Frackophobes
Last Updated: 11:43 PM, January 20, 2013
Posted: 10:47 PM, January 20, 2013
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_follies_of_...
If frackophobes are to be believed, natural-gas fracking is the most frightful environmental nightmare since Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant melted down after an earthquake and tsunami.
In “Promised Land,” Matt Damon’s new anti-fracking movie, one character demonstrates this production technique’s “dangers” by drenching a toy farm with household chemicals and then setting it ablaze.
In the new pro-fracking film, “Fracknation,” one Pennsylvania homeowner absurdly claims that fracking polluted his well water with weapons-grade uranium.
In a New Yorkers Against Fracking agitprop poster, the Statue of Liberty furiously topples natural-gas-drilling towers with her torch as energy company 18-wheelers flee in horror.
These warnings might be believable if fracking regulators seemed even slightly worried. Instead, federal and state environmental officials appear positively serene about hydraulic fracturing, a decades-old technology that uses sand and chemically treated water to shatter shale deposits far below the water table and liberate natural gas from the ruptured rocks.
* “In no case have we made a definitive determination that the fracking process has caused chemicals to enter groundwater,” Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson said last April. In May 2011, she testified on Capitol Hill: “I’m not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water.”
The EPA tested drinking water in Dimock, Pa., which ecologists claim fracking has tainted. “EPA has determined that there are not levels of contaminants present that would require additional action by the agency,” it concluded last July.
* “A study that examined the water quality of 127 shallow domestic wells in the Fayetteville Shale natural-gas-production area of Arkansas found no groundwater contamination associated with gas production,” the US Geological Survey announced Wednesday.
* “Significant adverse impacts on human health are not expected from routine HVHF,” or high-volume hydraulic fracturing, according to a February 2012 preliminary report from New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation. Gov. Cuomo has pondered this issue since 2010 and promises further contemplation, including another draft of what DEC now calls an “outdated summary.”
“New York would be crazy not to lift the moratorium” against fracking, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell told The Post in November. The former Democratic national chairman continued: “I told Gov. Cuomo I would come to testify before any legislative committee . . . It’s a good thing to do.”
* “We have never had any cases of groundwater contamination from hydraulic fracturing,” Elizabeth Ames Jones said in 2011. The then-Chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, which supervises natural gas, added: “It is geologically impossible for fracturing fluid to reach an aquifer a thousand feet above.”
* While California last month unveiled new disclosure and monitoring rules for fracking, State Oil & Gas Superviser Tim Kustic told the San Jose Mercury News: “There is no evidence of harm from fracking in groundwater in California at this point in time. And it has been going on for many years.”
* “We’ve used hydraulic fracturing for some 60 years in Oklahoma, and we have no confirmed cases where it is responsible for drinking water contamination — nor do any of the other natural gas-producing states,” Bob Anthony, the chairman of that state’s public-utilities commission, wrote in August 2010.
* “In the 41 years that I have supervised oil- and gas-exploration, -production and -development in South Dakota, no documented case of water-well or aquifer damage by the fracking of oil or gas wells has been brought to my attention,” said the state Department of Environment’s Fred Steece. “Nor am I aware of any such cases before my time.”
Steece commented in a June 2009 New York DEC document that cites regulators from 15 states who identified zero examples of fracking-related water pollution.
The Americans quoted here are neither gas-company executives nor natural-gas publicists. These are public servants who oversee this industry, and many work or have worked for red-tape-loving Democrats. Nonetheless, they are unafraid of fracking. Thus, frackophobes have nothing to offer but fear itself.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Bill R on
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A lot of people out here on the West Coast seem to have this image of Fracking causing a split in the Earth’s crust that will spew out all kinds of stuff, cause Earthquakes and flaming water (got to love the Media ‘sensationalism’ striking fear into the hearts of viewers) from Coast to Coast. A Lady down the street from me here in Oregon is convinced that the Fracking is going to cause the entire Pacific Coastline to breakoff and fall into the Pacific! However the ‘Vote for Obama 2008’ sign still sitting in their yard says a lot about that.
Big case of "Chicken Little" going on everywhere!
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Permalink Reply by Hopeful About Natural Gas on
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Frackophobes! That's super!!
I also live on the Left Coast (and I do love many things about the Pacific Northwest) but did you hear about how we just fracked a volcano? Oh, excuse me we "hydro-sheered" it for energy. Plus, they injected a bunch of ground up plastic bottles to make underground pools. I wonder what's in those plastic bottles. We were assured they were recycled plastic bottles.
