Hold Your Breath: Fracking and Clean Air Don't Mix

Published on Dec 8, 2014 IS IT CLEAN? This video examines the impact of oil and gas development on the health of people living it. Using a FLIR (infrared) camera designed to detect normally invisible, sometimes toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs), mother and activist and FLIR-certified-technician Sharon Wilson went on a road trip to document pollution at oil and gas operations -- and its human cost. EPA might require that oil and gas companies clean up their pollution. They're deciding now. Go to protectourair.org to urge them to act. FOR MORE INFO: 5-state study finds unsafe levels of airborne chemical near oil and gas fields, http://bit.ly/1zjgjv5. Oil & gas wells map: http://bit.ly/1gIR1xB fracking.earthworksaction.org CREDITS: FLIR video - Sharon Wilson, Earthworks Dir. of Photo. for non-FLIR video/photo - www.juliedermansky.com Video Production - www.globalperformancemedia.com

Gas Wells Do Not Belong Near Schools- or Anywhere

From 350.org:

On Friday, we joined The Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment for a tour of fracking sites in California's Central Valley. This is an elementary school in ...Shafter, CA that is within sight of seven fracking wells -- and where about one in three kids suffers from asthma. The Central Valley has about the worst air quality in the nation, and climate change is making it worse.

It was sobering to witness how deeply fossil fuel extraction has impacted communities like Shafter, and it was inspiring to meet community members who are responding with resilience and determination. You can see more pictures from our trip here: http://on.fb.me/1nfptCW
Photo by Brooke Anderson Photography: Stills of Our Stories & Struggles.

Asylum Township, PA: A Gasland In Progress

Susquehanna River, Asylum Township, Bradford County, PA
Photo:  Carol Manuel

Asylum Township is located in Bradford County, PA.  Population (2010 census): 1058.  This township is comprised of a mere 26.4 square miles.  How many gas wells are located within this small area?  Forty active wells, 28 with reported production values!  There are 112 approved well permits as well.  The newest permit was issued this month: John Barrett BRA 5H. 

A very small area with 40 active gas wells says it all.  This is a GASLAND.  This is a beautiful rural, farming area turned industrial.  Gas drilling has literally overtaken the lives of the people who live there.  Water has been poisoned.  The air is poisoned.  The soil is poisoned.  And the prognosis is more of the same.  Will it be habitable in the future?  I doubt it. 

Vera Scroggins Speaks Out At Press Conference in Montrose, PA

Vera Scroggins vs Cabot Oil & Gas Hearing 3/24/14 


More information here.

Big Oil and Bad Air: Link Between Fracking and Toxic Air Emissions in Texas

Residents who live near areas of oil and natural gas fracking have long complained that the industry has poisoned their water with toxic chemicals. Now a new investigation is shedding light on another concern: air quality. The new report, "Fracking the Eagle Ford Shale: Big Oil & Bad Air on the Texas Prairie," is the result of an eight-month investigation by InsideClimate News, the Center for Public Integrity and The Weather Channel. We speak to David Hasemyer and Lisa Song, two of the reporters who worked on the investigation.

Aired February 27, 2014.

I heart Democracy Now! and Amy Goodman!

The Planet Testifies in Court

Flaring in Lenox Township, Susquehanna County,PA: Hidden Gasses Escaping Into Air

Published on Sep 22, 2013

Cabot/Thomas well, 2351 Station Hill Rd, Lenox, PA
5:20 pm, 9/22/2013

This video was not taken after dark.  It was done with a special camera which enables us to see what is actually being spewed into the air.  These emissions cannot be seen with the naked eye.

Video by Frank Finan

Flaring in North Dakota

Air Pollution Info from Catskill Mountainkeeper

Gas Flaring Impacts in Nigeria

And the list goes on........flaring is harmful in many ways.

 

American Way of Gassing People: The Slow and Painful Way

The people of Port Arthur, Texas, suffer from serious health effects, including cancer and death, due to the oil industry already.  Now with plans for the Keystone XL pipeline, matters will become worse. And we think Syria is unique? 

Read about it here. Reader Supported News addresses the environmental and health problems that come with the oil and gas industry.

A Reader Supported News reader wrote:
"So here we go, off to attack Syria for gassing their own people, when in our own country, we are letting the wealthy corporations pollute to the extent that they bestow even slower, more painful deaths on our own people. Warfare and environmental degradation are two sides of the same coin: man's inhumanity to man."

Fracking at Wood Gas Pad in Dimock

by Vera Scroggins   6/6/2013

This is the Fracking Stage and see all the sand dust in clouds above the site and hear all the noise and see the huge , above-ground impoundment/pool for water for the fracking where the trucks unload their water.

A Beautiful Day In the Neighborhood?

Published on May 18, 2013

All this happening on Turnpike Rd., Brooklyn, Susquehanna County, Pa.. Flaring on the Teddick Gas Pad and see the fire damages at the Williams Compressor Station. I gave a Citizen Gas Tour for a group from NJ , who are with the Food and Water Watch Organization and they toured with their placard-decorated Anti-Frack Mobile....

