Los Angeles has long been famous for its film premieres. The City of Angels has also, like many parts of the country, long been famous for being blanketed in toxic chemicals in the air, water, soil and food. Put the two together and what you have is The Toxies: Exposed, a seven part webisode series satirizing some of the worst chemicals plaguing the Southland and the nation.
The August 15 premiere at the Downtown Independent Theater attracted hundreds of environmentalists, activists and the just plain curious. The red carpet ‘step and repeat’ came alive with flashes as the stars of the short films arrived, none so more than Fracking Chemical Cocktail and her security tough, Mr. Drill.
Frackie, the nickname she told me I could call her last year at the Third Annual Toxies Awards, came bearing little more than a tray of what appeared to be very delicious cocktails. The skull and crossbones on the tray betrayed the mysterious toxic nature of the drinks.
“My eyes are up here, Mr. Enviro Distorter,” Frackie taunted. “Maybe this time around you could actually report just how important Los Angeles is for my drilling. Fracking is going to change the face of Southern California. So calm down and have a cocktail.”
Fracking Chemical Cocktail’s luscious image works well in Los Angeles. Far from being an apologist for the environmental catastrophes that fracking causes, she delights in divulging her true aims: fracking everyone she can get her drills into including, according to recent revelations, secret fracking in the Santa Barbara Channel that has caused an outrage.
Frackie fobbed off those questions and delighted in discussing all the benefits of fracking including accelerated global warming. “We can have sweater weather in the winter,” Frackie chirped. “And all that fresh pure glacier water!”
That is not going to be good news for Southern California which has been found to be the Saudi Arabia of shale oil and gas now recoverable using new, and environmentally disastrous, fracking techniques. EnviroReporter.com has found that a little known new threat posed by fracking is slowly becoming known in addition to the already established menaces of groundwater contamination, huge water usage, methane gas releases and fracking induced earthquakes.
Fracking also threatens the very value and marketability of real estate, so much so that major insurance companies are not renewing homeowner insurance policies on properties that have been fracked or are near fracking. Lenders will not loan money on property that has potential for hazardous activity and contamination issues meaning that the land owner is truly fracked. The land becomes uninsurable and unsellable making it worthless.
The amount of frackable oil and gas in northern, central and southern California is so huge that the fracking industry is moving in ready to drop and drill, eminent domain or not. The value of land here, and in 33 other states could very well turn to nothing. Once that happens, these same oil and gas companies, as well as the insurers and lenders, will be able to scoop up huge swaths of land for pennies on the dollar.
Valuable land and groundwater will be destroyed, precious water wasted while inflating the price out of farmers’ range and to add insult to injury, land values will plummet because the insurance companies know the toxic score. Frackie knows the score too and doesn’t hide her agenda to frack anyone anywhere anytime.
“I want to frack your land, I want to frack your land,” Frackie sang to the tune of the Beatles’ I Want to Hold Your Hand.” The other Toxies had told this reporter that Frackie wanted to challenge Yoko Ono to a “Frackdown” rewriting the lyrics to Beatles songs. Frackie was confident her versions would win. “Fracking fields forever,” the velvet-voiced vixen sweetly crooned before segueing into “She fracks you yeah yeah yeah, she fracks you yeah yeah yeah, and with a frack like that you know you should be glad!”
The inevitable environmental consequences of extensive fracking throughout the region didn’t seem to faze Fracking Chemical Cocktail. There is so much money under Los Angeles that she knows what she has to offer is irresistible or “fracktastic” as she puts it.
“Water is for fracking,” Frackie admonished while posing with guests for photo ops. “Don’t be a water hog.”
One of the toxic temptress’ weirdest mind fracks was how she addressed ground water contamination. “You shouldn’t be drinking groundwater anyway because it’s dirty,” she said crinkling her nose. When pressed on why, she could only deviously muster, “It’s in the dirt.”
Frackie’s face lit up when questioned about the gag order that doctors in many states are forced to sign to get information about the actual chemicals possibly harming their patients. This prohibits the physician from being able to tell a patient just exactly what could be making them ill from exposure to fracking chemicals.
“Let me tell you something, I gagged a doctor once,” she giggles. “And I didn’t hear any complaints!”
Southlanders may not be aware that Frackie has set her sights on the Monterey Shale formation that stretches from northern California down the Central Valley into Los Angeles. In fact, according to Occidental Petroleum, there is more oil and gas per square foot here than at any oil and gas producing region on Earth. There could be as much as 15.5 billion barrels of recoverable Monterey Shale oil through fracking of old and new wells using advanced technology .
That technology includes using four to seven million gallons of water per frack, water that then becomes contaminated. That goo is then pumped back into the ground which has caused earthquakes in areas of the country that rarely see them.
The July 2013 Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth Volume 118, Issue 7 contains a study called “Induced seismicity associated with fluid injection into a deep well in Youngstown, Ohio” in which researchers found 109 earthquakes linked to fracking in a year. Six of the temblors were strong enough to be felt. The largest shaker was a magnitude 3.9, significant even by Southern California standards. The report found that the earthquakes were the result of pumping fracking goo from neighboring Pennsylvania into the ground. The Perry Nuclear Generating Station is less than 70 miles from Youngstown.
Heightened earthquake risks from fracking in the Southland are not going to be popular. That didn’t seem to be an issue of concern at a two day December 2012 oil and gas industry conference in Long Beach called “Californian Oil: Unlocking the Golden State’s Oil Shale Resources.”
Unfortunately California’s bonanza lies deeper underground than older shale-bearing formations that have a “pay zone” at from 60 to 80 feet below ground. L.A.’s pay zone can be more than 1,000 feet up to 2,000 feet below surface. That means expensive horizontal fracking wells where the fracking companies have to get “pass-through rights” from landowners who don’t stand to make a dime out of the gas and oil extraction but may end up having worthless land at the end of it all.
Insurance companies and bank lenders have caught on pretty quickly to what a major risk fracking is to property owners regarding property insurance. In short, insurers don’t want to be taken to the cleaners over fracking destruction.
“While many drillers and insurance industry executives suggest that the environmental claims are overblown and that there is presently little evidence of substantial well water pollution from fracking, lawsuits are being filed by plaintiffs in numerous jurisdictions alleging pollution damage (such as groundwater contamination) requiring remediation and attempting to prevent future fracking activities because of potential health and environmental concerns,” according to a March 25, 2012 InsuranceJournal.com article. “Another potentially significant area is property insurance claims by homeowners affected by fracking activities. In addition to potential groundwater contamination leading to bodily injury claims, some homeowners may suffer various forms of subsidence or well water contamination.”
“Most homeowner insurance policies provide coverage for the policyholder’s home and property structures for direct physical loss or damage to the property during the policy period,” the article continued. “However, many of these policies exclude events such as contamination of land or water serving residents, as well as settling, cracking, shrinking or other types of harm that may be alleged by homeowners near fracking sites.”
Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company became the first insurance giant to stop issuing commercial and personal property coverage because of fracking in the summer of 2012. The company made the decision after an internal memo was leaked to the Internet.
“After months of research and discussion, we have determined that the exposures presented by hydraulic fracturing are too great to ignore” the memo read. “Risks involved with hydraulic fracturing are now prohibited for General Liability, Commercial Auto, Motor Truck Cargo, Auto Physical Damage and Public Auto (insurance) coverage.”
