Pictures the Gas Thugs at the Marcellus Shale Operators Crime Committee May Not Want You To See

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

Here are some pictures of mine you haven't seen:

Pictures the Gas Thugs at the Marcellus Shale Operators Crime Committee May Not Want You To See - an album on Flickr

They're the less photogenic, not exactly photographs, shots of the everyday, business as usual crimes against nature and humanity  committed  across Pennsylvania by the oil and gas industry.

These are not necessarily pictures of the spectacular--the drilling mud spills, the explosions, the truck accidents--and on and on.

Instead these are the pictures of the devastating and irreparable destruction that this psychopathic industry commits every single minute of every single day against the ecologies and their inhabitants, against precious and dwindling resources and  the communities that depend on them, against the future of all of our children and theirs.

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

The tremendous irony is that the Marcellus Shale Operators Crime Committee exists as a partnership between Pennsylvania law enforcement and the gas thugs.

You've got that right.

As Adam Federman shows, MSOCC is "a little-known intelligence-sharing network that brings together law enforcement, including the FBI, Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security, the oil and gas industry, and private security firms. Established in late 2011 or early 2012, the Marcellus Shale Operators' Crime Committee (MSOCC) is a group of "professionals with a law-enforcement background who are interested in developing working relationships and networking on intelligence issues," according to an email sent to group members by James Hansel, regional security manager for Anadarko Petroleum"(State police documents show intelligence-sharing network between law enforcement and Marcellus Shale drillers | News | Pittsburgh City Paper).

MSOCC's charge, in other words, is to

(a) keep us from exposing the crimes committed by the gas industry via, say pictures,
(b) use the police to intimidate us into silence when we do expose them--effectively criminalizing the exercise of our first amendment rights, and
(c) silence us.

Federman continues, "[t]he MSOCC has taken a keen interest in environmental activists and anti-fracking groups, according to documents obtained through a state Right to Know request. The collaboration raises questions about the increasingly close ties between law enforcement and the natural-gas industry in Pennsylvania, and whether law enforcement has violated the civil liberties of protesters and environmental groups in its effort to protect the state's most controversial industry."

That's putting it mildly.

When an officer like Mike Hutson can show up at the door of an activist who has exercised her or his constitutionally protected rights to freedom of expression, freedom of movement, freedom to travel public roads and document what she or he sees, and when that officer can simply appear without a warrant--there can be no other reason than that he has been co-opted and corrupted by a "partnership" whose reason for being is to suppress civil liberty.

But it's not just that Officer Hutson should be ashamed--as he surely should be. It's that he represents an agency--the Pennsylvania State Police--a state--The Commonwealth--private security firms (a polite name for paid surveillance mercenaries)--and an industry that operate collectively as a repressive regime against the people.

And "regime"is the right term.

The State Police, the state, the private security firms, the industry--are in fact populated by all the same people (virtually all white, virtually all male) who swap places in the ever upward game move of career advance. To say that this is all about money is an understatement.

It is, of course, but that's only because it's all about power and arrogance and entitlement and greed--a lethal cocktail that filters down through to the water table, to our wells, through our pores, into our lungs, tearing up our eyes, infiltrating the placentas of our developing babies--literally.

And yet they dare to call us the criminals.

Theirs' is a new definition of "crime."

From the point of view of power and arrogance and entitlement and greed, "crime" is "telling the truth."

To that crime, I plead guilty.

My pictures tell the truth.

What is that truth?

That the term "industry" is far too polite a name for an enterprise that, like the zombies on The Walking Dead, will eat anything, consume anything without conscience or foresight in order to survive.

Gas thugs are not captains of industry; they're rapists and charlatans; they're voracious and--once they have their precious pipelines--they are best cast as an invading army of vampires ready to slurp the last drop of gas-blood from every "sweet spot" and every "not-so-sweet"; spot until their thirst is slated.

Or until we are at war over the last drop of clean water, using weapons fueled by the gas thugs to get to it.

These are violent images to be sure.

But they are not one iota more violent than the every day business as usual devastations captured by these pictures.

If only we could see that.