From Vera Scroggins, Independent Media/Journalist

Anti-Fracking Mobile



Flaring a Gas Well In Susquehanna County, PA

Video by Frank Finan. Can you imagine living near this? The peepers are beautiful to listen to, but the roar of that flare and the bright fire ball spoil it. Flaring is harmful to air quality.

Earth Day 2013: A Letter From Jail

Happy Earth Day!

 

Sandra Steingraber, biologist, ecologist, writer, cancer survivor, mother, and poet, is sitting in the Chemung County Jail today, Earth Day 2013.  Read her letter from jail here.  It starts like this:

This morning – I have no idea what time this morning, as there are no clocks in jail, and the florescent lights are on all night long – I heard the familiar chirping of English sparrows and the liquid notes of a cardinal. And there seemed to be another bird too – one who sang a burbling tune. Not a robin–wren? The buzzing, banging, clanking of jail and the growled announcements of guards on their two-way radios – which also go on all night – drowned it out. But the world, I knew, was out there somewhere.

 

Sandra Steingraber

 





CALL GOVERNOR CUOMO TODAY
ON EARTH DAY. TELL HIM TO PROTECT THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF NEW YORK CITIZENS.  BAN FRACKING IN NEW YORK STATE.

1-866-584-6799

Hydrofracking: The List of the Harmed

Sometimes words fail. This short video speaks volumes- in silence, except for the beautiful music. So many people have been harmed by natural gas drilling. Why does the harm continue? We must ban horizontal slickwater hydrofracking.

Yoko and Friends Travel To PA

On January 17, 2013, Yoko Ono and her son Sean Lennon, accompanied by other celebrities, engaged a tour bus to take them to Susquehanna County, PA, where they met with several local families who have been severely impacted by natural gas drilling. Vera Scroggins, fearless and relentless warrior against fracking (and all it entails), took this video which has some special moments. If you are bothered by the barking dog, just go to 11:30 on the video. At that point Yoko and Sean, Susan Sarandon, Josh Fox, and Arun Gandhi, and others are sitting in the living room of a local family and viewing some video of methane gas billowing out of the family water well. At one point, I was so touched when Sean said to his mom," Mom, look! That's gas coming out of the well!" He is so kind to his mother, and to him she is just "Mom." One other moment that touched my heart was when Sean was heard saying, "I gotcha." He was holding on to his mom's arm to make sure she didn't slip on the ice. He was brought up right! Such a gentleman and so solicitous of his mom. At the end of Vera's video, Sean speaks poignantly to everyone on the bus, telling of his personal interest in protecting the environment and expressing his deep emotion about how people have been hurt. He has compassion and empathy, qualities I wish more people had.  I was really impressed with this group.  They were sincerely affected by what they saw.

Fracked: Dish, TX, Family Suffers From Gas Industry, Moves Away

Former Mayor Calvin Tillman of Dish, Texas, and his wife Tiffany and two sons had to make the hard decision to leave their home, much of which Calvin had worked on and built himself, because their boys were suffering nosebleeds and they feared that their health would suffer, especially after the air was tested and found to be bad.

We should not have to leave our homes due to poisoning of our air, soil, and water by the gas industry.  This should not be allowed.  It must stop.

Sandra Steingraber Speaks in Support of Susan Walker

Biologist Sandra Steingraber speaks at a press conference outside Chemung County Jail (Elmira, NY) where one of the "Seneca Three", Susan Walker, is being held for blocking the gate at Inergy's Seneca Lake gas storage facility project on September 6th of this year. Walker refused to pay a fine and was therefore incarcerated. She will remain in jail for 2 weeks.

PA Resident Speaks To New Yorkers About the Natural Gas Industry

Vera Scroggins of Susquehanna County, PA, tells her personal story about how she got involved in the fight for public health and saving the beautiful land where she and her family settled years ago.  She speaks from the heart and knows her stuff.  She knows what she is talking about because she is living it every day.  She wants New York to be saved from the hell PA is experiencing. In this video, she is speaking to New Yorkers who live in Schoharie County.

 

Listen to Vera!  She speaks the truth!

 

 

DEP= Don't Expect Protection

Flaring in PA

Flaring: wasting natural gas while polluting the atmosphere.  This is part of the dirty natural gas industry.  How much natural gas is wasted this way?

Read more here and here.

And from Earthworks Oil and Gas Accountability Project:  Click here.

Kids Stop the Frack Attack

Sandra Steingraber: Carcinogens In Water or Air Leads To Cancer

Published on Jun 25, 2012 by LivingDownstreamFilm "I'm only a population of one. I would not be able to say with certainty that the cause of my disease was any one chemical. We can't say that, biologically. What we can say is that, when you have carcinogens in the drinking water supply, or in an air supply, or in a food web, somebody's going to get cancer." —Sandra Steingraber