Here is a good blog that questions how safe it is and if it's really greener than natgas fracking. Most of the media reporting has been applause for it. I don't honestly know myself and I would like to know.
http://webberenergyblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/newberry-volcano-p...
also, check out this review by a self described liberal. it is simply a poorly made movie and even rated R which limits its showing in schools and community groups. Not to mention it's financed by our concerned friends overseas. We really got lucky here. Seems to me like it would have been easy to raise the measly 15 milion the movie costs rather than taking Saudi money. It's nuts how they got themselves an R rating for just bad language! It really limits showing it to schools, churches and community groups. That's great because the movie is highly inaccurate to begin with.
http://www.vulture.com/2012/12/movie-review-promised-land.html
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Permalink Reply by Bill R on
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I had heard the 'rumor' that we had Fracked a NW volcano... not much beyond that... I figured it was the 'Occupy' people in Portland lighting the methane gas in the Porta-potties again!
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Permalink Reply by JHH on
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Fear is a powerful tool. Hopefully truth is a more powerful weapon! Tuesday night's documentary "Fracknation" was very good. Is fracking perfect... No. Nothing is perfect. But it does have decades of use and that should say a lot. jhh
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Permalink Reply by Bill R on
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I agree... "Fracknation" was an excellent program and reveals some of the 'brickwalls' of thinking that some of the Anti-Everything groups have... out here at the West Coast, we got the see some of 'Hollywoods Political Agenda' when we had Actors/Actressess that don't even live up here show up to protest the proposed LPG pipeline and Terminal due to it's "Environmental" and "Economical" impacts on our State!?!?
How does someone who spends most of the year down in Hollywood Hills or Brentwood know anything about 'Fracking' or 'LPG' pipelines/Terminals in the first place? But they showed up in Mass and looks like they may have won... at the cost of jobs and tax base that would have helped the depressed Astoria/Warrenton area economies!
Most to those Hollywood 'Elite' spend more on Coke* than I spend on my day to day living expenses in a year... good level, straight thinkers to make decisions for us!!!!!
*and I am not talking about Coca-cola!!!
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Permalink Reply by LP on
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There is something about becoming a Hollywood celebrity that causes them to think they ascend to a higher level of human evolution. They believe they have superior wisdom and must guide their worshipers on the path of good as they know good to be.
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Permalink Reply by Bill R on
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Saw this yesterday...
An un-named Federal Agency released a report on possible destabilization of the Earth’s upper crust due to Fracking is causing the increase number and amplitude of Earthquakes around the World. And the thread mentioned the “hydro-sheer” of a NW volcano in Oregon. The said Agency said that the effects of the destabilization could result in numerous effects, one of which is a movement or reversal of the Magnetic Poles.
Now I did my normal thing and punched the key words, “destabilization of the earth’s crust” into Google and it filled in, “destabilization of the earth's crust due to fracking” for me… and as I read down the list of ‘hits’… I never found the “un-named Federal Agency”, however I did find a lot of interesting reading! I figure this will be the next big band wagon against drilling for Natural Gas!!!
As I read it, I thought of the movie “2012” where the Magma heats up due to increased Solar Flares and destabilizes the Earth’s crust… guess we’d better have China start building a few dozen Arc’s! I think that a little too much ‘SciFi’ is blocking out the truth on a lot of things!!
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Permalink Reply by Hopeful About Natural Gas on
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Bill,
I just did the same google searches but turned up very few links and nothing credible. Where did you read it?
I did a google search for:
“destabilization of the earth’s crust” and fracking - only a few results, and nothing about earthquakes except that fracking does not cause big ones. I also searched for:
“destabilization of the earth's crust due to fracking” - no results at all
I moved to the Pac NW 35 years ago to build an "arc", and mostly succeeded - except for the volcanoes and tsunamis!
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Permalink Reply by Bill R on
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I saw it on Facebook...
on the FrackNation share that everyone was replying to! One of the post commented, "An un-named Federal Agency released a report on possible destabilization of the Earth’s upper crust due to Fracking is causing the increase number and amplitude of Earthquakes around the World. And the thread mentioned the “hydro-sheer” of a NW volcano in Oregon. The said Agency said that the effects of the destabilization could result in numerous effects, one of which is a movement or reversal of the Magnetic Poles." And it had numerous comments on it below it...
But I could not find anything about it on any of the searches that I did... I can only 'assume' that it was someone having fun or they have an 'inside track' on the original comment.
But the way the Media chases "Squirrels".... I figure it will be the next 'Doom-n-gloom-end-of-days' story that they chase! And I can already picture Tom Cruise and George Clooney on the front lines demanding that 'Fracking be banned' while Rosie O'Donnell dances around in spandex cheerleader tights (the horror-the horror)!!!
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