State of the Union: Terrifying. But at Least He's Honest Here

From tonight's State of the Union address, with responses:

"We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly one hundred years, [There is nothing else to call this but what it is: a blatant lie. It might as well be a propaganda piece put out by Chesapeake Energy or some other fossil-fuel pushing, environmentally damaging megamillion-dollar corporation, but from the president of the United States in his 2012 State of the Union address, it is a mockery of environmental or democratic or even fiscal responsibility. There is no scientific consensus on this -- not even REMOTELY. This is completely irresponsible. Other scientists (not industry-supported] say only a few YEARS of 'natural' gas is available and extractiable in the 49 states, including Alaska but excluding Hawaii] and my Administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy.

[To anyone who is paying attention, it is crystal clear that this energy source can NOT BE DEVELOPED SAFELY. We will ALL PAY an impossibly HIGH PRICE FOR SUCH DEVELOPMENT]

Experts believe [ONLY PAID INDUSTRY EXPERTS "BELIEVE" THIS, Mr. President. How outrageously pro-fossil-fuel-corporate interests can you be? What kind of payoffs are your speechwriters getting from industry? This is a beyond outrageous claim!] this will support more than 600,000 jobs [that's patently absurd, completely unsupported] by the end of the decade [there is absolutely NO credible evidence of this;' the only three peer-reviewed economic studies that have been done on the subject -- Barth, Rogers, Christopherson -- find something completely different -- that jobs are few and very short-term and NOT going to locals in the regions to which these jobs are promised but instead to "roughnecks" and other outsiders, generally from the Canadian oilfields, Louisiana, Texas, or Oklahoma].

And I’m requiring all companies that drill for gas on public lands to disclose the chemicals they use. [WOW, HOW BIG OF YOU, Mr. President! YOU'RE REQUIRING COMPANIES TO DISCLOSE THE POISONS WITH WHICH THEY ARE POISONING US! THANKS SO MUCH!] America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk. [HOW DARE YOU lie to us who are suffering the ills of this disgusting corporate-industrial abomination known as FRACKING? HOW DARE YOU be so cavalier when talking about our health, our homes, our children's lives, our very way of life, our FUTURE! This is outrageously irresponsible and shows you are embedded with fossil-fuel corporations. No matter WHAT good you might have done/want to do, your outrageously corporate-embedded behavior on FRACKING and complete disregard for CLIMATE CHANGE make any support I might have offered you AN IMPOSSIBILITY.]

"The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy. And by the way, it was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock -- reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground."

But, lest we despair, the president is firmly committed to a regulatory system that really works:

"We've all paid the price for lenders who sold mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, and buyers who knew they couldn't afford them. That’s why we need smart regulations to prevent irresponsible behavior. Rules to prevent financial fraud, or toxic dumping, or faulty medical devices, don't destroy the free market. They make the free market work better.

"There is no question that some regulations are outdated, unnecessary, or too costly. In fact, I’ve approved fewer regulations in the first three years of my presidency than my Republican predecessor did in his. I’ve ordered every federal agency to eliminate rules that don’t make sense. We've already announced over 500 reforms, and just a fraction of them will save business and citizens more than $10 billion over the next five years. . . . I will not back down from making sure an oil company can contain the kind of oil spill we saw in the Gulf two years ago. I will not back down from protecting our kids from mercury pollution, or making sure that our food is safe and our water is clean. I will not go back to the days when health insurance companies had unchecked power to cancel your policy, deny you coverage, or charge women differently from men.

"And I will not go back to the days when Wall Street was allowed to play by its own set of rules. . . . "

Whew! What a relief, Mr. President! Thank you soooooooo much!

For those of you who still believed Barack Obama was a decent human being who would stand up for the rights, health, and well-being of regular people versus corporate interests, I offer you my sympathies. I urge you to get active now that you realize there's nobody but you and the grassroots looking out for your interests.

Tbose who hoped Obama would eventually see the light have got to rethink. And we cannot simply say that "He's the best we've got, so let's support him."

I am feeling that I will put my energies behind STOPPING a presidential candidate who aligns so blatantly with Big Oil Big Gas Big Corporate Interests to the detriment of We the People. The corrupted U.S. two-party political system is bankrupt and spent. Perhaps you'll want to put your efforts elsewhere, my friends.

Bill McKibben: Stop Playing Nice with Obama

Why is environmental icon McKibben playing footsies with Barack Obama, a president clearly in deep with polluting corporations? Direct action by the people is the only potentially successful way forward. My piece in Counterpunch is at http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/23/mr-mckibben-take-heed/.

The American Lung Association in Bed with a Big Polluter

I just sent this letter off to the following people after learning that the American Lung Association Denver chapter is hosting a big fundraising event, Fight for Air Climb, on February 26, that is sponsored by Encana Oil & Gas! I'm just disgusted.

Please use these e-addresses to send your own thought to the ALA. Feel free to crib from this and/or follow all links.
Maura
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To: Liz Toohey, American Lung Association Denver Director of Development, ltoohey@lungcolorado.org
cc: American Lung Association CEO Charles Dean Connor, esward@lungusa.org, charles.connor@lungusa.org; ALA Board President Albert A. Rizzo, MD (via fax to Pulmonary Associates, Newark, DE at 302-368-5515); ALA Board President Ross P. Lanzafame, Esq., rlanzafame@hselaw.com
Via fax to ALA headquarters at (212) 315-8870 for distribution to all board members

Bcc: Shaleshock, Coalition to Protect New York, Interstate Coalition, and other grassroots activist groups
Posted on Facebook/Twitter
------------

Dear Ms. Toohey, Mr. Connor, Dr. Rizzo, Mr. Lanzafame, and American Lung Association officers and directors,

I was approached for support by a friend who is participating in the Fight for Air Climb in Denver, which led me to learn more about it. I am beyond appalled to discover that this event, supposedly promoting clean air and healthy lungs, is being sponsored by Encana Oil and Gas, one of the worst corporate polluters of air, water, and communities in the country.

How greedy and stupid has the American Lung Association become? Would you also take money from RJ Reynolds? Have you grown so big and bureaucratic that you have lost all sight of your original vision and mission?

It seems more important to raise money from corporate sponsors who actually contribute to the ill health of so many lungs, hearts, minds, and souls in this country.

From your promotional materials, it is clear that the human participants who think they're doing something important and philanthropic are no more to you than "consumers," as witnessed in your slick pitch to potential corporate sponsors, who can "underscore [their] community commitment" by partnering with your organization at the same time they find new customers and attract new shareholders:

The Fight for Air Climb participant represents the following demographics: 62% are female, 59% are between the ages of 24-44, 55% are married, 70% have a 4 year college degree or greater, 75% report a household income of $60,000 or greater, and 50( own their home. Further 76% are employed of which many are participating in corporate teams representing Colorado's largest employers. Sponsorship packages include many tangible and actionable rights and benefits that will provide our sponsors with the opportunity to:

• Connect with 3,000 climbers, family and friends plus an additional 300 volunteers
• Achieve your marketing & communications objectives
• Underscore your community commitment
• Partner with the American Lung Association in Colorado, the nation's preeminent organization working to improve lung health. Attract customers & generate leads while engaging staff

Your president and CEO Dr. Charles Dean Connor's own December 21, 2011 Huffington Post column is laudatory toward the Obama administration and the EPA for introducing new federal standards on toxic pollutants and mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. "Step forward and work to maximize the pollution reductions and do your fair share to help those that breathe the air downwind from your smokestacks," Connor urges power companies that have not yet complied. "No one wants to breathe your secondhand smog any more."

The same is true for oil and gas companies. Dr. Connor and the American Lung Association should certainly know this. The American Lung Association's own Public Policy Position Paper on Energy, approved June 11, 2011, avers the following (paragraph 1):

The American Lung Association believes that protection of lung health and a sound U.S. energy policy are compatible goals that require an emphasis on energy conservation, energy efficiency, and the use of cleaner energy resources, including a transition from coal and oil to cleaner alternatives. Our overarching principles call for the implementation of effective air quality programs and standards, transitioning to a clean energy future, with a commitment to promote environmental justice.