Wendy Lynne Lee

When it Comes to Fracking, McGinty, McCord, Schwartz, and Wolf are just another way to spell "C-O-R-B-E-T-T": Why the PA Green Party is the Only Way to Go

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

In the now heated (or not really) dash to the May primaries in Pennsylvania, the run for the nomination for governor on the Democratic ticket includes all of the usual rhetoric about education, health care, prisons, some relatively new come-to-Jesus moments about Marijuana, and what amounts to little more than some hand-waving at the most important environmental issue to face Pennsylvanians of our times: the consequences, inception to export, of slickwater hydraulic horizontal fracking.

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

In fact, I think it no stretch at all to suggest that the spate of candidates on the Democratic ticket is woefully under-educated, under-interested, and underwhelming on this issue. Here's how a Democrat friend put it to me "Wendy, you know, we can't have everything. You have to be willing to give up something."

But--my response--if we give up our right to clean water and air, what's the point of fighting for any of these other valuable things?

It was with this no-brainer insight in mind that I accepted an invitation to speak at the PA Green Party Nominating Convention, 2.29.14, and it is the reason I accepted the Lt. Governor's spot for the governor's race with Paul Glover on the green Party ticket  (Green Party Convention Presentation, 2.14 - a set on Flickr).

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

Don't get me wrong--it's not that I think fracking is the only issue confronting Pennsylvanians. It's that there will be no effective way of addressing any of these until we get very clear that fracking must be banned--and only one party is willing to stand by that message:

Of all the issues confronting Pennsylvanians—health care, education, jobs, etc.—among the most important of these are the devastating ecological and human rights toll the fossil fuel extraction industry has taken on the Commonwealth, her neighboring states, and the planet as a whole in the form of its potentially devastating contribution to climate change.

 Fracking must be banned.

There are many reasons why an articulate and uncompromising opposition to hydraulic fracturing, mountain top removal, tar sands extraction, other forms of unconventional gas drilling, the Keystone Pipeline, the construction of LNG export depots, is critical to the Pennsylvania gubernatorial campaign.  

Here are just four:

1.The responsibility of the governor is to uphold the Pennsylvania Constitution, including Article 1, section 27: “The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.”

2.The fossil fuel industry’s profit objectives are demonstrably inconsistent with the commitment to health care, education, and jobs.  

A few examples:

a. Health care: given the hazardous health effects that follow from exposure to the carcinogens, biocides, and other toxins associated with the fracking process; given that a similar account can be given for exposure to toxins resultant from compressor station emissions; given the potential for explosions at every juncture of this process—frack pad, pipeline, truck accident, compressor; and lastly, given that these hazards make particularly vulnerable populations already marginalized by the state’s inadequate health care access, no case can be made in defense of the industry’s conversion of Pennsylvania into what amounts to an extraction factory for wealthy multinationals.

b. Education: in addition to the obvious hazards of locating extraction-associated facilities next to public schools, the effort of the Corbett administration to extort state universities into accepting extraction operations on their campuses is in obvious conflict with the missions of those public institutions, and inconsistent with the commitment to the health and welfare of their communities.  APSCUF—the Associated Pennsylvania State College and University Faculty union—opposes any such construction, and I had the privilege of drafting that resolution for all 14 campuses.

c. Jobs: as is made clear on the numbers, the shale boom has not generated lasting employment for Pennsylvanians. Instead, it has diminished the potential for future employment in industries connected to our once spectacular forests, rivers, and high value streams, exposed mostly non-unionized workers to toxic health hazards, and exported profits from frack pad to off-shore bank accounts of already obscenely wealthy CEOs. That a very few may become very wealthy via royalties or other associated enterprise at the expense of the very many is intolerable to a democratic union and a prescription for future disaster.

3. States are no more closed loop systems than are human bodies or frack pads. In a world increasingly confronted by the effects of global climate change, deforestation, desertification, and toxic pollution, governors and legislators must act responsibly not merely to their own constituents—much less to their campaign donors—but to the stability of the global ecology as a whole.  We can no longer afford to bury our heads in the sand about the impacts of an industry whose history so clearly shows that its mercenary drive to profit exceeds at every turn its commitment to human welfare or ecological stability.

