New Video from Environment America: Drilling and Health

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David Rovics Performs His Song "No Fracking Way"

From Garden-concert at Alværn, Nesoddden by the Oslofjord August 8. 2011.

More about David Rovics here.

I just came home from a concert by David Rovics in Rochester, NY.   If you haven't experienced a Rovics concert,  you must try to catch up with him.  His songs are riveting, intense, and show a thorough knowledge and understanding of world events, both current and in history.  David Rovics is a class act.

Fracking: Water Quality

Dr. Sandra Steingraber, author and college professor, speaks about her well water in the Ithaca, NY, area, and asks important questions which have not yet been answered. Shouldn't we hold off on fracking until we know the answers, she asks?

Democracy Now! Interviews Charles Duhigg of the NYT: Toxic Waters

Watch this interview with New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg about the latest in his investigative series “Toxic Waters,” which examines the worsening pollution in the nation’s water systems. Duhigg appeared last month to discuss how chemical companies have violated the Clean Water Act more than 500,000 times in the last five years, most without punishment. Since then he has written articles focusing on how coal-fired power plants and large farms are threatening the nation’s drinking water.

Charles Duhigg, Award-winning reporter for the New York Times. He is the author of a new series about the worsening pollution in American waters called “Toxic Waters.”

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

NPR's Terry Gross: How Safe Is Your Drinking Water?

An estimated one in ten Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals, parasites, bacteria, or viruses, or fails to meet federal health standards. Terry Gross, on her radio show, Fresh Air, on NPR today, talked with journalist Charles Duhigg who says that part of the problem is that water-pollution laws are not being enforced.

If you have a half hour to spare, sit down and listen in.

Mr. Duhigg covers many areas of concern, and Ms. Gross asks those probing questions that we wish a lot more interviewers would ask!

Click here to hear this excellent interview.

Charles Duhigg is writing a series for the New York Times entitled, "Toxic Waters," a series about the worsening pollution in American waters and regulators' response. Check out some of his installments:

Power Plants: Cleansing the Air at the Expense of Waterways

Agricultural Runoff: Health Ills Abound as Farm Runoff Fouls Wells

Industrial Waste: Pollution Grows With Little Fear of Punishment

Herbicides: Debating How Much Weed Killer Is Safe in Your
Water Glass

Watch a remarkable short video called "From Air To Water Waste," by clicking here. The video is on the right hand side of your screen in a tiny box!

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!
FIND OUT WHAT'S IN YOUR WATER

Wyalusing to lease public land for gas well

Chesapeake Energy has informed the Wyalusing (PA) Borough Council that the company plans to locate a gas well on the borough's land in Wyalusing Township. This 400+ acres of land was purchased years ago for the purpose of protecting the watershed of a now closed reservoir that served the borough. Rather than sell the land, the Council decided to sell timber and open it up for hunting.

The well will be located on a steep mountainside overlooking the Wyalusing Creek. Drilling is expected to begin later this year or early in 2010. There will be approximately 4,000 wells drilled in Bradford County before all is said and done.

A gas well drilled on a mountainside with a creek nearby may pose serious problems. The many toxic chemicals which are added to fracking fluid during the initial drilling phase have found their way into aquifers in other areas of the country. While one hopes that a well is self-contained, perfection is sometimes not achieved, and fracking fluid escapes in the ground. The pulverized shale deep in the earth causes cracks which are unpredictable and undetectable. Methane gas and other gasses are released, sometimes finding their way to the surface. Chesapeake Energy, like all gas companies, are exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, and other regulations that every other industry is required to follow. A citizen putting a pool in the backyard has to satisfy more standards than a gas company. And as has been shown in Dimock, PA, once a problem with water and wells occurs, a gas company first denies culpability, and it takes a long time to get the problem resolved. And, in the end, no amount of money can make up for a ruined well. Even hunters may find the area less desirable since deforestation, environmental damage, noise pollution, bright lights, and habitat disruption can often interfere with the animals in a significant way.

The citizens of Wyalusing may be optimistic about this new well, but time will tell. It may be the worst thing that ever happened to them.

Read the Rocket Courier article by David Keeler here.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!