The memo also said “prohibitive risks” apply to the people who lease their land for shale oil and gas drilling including contractors involved in the fracking. This includes water haulers, lumber and pipe haulers and operators of vehicles used at the site including dump trucks, bulldozers and other trucks
Even before the new Nationwide exclusion provisions, people started paying the price for fracking even if it wasn’t on their land. A recent Grist.org article describes how a couple went to apply for a new mortgage for their $230,000 west Pennsylvania home in Washington County. Quicken Loans approved the new loan then reversed itself when it became aware that a frack was occurring on their next door neighbor’s property.
This month, another homeowner in Lebanon New York had his renewal on his homeowner’s policy also declined even though his fracked land had no problems. Ironically, and cruelly, this homeowner’s property is now worthless since it can’t be insured or sold even though the gas royalties go to the previous owner.
The Federal Housing Administration’s lending guidelines forbid financing for homes within 100 yards of a property with “an active or planned drilling site.” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also do not allow property owners to sign a gas fracking lease.
While hard to believe that fracking could undermine the very foundation of American society – property rights with the ability to build land wealth and pass it on to future family generations, it might appear more probable when considering the lengths fracking industry will go to get its gas, willing property owner or not.
One particularly onerous example of this is in Marion County Kentucky where a group of singing anti-fracking nuns is fighting fracking interests from ruining their land. The nuns are part of a campaign against the proposed 1,100-mile Bluegrass Pipeline connecting Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky to an existing pipeline all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. The Sisters of Loretto are making a stand which has garnered international attention.
“This isn’t about fighting big corporations,” said one of the nuns on the video. “This is about saving our heritage. We see it as a trust.”
Trust doesn’t run the fracking companies. The sisters were told that if they didn’t comply they would face eminent domain.
Frackie says that here in California, there’s no heritage to protect so people shouldn’t be so stubborn about getting fracked. It’s going to happen, Frackie says, should folks even try to fight it.
“Let me let you in on a little secret,” Frackie confides in me leaning so close I can smell the chemicals in her cocktails. “If we wreck the housing rebound, so what? Once these NYMBYs finally go bankrupt from having no homeowners insurance and no buyers for their land, we’ll step in and snap up all this property and boot these slackers off. Won’t that be fracktastic?”
14th October 2020 – Researchers find elevated radiation near U.S. fracking sites
Extracts:
Areas within 20 kilometers (12 miles) downwind of 100 fracking wells tend to have radiation levels that are about 7% above normal background levels, according to the study, which examined thousands of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s radiation monitor readings nationwide from 2011 to 2017.
“The increases are not extremely dangerous, but could raise certain health risks to people living nearby,” said the study’s lead author, Petros Koutrakis.
Radioactive particles can be inhaled and increase the risk of lung cancer.
Comment:
How much evidence do people need to show that fracking seriously damages the environment, and is hazardous to those people who live and work near these operations?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fracking-radiation/researchers-find-elevated-radiation-near-u-s-fracking-sites-idUSKBN26Y29U
From our friends at Consumer Watchdog today:
Los Angeles, CA—As the Covid-19 pandemic unfolded, new oil well permits under Gov. Gavin Newsom rose 7.8% in the first quarter of 2020 through April 4, compared to the first quarter of 2019, Consumer Watchdog and FrackTrackerAlliance reported today. The Newsom Administration issued 1,623 permits during the first quarter of 2020. It also approved 24 fracking permits after a nine-month moratorium. The total number of permits issued under Newsom since he took office in January 2019 is 6,168.
The permit numbers and locations are posted and updated on an interactive map at the website: NewsomWellWatch.com
“This is terrible news during an unprecedented pandemic,” said Consumer Advocate Liza Tucker. “Now that scientists have established a correlation between air pollution caused by the production and combustion of fossil fuels and greater susceptibility to death from Covid-19, issuing zero permits would have been the right thing to do. On top of that, experts tell us that Californians could be liable for $9 billion in cleanup costs for existing oil and gas wells that are or will be eventually abandoned, so we should not be greenlighting even more wells.”
The California Geologic Energy Management Division, a branch of the Department of Conservation, issues two main categories of permits: permits to drill new oil and gas wells and permits to rework existing wells. Permits are issued for different types of well activities, including “Enhanced Oil Recovery Wells” (EOR) that use cyclic steaming and water flooding to dislodge oil.
The groups found that permits for drilling new wells rose 27.2%, while permits for reworking existing wells fell 13.4% in a sign that oil companies are literally scraping the barrel.
About 10% of permits issued during the first quarter of 2020 have been issued within 2,500 feet of homes, hospitals, schools, daycares or nursing facilities. This is similar but slightly lower than the average for all of 2019 (12.2%).
“Regardless of where oil and gas wells and stimulations are permitted, near or close to Frontline Communities, these wells all degrade the regional air quality of the San Joaquin Valley. The San Joaquin Valley has some of the worst air quality in the country.” said Kyle Ferrar, Western Program Coordinator for FracTracker.
“In addition to Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) being both air toxics and carcinogens that negatively impact frontline communities, these pollutants are precursors to the regional ozone and smog pollution that causes health impacts such as asthma, COPD, cardiovascular disease, and negative birth outcomes.”
According to the U.S. EPA, oil and gas production is a main contributor of VOCs and smog-forming nitrogen oxides in the San Joaquin Valley. Beyond the Valley, the American Lung Association recently assigned 62% of California’s 58 counties Ds and Fs for air quality. See: http://www.stateoftheair.org
In 2019, the number of permits issued under Newsom reached virtually the same level as the number issued in 2018 by big oil booster Gov. Jerry Brown during his last year in office—despite Newsom’s firing of the state Oil & Gas Supervisor last July.
At that time, the groups reported eight oil regulators were invested up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in oil companies they regulated, permits for new production wells had risen by a runaway 77% over the first six months of the year before and that fracking permits had doubled, a fact that angered Newsom who campaigned on a platform of support for banning the practice.
Newsom quietly put a moratorium on fracking permits pending an independent third-party review by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory while the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) opened an investigation into two of the eight regulators for financial conflicts of interest.
One of the two regulators under FPPC investigation was invested up to $100,000 in Exxon, a parent of Aera Energy, which received the lion’s share of permits in 2019, and another was invested up to $100,000 in Chevron, yet another major permit recipient.
The Lawrence Livermore Laboratory is now reviewing another 282 fracking permits. The lab was hired to confirm that the permits met state regulatory standards, which have a low bar and virtually no thorough environmental review.
26th October 2019 – Radioactive fracking waste could end up in Missoula landfill
Extracts:
DEQ wants to set the radiation limit at 200 picocuries per gram of two variants, or isotopes, of radium. But that is four times what the agency proposed back in August 2017 and four times more than any other state allows, including North Dakota, home of the Bakken oil fields.
Groundwater contamination is one of the main issues with TENORM waste. And in Missoula, that could be a significant concern, as the public water supply comes from a single-source aquifer that runs beneath the valley.
https://www.kpax.com/news/missoula-county/radioactive-fracking-waste-could-end-up-in-missoula-landfill
USA
14th December 2017 – Hydraulic fracturing is harmful to infants health, study states
Extracts:
Scientists identified an elevated risk of low-birth weight in infants who were born within half a mile from a hydraulic fracturing site, leaving them prone to other risks like ADHD, infant mortality, asthma, lower educational attainment, lower test scores, and lower lifetime earnings.