What kind of clean energy future can there be when one of the nation's most respected and recognized health associations is in bed with a dirty oil and gas company such as Encana? How can there be environmental justice when such corporations are pillaging lands and communities in nearly 30 states via fracking for methane gas and drilling for oil in sensitive environments, endangering the health of humans, domestic animals, wildlife, and ecosystems?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a draft analysis December 8, 2011 of the data from its investigation into the groundwater quality in the gas fields in and near Pavillion, Wyoming. Encana Oil and Gas conducted hydraulic fracturing there from 2004 to 2007 while developing new wells. “The draft report indicates that ground water in the aquifer contains compounds likely associated with gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing,” the EPA wrote in its press release. The report proves that gas industry assertions that "there has never been an incident of groundwater contamination by fracking" are, at best, obfuscating and misleading. At worst -- and to those of us who have studied the industry for some time, more likely -- outright lies.

In June 2008 the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance called EnCana the worst of the oil and gas companies operating in Wyoming:

The Worst of the Bad Actors

This list is ranked beginning with the worst. These are the companies that, due to their abysmal track record in Wyoming, have the greatest potential for improvement.

1. EnCana

–EnCana’s activities have become a poster-child for irresponsible development. In the Upper Green River Valley’s Jonah Field, EnCana initially drilled 16 wells per square mile, at the time the worst project of the last several decades. Then this Canadian gas giant sought – and got – permission to drill an additional 3,100 wells in the field at densities from 64 to 128 well sites per square mile. When completed, the well pads will extend almost unbroken by native vegetation across 33,000 acres of public land, and they’re now expanding from this initial area. EnCana officials dishonestly claimed that directional drilling wasn’t possible in the Jonah Field, even though more than 140 directional wells have been drilled in this field. EnCana also holds leases inside the Adobe Town proposed wilderness and is pursuing drilling there. To top it all off, EnCana’s oil and gas wells have caused groundwater contamination problems in the Pavillion area of the Wind River Basin.

You make a travesty of the good work done by many people in your organization when you choose to partner with a notorious member of the most polluting industry on earth -- an industry that through corruption of our legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government made itself exempt from such environmental and health regulations as the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Superfund laws.

The problem is bigger than just Encana, however.

The American Lung Association obviously took an early stance on the subject of "natural" gas extraction. I hope that this is so -- that the ALA had not

• seen the documentary films Split Estate or Gasland or All Fracked Up, or
• read any of Dr. Theo Colborn's shocking work on the horrific numbers of endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, and neurotoxins used in hydrofracking, or
• learned of the naturally occurring radioactive materials and heavy metals and VOCs that come up with the millions of gallons of permanently poisoned wastewater that are a byproduct of fracking, or
• read any of the other volumes of information that have been coming to light over the past couple of years,

-- and thus had no idea of the dangers of hydrofracking when it declared in the same June 2011 energy policy paper:

The American Lung Association supports public policies to minimize the human health, particularly lung health, impacts associated with the production of heat for residential, commercial, and industrial use, including impacts from fuel extraction to the disposal of wastes. The American Lung Association supports regulation and enforcement to protect the air, water and other environmental resources during the exploration, extraction, production and transmission of natural gas, propane, and oil. The American Lung Association supports programs and policies to assist communities and individuals to reduce their exposure to indoor and outdoor air pollutants and to reduce their energy use.

This indicates to me that you do not understand that a filthy fossil fuel extraction and transportation industry cannot be regulated well. And even if it could, it has made itself exempt from regulation! Surely with the number of terminal-degreed people on your staff and board, you can see that quite clearly.

AND THEN, again in the same document, you write:
The American Lung Association supports the expanded use of natural gas, and propane where natural gas is not available, for heating residential and commercial buildings, as a less polluting alternative to oil and other fossil fuels.

Perhaps at the time you wrote that, you were unaware of the peer-reviewed Robert Howarth, Ph.D. study out of Cornell University in which the researchers determined that the entire cradle-to-grave process of fracking for "natural" gas is as bad or worse a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions than even oil or coal extraction (findings that were corroborated by two subsequent peer-reviewed studies).

I certainly hope so. I certainly hope that an august body such as your board of directors will look again at this terrible energy policy and rethink your recommendations. You should be running like mad away from the destructive, criminal practice of fracking, not embracing it and those who foist it upon a nearly helpless public and the totally helpless natural world.

I plan to share this letter widely via my many list serves and via social media, including the Coalition to Protect New York and interstate groups working to outlaw fracking before it perpetrates further harm on nature, communities, water supplies, air quality, croplands and food supply, properties, and our own lungs and other necessary body parts.

I hope to hear that ALA Denver and other ALA chapters decide that it is not worth it to accept blood money from a polluting company or industry that works in direct opposition to the ALA's stated values and mission. Doing so mocks the trusting people who work hard on behalf of ALA and sullies your reputation.

I eagerly await your response.

Maura Stephens

PO Box 403
Spencer NY 14883
607-274-3829 office
607-351-3766 mobile
maura@coalitiontoprotectnewyork.org

Reference/a very short list of suggested further readings (happy to provide more if you request):
"Methane contamination of drinking water accompanying gas-well drilling and hydraulic fracturing" (the "Duke study") by Osborn, SG, A Vengosh, NR Warner, RB Jackson. 2011, and related links therefrom (attached in PDF format)
"West Divide Gas Seep" (4/14/04). Extract: Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission fined Encana Oil and Gas $371,200 (a record) for contaminating water supplies in West Divide Creek, Colorado. COGCC found methane, benzene, toluene, and m,p xylenes in water wells, and said Encana "inadequately cemented the well."
"Encana fined over harms to protected birds" (Denver Post, 8/28/2010). Extract: Encana fined the maximum fine of $15,000 for each of two counts plus $170,000 in community service payments for violating the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act in Colorado and Wyoming, killing 55 protected birds including waterfowl and owls, at its uncovered "natural" gas well reserve pits and wastewater storage facilities in Colorado's Piceance Basin and in Sweetwater, Sublette and Lincoln counties in Wyoming.
"$13,692 gallons of 'produced water' spilled" in Mamm Creek. Extract: Encana said it was from a pipeline rupture. Teh water traveled about a half mile before entering the creek (Glenwood Springs Post Independent, October 9, 2008)
"Methane increasing in water wells near Silt, Rifle, consultant says." Extract: Analysis of 700 water samples from 100 water wells and other water sources shows increased methane, which seem to be related to the 1,000 gas wells in the area.

A Wakeup Call for PDP Burma

I received a rather crazy missive from the Parliamentary Democracy Party this week. It claimed that on 11-11-11 the PDP received a visitor from three astrologers. These three "seers," said PDP, received a visit from the spirit of the slain Burmese democracy leader General Aung San, father of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. General Aung San's spirit ostensibly told them her daughter has "dishonour[ed] the revolution and my legacy, but my Higher Guardian Angles [sic] will not let her succeed."

If this is the kind of nonsense it is spreading, the PDP has become a sexist, racist sham of a political party. To my Burmese friends, I say: Let's tell them we no longer wish to receive warmongering missives like this. Tell them they cannot speak for the spirit of Aung San, and it is preposterous to claim that they do so.

I became involved in the struggle for Burmese freedom and democracy because I wanted to help a loving and inclusive people break the chains of tyranny, bigotry, hatred, and usurpation of their human rights. I do not wish to be subjected to vicious, divisive, non-constructive diatribes, from the military thugs or anyone who purports to want justice, equity, freedom, and inclusive democracy.

PDP: If you have something to say specifically, come out and say it. Don't blame Aung San Suu Kyi simply for existing, or for attempting to find some way forward to a sustainable future for Burma and its beleaguered people.

Anyone who tries to build bridges can and will surely be accused of selling out one side or the other. I know from much experience that it is vastly more difficult to work toward understanding and cooperation than it is to stand rigidly on one's own side, unbudging, unyielding, and doomed to perpetual misery, violence, or subjugation.

Things change. We must be flexible to change along with the tides, and not drown for stubbornness because we refuse to move as the tide laps at our nostrils. Change is difficult. Democracy is difficult and messy. Getting along with others is hard; ask any kid in a playground.

I spent many years fighting against hatred, bigotry, and desperate suppression in Northern Ireland. Much of the ongoing violence was fueled by generations of people who could not relinquish their bitterness against one another's forebears or put aside their thirst for vengeance. This carried on for several generations, and it still lingers. Many, many people suffered and died because the sides could not find common ground. And that was in a country of only two groups divided by religion and economic power -- not nearly as complex a population as that of Burma, with its more than 100 ethnicities!

It is easy to become choked by acrimony and animosity. If we cannot find it in our hearts to look forward with hope, remembering and learning from but not dwelling on others' sins of the past, we will never find the way to a free, fair, just, and democratic Burma.