4. States do not have the right to deploy their police forces to quash dissent—yet, our current administration not only acts legislatively to insure the smooth path to profit, but deploys its police resources against the people in an effort to suppress, fear-monger, manipulate, and intimidate those who expose this path as littered with toxins, political corruptions, and egregious forms of harm (THE WRENCH: WHEN THE NATURAL GAS INDUSTRY USES THE STATE POLICE AND THE FBI JOINT TERRORISM TASK FORCE TO SILENCE A CITIZEN: OFFICER MIKE HUTSON AT MY DOOR, 2.14.14).

Extreme forms of fossil fuel extraction must be banned not only because the citizens of the Commonwealth cannot afford the consequences, but because no regulation can adequately prevent the harm. As we at Shale Justice (Shale Justice)  claim consistently: regulation is about nothing other than controlling temporarily the rate of harm—not the quantity, not the duration.  Moreover, no matter what some argue are “best practices,” none keep the gas in the ground—the only strategy that will prevent the contribution of fossil fuel extraction to climate change.

Pennsylvania’s governor must act not only in the interest of all Pennsylvanians—but for the future of Pennsylvania. What this means is that she or he must take seriously the adage that the local is the global—for this is no mere hyperbole; it is fact.  And as such, it is moral duty.

It is remarkable and deeply telling that no candidate (or designated representative) from the Democrats appeared at the Susquehanna County Courthouse, 3.24.14, in defense of either the First Amendment rights of anti-fracking Vera Scroggins, but a representative from the Green Party was (.The Right to Freedom of Expression to Confront an Industry that is Poisoning Us: Vera Scroggin's Hearing, 3.24.14 - a set on Flickr).

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

It is remarkable and deeply telling that none of the remaining Democrats running for the governor's office have signed onto their own party's moratorium to halt fracking (6.15.13: PA State Democratic Committee Passes Resolution to Support Fracking Moratoriume to search your sets - a set on Flickr).

And it's remarkable that no candidate for the Democratic nomination for any office appeared in defense of the incredibly courageous folks who blockaded an Anadarko frack operation in Tiadaghton State Forest (THE WRENCH: Anadarko Liquidates Public Lands for Private Profits: Marcellus Shale Earth First Fights for All of Us at Tiadaghton).

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

But what is the most remarkable and the most telling are the campaign statements about natural gas production--and how easily we could simply swap them out for Governor Corbett's own.

Here's Corbett's:

Tom Corbett promised he was going to do everything he could to make Pennsylvania an energy supplier to America and the rest of the world -- and he's delivered.  Not only is Pennsylvania a leading producer of coal, utilizing clean-coal technology, but Pennsylvania is now the second-largest natural gas producer in the entire country.

And the benefits to Pennsylvanians have been nothing short of remarkable. The Marcellus Shale natural gas industry now supports over 200,000 direct and indirect Pennsylvania jobs.  And that number is expected to continue growing.

But the benefits for Pennsylvanians are much greater than just jobs.  Tom Corbett has made sure this growing industry is held accountable for following strict environmental guidelines, as well as ensuring local communities share in the economic benefits.

So far, the Marcellus Shale natural gas industry has paid over $400 million to local communities for their critical local projects, and an additional $2.1 billion in state corporate taxes, helping ensure we can keep taxes low for hardworking Pennsylvania families. It’s also resulted in lower energy bills for Pennsylvania families and seniors.

Tom Corbett is keeping his promise to establish Pennsylvania as a leading energy supplier to America and the rest of the world. (http://www.tomcorbettforgovernor.com/energy).

Now, while we gasp at the arrogant mendacity of this set of claims, let's look at  Kathleen McGinty--a Pennsylvania revolving door frack-gas beneficiary if ever there was (Fracking and the Revolving Door in Pennsylvania | Public Accountability Initiative):

CLEAR VALLEY, Pa.---Speaking today before the Lehigh Valley Chamber Energy and Environment Conference, Katie McGinty, Democratic candidate for governor, outlined a jobs plan to grow Pennsylvania’s economy by making Pennsylvania a leader in natural gas and clean and efficient energy development, while protecting the environment.

