Several
protests took place in 2012 against hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a
process that extracts natural gas from shale bedrock by injecting highly toxic
chemicals thousands of feet underground. The fracking boom has killed livestock
and contaminated drinking water supplies in several states. The movement to ban
fracking continues to gain steam as more and more people stand up and defend
their homes against to the behemoth oil and gas industry.
In July,
5000 marched in Washington , D.C. , under the banner “Stop the Frack Attack.” In
September, “Shale Gas Outrage” brought more than a thousand people into the
streets of Philadelphia to protest a fracking industry
conference. Marchers demanded an end to shale gas drilling and water
withdrawals from the Susquehanna River . Hundreds of billions of gallons of water a year are
injected into fracking wells and permanently contaminated with carcinogenic and
possibly even radioactive substances.
Despite the
protests, politicians of both major capitalist parties unreservedly support
fracking, no doubt due to millions of dollars in campaign donations and favors
meted out by the gas industry. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett received more than
$1.6 million from the industry, while Barack Obama received over $700,000 from
oil and gas companies for his presidential reelection campaign (Mitt Romney got
$4.8 million, according to the website OpenSecrets.org). It’s no surprise,
then, that in Obama’s 2012 State of the Union Address, he promised to “take
every possible action to safely develop [natural gas],” including continuing
taxpayer contributions to the industry through government research grants.
(Incidentally, according to Rolling Stone Magazine, robber baron Aubrey
McClendon, who owns fracking giant Chesapeake Energy, gave $26 million to buy
off the Sierra Club and voted for Obama in 2008).
Contrary to
the president’s claim, “safe” fracking is impossible, at least under the
capitalist drive for profit at any environmental cost. Although profitable, the
industry didn’t take off until after 2005, in large part because the pollution
it caused was illegal. But in what’s known as the “Halliburton loophole”—named
for the company that invented fracking, whose former CEO was U.S. vice
president at the time—the Energy Policy Act of 2005 exempted fracking from most
provisions of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and
Superfund (toxic site cleanup) law.
It also
allowed companies to claim that the chemicals they use in fracking fluid are
“trade secrets” and therefore not subject to disclosure, throwing the public’s
right to know what’s in their water supply out the window. In some states,
doctors must sign confidentiality agreements—gag orders—before they are told
what might be poisoning their patients.
The
Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania was the first geologic formation to
gain the focus of gas companies using new deep-well directional drilling
techniques that made fracking profitable starting in the late 1990s.
Consequently, the state has the most wells and the most reported problems. The
most widely cited example is the town of Dimrock , where 13 drinking water wells were
contaminated with methane and a number of toxic chemicals, and one well
exploded. Gas companies drilling in the Marcellus racked up 2072 regulatory
violations from 592 wells between 2007 and 2010, most of which resulted in a
slap on the wrist, if anything.
Many
residents of areas with fracking have demonstrated that they can light their
tap water on fire because of methane contamination, shown dramatically in
filmmaker Josh Fox’s excellent documentary “Gasland.” Carcinogens such as
benzene, toluene, and 2-butoxyethanol have been found in groundwater around
fracking sites.
As with
many polluting industries, fracking is more concentrated in poorer communities.
Last year, the Pennsylvania legislature passed a bill that
stripped local governments’ rights to regulate fracking, but then passed a
moratorium that only applies to the wealthiest parts of the state. The first
law, Act 13, is currently before the state’s Supreme Court.
Fracking
proponents claim that natural gas is better for the climate than other fossil
fuels because it burns with lower carbon dioxide emissions. President Obama and
even some big environmental groups have touted it as a “transition fuel”
leading to renewable energy. But methane, the primary component of natural gas,
is a greenhouse gas 20 times as powerful at trapping heat as carbon dioxide.
Fracking
wells leak 4-8% of the methane they extract, according to a Cornell University study. Data from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that after leveling off for 10
years, the amount of methane in the atmosphere began rising dramatically again
in 2007, about the same time fracking took off in the U.S.
One would
think that the danger to the climate would cause every precaution to be taken
to ensure no waste. But in North Dakota , where the Bakken Shale holds both
crude oil and natural gas, many derricks flare off the gas that comes up with
the oil because it’s more profitable than capturing it.
People are
fighting back. Because of public outrage, 200 communities in 10 states now have
local bans or moratoria on fracking. New York State was forced to extend a fracking
moratorium enacted in 2010, after concerns were raised that New York City ’s drinking water supply could be
contaminated. “Fracktivists” are fighting to prevent the moratorium from being
lifted in 2013. In Wisconsin, which supplies much of the sand needed as a raw
ingredient in fracking, communities are struggling against a boom in sand
mining and processing, which pollutes the air with cancer-causing silica dust.
Fracking is
murderous to the health of workers, the public, and the earth’s climate, and
should be banned now! We don’t need more gas; we need a massive jobs
program—controlled by working people—to transform our economy from one that
runs on fossil fuels and profit-driven growth to one based on safe, renewable
energy and energy conservation.
The
transition we seek to halt the climate catastrophe isn’t replacing one dirty
fossil fuel with another. It’s replacing an outdated economic system, which is
killing the planet, with one based on fulfilling human needs!
> The article above was written by Carl Sack.
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