Showing posts with label #fracking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #fracking. Show all posts

Sunday, October 07, 2012

Fracking: We Know What We're Against. What Are We FOR?

Our message is very simple.

We say NO to fracking, you bet we do. We say NO to the heavy industrialization of bucolic and wild places. NO to poisoning our air, water, and our children's health and future. NO to poisoning our croplands, and thus our food supply. NO to permanently withdrawing water from our precious rivers, aquifers, lakes, and streams -- water that will never again return to the water-life cycle of the planet. NO to diminished (and in some cases completely negated) property values. NO to increased traffic, fumes, smog, and accidents. NO to dangerous pipelines running through our villages and countryside. NO to job promises that always -- always -- fall short. We say NO to toxins and fossil-fuel byproducts in our food, personal care products, and items we need for daily living. We say NO to the corporate-government collusion that is hastening catastrophic climate disruption and the kinds of weather calamities we are seeing all over the country, and the globe. We say NO to the corporate-government cabal that would force our communities to do their bidding to the detriment of our health, personal finances, and very way of life. And we say NO to municipal, state, and national elected officials who do not represent the best long-tern interests of the people and the natural world on which we all depend for survival.

But this does not mean we simply say NO. There are many things to which we say YES. Because we believe we can do better, as individuals, as neighbors, as communities, as a society, as a nation, as a species.

We say YES to government spending for energy conservation, creating jobs that will remain local. We say YES to community-based renewable energy options, which will create a whole new sector of learning and job opportunities. We say YES to rebuilding our crumbling infrastructures -- another job-creating initiative. We say YES to transforming fossil-fuel-extracting and -producing and -delivering corporations into energy-conservation and renewable-energy-producing and -delivering models. We say YES to job-creating energy efficient transportation options for rural, suburban, and urban populations. We say YES to 90 MPG automobile fuel standards.

We say YES to organic farming without genetically deformed seeds (and outrageous use of hormones, antibiotics, and toxic pesticides and herbicides). We say YES to national and state agriculture policies that help rather than hurt family farms and discourage CAFOs ("consolidated animal feeding operations," a gross misnomer), a.k.a. factory farms. We say YES to policies and practices that help farmers and other large landholders engage in sustainable forestry and woodlot management. We say YES to policies and programs that enable farmers and other large landowners to lease their land for wind farms, solar farms, and other renewable-energy operations to directly benefit their communities.

We say YES to cutting all use of fossil fuels in this country. If small countries like Germany, Sweden, and Denmark have already turned to solar, wind, and hydro power, why shouldn't the "greatest country on earth" be able to do so?

We say YES to community-owned and -operated wind farms and solar farms. (We say NO to corporate-run wind and solar farms that simply add endless more energy to the current grid.) We say YES to removing fossil-fuel and nuclear energy at the same rate we add renewable energy.)

We say YES to government and community welcome of clean manufacturing in New York State and other states, restoring all those jobs exported by corporations to foreign countries back to U.S. workers.

We say YES to accelerated research and development of plant-based alternatives to the mountains of plastic and mining-based products we are now forced to employ against our wishes.

We say YES to representation by governing officials who truly care about our communities and the individuals within them, over a long term and without personal prejudice or conflict of interest.

We say YES to halting climate disruption by making the choices WE THE PEOPLE demand -- we the informed, caring, forward-thinking people, not the selfish, greedy, or hoodwinked people who still believe that the corporate state might have their best interests at heart.

We say YES to healthy environments for our children, grandchildren, and future generations.

And as we work toward all these positive goals, we will continue to say NO FRACKING WAY with all our collective might.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Industry Colludes with Pennsylvania Legislature


Pennsylvania's state legislature has effectively signed a death warrant for some number of residents, who knows how many. Corbett’s about to make it official. Pennsylvanians: Fight back — or suffer the consequences.