Significant effects were observed in infants born within six miles of a site and they were subject to a 25% increased risk of low birth weight, i.e. less than 5.5 pounds. Infants born between half a mile and 2 miles had a decreased low birth risk by about a half to a third, and infants of mothers living beyond 2 miles suffered the least negative effects to their health.
Comment:
Quotes from this article:
“While we know pollution from hydraulic fracturing impacts our health, we do not yet know where that pollution is coming from — from the air or water, from chemicals onsite, or an increase in traffic.”
Yes, we do know where that pollution is coming from, the fracking process creating serious local air and water pollution, plus from the very toxic chemicals used on site, plus those extracted from the ground!
“The current study followed the work of Currie and team, which was based on the local economic benefits. The former study stated that the average household living near a fracking site is benefited by as much as $1,900 per year as a result of a 7% increase in average income, driven by increase in wages and royalty payments, a 10% increase in employment, and a 6% increase in housing prices.”
The years of medical bills created by the serious health effects on the local children and adults would far out weigh any perceived local economic benefit. There would also be epigenetic effects, which means the health effects could potentially be multi generational. Having a healthy community far out weighs any perceived economic benefit from fracking!
Article:
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20171214/Hydraulic-fracturing-is-harmful-to-infants-health-study-states.aspx
17th July 2017 – Treated Fracking Wastewater Contaminated Watershed With Radium and Endocrine Disrupters, Study Finds
Extracts:
Researchers from Penn State University, Colorado State University, and Dartmouth College studied sediments from Conemaugh River Lake — a dammed reservoir east of Pittsburgh — and found that they were contaminated with endocrine-disrupting chemicals called nonylphenol ethoxylates; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are carcinogens; and elevated levels of radium.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, said that the highest concentrations of these pollutants were found in lake sediment layers deposited five to ten years ago during a peak period of fracking wastewater disposal. The high radium levels were found as far as 12 miles downstream of treatment plants.
http://e360.yale.edu/digest/treated-fracking-wastewater-contaminated-watershed-with-radioactive-material-and-endocrine-disrupters-study-shows
13th July 2017 – Fracking waste contaminates Penn. watershed with radioactive material
Extracts:
Their analysis detected peak concentrations of radium, chloride, barium, strontium, radium and organic compounds in Conemaugh River watershed. The two major classes of organic contaminants included nonylphenol ethoxylates, endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, known carcinogens.
When scientists examined steam sediments in Blacklick Creek, just downstream from one treatment plant, it was found to contain about 200 times the level of radium found upstream of the plant.
The highest concentration of radium was just 14 percent below the level at which it would have to be treated as radioactive waste in some US states.
https://www.rt.com/usa/396281-fracking-waste-contaminates-pa-watershed/
10th May 2016 – North Dakota contaminated with radioactive materials from fracking – study
Extracts:
Researchers found high levels of ammonium, selenium, lead and other toxic contaminants – the levels of selenium – a radioactive element – were 35 times higher than the federal threshold set “for freshwater aquatic life”.
Particularly high levels of radium contamination were recorded in the ground downstream from where the spills started, which researchers say indicates radioactive materials from the spills were soaking into the ground.
“Unlike spilled oil, which starts to break down in soil, these spilled brines consist of inorganic chemicals, metals and salts that are resistant to biodegradation,” lead author Nancy Lauer told Desmog. “They don’t go away; they stay.”
Comment:
We should be focusing on environmentally friendly technologies. Fracking operations have been proven time and time again to be environmental disasters.
https://www.rt.com/usa/342549-north-dakota-radioactive-fracking/
This mayor in Australia has lit his town’s river on fire, thanks to methane releases in it caused by fracking:
Australian politician sets river on fire to protest fracking
The comments by the company, Origin Energy, are slightly whimsical and definitely showing signs of stupidity on their part in an attempt to place blame on Mother Nature. Contemptuous.
USA
25th February 2016 – Low-level radioactive waste illegally dumped in Estill landfill, state official says
Extract:
An estimated 1,600 to 1,800 tons of low-level radioactive waste was illegally dumped in an Estill County landfill, and now state officials are warning other solid-waste operators not to accept any of the material.
The waste was not generated from a nuclear plant, Hatton said. Rather, it is a common, naturally occurring material resulting from oil and gas-drilling activities. When it is processed to recover brine, the radionuclides present in the soil and rocks become concentrated.
It is possible the material might be dug up and removed, “but there could be risks associated with digging it up,” Hatton said. “But that may not outweigh the potential risks of leaving it there.”
Comment:
The illegal toxic drilling waste was detected this time, but how often is it not?
http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article62496922.html
New fracking fluids study just released by Yale School of Public Health.
7th January 2015 – Toxins found in fracking fluids and wastewater, study shows
Extract:
While they lacked definitive information on the toxicity of the majority of the chemicals, the team members analyzed 240 substances and concluded that 157 of them—chemicals such as arsenic, benzene, cadmium, lead, formaldehyde, chlorine, and mercury—were associated with either developmental or reproductive toxicity. Of these, 67 chemicals were of particular concern because they had an existing federal health-based standard or guideline, said the scientists, adding that data on whether levels of chemicals exceeded the guidelines were too limited to assess.
However, the practice may come with a significant public health consequences, warn critics of fracking, noting that the process has the potential to contaminate drinking water supplies with toxic chemicals. Air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and small earth tremors from the drilling and waste disposal processes are also cited as concerns.
http://phys.org/news/2016-01-toxins-fracking-fluids-wastewater.html
ENGLAND
14th September 2015 – Cameron ‘punked’ by Vivienne Westwood in tank-mounted fracking protest
Extracts:
The grand dame of punk took it into her hands on Friday to attract more attention to the issue. She drove up to David Cameron’s home on a white tank following protesters in gas masks.
“It’s just so irresponsible. The people are not only criminal, they’re actually idiots,” Westwood told RT.
Shale gas hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, was stopped in Britain in 2011 after it was connected to a number of minor earthquakes in the north of England. Some European countries like France and Germany have already banned the practice due to environmental concerns.
https://www.rt.com/news/315259-westwood-fracking-tank-protest/
Another fracking horror story, Australia this time.
10th August 2015 – Linc Energy: Secret report reveals toxic legacy of coal gasification trials near SE Queensland town of Chinchilla.
Extracts:
The consultants said they had found “volatile organic compounds, which are known carcinogens, and ‘bulk’ gases, which at high enough levels, can cause health and safety risks” in an area of up to 320 square kilometres around the Chinchilla plant.
Other documents, released to the ABC by the magistrate in charge of the criminal case, show four departmental investigators were hospitalised with suspected gas poisoning during soil testing at the site in March.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-10/linc-energy-secret-report-reveals-toxic-chemical-risk/6681740
I read a good article in Rolling Stone Magazine the other day. 😐
It gives some personal insights on living in a fracking zone.
“A midwife, (Donna Young), comes under attack after she starts asking questions about dead babies in a Utah fracking town.”
Article: What’s Killing the Babies of Vernal, Utah?
A fracking boomtown, a spike in stillborn deaths and a gusher of unanswered questions
By Paul Solotaroff June 22, 2015
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/fracking-whats-killing-the-babies-of-vernal-utah-20150622
I have to ask myself what part Fukushima’s FALLOUT might contribute to the numbers they are seeing in infant deaths and illness? (The numbers increase after 2011) I wonder why ‘they’ or ‘anybody’ are not asking that question too. It only makes since to me if you live in a valley with an inversion layer then FALLOUT might concentrate more there also.