“I believe it’s Pennsylvania’s time to shine. We have an historic economic opportunity to develop Pennsylvania’s abundant supply of natural gas---while protecting the environment. But it would be shortsighted to have an energy policy that focused exclusively on a single resource. It’s time to make Pennsylvania the hotbed of energy innovation---where we can build a new industrial cluster to satisfy the world’s need for cleaner and more efficient energy. If we do this, we will grow Pennsylvania’s economy, create good-paying jobs, and improve the lives of hard-working families,” said McGinty, in another in a series of proposals to create jobs and improve the lives of Pennsylvania families.

McGinty was head of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) under Governor Ed Rendell and served as Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality under President Clinton. In the private sector, McGinty has been a clean energy industry leader.

Clearly, with respect to natural gas development, there is no difference between Tom Corbett and Kathleen McGinty--no difference between Republicans and Democrats, no affirmation of the Democratic Party's moratorium, and no recognition of the extent to which addressing every other issue facing Pennsylvanians depends on forcefully addressing this one.
But maybe I spoke too soon. Let's see--there's Rob Mc'Cord:

Pennsylvania is blessed by abundant natural resources. Protecting those resources and building a healthy and sustainable economy for Pennsylvania and future generations is of paramount importance to ensuing the state’s communities are safe and livable.

As governor, McCord will:

• Ensure tough, but fair, oversight of natural gas drilling to prevent water contamination, preserve the land, and protect the state’s air.

• Expand the development and use of clean, renewable energy sources like wind, solar, geothermal and hydroelectricity.

• Protect the state’s waterways from pollution by ensuring strict safeguards against development, erosion, and industrial activity.

• Invest in conservation practices and programs that preserve farmland and open spaces.

• Make Pennsylvania a leader in green buildings and sustainable development that mitigates the impact of human activity on the environment.

Sound good? Only if (a) you think that cancer, endocrine disease, rashes, lung ailments, asthma, explosions, and climate change are "tough but fair," and (b) you think a nod to renewables really means that fracking won't simply continue on the same accelerated trajectory it is right now--waiting for the green light from export facilities like Cove Point (Protest at Annapolis: Dominion, Get Out of Cove Point, MD - a set on Flickr).

After all, Corbett has consistently promised the same things. As Scott Perry, Deputy Secretary, Office of Oil and Gas, Department of Environmental Protection tells us: 

The truth is that right now under Gov. Corbett, Pennsylvania has the highest environmental protection standards for the unconventional gas industry in our history"  (http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/letters/2013/11/27/Under-Corbett-Pa-has-strong-gas-regulations/stories/201311270072).

How About Allyson Schwartz? 

The natural gas resources of the Marcellus Shale present the Commonwealth with an extraordinary opportunity. These resources belong to the people of Pennsylvania, who deserve a fair deal and a lasting positive legacy for the Commonwealth. This legacy should be world-class schools, a 21st century transportation network, clean and cheap energy, and new jobs that can power our economy for the future.

Governor Tom Corbett has turned his back on this opportunity. While giving gas companies tax breaks and charging a minimal impact fee, he cut nearly $1 billion from public education and slashed support for state universities. In addition, Governor Corbett has actively worked to shield gas companies from accountability. He has allowed these companies to hide information from the public about the chemicals they use and placed a notorious “gag order” on doctors. Even as Marcellus Shale development expands and well owners repeatedly violate environmental laws, Corbett has slashed funding for the Department of Environmental Protection and failed to enforce high standards.As governor, Schwartz will enact a moderate gas severance tax to support transformational investments in education, transportation, clean energy, and the people of Pennsylvania. And, she will act to protect our environment and the health of our families.

