(This column was sparked by “elb’s” comments below and invites either “elb” or the commentator of his/her choice to respond as a guest columnist. Although I disagree that the available science urges us to give drilling and hydraulic fracturing a chance, the point of Breathing is to offer a forum for intellectually-honest discussion. “elb’s” full comments can be reached by clicking the comment link to the right of this column under “recent comments.”)
Dear “elb,”
I wish you’d cited to examples when you wrote, “Those thousands in upstate NY who rallied for gas drilling see more benefits than negatives, yet you have not even made the first attempt to understand their point of view or why they reached it. Instead, you’ve inferred that they’re insane idiots who care nothing for the land, just their wallets.”
I’d be interested to know how my statement, “People are moved by threats they perceive as intimate and immediate. Unfortunately for pro-water advocates, residents of New York and Pennsylvania face many threats — many of which seem more ‘immediate’ than the potential loss of their drinking water. How will they pay their mortgages? How will they pay their student loans? Where’s their next paycheck coming from?” infers that drilling proponents are “insane idiots who care nothing for the land, just their wallets.”
In fact, I’ve written angrily as a former farm laborer and construction worker that many landholders have been forced by economic circumstances to even consider leasing their gas rights and I’ve exhorted Basin communities to take specific steps in defense of our Basin’s economy and local producers.)
When you say, “Yet I hear very little insulting, denigrating comments directed at the ‘other side’ from them, despite a passion equal to yours…,” does that include your statement, “Instead, you’ve taken the blindly narcissistic stance that ‘it’s not possible’ that you and your fellow supporters might be guilty — or even capable — of exaggerating risks?”
Does it account for Mr. Noel Van Swol calling pro-water advocates “dilettantes” at the July 15th DRBC Hearing?
Your statement provides no substantiation that I’ve exaggerated my claims so there’s little I can say in response.
However, it seems to me that certain facts must be accepted before we proceed:
- hydraulic fracturing fluid contains toxic chemicals capable of rendering a water supply worthless;
- the only scientific investigative study currently in existence is the one recently released by the Environmental Protection Agency;
- polluted water wells must be reported within six months of the suspect gas well being drilled and fracked;
- when screwing anything on the horizontal, the object will remain stable… until it doesn’t;
- The Texas Supreme Court recently stated, “The [drilling] design projects the length of the fractures from the well measured three ways…. Estimates of these distances are…at best imprecise. Clues about the direction in which fractures are likely to run horizontally from the well may be derived from seismic and other data, but virtually nothing can be done to control that direction; the fractures will follow Mother Nature’s fault lines in the formation.”
- no governmental or ad hoc agency has the budget or staff to oversee any aspect of drilling and fracking: not the drilling and water withdrawals nor the actual fracking and disposal of the resultant toxic waste water — a crucial gap that has been recognized by the Delaware River Basin Commission;
Despite your assessment of my position (“I see one thing over and over again on this blog — a true lack of an open mind. You’ve made up your mind about gas drilling, despite much evidence ((especially in western NYS and other areas inside and certainly outside the West) that it can live in harmony with the environment and local communities.”)) I am not opposed to drilling and hydraulic fracturing; I am opposed to slipshod processes.
And most assuredly, I am opposed to approving an activity or technology just because there are locations where it’s operated safely even though a wealth of circumstantial evidence points to very specific harms elsewhere. (Not all smokers die of smoking-related diseases. Does that mean smoking is harmless?)
To further explain my objection to shoddy process, I opposed invading Iraq without well-articulated reasons, proof and adherence to Constitutional law. I was especially opposed to our policy makers relying on Ahmad Chalabi’s vested-interest “clarifications” since he was angling to be Saddam’s replacement.
A reasonable person would have questioned the value of Chalabi’s “evidence” as I now question the value of drilling company vested-interest “evidence” and “assurances.”
More personally, having been a teenager myself, when my kids told me the party they were attending was safe, I automatically checked with the chaperones. Loving our children or liking corporations doesn’t absolve us of using common sense. If people behaved rationally and with the “common weal” firmly in mind, we’d have no need of laws or oversight or even newspapers and discussion fora.
Which leads rather nicely to the issue of the report released by the Environmental Protection Agency concerning water contamination in Wyoming about which you say, “Instead, you’ve decried the gas drilling industry’s propaganda (of which there is plenty) in favor of Earthworks’ propaganda: a press release that only hints at the fact that the EPA (1) has not yet determined the cause and source of the contaminated wells, and (2) only THREE of the 11 contaminated wells — out of 39 tested — had a toxin specific to fracking. How does that qualify for sounding a nationwide alarm, let alone the environmental catastrophe you’re constantly trying to whip your readers into a frenzy about?”)