I hope, PDP people, that you can find it in your hearts to begin planning for a positive and inclusive future for Burma and its people, both men and women, and all ethnicities. The people of Burma deserve nothing less than your generosity of spirit; a long-term, far-reaching vision for the sustainable yet prosperous country Burma could be someday; and your willingness to work hard to ensure that it so becomes. And please stop claiming you or your friends speak to the dead. That's just wrong.

Maura Stephens
friend of the Burmese people
formerly with
the International Campaign for Freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma

DEC: Inergy LPG Storage in Salt Caverns Is Insane. Say No.

Today was the deadline to comment to the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation on the proposed Inergy, Corp. liquefied petroleum gas storage in salt caverns in Reading, New York, just north of Watkins Glen on beautiful, vineyard-encircled Seneca Lake. This is what I wrote to the DEC about its facility ID 8-4432-00085. I am not as polite as most of those who wrote. That's because I'm mad as hell. You should be, too.

I could give numerous scientific reasons that permitting the LPG storage facility in salt mines in Reading (or anywhere else in the Finger Lakes) will cause environmental damage. Many others have submitted such comments as to why the DEC’s EIS for LPG storage in salt mines in Reading is grossly inadequate, why we are aware and disgusted that the only real benefits will go to Inergy, related industries, and to the government and regulatory officials in their pockets, and why we are aware and disgusted that We the People who live in the region will pay dearly without receiving any recompense for our immeasurable and irreconcilable losses.

Others have written about how our existing tourism, wine, outdoor recreation, and real estate businesses would collapse with the permitting of poisoning by Inergy and related industries.

You have had an earful about how the noise, traffic, and clogged air would affect our lives and health—and surely your own, even very basic, research would have confirmed this.

You already know that LPG storage facilities cause sicknesses and even death of plant and animal life—and probably of people (as well as existing businesses).

You know, too, that there will be few jobs gained, if any. It is in fact more likely that Inergy’s LPG storage facility would lead to job loss, considering that existing businesses will be forced to downsize or close as tourism and crop purity are destroyed.

You have heard firsthand from homeowners who are selling their homes and escaping, or at the very least delaying planned home building or home-improvement projects. You have heard of how prospective buyers are looking elsewhere because nobody in her right mind wants to live near or be forced to travel by a gas storage and transport facility.

Surely it is clear to you that lower property values will have an overall terrible effect on Schuyler County’s property tax base, which in turn will cause neighboring counties’ properties and tax bases to weaken

You must admit, sir, that the DEC is hamstrung and grossly understaffed. It does not have the power to enforce regulations, even if regulations had any meaning. But they don’t, and that is the primary purpose of this letter.

This Company Is . . . Let’s Just Say, Not One to Write Home About

Surely it is clear to anyone with half a a brain that once Inergy gets this facility in place, it will quickly expand to the other salt caverns around Seneca Lake, and thence to the many caverns around Cayuga and the other Finger Lakes. That will destroy everything valuable about this region as a place to live and raise a family, a vacation destination, a business community, and the precious ecosystems and waterways on which life depends.

I’m not sure that anyone has yet brought up the fact that Inergy, like all fossil-fuel corporations (indeed, like all corporations), has one mission and one mission only: to make money.

That money is often made at the expense of people’s livelihoods, property, health, and lives. And the corporation often lies to get its way. Which is exactly what is happening here, with Inergy.

Inergy has, preposterously, claimed that its executives and staff are “locals” who “care about” Seneca Lake. That is an outright lie. Almost all, and certainly the highest-paid ones, are from out of state, as several of us have learned from these individuals themselves. So that argument must be publicly refuted and called out for the lie it is. DEC and the media “reporting” on this issue should already be doing that consistently.

You and the media should also be seriously questioning why (a) Inergy relies on the 1992 GEIS, which does not even deal with LPG storage in salt mines, for information in its proposal; (b) the company was sued by Michigan Attorney General in 2008 for price gouging (and settled by refunding the overcharges to customers); (c) the company has no ties to this region; (d) the company has been caught in numerous lies and misrepresentations, yet Reading and Schuyler County officials seem to find these all just fine.

We’re Not Fooled: This Gas Is Not for Domestic Use

Inergy is attempting to pull a bait-and-switch by telling people in this region that its desire is to “store heating fuel here so that we can provide local residents with cheaper fuel during winter months, when prices are higher.”

That, too, is an outright lie. Inergy will sell to the highest bidder because that is its mission: to make money. It would be following in the footsteps of countless fossil fuel corporations that have lied to convince the public, regulators, and legislators that they intend to keep their domestically extracted product in the USA (it’s so “patriotic” and will make us “energy independent” and get us off “foreign fuels”). They are granted permits to poison here, and then turn around to sell their products abroad, where the best prices can be met.  

Waterborne Energy, Inc., in its LPG Report dated 3 June 2010, says, “On an annualized basis, there were 30.208mmbbls exported during calendar year 2009. Through June 2010 there have been 17.145mmbbls exported – or 56% of the overall total achieved last year. If the year-to-date July figures are included the percentage rises to 61%. The vast majority of the exports is clearly propane, of which there have been 16.6mmbbls removed from domestic inventories. This compares to the total propane volume exported last year, which was 25.4mmbbls.”

Pervin & Gertz, Inc., “international energy consultants,” reported in its 2010 Latin American LPG Seminar, held in Chile November 15-18, 2010, that “In fact, LPG exports from Houston to Latin America have grown each of the past 3 years and volumes appear to be on track to reach a modern day record in 2010. This situation has had repercussions in the U.S. propane market, with pre-winter inventory levels running far below average. Ultimately, we expect these conditions to strengthen propane prices in the U.S. This scenario would trigger higher prices throughout most of Latin America, particularly in un-subsidized markets reliant on propane imports.”

Coastal Caverns, Inc. (CCI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Vitol Group, announced on July 5, 2011, its plans to develop a new propane export facility in conjunction with its in-development LPG storage operation in Beaumont, Texas. It will include storage capacity for up to six million barrels of domestic and international grade propane as well as a processing facility capable of handling as much as 100,000 bbls per day. The project will be designed to ultimately treat and export up to 3 million tons of propane per year.

Most recently, three weeks ago, BG Group signed a 20-year, $8 billion agreement with Houston-based Cheniere Energy to export LNG.

So much for “clean, patriotic, domestic energy” serving the U.S. market. We know that’s hogwash, as are the claims of Inergy and others that LPG storage is completely unrelated to fracking for “natural” gas in our region.

Part of a Much Bigger Industry That Will Destroy New York State Permanently

We know that propane is found in Marcellus shale gas south and west of us, and we know that the gas needs to be refined to separate the propane from the methane and butane. That requires refineries—more industrialization.

Once the door is open to this destructive industry, there will be no shutting it.

That is not acceptable. We are not willing to be collateral damage to serve the interests of a few corporate fat cats and the politicians with whom they are colluding.

The people who work for the DEC, like those who work for regulatory agencies of every description in the United States, no doubt mean well and have good intentions. But you have been rendered powerless by a political system that does not see value in regulating industry to protect people and nature.

Impotent Regulatory System

DEC is virtually powerless. Why would any sane people trust that a powerless agency can protect us from corporate harm, that you even could protect our environment and nature from corporate damage, or that you could possibly “mitigate” the harm once we have been contaminated—which we surely would be if this LPG storage facility and the subsequent industrial expansion come to New York State?

You are not God; you cannot make pure something that has been permanently poisoned. You cannot restore a bucolic, beautiful, peaceful way of life once it has been destroyed by a heartless, soulless industry. You cannot make dead fish and aquatic creatures come back to life. You cannot remove benzene, or methane, or toluene or xylene or hydrochloric acid—or radium, or a mixture of the above—from our drinking water and croplands.

Lest you accuse me of hysteria, I will point out that I am a journalist with 33 years of experience investigating, among other things, environmental and business issues. I did graduate work in botany and horticulture, and I am a long-time organic farmer. I am not given to hyperbole. Every thing I have predicted in this fracking fight so far has come true. I smelled this Inergy rat the minute it announced itself in Reading.

The Role of the DEC

I love the Finger Lakes and New York State, and I will not stand by and see it destroyed by wanton corporations given free rein to rape and pillage at will. Nor will the tens of thousands of people who have joined actively in antifracking movement across the state, from Shelter Island to Niagara Falls.