@All: It shouldn’t be surprising that in California’s historic drought, that there should be a petition to halt Frackie in her gooey tracks by banning fracking and extreme oil extraction in the Golden State.
It says “The science couldn’t be more clear. We must take swift action to end the dangers that fracking and extreme oil extraction pose to California’s future. Governor Brown, we ask that you keep our families, our communities, and our nation safe by immediately stopping fracking and extreme oil extraction in the state of California.”
Even with some of the dubious ‘friends with drilling benefits’ that Frackie tempts with, we encourage you to sign this petition to end fracking in California.
Right now, there are 67,428 signers as of 9:00 am July 14, 2015.
Yes, the stakes are high Michael, so it is important that communities worldwide get educated and united on this subject, and say no to fracking!
The fracking chemical cocktail will have serious health impacts on multiple future generations.
Frackie’s propaganda has to be seen for what it is, lies for money.
EnviroReporter.com asked Fracking Chemical Cocktail, aka Frackie, her response to vital1’s comment sharing the trailer and link to the new Australian film “Frackman”:
I usually think it’s cute when misguided people come along and try to convince people in Australia, a place surrounded by lots of water, that clean and convenient natural gas is threatening the groundwater and environment.
All because a little groundwater is now catching on fire from methane leakage? I’ve already admitted I have a ‘gas problem’ but so what? My mystery cocktails are too delicious, providing that cheap energy buzz, to get all worked up over that. Drink up and forget about it!
So let me put Frackman on notice: Frackie’s Happy Hour in the Land Down Under starts now in earnest now that I’ve been so unfairly attacked. Let me make it a double shot of hundreds of chemicals that I keep secret from the public because I know what’s best for them. Let the Frackdown begin!
Fracking Chemical Cocktail is hard to pin down, as EnviroReporter.com found out interviewing Frackie in this video, so Frackman has his work cut out for him. But the stakes are high and if folks like vital1 and Frackman succeed in blunting this intensively destructive practice in the Land of Oz, Australia won’t be totally fracked.
AUSTRALIA
18th March 2015 – ‘Frackman’, the movie, on ABC show Lateline
Extract:
The anti-CSG campaign has been buoyed by the release of a documentary called ‘Frackman’. Lateline’s Ginny Stein caught up with the film’s unlikely environmental warrior, a former construction worker and roo shooter called Dayne Pratzky.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4200407.htm
Frackman The Movie | OFFICIAL TRAILER
Extract:
“If you care about our country, see it!” ~ Alan Jones
“No Australian voter should miss this film” ~ Bob Brown
Frackman is like no other Australian film. It aims to spark a broad national conversation about the risks of our headlong rush into massive coal seam gas development. Five years in the making, it not only entertains and engages, it also gives audiences the tools to get involved in what is becoming the largest social movement our nation has seen in decades. It’s a deeply political film, but not the old style that is so badly failing us. This the New Politics, bringing together old and young, city and country, conservative and progressive in a shared effort to prevent an environmental catastrophe. Can we imagine any other issue that would bring together the likes of Alan Jones and Bob Brown?
See it and find out why.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ifUjjP3aL4
Take a stand with us
http://www.frackmanthemovie.com
2nd March 2015 – Gas Industry’s Solution to Toxic Wastewater: Spray It on Roads
Extracts:
In parts of Pennsylvania and New York, the answer to ice-slick wintry roads is simple: Put some gas production waste on it. Municipalities in the northern parts of both states use the salty wastewater from oil and gas production to melt ice in winter and suppress road dust in summer.
But according to Duke University geochemist Avner Vengosh, the conventional drilling waste is nearly identical in many of its most toxic components to the highly controversial fracking waste. Vengosh says the levels of radioactive material found in conventional brine samples taken from New York are equal to levels he has seen in fracking brine, for example.
Comment:
One could conclude from this report and this Australian report,
https://www.enviroreporter.com/2013/08/fracked-nation/#comment-278650
that it has probably been a worldwide practice of the oil and gas industry, to use the contaminated salty waste water from oil and gas production, on roads to control ice or dust.
http://www.newsweek.com/oil-and-gas-wastewater-used-de-ice-roads-new-york-and-pennsylvania-little-310684
USA
4th March 2015 – Shock: Fracking Used to Inject Nuclear Waste Underground for Decades
Extracts:
Unearthed articles from the 1960s detail how nuclear waste was buried beneath the Earth’s surface by Halliburton & Co. for decades as a means of disposing the by-products of post-World War II atomic energy production.
And here we thought fracking was a relatively new industrial phenomenon growing in popularity over just the last couple of decades. Boy were we wrong. Revealed within these articles is Halliburton’s long-standing relationship with the secret government and deep ties between the oil and nuclear industries.
More recently, an Associated Press investigation found in 2011 that 48 of 65 nuclear sites in the United States were leaking tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, into groundwater supplies via corroded pipes and tunnels. AP found at least 37 locations were in direct violation of federal drinking water standards for tritium, in some cases hundreds of times over.
http://truthstreammedia.com/shock-fracking-used-to-inject-nuclear-waste-underground-for-decades/
AUSTRALIA
17th March 2015 – Linc Energy allegedly failed to report series of dangerous gas leaks at Chinchilla plant, court documents reveal
Extracts:
Unreported incidents at Chinchilla allegedly include a fire caused by a clogged pipe, which the company tried to clear by increasing the pressure so much that the rock above it cracked, allowing gas to escape; unreported benzene contamination of groundwater at levels more than 60 times higher than allowed; and attempts to hide gas leaks by covering them with crusher dust.
“Samples taken at the site … demonstrated either high levels of contaminants, or levels of contaminants so high that these samples were rejected and not tested by the third party laboratory on the basis that doing so may risk damage to laboratory instruments,” the warrant states.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-17/linc-energy-accuse-failing-report-series-of-dangerous-leaks/6323850?section=qld
Down here on winter vacation on the Gulf Coast, we’ve traversed the Eagle Ford Shale belt a number of times. I’ve been carefully looking, and reading the free “Rah! Rah! Fracking” local newspapers we’ve found in restaurant foyers. I am laser focused on what is done with fracking fluid waste and the liquid wastes produced from both fracked and ordinary oil and gas wells. I’ve seen tanker trucks driving on each state highway we’ve traversed “in the Eagle Ford”. In the Eagle Ford, the liquid oil/gas field liquid wastes are being dumped into open air holding ponds, down old wells, and God knows where else. It’s not a topic people care much about…yet.
Within the last few weeks, in the mainstream and environmental press, I’ve read nationally-focused stories saying that “oil field waste disposal wells” are far more dangerous to the public health and groundwater resources than producing fracked oil or gas wells…a distinction between horrific and very bad.
I think of these oil field waste disposal wells as toilets, flushing fluids deep into the ground,and possibly into the ground water people drink from public and private ground water wells.
Back in the early 2000’s one of my friends discovered one of these oil field waste disposal wells existed, and was actively being operated by Berry Petroleum on the east side of the City of Santa Clarita, in connection with Berry’s “Placerita Oil Field”.