Translation: "Yeah for Gas! And yeah! for the myth that the gas is going to substantially benefit Pennsylvanians even though the evidence show the contrary: 

1. From MSN Money, 8.21.13: "The one certainty about fracking, however, is that it doesn't exactly do wonders for property values. As reported by The Atlantic, mortgage lenders are becoming more cautious about approving loans for properties near fracking sites. Lawyers, real estate agents, public officials and environmentalists have noted that banks and federal agencies are revisiting their lending policies to account for the potential impact of drilling on property values. In some cases they are refusing to finance property with or even near drilling activity.That's particularly problematic, considering that many home insurance policies do not cover residential properties with a gas lease or gas well, though all mortgage companies require home insurance from their borrowers. Part of the problem stems from uncertainty over the effects of the process itself." (http://money.msn.com/now/post--fracking-leaves-property-values-tapped-out)

2. From Tara Clarke of Monday Morning: "You might comfort yourself with the thought that there's nothing in the news about people being harmed by fracking chemicals. No real data is coming out showing that fracking taints our water. Well, as it turns out, across the country drillers are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash settlements to silence people who say that fracking ruined their water. In return for the hush money, they must sign non-disclosure agreements."At this point they [the companies] feel they can get out of this litigation relatively cheaply," said Marc Bern, an attorney with Napoli Bern Ripka Sholnik LLP in New York, who has negotiated about 30 settlements on behalf of homeowners, in an interview for Bloomberg. "Virtually on all of our settlements where they paid money they have requested and demanded that there be confidentiality." This strategy keeps real fracking data out of the public's reach.With no public court hearings, and no Average Joe on local news channels talking about how he can light his drinking water on fire, it's very difficult to challenge policymakers' claims that fracking doesn't cause ill-effects" (Drillers Pay Hush Money to Keep Their Fracking Secrets).

And then, of course, came the Hallowich case--but you don't really see any of the Democratic candidates talking about that. The fact is that while Big Gas is making money hand over fist, they're externalizing the costs to you and me--and none of the Democratic candidates make even a fleeting attempt to honestly own up to that fact.

The Hallowich Family

Schwartz then repeats the line about protections, regulations, and enforcements--and she claims she'll continue the moratorium on the Delaware River Basin. But anyone with a shred of social justice sense knows that that's just code for "I'll continue to privilege the wealthy over the poor, the affluent and politically powerful over the....poor." Why? Because the only difference between the Delaware River Basin and the Susquehanna has nothing to do with geology, gas availability, or other ecological differences--and everything to do with the width of the wallets of the folks who live in one basin as opposed to the other.

Lastly is Tom Wolf:

Pennsylvania is sitting on one of the largest deposits of natural gas in the world, the Marcellus Shale formation, which stretches from our northeast to southwest corner. With new drilling techniques we can now efficiently unlock these massive natural gas deposits that lie beneath huge portions of our state.
Experts estimate there might be as much as 50 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas beneath Pennsylvania's soil. That would make our commonwealth the Saudi Arabia of natural gas and, if managed correctly, transform our economy. Tom Wolf believes Marcellus Shale must be a key component of any plan for Pennsylvania's economic future.

He then repeats the line about "responsible drilling"--an oxymoron if ever there was. Wolf offers a bit of balm in the direction of "community control" with respect to zoning. Note--he stops short of using fancy language like "rights."

So what can we derive from this little tour through the frack-rhetoric of our candidates for governor of the Commonwealth?

It's not just that there's really no substantive difference between their claims and Corbett's.

It's not just that they plainly don't see the connections I have laid out above between fracking--and every other issue facing Pennsylvanians. 

It's not even that they clearly do not see beyond the futures of their own immediate political careers to the larger issues facing the globe with respect to climate change.

It's that while they claim to represent a choice between two parties for governor--at least on this vital issue--they don't, even though  effective action and policy on every other issue depends it.  

So--here's your real choice if you're a Democrat:

Four frack-wolves in sheep's clothing bleeting about regulation, severance taxes, oversight, jobs, prosperity....bleh bleh bleh.

Or, Tom Corbett--the wolf in the wolf outfit.

Not very encouraging, is it?

So here's what you can do: 

JUMP SHIP. 

On every issue from education to health care, from soup to nuts, I'll bet the Green Party is closer to your worldview as an anti-fracking, pro-renewables, progressive.

And on the most important issue facing Pennsylvanians--facing humanity--extreme fossil fuel extraction, the Green Party offers you the single most significant, morally defensible, solidly clear platform you're going to see in this election: 

BAN FRACKING.