I do not agree with some leaders in the fight against this destructive industry that an independent Qualitative and Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA) is in order. The only thing in order, in my mind, is a total ban on use of the Finger Lakes or any critical watershed as storage of highly toxic materials. A potent and on-task environmental regulatory agency would be fighting for this right up front, no matter the odds. Unfortunately, the DEC charge of fostering “natural resources” development is directly at odds with its charge of protecting the environment, and your conflicted mission inevitably causes harm to the latter.

Yet your goals statement does say the DEC pursues “environmental quality, public health, economic prosperity and social well-being, including environmental justice and the empowerment of individuals to participate in environmental decisions that affect their lives.”

Now, that’s more like it. If you start toward this goal, you will inevitably listen to us and say a resounding No to the Inergy proposal.

If you do not, the people cannot stand for the degradation of our home, and there is no time like the present to make some serious changes in the way business is conducted in New York State. We are fighting for our way of life here. We are fighting for our future. There is tremendous power in people when so much is at stake. I sincerely hope the DEC will be on the side of the environment and environmental justice, as your website proclaims you are. If not, well, I guess it's up to us, then.

Great Investigative Journalism Work You MUST View

Our neighbors in Tonawanda, on the Niagara River in western New York State just south of Buffalo, were being poisoned for decades by a company that, unlike the gas/oil industry, does not enjoy exemptions from clean water, clean air, and toxic waste laws and other regulations set in place to protect our environment and health.

For many years regulatory agencies DEC (NYS) and EPA (federal) ignored residents' complaints of foul air and physical ailments, outrageously high rates of cancer and other diseases, and benzene levels 500 times higher than what is considered the highest acceptable level in state guidelines. Not only benzene, but other highly toxic chemicals were being released over decades into the air and water by a company called Tonawanda Coke Corporation. (No doubt others of the 50 or so industrial polluters that have PERMITS in Tonawanda contributed even more.)

From the piece:
Joe Martens, commissioner of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, defended the record of his agency, which eventually set up high-tech air quality monitors that documented extremely elevated benzene levels, leading to the enforcement actions. But he said such sophisticated equipment had not been available previously. So state officials had no way of knowing about the benzene, formaldehyde, and other toxic emissions seeping from leaks in equipment and piping at the plant, Martens said. “Hazardous air pollutants are difficult to detect. We didn’t have the equipment to do the type of detection — you know, police work — that EPA was able to do” later.

After reading this, what kind of idiot would say, "Hey, sure the DEC and DEP and EPA will protect us from being poisoned by industry"? Ask the people of Tonawanda, many of whom have become very sick and some of whom have died because of the toxins dumped on them by this single iron-smelting factory.

Yet we are to trust that the DEC and other flaccid regulatory agencies will protect us from Big Gas and related industries and their fracking and related machines and poisons? No way, Jose!

We must tell the DEC and the governor that no amount of regulation is acceptable. DEC (and DEP and other states' agencies) regulations are not acceptable. Only a full and total ban on industrial poisoning from fracking and other industries is acceptable.

Read the great investigative piece on Tonawanda citizens who fought back against the polluting company, which was finally charged in criminal court -- because poisoning us and our communities IS A CRIME and thus should be in the criminal code. Every one of the corporate officers and senior staff should serve serious jail time and pay heavy financial damages to those they poisoned. Not that any amount of money could restore the poisoned people's lives or adequately compensate for their losses.

This piece is part of a fine, scary, and eye-opening new series by the Center for Public Integrity in concert with Slate and NPR, called "Poisoned Places."
From "About the series":
As often happens during in-depth investigations — an unexpected discovery. Reporters learned that the EPA maintains a “watch list” that includes serious or chronic Clean Air Act violators that have not been subject to timely enforcement. Two versions of the internal list, never previously made public, were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. (More about the watch list here.)

Congratulations to the investigators, researchers, writers, editors, publishers, and funder of these important pieces. May they awaken people to the dangers we face and help them force change to protect and sustain the places we live, the air we breathe, and the lives we hope to continue leading.

For a Favorite Fool

A friend was laid to rest today.

He was a dancer
and fellow thespian
a dear, kind man.

He’d been the Scottish king
thrice (once versus
my half Lady
— that’s a long tale).

He’d played many a part
Mostly Shakespearean
and mostly the fool —
his favorite!

His even better role
was as
husband and father
to his lovely girls

Gorgeous loving brave wife
Two fine daughters
Each of them to die for
and he would have.

His passing
was not sudden
for our friends
who had stayed close.

For me
It was lightning
We hadn’t been
in touch of late.

Bob’s funeral
today
was mobbed
with friends
and colleagues
from all walks
of his many-pathed life
— human services
theater
dance
music
comedy . . .

Clowning Bob,
Funny fool,
Laughing lad!
So beloved
by so many.

Can you really,
truly be gone?

No, of course not.
You are here
Large as life.
In our hearts
if not still
in your kitchen
at our tables
on our stages.

We know your tricks.
You can’t fool us!
But it was
a nice try. :^)


Ciao
for now,
Bob DeLuca.



--October 20, 2011, Ithaca, New York USA

An URGENT Open Letter to NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo

Actual posting time is 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 30, 2011. Something is wrong with the blogger clock/calendar.

This posting is appearing in Alternet and other publications. Urgency dicatated that I post it online immediately so people can bombard Cuomo with calls and e-mails expressing their [fill in your own word: fury, disappointment, anguish, disgust, heartbreak, terror, determination to fight harder and elect people who will protect our rights to clean air, clean water, safe food supplies, decent communities, and our rights to NOT BE POISONED . . .]

Dear Governor Cuomo,

We just got word that you're lifting the fracking moratorium in the New York City and Syracuse watersheds. I'm almost apoplectic from shock, anger, grief, and terror.

A former farmer and trained environmentalist, researcher, and independent journalist, I have spent much of the last three years learning and writing about fracking. I am a cofounder of the Coalition to Protect New York, among other actively engaged organizations working to ban fracking in our state and elsewhere.

We do not trust the Department of Environmental Conservation to get things right on fracking. Even if it were a reliable and trustworthy agency, the DEC’s budget has been cut so drastically and its workforce decimated to the point that it’s virtually hamstrung.

We do not trust — nor should any sensible, informed citizen or legislator trust — corporate-bought politicians and corporate "scientists."

For the moment we must trust that you are not among that group and that you truly want to do what is right for New York State.

In these tough economic, energy, and environmental times it will take a visionary, forward-thinking leader to bring the state into the future with an innovative energy/jobs/climate-change-effects-lessening plan.

You could be that leader if you have the desire and political will to do so.

It appears you have decided to lift the moratorium for the state outside the New York City watershed (because Wall Street traders, corporate tycoons and big bankers live downstate) and Syracuse watershed (tossing a bone to the rest of the state, according to cynics), while throwing the rest of us to the wolves.

This means you think of the rest of the state’s residents and environment as expendable.

You may be committing political suicide.

Many millions of New Yorkers now know what is at stake with fracking, and more are coming to that understanding daily as they learn of its ills in other places.

That speaks to the dedication of my fellow antifracking activists, who are fighting an industry that can without blinking an eye drop $150 million or more yearly to hoodwink the public and lobby legislators with false propaganda. Their ads claim that “natural” gas is “clean, safe, domestic, and patriotic.” And that it’s an economic panacea for struggling workers whose jobs have been eliminated or sent abroad.

Which, as you surely know, are all false claims.

Governor, you should quickly reconsider lifting the moratorium. The only sensible, responsible, long-term response to the devastating practice of fracking (a response that would also greatly offset our economic woes) is to
1) immediately institute a statewide fracking ban (New Jersey’s legislature just passed one; it’s waiting for Governor Christie’s signature, which is probably not forthcoming; but you could be the first);
2) invest in wide-scale updating and reinforcing of infrastructures and in conservation/energy-efficiency rehabilitating existing public and private buildings and homes;
3) commit to the building and maintenance of long-term energy-efficient public transportation and codify mandatory greater fuel efficiency in all private and public large, small, agricultural, and industrial vehicles;
4) invest in research, development and implementation of renewable, sustainable neighborhood- and local-based energy systems, and write and enforce laws mandating the phase-out of all fossil-fuel based systems;
5) protect and keep public all drinking water supplies;
6) promote and foster healthful, organic agriculture and food distribution models; and
7) invest in public education programs about conservation, the reduction of energy consumption, and about renewable energy strategies.

Following such a plan would save money through conservation. It would reduce our need for and dependence on fossil fuels (which dependence, as you know, is unsustainable, even in the short term). It would also create plenty of safer, stabler, longer-term jobs, as the “green” sector expands with innovative new projects.