Berry was later bought out by a group operating out of Houston called Linn Energy. That oil field waste disposal well still existed as late as 2012, on a property on the west side of Golden Valley Road, right near where the road switches from running north-south to east-west. The oil field waste injection well site was neat as a pin, the equipment was well maintained and the site was unfenced. We drove in and took a good look, though there was not much to see. That oil field waste disposal wells happened to be right near one of 3 traces of the active San Gabriel Fault.
Concurrently news stories coming out of suddenly frequently earthquaking Arlington, TX cite academic studies showing that liquid injection relating to well drilling “lubricates faults causing them to move”
As late as the 4th quarter of 2014, DOGGR’s online oil well lease records showed that Linn/Berry had at least 6 wells on that piece of leased land in Santa Clarita. The data looked like there was still at least one oil field waste injection well.
Before Christmas 2014, a tanker truck exploded and burned on a public road in the Santa Clara River floodplain, near Fillmore, near a company called the Santa Clara Waste Water Company. When the Ventura County Fire Department’s trucks showed up to put out the fire, the trucks’ tires melted. The fire department did chemical tests on some of the unburned fluid and couldn’t identify it as one particular chemical concoction. It was “mixed toxic fluid”, which DTSC considers a big no-no under other circumstances.
EPA Region 9 took jurisdiction over the investigation of the exploding tanker truck on the Santa Clara River floodplain, and all has gone quiet. However, a little digging unearthed old news stories saying that the Santa Clara Waste Water Company had been formed by 6 oil companies which pumped oil in the areas around Fillmore and Bardsdale.
Ventura County newspapers reported that “the disposal facility is now closed” because the area of the explosion is still roped off as part of the EPA investigation. So that’s a good thing if there was/is an oil field waste disposal well at that site in the Santa Clara River floodplain.
The Ventura County newspapers also reported that fluid waste from would have to be diverted to a facility along Highway 1 near the Santa Barbara County line or elsewhere. Needless to say, I worry for my friends in Santa Clarita whose public drinking water is drawn from ground water that the nearby oil field waste disposal wells volume of “flushes” will increase because of the closure of the well in the river’s flood plain, and the increased volume of oil field waste fluids disposed of might contaminate their public drinking water, or raise the cost of making it safe to drink.
And of course, given Enviroreporter’s interest in all things nuclear, I should mention that “everybody” has known, for at least a decade, that oil well drilling mud often contains radioactive material. That oil well drilling mud forms a part of the oil field waste fluids which can be flushed down these oil field waste water disposal wells. But not to worry. California’s water and toxics regulatory agencies are on the job to protect everyone. (Not)
When one talks about the dangers of “fracking” the discussion is too narrow if the focus is only on the fracked well. It’s those oil field waste disposal wells, where secret sauces are flushed, which can be an even bigger risk to the public health.
@ Michael & Chase, “Australians should be bloody outraged.”
They are!
Fractured Country – An Unconventional Invasion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrE7LzZCn1E
@Chase & vital1: A member of my family who worked for New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in the 1960s told of New Jersey-based tankers taking loads of radioactive goo and letting them leak while driving New York turnpikes during rainstorms. I’ve been in New York and NYC taking loads of radiation measurements over the years but could never really test the turnpike for concern I’d turn into radioactive road kill.
@vital1
Maybe they got the idea from this genius.
See – Times Beach, Missouri catastrophe.
“In addition to his waste oil business, Bliss owned a horse arena and farm, where he sprayed waste oils to control the problem of dust. One application kept the dust down for several months. Those who visited Bliss’ property were impressed by how well the technique worked. It was not long before people began to hire him for his dust-suppressant services.”
“The EPA’s handling of the events in Missouri caught national attention in late 1982 when the Environmental Defense Fund, a public interest group, published a leaked EPA document… The town of Times Beach was one of the locations listed.”
“These cleanup requests were delayed when Rita Lavelle, an assistant administrator at EPA headquarters in Washington, announced that the EPA would be collecting and testing an additional six hundred soil samples in order to better understand the extent of contamination. Lavelle, who constantly insisted that low-exposure to dioxin was not dangerous, was dismissed from the EPA in 1983. Convicted of perjury before Congress, of obstructing federal investigations, and of submitting a false statement, Lavelle served four months in jail with five years of probation.”
It’s a ghost town to this day, rubble now buried under mounds of dirt. 😐
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Beach,_Missouri
@vital1: This is astonishing footage. The cameraman really got the goods here. As you well know, dumping radium-enriched water on dusty roads is a surefire way to get folks breathing in this actively hot beta radionuclide. Frackie‘s probably smiling at the truly evil toxicity of it all. Australians should be bloody outraged.
AUSTRALIA
The Radioactive Truth About CSG – Part 1.5
A new and creative way to get rid of radioactive contaminated waste fracking water, use it for road dust suppression.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdA3cy-7VuY
@Michael,
I agree.
Clean Aquifers are a precious resource that belong to the community and future generations. To contaminate them for short term profit is criminal!
@vital 1: This is horrifying. Combined with the extreme over-pumping of California’s aquifers, which take tens of thousands of years to replenish, this “error” will help bankrupt the state of its most valuable resource even sooner than we thought. Terrorists couldn’t do a more effective job destroying the land millions of Americans live on.
17th November 2014 – 3 Billion Gallons Of Fracking Wastewater Pumped Into Clean California Aquifiers: “Errors Were Made” State Admits
Extracts:
California state officials allowed oil and gas companies to pump up to 3 billion gallons (call it 70 million barrels) of oil fracking-contaminated waste water into formerly clean aquifiers, aquifiers which at least on paper are supposed to be off-limits to that kind of activity, and are protected by the government’s EPA – an agency which, it appears, was richly compensated by the same oil and gas companies to look elsewhere.
And nobody said a word about it until someone finally did a little research and found that people, especially those in power, lie.
And lie they did because the severity of the pollution is only now becoming clear:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-17/3-billion-gallons-fracking-wastewater-pumped-clean-california-aquifiers-errors-were-
From City of Los Angeles Councilman Mike Bonin:
Dear Friends,
Tomorrow could be the day that Los Angeles makes its stand against fracking.
Thanks to the support of thousands of people like you, we are on the verge of passing the Los Angeles Fracking Moratorium I proudly introduced with my colleague Paul Koretz. The City Council’s Planning Committee approved the proposal Tuesday, and the full council will consider the proposal tomorrow morning.
This moratorium will be be a tremendous step in protecting the health and safety of our neighborhoods. It can also be the first step in a statewide movement to protect us from fracking. State Senators Holly Mitchell and Mark Leno have proposed a statewide moratorium and our actions can send a strong message to Sacramento that Los Angeles and the rest of California want to say NO to “energy production by Dr. Strangelove.”
This is where you come in. We need your help to get over the finish line and pass the Los Angeles Fracking Moratorium. If you haven’t yet, please share the petition with your friends and social media networks and encourage them to sign as well, so Councilmember Koretz and I can personally deliver a large message of support to our colleagues.
Thank you for your partnership and support!
Regards,
MIKE
Frackie is going to love this: “Scientist sees fracking as the way to dispose of nuclear waste”
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/scientist-sees-fracking-way-dispose-nuclear-waste-2D11732363
NBC News without an incredulous reaction. Beyond dumb and scary.
