.
This same lack of foresight has forced the storage of highly radioactive spent fuel cells...now to be stored on site at Indian Point and other Nuclear Power Plants nationwide for several more decades than originally planned while they figure out what to do with them. Scientists just don't know where to put this toxic detritus since the Yucca Mountain plan was thankfully scuttled. Are we going to allow the same shortsightedness with regard to the disposal of the billions of gallons of deadly toxic waste water? By approving the process in order to cow tow to the greed of a handful, before we even know what to do with billions of gallons of water contaminated with volatile organic chemicals we will put lives and the planet earth itself at risk. The companies don't even have to disclose the deadly toxic chemicals they are using. Is this really America?
No one ever mentions the other ancillary effects of fracking. Roughly 200 tanker trucks of water are required for each well. There are also trucks of sand and toxic chemicals being trucked to the well sites. The roads and communities on the way to theses wells are also affected.
Recovered deadly toxic waste water is first stored in open pits. Then it is taken to a water treatment plant. These plants were never designed to handle this type of toxic waste.
How can our nation in good conscience pollute billions of gallons of potable water on this planet, with no plan for disposal, while across the globe people are dying from lack of clean potable water? The perversion of this reality is shameful or should be to anyone raised with a sense of humanity.
The fact is our planet is quickly being destroyed by chemicals being pumped into the ground and spread in the air by drone planes creating "chemical trails" of pulverized aluminum, barium and strontium, which the government calls "stratospheric engineering". This might explain the crazy weather patterns we've been experiencing. I have lived in New York almost my entire life and only recently have "micro-bursts", or mini tornado-like storms ever occurred. Now they are a regular occurrence when it rains. If the government controls the weather, they can create a drought in a country or cause torrential rain and flooding. This use of environmental control can devastate a local region or an entire country, their farming of their crops and ultimately their survival. This power is no longer the stuff of science fiction movies, but actually exists and therefore needs to be closely examined and regulated. As a form of warfare, it is ethically problematic. As a means of political devastation within our own country, again it is a matter of extreme urgency that these issues are examined closely.
Please read the information made available on these critical topics and then decide what you want to do about the fracking in the Marcellus Shale region of New York. Call, write and E-mail Albany, be vocal, ask questions and demand scientific answers, not political rhetoric and fear mongering about the "need for jobs".
Call Albany and if you believe it is wrong, then demand a halt to this fracking insanity being pushed in the name of energy production and job creation. If the government wants to create jobs, they should start investing in the toxic cleanup of the thousands of sites already in existence and in the rebuilding of our core infrastructure, which is currently crumbling. The Long Island Expressway is in desperate need of repaving in many areas.
Our roads and bridges need work and we have so many toxic waste sites waiting for the money to clean them up, this is a perfect fit. Let's make New York and Long Island the toxic cleanup specialists of the planet. We can develop the technology to do this cleanly and effectively. Making Haz-Mat (hazardous material) gear is an industry Long Island could invest in. Teaching proper clean-up methods and certifications creates jobs. Creating toxic clean-up companies should be a no-brainer. After we have cleaned up our own water and air, we can branch out and show the rest of the country and the world how it is done. That is enough work to employ thousands of people for many years.
Chemicals Are Still Being Spread by Drones in The Sky
Look up in the sky this summer. You will see what appears to be contrails from a plane. There will be no plane...it is a drone carrying pulverized metals. Sometimes they will make a cross and then cross it with an x. Then the metals slowly descend appearing to be clouds. They are not. By sunset the sky often appears "dirty" and dark and the sun fights to break through the clouds of pulverized aluminum, barium and strontium spread by the governments' "Weather Modification Bureau". If you see this, take videos and pictures and document the dates and times. Call your local legislators and complain.
In fact a leaked weather modification document has the insurance companies asking the question, if the government creates a weather pattern that wreaks havoc and inflicts physical and property damage, who is libel for the damage? It is technically not an act of god, although lately the government may feel they have earned the moniker.
To get the facts on fracking go to:
www.foodandwaterwatch.org
To learn more about chemtrails visit:
http://truedemocracyparty.net/2011/11/citizens-initiative-to-ban-chemtrails-proposal-to-ban-aerial-spraying-of-aluminum-oxide-barium-sulfur-rady-ananda/
To view a copy of the 35 page leaked weather modification document go to:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/48289237/Leaked-Weather-Modification-Document