Perhaps most important, it would help stave off further hastening of catastrophic climate change and leave a legacy of forward-thinking and sustainability — rather than one of industrialization and ruination of lives, communities, and food and water supplies.

Fracking is the single most important issue facing New Yorkers. It will add water-pollution, air-pollution, and food toxicity illnesses, generate injuries to workers and others, and thereby increase our health care costs.

It will cause property damage and drain our communities of tax revenues that will need to be used to repair roads and bridges damaged by the thousand of trucks it takes to provision a frack well and remove the millions of gallons of contaminated waste generated by each well.

It contributes to greenhouse gases and global climate change and the increasingly commonplace whacky weather patterns we are seeing in New York and elsewhere. It will kill our tourism, outdoor adventuring, and agriculture and vineyards enterprises around the state—which would constitute economic suicide. Those industries combined bring in about $2.2 billion annually and provide 515,000 jobs (and will likely grow as neighboring Pennsylvania’s hunting, fishing, agriculture, and tourism sicken and die of fracking-related causes).

We must not allow the progress we have made these last few decades on the clean air/clean water/safe food to be wiped out via one destructive industry, nor allow our bucolic state to be turned into an industrial wasteland.

Because, mark my words, that is what fracking will do to New York should your permits go through.

New York is “Fracking Ground Zero.” People in fracked states are looking to us for leadership, begging New Yorkers to stop the madness before it takes hold here. They do not want us to be poisoned, and they also want us to then help them stop the industrialization and maybe help reverse some of the damages (although, alas, it is too late for many of these states, and huge swaths of land as well as people’s health and properties are beyond reclamation) of their communities.

Governor Cuomo, I urge you to be the leader New Yorkers need — and in whom they put their faith in when casting their votes.

Do not succumb to industry/Wall Street pressure. Do not put profits before our health. Do not gamble with our lives.

This is a make-or-break issue for me, my family, and the many organizations to which I belong and which I have founded or cofounded. We are making this the top priority in our lives and in our daily and many political actions. We feel we are fighting for our way of life — indeed, for our very lives. We want you to be equally committed to saving what is precious and irreplaceable.

Please invite us to consult with you if your information is leading you to lift the moratorium. We are informed. We are knowledgeable. We are farsighted.

We are taxpaying scientists, medical doctors and practitioners from many fields (oncology, pulmonology, pediatrics, obstetrics/gynecology, physiatry, endocrinology, and psychiatry), farmers, water quality specialists, hazardous materials experts, teachers, entrepreneurs, businesspeople, writers, artists, homeowners, renters, teens, college students, parents, grandparents, voters.

We will help you understand that fracking risks are far too great, too widespread, too permanent, too irremediable, too suicidal on so many fronts.

We are also motivated. There’s nothing that pulls people off their couches like a threat to their kids' health and their property values. We will not allow ourselves to be used as lab rats, cannon fodder, or "collateral damage."

So you can be sure that we will not stop fighting for a ban. We hope you will do the right thing and push for a total ban on fracking in New York State.

And Governor, please make the decision quickly. We have all lost countless hours to this fight — and countless hours of sleep to our deep and very real fears of what fracking will do to our future, and our children’s — and we would like to go back to being productive rather than reactive. Our reinvigoration and productivity will also help the troubled economy, about which you might be losing a lot of sleep as well.

We are also willing to sit on an advisory board to help you put the positive sustainability/conservation work mentioned above in place. Just ask us.

My family, friends, colleagues, fellow activists and I look forward to your response.

Signed,

Maura Stephens
Tioga County, NY

Maura Stephens is an independent journalist and cofounding member of the Coalition to Protect New York and other groups. She writes frequently about fracking and other environmental and energy issues. To contact New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: http://www.governor.ny.gov/contact/GovernorContactForm.php; (518) 474-8390. Let him know you're outraged and you think fracking is the most important issue facing us -- and what his actions will mean for your future votes and support. And then really get involved. Join an antifracking group and become an activist. Growing our numbers and our outrage will help fuel a mass movement -- the only force that is going to save everything we care about from greedy corporate destruction.

"People are awesome," yes, and . . .

Someone sent me a link to this amazing video of people doing all sorts of crazy athletic (or just plain crazy) stunts. Check it out; it's a few minutes long but very compelling.

http://www.videobash.com/video_show/people-are-awesome-5962

This filled me with admiration in some ways. For example, can you imagine what kinds of fears people overcame to do some of these stunts? How many bruises, sprains, gashes, breaks, cuts, fractures, and PAIN some of them suffered in pursuit of their goal,? Yet still they kept at it until they succeeded. Such determination, patience, dedication, resolve, endurance.

Power to them.

Yet I couldn't help thinking about how many people worldwide are living on too-few calories a day or don't have access to potable water. Without nutrition and hydration, even many young people who should be in the prime of life are unable even to crawl a few hundred feet -- that would be their death-defying stunt.

It must be nice to be both free and well-nurtured enough (and in many cases, rich enough) to engage in pursuits such as those demonstrated in the video.

If these people were a tenth as dedicated to making the world a better place as they are to pushing themselves to the height of physical prowess (and self-glorification), we'd have a much more egalitarian society. There'd be less governmental and corporate abuse of power, more jobs, stronger communities, less environmental degradation, less stress, more economic opportunity, and more concern for one another's well being.

Watching this video reminds me, too, of the clever hackers who are so good at messing up people's personal computers (which can in turn mess up people's personal lives pretty badly).

If only these smart s^*#heads would put their brains and talents into doing something for the common good. Some of them are smart enough, I've no doubt (especially if they put their heads together with others of similar bent), to figure out a way, say . . .
for ivory poachers to make a living doing something less murderous but equally lucrative, or
to create a community wind farm in a town that's getting overrun by gas drilling or coal mining operations -- thereby negating the community's ostensible need for fossil fuels, or
to build a village water well for a place that has none, or
to fund a children's vaccination program, or
. . . who knows, to find a cure for diabetes, or bronchitis, or asthma, or cancer.

We need to tell young people there is glory in that kind of work, not just in ten minutes of fame on YouTube (even if it gets a million hits). Glory doesn't come only from appearing on American Idol or being the next big mini-star on Facebook.

In short, it can't be all about ME. It's got to be about US. Or we really won't make it at all.

Not to be a bummer. The video is still fun to watch.

George Sapioisms 1

Living with the creative, brilliant, often hysterically funny George Sapio is never dull. Believe me!

I've just started doing something I should have begun years ago, which is recording some of his verbal gems.
Here's the first installment:


The milk of human kindness either has gone sour or is chock full of hormones.
— George Sapio, 1 February 2011, Ithaca New York USA

Press Release re CPNY: Coalition forms on Marcellus shale gas drilling in NYS

Joint Press Release Sent by EarthWorksAction and the Coalition to Protect New York:

On June 19, 2010, nearly 140 individuals and representatives from 60 grassroots, regional, and national organizations in four states gathered in Binghamton to share information on legal, scientific, economic, policy, health, and family issues related to hydraulic fracturing for methane gas, or "fracking."

Participants in the Coalition to Protect New York are unified by knowledge of the extensive evidence that gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with toxic chemicals harm water supplies, property values, community infrastructure, the environment, and human health.

At the gathering, people from neighboring states who are living with dire consequences of this process gave testimony, urging New Yorkers to halt fracking and avoid problems that have arisen nationwide. The practice hasn't yet been permitted in New York, and two different bills are currently before the state legislature that would impose a moratorium while certain stipulations are met.

"Many organizations statewide have developed expertise and made great strides; by working together, we can achieve even more in educating the public, assisting landowners, and fostering sound public policies," said Jack Ossont of Yates County, an event organizer. "We need to stop the rush to drill, which would endanger communities across New York." He lauded the many volunteers who labored to convene the statewide summit.

Workshops were led by experts from around New York and as far as West Virginia. Keynote speakers were Anthony Ingraffea, Professor of Engineering at Cornell University; Wes Gillingham, Program Director at Catskill Mountainkeeper; and Julia Walsh, founder of FrackAction.org.

Weston Wilson, a retired whistleblowing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency engineer, paid a surprise visit. In 2004, an EPA study declared that hydraulic fracturing poses no threat to drinking water a conclusion Mr. Weston and others contend is scientifically unsound and resulted from Bush administration pressure to omit critical data. The study greatly contributed to exemption of the gas industry from Safe Drinking Water Act requirements to disclose the toxic chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.