6 Dec 2013 – Native Canadians revolt against Fracking, they do this to protect their land and water resources for future generations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWoRw_fYEGo
Fracking Chemical Cocktail is having the time of her life in North Dakota. These fracking gas flares show just how hot Frackie is in the Roughrider State in this 2012 NASA photo:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 16, 2013
Contact: Brian Segee, Environmental Defense Center, 805-963-1622
NEW ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE CENTER REPORT
PROVIDES NEW DETAILS AND FIRST COMPREHENSIVE LOOK AT FRACKING OFF CALIFORNIA’S COAST
EDC CALLS FOR OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO INSTITUTE MORATORIUM, PROTECT MARINE ENVIRONMENT AND WILDLIFE,
ENSURE PUBLIC TRANSPARENCY
SANTA BARBARA, CA—The Environmental Defense Center (EDC) today announced the release of DIRTY WATER: FRACKING OFFSHORE CALIFORNIA, a report providing the first comprehensive analysis of hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking) conducted from oil platforms located in federal waters off California’s shores, and outlining a series of policy recommendations that the Obama administration should take in order to guard against an offshore drilling disaster involving fracking. California’s offshore platforms are largely concentrated within the Santa Barbara Channel, renowned globally for its beauty, richness of wildlife, and overall health of the environment.
“The revelation that fracking is occurring off California’s shores is an alarming surprise to everyone who cherishes our state’s unparalleled and irreplaceable shoreline, particularly since federal regulators appear to have been largely unaware of the use of this dangerous technology from offshore oil platforms,” stated Brian Segee, co-author of the report and EDC Staff Attorney. “If we are to avoid yet another offshore disaster like the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, it is imperative that the Obama administration implement an immediate moratorium on offshore fracking.”
As detailed in DIRTY WATER: FRACKING OFFSHORE CALIFORNIA, government records obtained by EDC through the Freedom of Information Act demonstrate that at least 15 fracs have been conducted from offshore oil platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel, the majority of which have been conducted from Platforms Gilda and Gail located off the Ventura County coastline. The frequency and extent of offshore fracking in the Channel is likely significantly more widespread than has been revealed thus far, however, as federal regulators with the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) have admitted that a full accounting could take years as many files are not digitized or easily searchable. Despite this fact, and the fact that the agency was unaware of the practice at all until recently, DOI recently approved four new frac proposals under “categorical exemptions” from environmental analysis and public transparency requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
In DIRTY WATER: FRACKING OFFSHORE CALIFORNIA, EDC also provides a detailed examination of past offshore drilling disasters, including the 1969 Santa Barbara and 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spills. Prior to both of these disasters, federal regulators had granted the oil industry waivers or shortcuts from environmental safety requirements. In the wake of Deepwater Horizon, the Obama administration claimed to launch the largest reform of offshore oil oversight in the nation’s history. More than three years later, however, critical elements of that reform remain unfulfilled, particularly in relation to DOI’s environmental review of offshore drilling proposals under NEPA. DOI’s lack of oversight of offshore fracking in the Santa Barbara Channel illustrates this lack of reform, and also raises serious questions of compliance with other federal laws including the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, and Coastal Zone Management Act.
EDC provides several policy recommendations in DIRTY WATER: FRACKING OFFSHORE CALIFORNIA:
•Place a moratorium on offshore fracking and other forms of well stimulation unless and until such technologies are proven safe through a public and transparent comprehensive scientific review
•Prohibit the use of categorical exclusions to authorize offshore fracking and other forms of well stimulation
•Formally evaluate offshore fracking and other forms of well stimulation through a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement
• Initiate consistency reviews with the California Coastal Commission for all exploration plans, development plans, drilling or modification proposals involving fracking
•Ensure that all fracking proposals comply with the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act
•Review and revise the Clean Water Act permit governing offshore oil platforms to directly address chemicals in frac flowback and other wastewater, either establishing effluent limitations for those chemicals or denying discharge altogether
For more information, or to download a copy of DIRTY WATER: FRACKING OFFSHORE CALIFORNIA, please visit EDC’s website at: http://www.EnvironmentalDefenseCenter.org.
3rd October 2013 – Alarming presence of radioactivity found by Pennsylvania in fracking waste water study
http://rt.com/usa/fracking-radioactivity-contaminants-study-661/
Hi Michael! Thanks so very much for the insights you shared on Jeff Rense’s show—you have been used to awaken both me and my Fiancee, and we are very grateful to you for your work. Perhaps you’ve already reported on Depleted Uranium’s use in the drilling of fracking, but here is the article I saw on rt.com’s op-ed page by Christopher Busby—my mouth dropped open when I read it! I am wondering if perhaps Amarillo Texas’ constantly elevated Beta readings are not caused in part because Amarillo is in the heart of Texas fracking lands, and the DU is getting into the waste water that is used in fracking and getting dumped… Here is the article down below; I haven’t seen it on Jeff’s site yet. Much Love and Gratitude from Edgar and Mary in Seattle! <3 http://rt.com/op-edge/fracking-radioactive-uranium-danger-ecology-057
Is there a media blackout on the fracking flood disaster in Colorado?
http://www.texassharon.com/2013/09/15/is-there-a-media-blackout-on-the-fracking-flood-disaster-in-colorado/
The greenwashing and fracking continues as “Society of Environmental Journalism’s Faustian Fracking Deal” by Sharon Wilson shows. In this masterful article, SEJ manages to vacuum up fracking industry money while eliminating any discussion at the group’s 23rd annual concert on the positives and negatives of fracking. It makes a mockery of “journalism” which, in SEJ’s case, should be called “cashinism.”
That the fracking industry tries to woo environmental reporters is not surprising, but that they go for it (and the money, ad revenue, etc.) is however reprehensible. Here’s another example of an SEJ board member, former Los Angeles Times reporter Gary Polakovic, whose not-so-secret plan to help Boeing greenwash radiological and chemical contamination at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory included hosting a “hospitality reception” for Boeing at this upcoming SEJ annual conference that Wilson expertly exposes! Even now after Greenwashing Rocketdyne came out last December, Polakovic still maintains that “He helped establish and lead the Society of Enviromental Journalists.” The frackers who pulled off this cash cow coup can commiserate on the fruits of greenwashing and astroturfing with the master of Boeing’s Meltdown Makeover.
The PBS Newshour is sucking on the fracking teat too as it takes big money airing its “FracFocus” commercials. FracFocus is funded by the gas and oil industry and portrays fracking as harmless to the environment. That fracking can destroy home values, as reported in Fracked Nation, won’t likely air on the Newshour and definitely won’t be discussed at a conference of supposed environmental reporters.
Greewashing and fracking are very much alike – you are going to get screwed either way. I first became aware of Sharon Wilson in a riveting September 2013 More magazine feature called “A Texas Rebel’s Fight for Her Land.” This superb article being in More– “for women of style and substance” – is actually not a surprise as the magazine’s “How Fracking Affects You” and “Do You Own What’s Under Your Home?” show the publication to have rock solid investigative journalists on the fracking beat. Though the piece isn’t “slugged” (highlighted) on More‘s cover, it is a reminder that some glossy magazines can have great journalism. Another example is Los Angeles magazine’s bold cover story “Hot Zone” in 1998 which began EnviroReporter.com‘s coverage of Rocketdyne.
Now 15 years later, the circle completes itself in a web of deceit, greenwashing, astroturfing and fracking.
Fracktastic article. Personally, I needn’t worry about my property value. It is and has been in the toilet since the word “fracking” was a polite way of saying f—ing.