So--you're smart. You're politically savvy. You know the facts. You care about your future. You care about your kid's futures.

Don't make me do another expose about where candidates get their money, or spell out what their crazy ideological and/or religious commitments. 

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

GET ON BOARD.

VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE.

VOTE GREEN PARTY. 

Green Party on the Issues

THE SHALE JUSTICE FIRST YEAR ANNIVERSARY: ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ENVIRONMENTAL AND HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES OF OUR TIMES--UNCONVENTIONAL FOSSIL FUEL EXTRACTION MUST BE BANNED

According to the mission statement:

Shale Justice is a coalition of organizations whose aim is to coordinate our efforts, our regionally specific issues, our visions, our talents, and our hard work to end extreme forms of industrialized fossil fuel extraction which poses serious threats to our air, our land and our water (http://shalejustice.org/)

Fact is, however, we are so much more. In our first year we have accomplished the things that could be expected from any emergent coalition of organizations united around a single mission--in this case to see an end to all forms of extreme industrialized fossil fuel extraction, including fracking, unconventional oil extraction, tar sands mining, and mountain top removal. We have written organization and membership by-laws, secured nonprofit status from our mother organization OUE (Organizations United for the Environment), written and secured grant funding, recruited member organizations--all the things required to exist as a coalition.

But there's so much more--and more to do We have some of the most committed organizations and talented people in the movement to end extreme fossil fuel extraction. And they have offered these talents--writing, logo design presenting, research, protest orchestration--just to name a few, on their own time, at their own expense, with their own expertise.

Here's one example: we participated--and even had the opportunity to register one proxy vote--for the Democratic Party Moratorium into which Karen Feridun of Berks Gas Truth has put so much time and effort.

But while Shale Justice supports a moratorium, this is not because we think there needs to be "more study" to determine whether fracking is safe.

It's not.

We know it's not, and the moratorium is simply a strategy to buy us organizing time on the way to an outright ban.

Our message to the industry is: go home. Take your rigs, your derricks, your tankers, your chem-trucks, your reckless 'tudes, your money, and all of the rest of your shit, and just go home.

Then, do something else. Because until extreme extraction is banished from everywhere, we cannot disband. But unlike the BIg Greens, we don't exist just to pay our staffers either. We exist to actually accomplish something, and when that's done, we'll go home too.

As one of the founding members and executive committee members of Shale Justice, I want to take a moment to say THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!!!! to everyone and every organization who has participated in making this coalition work. And to that end, I offer an incomplete, but entirely loving photo-montage of the first year of one of the fastest growing coalitions in Pennsylvania--and everywhere extreme extraction threatens ecological integrity and human rights.

JANUARY 2013: THE OUE SUMMIT AT BLOOMSBURG UNIVERSITY

What became the Shale Justice Coalition grew out of a first, wildly well-attended meeting at Bloomsburg University that included a number of organizations, including the Responsible Drilling Alliance (who, at that time, was considering a mission change to Reject Drilling Alliance) the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition (GDAC), and the Interfaith Sacred Earth Coalition, the Pennsylvania Green Party, and Marcellus Earth First--among a number of other groups and individuals.

The work of democracy is hard--but what has emerged from this effort is a coalition of genuine grass roots organizations committed to addressing the specific issues confronting their regions and communities--frack pads, pipeline, compressors, etc--with clear sites set on an eventual ban of all things fracking.

Since that time, we have grown to include a number of other organizations, including Gas Free Seneca, Berks Gas Truth, Fracking Free Ireland, and Frack Off UK among others. We have also forged relationships through the talents of our members with other grass roots organizations including the Climate Change Action Network fighting Dominion's plans to construct an export facility at at Cove Point, Maryland, the excellent activists who successfully thwarted a plan to construct a natural gas pipeline through the sensitive New Jersey Pine Barrens (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfVVe8r6dMY) and the Stone Crab Alliance fighting the Dan A. Hughes Company plan to undertake unconventional oil drilling in the Western Everglades of Florida (.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K1TCR5iMFQ).

