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From a 9/2/09 email from the Tasini for Senate Campaign in New York:
I just had a meeting with some very brave and energized citizens who are trying to save their communities in the Finger Lakes region in New York from something called “hydrofracking.”
Sounds obscene, doesn’t it?
Well, it is: hydrofracking is a process in which water is injected at high pressure to break up rocks and release gas for commercial exploitation.
Did you know that hydrofracking uses 2 to 9 million gallons of water EACH TIME a “frack” is done and that the process injects 140,000 pounds of toxic substances into our groundwater and leaves communities with air and water pollution?
Did you know that the oil and gas corporate interests are pushing to create 40,000 ponds to hold the waste from hydrofracking all across New York, which means that the health of tens of thousands of New Yorkers will be at risk, for the sake of Big Oil and Big Gas profits?
Did you know that Dick Cheney pushed through, with bi-partisan support, an exemption that allows hydrofracking to happen without any of the protections of our clean water laws? And that our state politicians, in league with corporate special interests, took away the rights of local communities to regulate hydrofracking?
I wonder how many other parts of the country will have their water contaminated with deadly chemicals when they get "fracked." Being downstream from Upstate, I will be one of the "lucky" people who will get to shower in this toxic water and drink from it if I can't find an uncontaminated source of bottled water.
WBAI had a show on this kind of environmental degradation. I hope more people learn about it.
Jonathon Tasini is a liberal Democrat who is running a primary challenge to far right "Democrat" Kristen Gillibrand, who is part of the same Republican political machine as indicted former NY Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. Tasini got 17% of the vote in his 2006 primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, despite being enormously outspent by Ms. Clinton and despite Ms. Clinton's huge name recognition.
Thanks for speaking up about this urgent issue! It should be called "chemi-hydro-fracking" because there is too much misunderstanding that it is a clean process. Everyone who is concerned- PLEASE write President Obama, your state and federal senators, assembly-people, congresspeople, and letters to the editor to any and all papers your region. Just write up a simple letter and cut and paste it to all those applications. We need to raise awareness about this terrible process, and hopefully reverse the "Halliburton Loophole" allowing it to be exempt from the Clean Water Act (and thus out of the control of the EPA). It's not too late to affect change.
Some good points to mention:
-our drinking water is already in danger, and this would not only pollute area waters but would also use massive amounts of our water (2-9 million gallons per frack, figure 40 fracks per well over several years, and 16 wells per square mile is the currently proposed spacing)
-Geologists estimate that the amount of recoverable methane in the entire marcellus shale formation in the northeast would only supply the us' nat. gas needs for between less than a year and 2 1/2 years.
-that's not very long considering the cost of fracking: 18 wheelers bring in all the water and fracking fluid, and WE have to pay to maintain the roads. Our water supply is in incredible danger, as are our ecosystems. Our property values could be lessened incredibly if they become toxic...
-these substances are VERY DANGEROUS: check out the story of the emergency room nurse who almost died from 10 minutes exposure to fracking fluid on a gas workers' boots: http://www.newsweek.com/id/154394
Please take action. you don't have to be eloquent to state your concerns. the more people who contact representatives and newspapers, the better. Thanks to everyone for caring about this issue!
HERE'S A GOOD WEBSITE WITH LINKS TO SENATORS, CONGRESS-PEOPLE AND OTHER REPRESENTATIVES:
http://splashdownpa.blogspot.com/2009/09/frack-fluid-spill-in-dimock.html
From a news story: "Louis Meeks says he witnessed shoddy hydraulic fracturing practices on his ranch near Pavillion, Wyo., by an oil and gas company fined for the same thing in Colorado, and wants the federal government to regulate the process because states seem incapable of proper oversight.
“My water well has been contaminated, and I believe it’s because EnCana drilled and fracked gas wells close to my well,” Meeks said in a release and on a conference call with reporters earlier this week. “The state has done nothing but watch, while EnCana contaminated the ground water where we get our drinking water. EnCana ruined my well and now that they can’t fix it, they’ve walked away. That’s why we need federal oversight.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last spring, in its first real testing of water wells near gas wells that are being “fracked” — a process of injecting water, sand and undisclosed chemicals into gas wells at high pressure to force open tight geological formations and free up more gas — found the presence of the toxic chemical 2-Butoxyethanol (or 2-BE) in Meeks’ water wells.
Such potential for contamination is one of the main reasons U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, (D-Denver) in June introduced the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act to force oil and gas companies to more readily disclose the types of chemicals being injected into wells. The industry has spent millions to oppose the removal of a 2005 exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act because officials maintain secrecy is necessary for competitive reasons."