I stick to my principle that our country would be a far better place if there were NO insurance companies. NONE. Middlemen like insurance companies provide nothing of unique value to society except to siphon off massive profits and then hike the prices. Why don’t the insurance companies take their large share from the companies doing the fracking instead of the innocent homeowners?
@Michael: I went to the press conference this morning and it was so cool (though it is hot outside). This is the press release from the event:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 4, 2013
CONTACT
David Graham-Caso, Office of CM Bonin, 858.945.2203
Paul Michael Neuman, Office of CM Koretz, 213.473.7005
Brenna Norton, Food & Water Watch, 323.843.8446
Angela Johnson Meszaros, Physicians for Social Responsibility, 323.229.1145
Paul Ferrazzi, Citizens Coalition for a Safe Community, 310.558.1970
BONIN AND KORETZ CALL FOR FRACKING MORATORIUM IN LA
(LOS ANGELES) – City Councilmembers Paul Koretz and Mike Bonin today proposed changing Los Angeles’ zoning code to prohibit hazardous oil and gas “well stimulation” activities, commonly known as fracking, acidizing or gravel packing in Los Angeles.
The Councilmembers joined representatives from Food and Water Watch, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Sierra Club, Citizens for a Safe Community and other consumer and environmental groups at a morning press conference to discuss why they were seeking to end the dangerous drilling practice in Los Angeles.
“[These] practices threaten to contaminate drinking water supplies, cost taxpayers in Los Angeles hundreds of millions of dollars, release potent and dangerous greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and cause earthquakes,” the Councilmembers wrote in their motion, which was submitted at Wednesday’s Council meeting and can be read in full at http://www.11thdistrict.com/bonin_and_koretz_call_for_fracking_moratorium_in_los_angeles.
“The quality of our water and the safety of our neighborhoods comes first,” said Bonin. “The threat fracking poses to families in L.A. is serious and I am proud to join Councilmember Koretz in proposing a moratorium on fracking in the City of Los Angeles and along our water supply route.”
As the City celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Los Angeles aqueduct, the Sierra snow-pack is at historic lows and the need for L.A. to bolster and protect its local water supply is greater than ever. Currently, the single most ominous threat to L.A.’s water supply is fracking – hydraulic fracturing, acidizing and gravel packing and the hazardous activities related to them (including drilling and wastewater disposal). The Councilmembers and allies also called on Governor Brown to listen to the majority of Californians who disapprove of the inherently dangerous process of fracking and impose an immediate statewide moratorium on fracking.
“On one hand, we’re all concerned that a strong earthquake could destroy the Bay Delta levees and contaminate one of LA’s major water supplies with salt water. On the other, fracking is happening all over the state, and the United States Geological Survey says fracking related activity has definitively caused earthquakes in Ohio, Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas,” said Councilmember Koretz. “As a state, we have to decide which it is – are we protecting our water supply, or not? Already, 16 of our neighborhood councils have called for a ban on fracking. Like with coal power and plastic bags, if the federal or state governments are unwilling or unable to act to protect Angelenos, we will do our part to lead by example here at the local level.”
Fracking is a highly polluting form of oil and gas extraction that involves blasting huge volumes of water mixed with toxic chemicals into the earth to break up rock formations. The controversial technique is currently unregulated and unmonitored by California officials. Fracking has been tied to air and water pollution; it also threatens the climate by emitting large amounts of methane. Oil companies are gearing up to frack unconventional shale oil in the Monterey Shale, a formation beneath some of the state’s most productive farmland, critical water sources, and dozens of towns and cities from the Salinas Valley to the Los Angeles Basin.
“As Governor Brown has failed to act, cities like Los Angeles are stepping up to protect residents,” said Brenna Norton, Southern California Organizer for Food & Water Watch. “Nationwide the evidence is clear: No amount of regulation can make this fundamentally destructive and toxic drilling safe. Food & Water Watch congratulates the courageous leadership of Councilmembers Paul Koretz and Mike Bonin, willing to stand up for Angelenos and all Californians.”
Advocates for the moratorium additionally discussed public health concerns with fracking at Wednesday’s press conference.
“The health impacts of the chemicals used in fracking, acidization and gravel packing are clear,” said Angela Johnson Meszaros, general counsel for Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles. “Introducing these chemicals into a densely populated city like Los Angeles exposes people to unnecessary threats in both the short term and over the long term. Fracking is all the more reckless because we’re creating all these exposure routes just to extract oil to burn which has its own massive negative health consequences.”
Oil and gas companies have already begun fracking in the Los Angeles region, most notably in the Inglewood Oil Field, the largest urban oil field in the country, located between the Baldwin Hills and Culver City. Residents living near confirmed fracking activity in the L.A. area have already experienced severe property damage, a noxious oil field blowout in 2006 and a spike in serious health concerns.
“The Citizens Coalition for a Safe Community fully supports the Councilmembers’ motion calling for a moratorium on fracking and other forms of risked-filled exploitation of the remaining fossil fuel reserves under the City of Los Angeles,” said Paul Ferrazzi of CCSC. “With many old, idle and abandoned oil wells under existing infrastructure in the city, this is the prudent action for Los Angeles City Councilmembers to support before a disaster similar to the 1985 Fairfax District Ross Dress for Less explosion is allowed occur again. We must act now on the city and county levels to prevent the destruction of our urban and rural communities given Governor Jerry Brown’s refusal to impose a statewide moratorium to allow independent study of the environmental and health risks already realized in other parts of the country.”
Actor and environmental champion Ed Begley, Jr. also joined the press conference.
“It is very important that we realize the potential risks that others around the country have already been dealing with and make sure that we do not expose Californians to those risks,” said Begley. “There are just too many unknowns and our citizens cannot afford foolish experimentation with our water, air, health, earthquakes and climate.”
@Nicky & ALL: Thank you for the kind words. Do not expect the shells that are left of so-called “media” in this town to get this story anytime soon. Frackie’s work is done for her by this incompetence and laziness on the part of people and organizations we thought we’re more on the ball. This battle has just begun. Tomorrow will be a press conference on Los Angeles City Hall steps for a Fracking Moratorium in Los Angeles. Here’s the press release:
I can’t thank you enough for this article. You would think that some of the mainstream media would pick up on this but nothing, nada, zilch. Thank you Enviroreporter for exposing Fracking Chemical Cocktail for what fracking really is: greed by the few for the few and screw the rest of us.
This just came in over the wires from Aura Walker of Ban Fracking in California Campaign:
This email alert is only for LA City and County residents.
LA City Council is meeting for the 2nd time on 9/3/13 to consider passing a resolution for fracking for Los Angeles. I just found this out today 9/2/13!
The mining company Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold formerly known as PXP Oil and Gas, have already started fracking the Inglewood oil fields in West LA, on a 7. magnitude earthquake fault line.
Please put in your zip code in Google to find out who your LA county rep is, and their phone number at LA City Hall. Please call right away if possible by 9/3/13 before 9am. If you get this email after the date, call anyway. Let your rep know how you feel about fracking in an arid earthquake prone state. Fracking uses our clean drinking water and irreversibly pollutes it. Ask them to please pass Councilmember Paul Koretz’s strong original moratorium resolution.
