Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Wilma Subra: Who Is She And Why Do We Need To Know?

Wilma Subra, a diminutive grandmother, has long challenged the corporate polluters in one of the nation's most toxic regions.

At 69, Subra is still working to rein in environmental degradation along Cancer Alley, an eye-watering corridor of more than 150 industrial facilities along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge that produce a quarter of the nation's petrochemicals. She's a winner of a MacArthur "Genius grant" who totes her grandchildren to public hearings, giving them crayons to scribble on the back of scientific papers. She's a fighter who has taken on refineries, chemical manufacturers and oil and gas companies, including BP over its cleanup of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010.

The police asked the right question.
"Can you think of anyone who would want to do you harm?" investigators asked Wilma Subra, trying to understand who might have fired a gun at the diminutive grandmother.

Read the full article here.

Vote for her to receive 2012 Louisiana's Cox Conserves Heroes  here.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Gas well truck slides off road, dumps water compound

In Pennsylvania, an accident involving a gas industry truck, which crashed a few hundred feet from a residence,  resulted in a spill which had to be cleaned up by local firefighters and PENNDOT. The driver, a Mr.Grenot, was not injured, but the state Department of Environmental Protection said he spilled 265 gallons of the ethylene glycol, which is used as pipeline lubricant for the gas drilling industry.

"Grenot was descending a steep grade on Pleasant Hill Road in a truck with a trailer containing a diluted ethylene glycol solution, the same chemical compound as anti-freeze. He was en route to the Hufnagel hydraulic fracturing well about a half-mile from the accident site.

As Grenot attempted to make a bend about a half-mile south of Route 488, the trailer began to slide, which pulled the entire vehicle off the road and into a nearby field, according to police.
Wurtemburg-Perry Township Volunteer Fire Department Assistant Chief Brian Partridge said the accident might not have occurred if Grenot had been more familiar with the road he was on...."

Read article here.

The article mentions that perhaps the driver was not familiar enough with the terrain and may have been driving too fast.  Also the road was slippery from the effects of heavy truck traffic combined with hot weather, causing the tar to bubble. In my opinion, gas industry trucks go too fast and do not know the roads well enough, or perhaps they are simply not using the proper caution.  I have witnessed what I would call unsafe driving first hand when I was almost driven off the road by a large truck.  It is very frightening.  These drivers work long hours and may feel under pressure to deliver their loads as quickly as possible.  Accidents are common.  Trucks add to the dangers of the natural gas industry, and are a constant worry to local citizens.

Fracking: Mr. President, Please Come To PA To See For Yourself



Please watch and share this video. Then take action!
http://TinyURL.com/MessageToObamaFromVera
1: Share it. 2: Contact the Whitehouse. Message:
President Obama ...please watch "Message From Vera in Pennsylvania" on Youtube channel Shaleshock.
Whitehouse Switchboard (202-456-1414) public comment line (202-456-1111)


http://youtu.be/yRcEG78TV9M

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Unfair Share: How Oil and Gas Drillers Avoid Paying Royalties

by Abrahm Lustgarten
ProPublica, Aug. 13, 2013

"Don Feusner ran dairy cattle on his 370-acre slice of northern Pennsylvania until he could no longer turn a profit by farming. Then, at age 60, he sold all but a few Angus and aimed for a comfortable retirement on money from drilling his land for natural gas instead.
It seemed promising. Two wells drilled on his lease hit as sweet a spot as the Marcellus shale could offer – tens of millions of cubic feet of natural gas gushed forth. Last December, he received a check for $8,506 for a month’s share of the gas.


Read the article here.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Changing the Geology Under Our Feet: Risky!

"'When you keep drilling over and over and over again, whether it's into bedrock or into salt caverns, at some point you have fractured the integrity of this underground structure enough that something is in danger of collapsing,' observes ecologist and author Sandra Steingraber, whose work has focused on fracking and injection wells. 'It's an inherently dangerous situation.'"

"What could possibly go wrong when miners, frackers, and drillers reshape the geology beneath our feet? Talk to the evacuees of Bayou Corne, Louisiana." - Tim Murphy, Mother Jones.
 
Doesn't this make perfect sense?  Same with a tooth: The more a dentist drills, fills, caps, etc., a tooth, the more fragile it becomes, prone to cracking and breaking.