U.S. Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-22nd District) was another surprise visitor; he encouraged strong oversight of the gas industry and protections for communities, including through passage of the FRAC Act. The bill, which Mr. Hinchey introduced, would require disclosure of the many toxic chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing and give the EPA authority to regulate the process.

"We all came to Binghamton with the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in mind, and the commitment to preventing such tragic events from ever happening in New York," said Wes Gillingham of Catskill Mountainkeeper. "Today's gathering signifies a new phase of collaboration and effectiveness in ensuring that the gas industry doesn't continue to degrade quality of life across the Marcellus Shale region."

Maura Stephens of Tioga County, another event organizer, said, "We don't blame people who have signed leases. Gas companies don't reveal the potential frightening consequences. But now we know, and we owe it to everyone to share this information. We want to keep our state beautiful, safe, toxin-free, and livable. Many of us feel we are fighting for our very lives."

A New Gulf War: Lessons from Mesopotamia

Could we be witnessing the U.S. version of the destruction of the Marsh Arabs’ habitat?

Remember how outraged we were in August 1990 when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded his much smaller neighbor, Kuwait?

In response, the United States and about 33 nominal UN allies waged what the George H.W. Bush administration and US media dubbed the Gulf War (or Gulf War I or Persian Gulf War). It lasted less than six months.

We resoundingly defeated our former friend, teaching him a stern lesson -- and then leaving him to his own devices.

Environmental Gulf War I
Saddam Hussein drained the marshes down south in Iraq, near the Gulf, to drive out rebellious Marsh Arabs and starve them to death or kill them outright.

A half million people lived there, fishing and either farming or raising water buffalo. In just a short time, when Saddam’s armies were done, only a few thousand remained. The birds and fish disappeared, too, their habitat destroyed.

Those marshes were already drying up before Hussein’s army invaded; some 30 years of drainage of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers (which originate in Turkey) by Turkey and Iran as well as Iraq was helping desertify the marshlands, as were other Iraqi government policies.

Hussein just hastened the region’s demise, the assassination of its wildlife and ecology, and the murder, incarceration, or displacement and dispossession of its people.

I’d say this qualifies as genocide.

The United States and the rest of the world vaguely expressed outrage, but there was little coverage in the media and nobody did anything to help the Marsh Arabs or reverse the environmental and economic damage to the wetlands.

It wasn’t until 2004 that a huge international project, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, was begun to remove dams. By 2006 about half the Marsh Arabs’ homeland was successfully re-flooded, and a few species seemed to be recovering slightly; some people returned to the area to try to reclaim their way of life.
But a drought over the last three years, in which the region received only 30 to 40 percent of previous rain levels, has turned those wetlands back into deserts and made them too hostile an environment for people and wildlife.

Again man stepped in to make matters worse. Drainage of both the Tigris and Euphates upriver in Turkey and northern Iraq has caused a 40 to 60 percent drop in water flow into Iraq and Syria in the last few years.

Turkey claims the water belongs to Turkey. But Turkey, Syria, and Iraq (and Iran to a much lesser extent) share these fragile and diminishing water supplies and are suffering severe water shortages.

The region is warming, like most of the planet. The ongoing drought is probably its new “normal” rather than an aberration.

Iraq remains occupied and, like Syria, has an unstable government. Iraq’s human-built infrastructure is still shattered. Oil exploitation, by BP and others, continues unabated.

And preposterously, the entire area’s population is growing, despite the loss of probably a million Iraqis to war and violence.

Water wars look increasingly possible.

Back in the USA
Now to the United States, where Gulf of Mexico marshlands are being assaulted by BP oil and further poisoned by toxic dispersants. We’re already seeing massive ecosystem destruction, wildlife kills, and livelihood losses, and inevitably we’ll soon see widespread mental health problems and the breakup of families and communities.

A kind of genocide, too, one might argue.

Just like Saddam Hussein and his minions did, BP CEO Tony Hayward and his executive staff are getting away with murder.

BP is still running the “cleanup operation,” which everyone knows is a sham, just as Saddam Hussein was left to “clean up” after the Gulf War.

BP has insisted, even against EPA orders, on using a highly toxic dispersant (in a procedure that has never been tried before) that is less effective than others. (There’s a good reason for this: BP owns the company that makes Corexit, and Corexit breaks the oil particles into smaller particles that make it harder to see how much oil BP has unleashed.) The United States and the world community looked away when Saddam Hussein used nerve gas and other toxins to combat the rebels in 1991.

BP has not allowed the low-paid cleanup workers who are standing in broiling sun while raking oil-soaked sand 12 hours a day to wear face masks, let alone the full haz-mat protection suits they should be provided. Bush I ordered U.S. soldiers to stand by as Saddam Hussein’s army helicopters strafed Shiite communities with sarin and other chemical weapons.

Today, fishers, boaters, and residents of Gulf of Mexico shore communities are being forced to construct homemade barriers to try to save their beautiful beaches and coastal marshes. Many of them, no doubt, will flee the region, just as hundreds of thousands of the Marsh Arabs and 1991 rebels who survived Saddam’s slaughter became permanent refugees.

BP has banned journalists, camera wielders, and the public from vast areas where they could be documenting the crude spill. In 1991, Saddam kept journalists out of the rebel areas, and Bush I was eager to keep them out as well. Bush didn’t want the U.S. public to know about the brutal repression of the rebels, who were rebelling because he had urged them to. It was easier to let Saddam crush them; their religion made the U.S. uncomfortable, and they might have formed an alliance with Iran that was unfavorable to U.S. interests. As Barry Lando wrote in Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush (Other Press), "Anonymous government figures, wise in the ways of Realpolitik, were making statements such as, 'It is far easier to deal with a tame Saddam Hussein than with an unknown quantity. ' "

If the journalists at Grist, Mother Jones, and other good news organizations keep on this story, and the rest of us step up the pressure to make oil and gas companies accountable and transparent in all their actions, and if enough people continue working on the cleanup in a sensible way, perhaps the marshlands of southern USA will survive.

It will take all these actions together. The alternative is unthinkable but not impossible. They could end up like the marshlands of southern Iraq: permanently uninhabitable.

Marcellus Shale: Are the Risks Worth the Rewards?

"Update: PEMA urges residents to prepare now for possible flooding.”

“DEP directs gas drillers to replace water.”

“Man killed by fall off Towanda drilling rig.”

I read these three stories in that order. The first two were in the Pike County [Pennsylvania] Courier, the third in the Binghamton [New York] Press & Sun Bulletin. The headlines of the first (get ready for a flood) and third (a man died in a gas-drilling accident) are self-explanatory. The second, about “replacing” water, went like this:

“The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) . . . ordered Schreiner Oil and Gas Co. to provide a permanent solution to water supply issues at two homes the company’s drilling activity impacted near Hedgehog Lane, McKean County.

“DEP previously determined that the company, based in Massillon, Ohio, was liable for affecting the water supplies of homes. . . . mong the contaminants identified were total dissolved solids, chlorides, manganese, iron, dissolved methane and ethane gas.”

Does this not terrify everyone who lives in the huge gas-drilling and potential gas-drilling region? (The Marcellus Shale encompasses large swaths of New York State, almost all of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, and parts of Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. A total of 31 or 32 states have deposits of so-called “natural” gas, more properly termed “fossil-fuel gas.”)

Here are some facts:

1) The horizontal, slick-water hydraulic fracturing process of gas drilling (“chemo-fracking”) uses and releases numerous toxic chemicals — carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, naturally occurring radioactive materials.

2) Accidents happen.

3) People make mistakes.

4) Floods occur.

Anyone who has ever experienced a flash flood knows that you’re going to run for your life and your loved ones' lives first, and for your most expensive and/or most precious possessions next.

Even if gas companies had our best interests at heart — and you’d have to be a total naïf to think they do — there is simply no way to protect us from all these toxins that would go streaming into our water systems in the event of a flood, let alone the inevitable accidents and mistakes that will occur.

Because they will.

In the cases where the gas companies have to “replace” water, what are we talking about?

You can’t “replace” water that has been contaminated with poisons. You can bring in huge “water buffaloes” with 300 or 500 gallons of “fresh” water from elsewhere (and who is monitoring that water? Where does it come from?) to resupply a family with drinking, cooking, and bathing water, but the ground is still contaminated.

The vegetables and flowers and shrubs in the family’s garden are still reliant on that water for survival. The squirrels, bunnies, and raccoons . . . the chickadees, warblers, and woodpeckers . . . the frogs, fish, and turtles . . . the crickets, bees, and peepers . . . the family cat and dog . . . all drink the water from that contaminated ground. Toddlers in sandboxes eat the dirt. Kiddie pools and grown-ups’ pools, bird baths, ponds, streams, rivers, and lakes . . . all can be contaminated from just one spill.