What follows here are
“In interviews with ProPublica and at a public meeting this month in Pavillion’s community hall, officials spoke cautiously about their preliminary findings. They were careful to say they’re investigating a broad array of sources for the contamination, including agricultural activity. They said the contaminant causing the most concern – a compound called 2-butoxyethanol, known as 2-BE – can be found in some common household cleaners, not just in fracturing fluids.
“But those same EPA officials also said they had found no pesticides – a signature of agricultural contamination – and no indication that any industry or activity besides drilling could be to blame. Other than farming, there is no industry in the immediate area.
“…according to EPA investigation documents, most of the water wells were flushed three times before they were tested in order to rid them of anything that wasn’t flowing through the aquifer itself.
“‘It starts to finger-point stronger and stronger to the source being somehow related to the gas development, including, but not necessarily conclusively, hydraulic fracturing itself,” said Nathan Wiser, an EPA scientist and hydraulic fracturing expert who oversees enforcement for the underground injection control program under the Safe Drinking Water Act in the Rocky Mountain region. The investigation “could certainly have a focusing effect on a lot of folks in the Pavillion area as a nexus between hydraulic fracturing and water contamination.'”
(Conclusive, “elb?” No, but certainly worthy of a moratorium until full explanations are available.)
- a link to an earlier introductory article and
- a link to the EPA’s actual report (which I was unable to locate despite searching for over an hour)
We don’t have to argue the content; readers can decide whether or not I am attempting to “whip [them] into a frenzy” or whether I’m reasonably concerned by the consequences we see in Wyoming, Fort Worth, Dimock (PA) and elsewhere of “rushing to judgment” as we did in Iraq.
Isn’t it rational to wonder why those with the least are risking the most and well-heeled energy corporations are poised to make out like bandits yet again?
Is it whipping readers “into a frenzy” to remind them that corporations aren’t always honest and government overseers are not always concerned for the well-being of the “People.” (We have ample evidence of this given the recent economic meltdown and the collusive actions of the Securities & Exchange Commission, ratings agencies and other financial pirates who secured obscene profits for a few while huge numbers of us lost our life savings and homes.)
Is it particularly onerous that I would raise those issues when our very water supply depends on drilling companies caring more for the water and our welfare than they do their profits? Is that me falling prey to “Earthworks’ propaganda” or is it a reasonable caution given the times in which we live and the fundamental nature of corporations which is to increase profits for their shareholders?
“Unlike the people you reached out to farther down the Delaware Valley, where gas drilling is likely never to come,” you write, “most landowners in this area have done their homework and — untainted by the desire to hear only the facts that support a pre-set point of view — have come to a different, far less extreme conclusion.”
I’m left to assume that their “far less extreme conclusion” is to lease their gas rights…? How is jumping in with both feet, no matter their reasons, “far less extreme” than my position which I reiterate here for the umpteenth time:
“I want the DRBC to table all drilling and fracking applications until after an Environmental Impact Statement has been issued and independent, scientific studies have evaluated the cumulative impacts of drilling, fracking and waste water disposal on the Delaware River Basin.”
Rather than being part of a frenzied rush to drill, I’m trying to set the brake on a run-away train. (Imagine how much better we’d be sitting if caution and science had informed President Bush’s Iraq War strategy before he launched “Shock and Awe.”)
You also state, “We are all actively working to avoid the kind of environmental holocaust you relish describing, even though the fact remains that no catastrophe on the scale you fear here has ever been seen in the U.S.”
I’m sure that your reasoning will provide comfort to the residents of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island which were, I’m sure you’ll agree, ground breaking events in their own right.
(I would appreciate you forwarding to me copies of gas leases which “avoid the kind of environmental holocaust” you believe I “relish describing….” Or perhaps you could include them in your rebuttal as evidence of lessors’ efforts to protect our Basin.)
As to your insistence that information printed by ProPublica is propaganda, please consider Mr. Lustgarten’s credentials (“Abrahm Lustgarten is a former staff writer and contributor for Fortune, and has written for Salon, Esquire, the Washington Post and the New York Times since receiving his master’s in journalism from Columbia University in 2003. He is the author of the book China’s Great Train: Beijing’s Drive West and the Campaign to Remake Tibet, a project that was funded in part by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.”) and the fact that he has chosen to work for ProPublica as a respected news source.
Then, please, provide evidence of your assertion that ProPublica spews propaganda as well as examples of gas industry propaganda.
So you see, I completely agree, whether or not it’s my ” blog to do with as [I] please,” readers should demand that we provide well-researched and balanced information for them to chew over in a civil venue.
In return, I ask the same of you and whomever you choose to write your rebuttal which I will be pleased to publish here.