The fracking industry has written a bill that gives itself legal permission to poison Pennsylvanians—and keeps doctors who treat them once they’re poisoned from telling anyone else what poisoned them. The bill also essentially permits all gas drilling and processing activities anywhere, including in residential areas.
It’s all being sold as an “impact fee” bill. Counties that want the income will sign on — and that probably means most counties will.
The industry was helped in this covert operation by crooks in political office. Those political criminals should be held accountable (more on this below).
The 174-page bill, HB1950, was signed in both the House and Senate of the state’s General Assembly, and on Friday (2/10/12) the Senate passed it to  Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett for signature.
This is yet the latest egregious example of industry-state denial of municipalities’ right to protect themselves. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that this is the legal permitting of murder — and legalization of coerced suicide.
There can be no question that the legislators who signed it are in collusion with industry. They are corrupt. There can be no other explanation. These people have an obligation to protect the citizens of Pennsylvania, and not only are they not doing so, but they are also denying citizens the right to protect themselves—and denying physicians and nurses the ability to protect their patients!
And if this outrage does not get Pennsylvanians (and everyone) out in the streets, in Harrisburg at the governor's mansion demanding a veto, and at the offices of state legislators, demanding a reversal of the bill’s passage, I do not know what will.
As Berks-Mont News reported on January 25, Pennsylvania municipalities currently do “have the legal right to decide where and how gas development occurs. Both the Municipalities Planning Code and the State Constitution vest municipalities with the authority and responsibility to address local environmental and public resources. State Supreme Court rulings have also made it clear that the state Oil and Gas Act allows municipalities the right to use zoning codes to restrict the location of gas wells.”
This law negates those rights and completely strips communities of their rights to self govern. This is a blatant abrogation of the United States constitution and all the hackneyed assertions that We the People have any say any longer in crafting U.S. law. 
The Guilty Parties
The bill’s primary sponsor in the House (Assembly) was Brian Ellis (R-District 11). The 19 cosponsors included Samuel H. Smith (R-66), Mike Turzai (R-28), Stan Saylor (R-94), and Dave Reed (R-62). But take special note of the three Democrats who cosponsored: Ken Smith (D-112), Marc J. Gergely (D-35), and Paul Costa (D-34). (Contact info for some of them is below, but I hope someone will take the time to create an easy-to-navigate, easy-click way to call these creeps out all at once; I don’t have the time or technical expertise.)
If Corbett signs this bill into law, he will simply confirm what anybody who’s been paying attention already knows: He cares not for the people or future of his state.
If Corbett signs, Pennsylvania activists can kiss goodbye all the tens of thousands of hours of hard work done by countless volunteers working to stop fracking from further devastating their state, which until the recent arrival of this industry was quite beautiful and relatively unpolluted. All those hours spent in researching all aspects of fracking, from public health to physics, from environment to economics; in planning forums and community meetings; educating legislators; debunking industry lies; investigating and challenging  unscrupulous politicians; exposing corrupt NGOs (“Big Greens”); going door-to-door talking to neighbors; writing local laws to protect communities; and forming coalitions across townships, counties, states, and nations.
Dorothy Bassett Picks the Bill Apart
I learned about this from Dorothy Bassett (with my boldfaces and a couple parentheticals), who read the bill in its entirety and synopsizes thus:
“[The bill] includes verbiage that says that when a patient comes in, sick due to exposure to chemicals, doctors have to request in writing info on [the chemicals patients might have been] exposed to (think of the time — and treatment delays involved in this process!) and then have to keep it confidential.  Also, the industry doesn't have to reveal compounds that have formed when all these chemicals and materials from underground come together, nor do they have to report exposure to heavy metals, radioactive substances, etc., from below.
Given the problems with airborne and waterborne carcinogenic and neurotoxic substances from this industry's open pits of toxic wastes, compressor stations, and the like, this means that entire communities will still be exposed to chemicals that one or more people have had to see a doctor for, and that the doctors will have to keep it quiet while the communities are at risk.

The fact that the industry has included verbiage in this bill that prevents doctors from revealing the chemicals their patients were exposed to:

1. indicates that the industry knows that much of the substances they
are using are a threat to public health - enough so that emergency
room and other physicians would see cases of toxic exposure to
fracking and related chemicals and substances on a regular basis, i.e.
that this is not a safe process;

2. indicates that the industry wants to keep it quiet - they know that
if the health risks of their activities due to chemical exposure (in
air and water) were to become public there would be such enormous
outcry that they would be - appropriately - shut down;

3. [shows that industry knows fracking/ms] is a human rights and a civil rights violation to the residents and workers affected, and would ultimately contribute to a public health catastrophe;

4. would guarantee that other individuals [and] families in the area would not be warned that they are being exposed on an on-going basis to highly hazardous chemicals that have made other individuals ill  — often seriously and irreversibly ill.