You can’t “replace” bad water with good. Period.

There is not enough recompense in the world to mitigate this kind of permanent damage to a person’s home and property or to our surrounds, or to our own health and our children’s health.

It is up to communities to decide if the risks are worth the riches that will go to the gas companies and to a few members of the communities.

Let’s think about these risks for a moment: Someone in my community will die because of fracking. It’s inevitable. The man who was killed on a gas rig in Towanda, Pennsylvania, has a name: Greg Allen Henry. He was from Athens, Tennessee. He was 31 years old and was killed when he fell from a rig and suffered massive head trauma.

Are the risks worth the rewards? How many lives are worth how many dollars? The job (remember the many promised to Pennsylvanians and New Yorkers) came, no doubt, with pretty good pay to bring a Tennesseean so far from home. But was it enough for Greg Henry's family? Will it help ease their grief?

Will you be getting free energy for life, if you lease your land and it’s fracked? Will you ever feel safe drinking the water? Will the royalty fees cover the loss of your home’s value? Where will you go if you are forced to leave your valueless home? What will happen to the investments of time, equity, sweat, and tears—let alone cash—you’ve poured into it? How much money is enough? Are the risks worth the rewards?

Is a Tennessee man’s life worth as much as a Towanda child’s life? If your child drinks contaminated water today and develops cancer in five years, will a gas company come forward to help you pay for your child’s chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and hold your hand while you wait for the latest medical test results that will tell you if she will live or die?

Whose risks? Whose rewards?

Are the risks worth the rewards?

Every community must come up with its answer.

Nuclear Power Lobbyists, Marcellus Shale Gas Lobbyists

My response to a story in Mother Earth: “Nuclear Power and the Lobbyists Behind It”

Find it at http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/Nuclear-Power-Lobbyist-Influence.aspx#comments

The gas industry is equally aggressive in its marketing to Congress members and the public. That's why you may think natural gas is a safe, clean fuel that will save us from reliance on dirty fuels such as coal and oil (that nasty "foreign" oil) and make the USA "energy independent." When an industry is spending upwards of $120 million to convince us, it's likely to get the message across to many who don't know better.

Natural gas is being extracted in 31 states. In the Marcellus Shale, stretching through 7 states from New York to Tennessee, and elsewhere, it's being extracted via slick-water horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or "chemo-fracking," a messy, destructive process that involves mixing many highly toxic chemicals (neurotoxins, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens) and millions of gallons of water to blast through rock to get the gas. Nothing clean about the process or the waste it leaves (and no safe way to dispose of it), which poisons watersheds.

Ya can't drink gas.

Let's demand an end to such highly dangerous energy sources. We need to get on solar, wind, and geothermal now, as we simultaneously transform our transportation system from the individual motor vehicle to a national high-speed public transportation network.

In doing so, our national health costs will go down, green jobs will be created, we'll have fewer car-related headaches (and accidents). We'll all benefit!

Nuclear & fossil fuels: No
Renewable & sustainable energy: Yes

It's that simple.

Update on Iraqi family and a little about Burma work

I have been so busy that I have not posted in months. Wonder why I keep this blog. For the moment it suffices as my place to post items of interest, until I find a new publisher.

In any case, the situation with Andy and Alice and their children is an exercise in frustration. I have been stymied by US Citizenship and Immigration Services, who now insist that we provide letters from generals from the army units with which Andy served. But of course there are no generals in most of Iraq. The highest ranking officers in the units Andy served with were l. Despite the fact that many highest ranking officers from the units he was with have written to the USCIS to vouch that there were no higher ranking officers in their units, the USCIS insists still that we provide letters from generals.

The whole situation is Kafkaesque to the extreme. Meantime, I am about to send out an appeal for money in the hope that we will get them out soon; I'll have to find them housing, a car, food, clothing, etc., as well as a job for Andy. I look forward to that challenge and hope to heaven they make it through while the bureacrats do all they can to ensure the worst. The prevalence of stupidity, heartlessness, arrogance, callousness, and cluelessness -- sometimes all bundled into one -- in our fellow human beings, despite my growing exposure to government on the local, national, and international levels, still astonishes me, as does the willful ignorance of so many U.S. Americans.

Last weekend we were in NYC on Sunday, December 10, for International Human Rights Day. A small group of Burmese and I did a demonstration in front of the UN headquarters (Ralph Bunche Park) demanding UN action on Burma. The biggest purpose of our demonstration was to get media from other countries (esp. Norway, Denmark, Thailand, and the BBC that covers Burma) to air the footage, which will then make its way, we hope, via independent/pirate media to Aung San Suu Kyi in her house prison and to the Burmese people, who are living in terror under the country's brutal regime. We hope our actions will hearten and inspire them to continue resisting.

I'll try to be better about updating news in future. I'll try.

Burmese hunger strike in full swing: Please take easy action!!!

Sorry it's been so long. I'm frantically (still) trying to get Andy and Alice and their children out of Iraq, along with several other families. Nothing happy to report yet, but I am hopeful something will happen soon.

Meantime I've been distracted with Burmese news and other pressures. Today I sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as the 11th day of the Burmese hunger strike begins in Washington, DC. The group moves tomorrow, Saturday, Sept. 16, to UN Headquarters in NYC and hopes to get an interview with Mr. Annan or his representative.

We'd really love your help in our efforts to get the UN Security Council to act on Burma! Please customize the letter below and send it to Mr. Annan at the fax number listed--and let me know if you have done so. Please also feel free to publicize our efforts or send donations; we're running on a shoestring and all funds are coming out of the pockets of the (mostly underemployed, certainly underpaid) Burmese hunger strikers.

Thank you! Write me for more info: mstephens [at] ithaca.edu

Name

Address

Country

E-mail address

15 September 2006

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
Office of the Spokesman for the Secretary-General
United Nations, S-378
New York, NY 10017
Via fax to 1-212-963-4879 and 1-212-963-7055

Honorable Secretary-General Kofi Annan:

I have learned of the current hunger strike by Burmese freedom activists in front of the UN this week.

I urge you to meet with these brave people, who are so valiantly trying to get your attention and to raise the concerns of people worldwide to the plight of their countrypeople still in Burma, who live under a brutal military regime that appears to be totally disinterested in their basic human rights. Indeed, the Burmese people suffer imprisonment, forced labor (slavery), forced conscription, rape, torture, and displacement on a regular basis.

Yet the United Nations Security Council has not found a way to address this issue, instead issuing numerous useless resolutions to urge the regime to change. The regime will not change until serious economic actions are taken by your august body. Please meet with the hunger strikers to discuss their concerns, and make a real effort, while you are still Secretary-General, to effect meaningful change in Burma toward freedom, democracy, and national reconciliation.

Sincerely,

[Signed]

cc: Maura Stephens, US representative for the U.S. Campaign for Freedom of Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma, mstephens [at] ithaca.edu

the column on Iraq that got me fired

This was my submission in April 2006 for my regular column at openDemocracy.net; a month later the column still had not been posted. Finally the editors there told me they no longer wanted to run my column. See if you can figure out why.

Note: it was written for a UK-based publisher, hence the English spellings and usage. Also remember that it was written in March; there have been developments since. I will soon post an update about Andy and Alice.

Where Can They Turn?

Iraqis are targets in their own homes. But no countries—including those that brought this upon them—seem willing to offer them asylum.

“The debate over civil war has shifted from when and if to how bad and how long,” wrote a friend working in Jordan [I’ll call her Marie], recently. “I think it is safe to say we are pissed off. Those who were in Iraq in 2003 can attest to the fact that the sectarianism simply was not at the level it is in 2006. Something went wrong. And what went wrong was mainly from the international community. But unfortunately, it is the Iraqis who will have to lie in it. As Iraq spiraled into chaos, the divisions and schisms among the communities that were created were predictable. But, as one of my colleagues pointed out, perhaps the most painful fact is that at one point they were preventable. And therefore are criminal.”

When I received Marie’s e-mail I was visiting Nashville, Tennessee, USA, where a young mother of three told me, in all earnestness, “Iraqis don’t want democracy and freedom. All they want to do is kill one another. We need to get out of there and let them have at it.”