I will be at LA City Council on 9/3/13, for the second time to testify, since last Friday August 30th. I went down to ask Council President Herb Wesson and Tom LaBonge (The only two councilmembers present) to consider the city’s position should be nothing less than a moratorium on fracking, in a densely populated city, and to please pass Councilmember Paul Koretz’s strong original moratorium resolution instead of Bernard Park’s Fracking resolution, which supports the weaker Pavley regulation bill. President Wesson and Tom LaBonge did not heed my testimony, nor that of my informed activist colleagues. There is a lot of money and payola involved in Fracking. Wesson’s number is (213) 473-7010 LaBonge;http://www.tomlabonge.com/contact/
No amount of regulation will make fracking safe. No one can regulate the prevention of earthquakes or cancer from; fracking related deep earth explosions, or toxic chemical exposure.
If you are not an LA resident you can start a similar Ban Fracking campaign in your local California County. Please do not email me back as there are almost 40,000 people on this list. Fracking effects everyone’s health.
Please click on this link below to see who your LA City/County rep is. Then Google them to find their phone number. Ask your rep to please pass Councilmember Paul Koretz’s strong original moratorium resolution. This is imperative. Let us prevent “The big one” from hitting LA.
Thank You!
****Nicky again: The city council approved this paving the way for fracking in Los Angeles!!! WE ARE GOING TO BE FRACKED IF WE DON’T WAKE UP AND SMELL THE GAS!!!
http://council.lacity.org/Directory/index.htm
I live in Pennsylvania and “Frackie” has already fracked us here good – meaning bad. Look at this article at http://concernedhealthny.org/statement-on-preliminary-findings-from-the-southwest-pennsylvania-environmental-health-project-study/ where it says:
“The early results from the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project study implicate air contamination as the likely cause of three-quarters of the associated illnesses so documented. In some cases, starkly elevated levels of fracking-related air pollutants were found in the air inside of people’s homes. This is an unacceptable problem: breathing is mandatory and, while a drinking water source might be replaced, air cannot.”
As fun and sexy Frackie is with all her hollow promises and fistful of illusive cash, please let her know that there are many of us in Pennsylvania who wish she would “frack off” as soon as possible. The sad reality is, like the article’s title says, we are a fracked nation being destroyed by greedy and ruthless destroyers of the American environment. Frackie and her pals have to be stopped!
@ALL: Check out the excellent August 27 coverage by Sacramento-based Edith Allen in the Examiner of Fracked Nation at http://www.examiner.com/article/california-fracking-property-owners-who-cannot-get-insurance-or-loans:
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Laboratory Operator Sentenced to 40 Months for Fabricating Industrial Wastewater Results
Tennie White, the owner and operator of an environmental laboratory located in Jackson, Miss., was sentenced in federal court late yesterday to 40 months in prison in connection with her conviction for faking laboratory testing results and lying to federal investigators, announced Gregory K. Davis, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, and Robert G. Dreher, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
White also was sentenced to three years of supervised release to follow her prison sentence and was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and a $100 special assessment. White was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate at the federal courthouse in Jackson, where he also presided over the May 2013 trial of the case.
“Independent laboratories play a critical role in assisting businesses to accurately monitor and report discharges of industrial pollutants that may adversely affect the environment,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Dreher. “Businesses cannot fulfill this important responsibility if these laboratories are not honest brokers and falsify test results and monitoring reports. This prosecution shows that fraudulent testing and reporting by laboratories will not be tolerated.”
“There are many more that need to go to Jail that are Polluting OUR WATER. Paul Felix Schott “
Should not the title of this be Ed Rendell Backs His Own Pocket Book.
WE THE PEOPLE need to send Ed Rendell and all local officials that have anything to do with Poisoning are ground and water a message stop worrying get to love Jail.
SAFE DRINKING WATER RUNNING OUT FASTER THEN YOU THINK WORLD WIDE.
Hydraulic Fracturing a Danger to us All.
Why would anyone think we have water to waste.
Some one forgot to tell all about all the poison chemicals that this ungodly Lisa Jackson gave a green light to put in are ground and water.
And help the Industry, so to they will never have to disclose all the poison chemicals they have used. Thank GOD Texas overturned this unjust law.
Only the wicked in mind Leaders in this Nation and around the world would let anyone Pipe Pollution into the ground to get gas in return from the Ground. Most all scientist have know this for many years that this will end safe drinking water for all that are in the area of where they are fracturing, in which Millions of Gallons of Dangerous Poison Chemically Treated Water are forced underground to break up rock and free gas.
We need regulations from GODLY People that will stop 10,000+ wells a year drilled using hydraulic fracturing to free and make the Dangerous Poison Chemicals underground into gas. The primarily affect will be unsafe drinking water and many will become sick.
THE HEALTH OF MANY WILL DETERIORATE because of A Few Wicked Greedy Leaders. Those who have made these decisions do not know Jesus Christ. Soon He will say i know you not. They belong in jail soon it will be hell for them. What sick in mind would let or want anyone to put Dangerous Poison Chemicals underground or into the ground anywhere.
The wicked are trying to sell and tell all if it is not near your home or land it is safe. This is the biggest ling of horse manure. Do they think most of We The People are that dumb or that most Americans lack any intelligence at all. What ever is put on or in the ground makes it way to our underground Aquifers, Rivers, Lakes and the Oceans. Every Scientist on Earth knows this and most all that have made it to eighth grade in school.
So why would any Leader with a good healthy mind ever say or want this?
Vote any wicked that has anything to do with this out of office they work for WE THE PEOPLE. Then need to go to jail. Soon it will be not jail but Hell. Revelation 11:18
United We Stand In GOD We Trust
The Lord’s Little Helper
Paul Felix Schott
P.S.
Wicked Leaders telling their friends as long as you can cover it up and it will not get back to me it is ok with me. Are you sure we will not go to jail for making money by Polluting the ground and water. Of course not we make the laws to fit our needs not the health and welfare of others or as they used to say We The People. Its now the Wicked Leaders and rich Rule. Till our Lord GOD comes!
Solar Energy the way to go.
Many States Are and are Banning Fracking or Fracturing.
Banned Hydraulic Fracturing
Switzerland
Spain
Austria
South Africa
France
Bulgaria
Ireland
Aotearoa (New Zealand)
Nova Scotia
Québec
Mora County New Mexico enacted a ban, as well as a resolution to change the state constitution to put community rights above corporations.
The State of Vermont
The list is to long, to list all that have
Banned Hydraulic Fracturing.
Archimedes and Albert EinsteinThese two are at the top of the list of the World’s Greatest Scientists,Viewed by Scientist around the World.
Sad that for the last 25 years or so of every teacher asked no matter what Grade k through 16. At least 80% of them did not know Archimedes.
Even sadder 90%of them could not tell you what one of the most Brilliant Scientist to everlive on Earth.
Won the Nobel Prize for.
It was for the work Albert Einstein did to show the World it could get Free Energy, Electric from the SUN.
(THE PHOTOVOLTAIC EFFECT).
We still do not teach this to are YOUNG in SCHOOLS why?
Church’s all over the Globe have Gone SOLAR why have not are SCHOOLS ?
There is enough Energy from our SUN to power all are needs and more. Albert Einstein
Frackie is fabulous! This event is a lot of fun, and pokes good fun at what really is a very serious issue for all of us who live in an increasingly polluted environment. If you haven’t attended, and gotten a chance to meet Frackie and the other “bad acting chemicals”, read the article and plan on attending next year!