The bill also says that the industry will NOT provide information on compounds created by the chemicals or the interaction of the chemicals with things below ground or any of the substances that come up from underground.

This means that they'd provide info only on the frack fluids — which the doctor has to keep confidential — NOT on what's sitting in frack pits, for example. Considering that strontium. barium and arsenic are common problems, along with naturally occurring radioactive substances, and brine, doctors won't know that the health problem could be coming from these substances from below ground. If they don't know this, they won't be able to test for or treat for exposure to hazardous compounds formed by this soup of chemicals, heavy metals, NORMs, brine and bacteria from far beneath the surface.

The bill requires that local ordinances “Shall allow well and pipeline location assessment operations, including seismic operations and related activities.” Localities “may not impose conditions, requirements or limitations on the construction of oil and gas operations . . . ” The bill makes sure that not only can municipalities not ban fracking, but they can’t even regulate how the poisonous operations and their harmful side effects will be situated and rammed down our throats.
Make Corbett Realize His Political Future Is at Stake
Now there is one option available under current law: GET TOGETHER AND STOP CORBETT FROM SIGNING THIS HORRIFIC BILL.
Should he sign this bill, the governor of Pennsylvania joins all the legislators who voted for this heinous "bill" as party to murder — because people will die from fracking (in fact, quite a few already have). 
If he does sign, I see only one alternative: civil defiance from as many people as can be mustered in Pennsylvania, to occupy Harrisburg and dog these criminal politicians — especially the three Democrats and 17 Republicans who cosponsored this bill and Corbett — for the long haul. It must not be just a one-day event, but an ongoing demonstration of our rejection of our government's collusion in our own poisoning.
We need to tell all of these crooks in no uncertain terms that they have lost the support of Pennsylvania voters and will never get another term. And will be brought up on criminal charges. And we need people to start building the legal case against them. Start with the Pennsylvania Crimes Code Section 25, Section 2502, in which “Murder of criminal code, in which “Killing by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of willful, deliberate and premeditated killing, is considered “Murder of the third degree.”  
And that is a crime in any civilized society. Slow poisoning or quick: The only difference is that it will be impossible for you to prove the link between frackers and your kid’s cancer when it develops five or seven or twelve years from now, and the frackers and politicians who colluded with them will be off the hook.
Don’t let that happen, Pennsylvania. Your very lives are at stake.


RESOURCES
Governor Tom Corbett's contact info: 

phone (717) 787-2500 fax (717) 772-8284
online form to reach Corbett
            Passed (House of Representatives) on Nov 17, 2011
            First Reading (Senate) on Dec 7, 2011
            Second Reading (Senate) on Dec 12, 2011
            Referred to Committee (Senate) on Dec 12, 2011
            Third Reading (Senate) on Dec 14, 2011
            Referred to Committee (House of Representatives) onDec 14, 2011
            Sent to Executive on Feb 10, 2012
STAN SAYLOR (sponsor)
414 Main Capitol Building Post Office Box 202094
Harrisburg, PA 17120
Ph: 717-783-6426
District
15 South Main Street 2nd Floor
Red Lion, PA 17356
Ph: 717-244-9232

Dave Reed
128 Main Capitol Building Post Office Box 202062
Harrisburg, PA 17120
Ph: 717-705-7173
District
550 Philadelphia Street
Indiana, PA 15701
Ph: 724-465-0220

Ken Smith (D-112)
28B East Wing Post Office Box 202112
Harrisburg, PA 17120
Ph: 717-783-1359
District
1414 Monroe Avenue
Dunmore, PA 18509
Ph: 570-342-2710

Marc Gergely (D-35)
325 Main Capitol Building Post Office Box 202035
Harrisburg, PA 17120-2035
Ph: 717-783-1018
District
1540 Lincoln Way
White Oak, PA 15131
Ph: 412-664-0035
District
1705 Maple Street Suite 110
Homestead, PA 15120
Ph: 412-476-3046

Paul Costa (D-34)
323 Main Capitol Building Post Office Box 202034
Harrisburg, PA 17120
Ph: 717-783-1914
District
519 Penn Avenue
Turtle Creek, PA 15145
Ph: 412-824-3400

Here’s the whole list of House cosponsors:
3 Democrats
Name
District

Ken Smith 112


17 Republicans
Name
District