I have heard similar remarks from numerous US Americans of different means, ages, political leanings, and geographical locations, as well as from people from England, Australia, Colombia, and Italy, which are all coalition countries, and even Ireland, which is not. Shockingly, even so-called progressives who have been against the invasion from the start can be heard saying such things these days.

People in the United States seem to be sick of the occupation, or as they are more likely to hear it called, the “war” in Iraq. Yet many US people do not seem to see Iraqis as people who are like them, just caught in an excruciatingly bad situation. They apparently can’t see beyond their government’s and their corporate media’s lies and omissions. It is painful to note how even people who responded rather generously to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina and other recent disasters cannot open their hearts to the people of Iraq, whose suffering has been going on for so many years—through two wars, UN sanctions, and now the sectarian strife and civil war—and has been largely brought about by the failed policies of US administrations and their “coalition partners”.

In their defence, most US Americans don’t ever hear the real stories of Iraqi people. Instead they are spoon-fed via the corporate-controlled media just what the Bush administration wants them to hear, and that certainly doesn’t include acknowledgment that millions of ordinary Iraqis have had their lives turned into nightmares because of the ineptitude, ignorance, and arrogance of the Bush administration, which, phenomenally, become more pronounced daily.

Glimpses into their lives are all we can share these days, as it is too dangerous for most US journalists to go into the country to dig further.

I have a friend I’ll call Andy, who lives in a city some distance from Baghdad. In the early days of the occupation he fell in love, and soon after married. His wife is very young. They had a baby boy in October 2004, and Andy was absolutely thrilled to be a father, talking about his son every time we spoke. Before the invasion Andy worked in a hotel and, with a degree in English literature, as a translator for humanitarians and journalists. In April 2003 he began working as a translator for the U.S. Army, with whom he continued to work until very recently.

In a conversation last July he reported, as all my friends had been reporting without fail for more than two years, that there was still hardly any electricity, and the water was still polluted. “And now,” Andy said, “we have to worry about the militias. There is one which belongs to the Shi’a leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakeem [head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), whose military arm is known as the Badr Brigade]. I am a Sunni, and for sure they hate us. But you know, my Mom is a Shi’a, and I don’t think there is a difference because all of us are Muslim people. But there are crazy people from both sides. They just want to kill each other. I am afraid. I mean, I am a Sunni guy, and if they knew I worked with the U.S. Army maybe one of those crazy people will shoot me. That is what I am scared of.”

Andy begged me to help him and his family get out of the country. “There must be ways to help people get rid of this bad life,” he said. “Surely you Americans can help.”

My heart sank, as it had so many times over the past few years, listening to Iraqi friends’ terrible fears, yet knowing how nearly impossible it is to help them. “So many people are in dangerous situations like you,” I told him. “There are so many it is impossible to find places for all of them.”

“I know,” he replied. “But I am ready to work as a teacher or a cleaner or whatever. Just please, I want to go outside of Iraq. There is nothing for us here. I will do anything. I am sorry to disturb you.”

That was ten months ago. In the interim, I have had no luck finding them a way out, despite numerous attempts with different countries’ immigration offices and consulates. I even learned from the European Council on Exiles and Refugees’ Guidelines on the Treatment of Iraqi Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Europe that last year Poland and the UK both returned Iraqi asylum seekers to Iraq.

So Andy is still stuck in Iraq, and things have gotten much more ominous.

Six weeks ago he got in touch after nearly three months of silence, during which I had been quite worried. First he told me the good news: He and his wife are expecting a new baby, due in May. But then he confirmed some of my worst fears: “Our house was bombed,” he said, “and my father and brother were killed. My wife and I were not at home. Now we are chased by the militia, those terrorists. I am planning to flee the country to Syria, to contact the UNHCR [UN High Commission for Refugees] office to register as refugees there, hoping to find any country that will provide us with resettlement. Our life has become impossible in Iraq. The extremists are targeting anyone who works with the coalition forces. . . . You cannot imagine how our situation is, terrible. . . . We live in fear and panic because of these extremists.”

Again, despite the urgency of Andy’s family’s situation, I was stymied in my attempts to help them find a way out. Neighbouring Jordan and Syria, already inundated with refugees, have recently been turning back thousands of Iraqis trying to escape over their borders. Many of these beleaguered people had packed up their families and fled in the middle of the night in panic after witnessing a neighbour or loved one killed before their eyes. No other country—England, Australia, Ireland, Canada, France, Italy, other neighbouring countries—seems willing to help these terrorized Iraqis, even those like Andy who are being targeted solely because of their employment with coalition forces.

My initial inquiries at the U.S. State Department, even going through my Congressional representatives’ offices, were met by the same cold response: “Contacting UNHCR is the first step to obtaining refugee status. Many Iraqis have traveled to Jordan to seek safe haven. At this time there are no special provisions for resettlement in the USA of Iraqi nationals who have volunteered to work with coalition forces [my italics]. UNHCR will be able to provide the most information about what assistance they can provide.”

A couple of weeks later, on April 5, I received word that the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1815, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006, and it was signed by George W. Bush. It contained a provision, in Section 1059, authorizing special immigrant status for a maximum of 50 Iraqi translators per year. These translators must have “worked directly with United States Armed Forces as a translator for a period of at least 12 months”; and “obtained a favorable written recommendation from a general or flag officer in the chain of command of the United States Armed Forces unit that was supported by the alien”; and “before filing the petition . . . cleared a background check and screening, as determined by a general or flag officer in the chain of command of the United States Armed Forces unit that was supported by the alien.”

There are thousand of Iraqis who worked as translators for the U.S. armed forces since the March 2003 invasion and occupation began, not to mention all the other Iraqis who worked in other capacities with the coalition. Now, in its generosity, the U.S. government has decided to grant 50 of them asylum.

I shared this good news with Andy, and explained that he would need to provide a considerable amount of paperwork. He was frightened that he would have to return to his bombed-out home secretly to sift through the rubble for some of the important papers he needed to file the petition, and warned me that it might take up to a month.

Two weeks later he surprised me by sending all the necessary papers electronically. He had risked his life several times, but he had managed to retrieve his and his wife’s and son’s birth certificates; his marriage certificate; his university degree; several letters of commendation and appreciation from U.S. Army officers; his official coalition translator ID cards; several photographs of Andy with his U.S. soldier friends; photos of his family, and of their bombed-out house and car; and, horrifyingly, a short video clip of a fellow translator’s assassination.

Now the challenge is, how does one submit a petition for asylum for an Iraqi translator with all the correct paperwork to be admitted to the United States? There is nobody to answer this question. I’ve been shunted around from place to place, and the best anyone seems to be able to tell me is that Andy will have to take his wife and baby all the way to Baghdad, to the US Embassy there (in the “Green Zone”), where they will have to submit the petition. Then they will all have to return a second time for an interview.

This is essentially a death sentence for this family. Just traveling to Baghdad, and then openly traveling not once but twice to the US Embassy, is like issuing an invitation to those who would murder them.

As I scramble to find anyone who can help me find an alternative way for them to get asylum in the US or elsewhere, Andy’s time is running out. His baby is due in just a few weeks, and his wife, he tells me, has “collapsed” in terror. He has had to tend to her, as well as his sick and terrified mother and his 15-month-old son. It will be a wonder if he does not collapse himself.

Andy is just one of many kind, decent, good, hardworking, loving, generous Iraqi people who are stuck in a never-ending nightmare in their country, which has descended into chaos thanks to the blundering of not only the US administration but the international community at large. There are tens of thousands in similar straits, and yet we hear next to nothing about them. When I am unable even to find stories in the international press about efforts to help them, it is hard even to offer them a ray of hope.

“Sometimes when I look back at the hope and optimism that I once had,” my friend Marie says, “I feel betrayed for daring to believe. A part of me feels angry — like I was tricked into buying into a plan others knew was doomed for failure. . . . If [it had been] left to the Iraqis, they would have indeed risen above it. The countless international interventions — from neighbouring countries to the coalition forces — destabilized Iraq at a time when they needed support from the world, or at the very least to be left alone. These interventions led to the many signs that Iraq was growing further and further apart. Most Iraqis feel their country is unrecognizable. None of us can speak about going back to Iraq now. The sad reality is that most of us still don’t believe we have seen the worse yet.”

I know she is right, although it is unimaginable that things can get even worse. We — that is, not only the United States but all the coalition countries and the entire international community — have failed miserably in bringing peace or stability to Iraq; to the contrary, we have inarguably fomented civil war, terror, and devastation.

I say that if we cannot help the Iraqi people find peace and security within their devastated country, we absolutely owe them a way out.