We are honored to be of service to these splendiferous activists and organizations. And man-o-man, have we done some stuff and been some places! Just to give you an idea:

Here's Deirdre Lolley, Marcellus Earth First!, waiting in line to speak to the recently resigned CEO of EXCO, the beleaguered Doug Miller. We have been present at almost too many hearings to even count--everyone of them important. We have spoken out against legislation that would vitiate protections for endangered species, make waterways even more vulnerable to contamination, forfeit even more of the rights of communities and provate property owners, allow the industry to use acid mine drainage for frack fluids, make getting information about industry records more difficult--and so much more.

Shale Justice has also been supportive of our fellows from Milford Pennsylvania and the surrounding region fighting to prevent the construction of the Tennessee Pipeline. Indeed, it is our view that pipeline infrastructure is one of the most important front-lines of the anti-extraction movement. From Maine to New Jersey to Pennsylvania to Maryland to Louisiana to Texas to Florida--and everywhere else LNG export facilities are being planned, we say, this is a battleground we must not lose, and we are with you in your fight to prevent that forfeiture of vital ecology and human communities from transpiring--especially when the only beneficiaries are energy giants whose wallets are already fattened with money from the exploitation of your yards, your forests, your waterways, and your public treasures.

And we are simply awed by the work of the Delaware River Keepers, Protecting Our Waters, and the Clean Air Council. It's honestly hard to know where even to begin thanking the folks whose work this past year has been instrumental to this movement, but suffice it to say this much: the vast majority of the grass roots organizers, writers, photographers, and activist of this movement are women--as opposed to the mostly paid, mostly affluent, mostly white men of the Big Greens--like the woefully compromised Sierra Club. It's also impossible to name all of the women and men whose contributions have been so vital--but vital is the only word that describes this unpaid, brain-breaking, crucial labor.

Our members have spoken out at churches, photography exhibits, music concerts, films, Summer craft exhibits--anywhere that we can reach folks whose lives are likely to be impacted by extreme extraction--and, given climate change--that is everywhere. Here, for example, is Shale Justice member Rev. Leah Schade educating an ecumenical audience organized by Protecting Our Waters Iris Bloom in Philadelphia, March 2013.

Here's Gas Free Seneca's Yvonne Taylor (she's in the bright green coat) working to organize a freezing early March 2013 crowd inspired by the civil disobedience of Professor Sandra Steingrabber in Watkin's Glen New York in their struggle to prevent Inergy from utilizing salt caverns on Lake Seneca for LNG storage--a fight so far successful.

The excellent John Trallo, Shale Justice Executive Committee with members of Marcellus Earth First! in front of the Department of Environmental Protection offices in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Earth Day, April 22nd, 2013.

Sue Laidacker, Shale Justice Executive Committee, May 2013 at our nation's capital to support an action organized by Food and Water Watch in Maryland. We cannot really emphasize enough the importance of collective action across state borders, regions, class, ethnicity, religion. If ever there was a struggle in which we all have a stake, ending the monopoly of Big Gas is surely that struggle.

When you look into the faces of these citizens, you see old and young, white, black, the well-to-do, the economically marginalized, women and men--you see America--but also something more, a global ecology poised either to take the plunge into the chaos of global warming or turn back from the global disaster precipitated by forest fragmentation, water and air pollution, community displacement, disease borne of toxic exposure to carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, neuro-toxins, and other agents--and war.

As I have put it now a thousand times: if we do not end extreme extraction, we will find ourselves at war over access to the remaining clean water that we destroyed to derive the fuel with which we power the weapons we will use to prosecute that war. And that threat is so real and so palpable, that Shale Justice has been right there with our many sister organizations and coalitions--even standing up to President Obama's pro-frack Big Gas bridge fuel argument.

Moreover, the struggle to end fracking expands to helping communities fight other polluting non-renewable energy sources, for example, the En-Tire tire burning power plant defeated in White Deer Township, Pennsylvania. We have recently joined forces with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF; http://www.celdf.org/) to sponsor an incarnation of Democracy School at Susquehanna University, and to help empower communities to determine for themselves what is in the best interests of their residents.

The crowds are getting bigger. Consider this audience organized by a number of organizations, including the Shale Justice Coalition, over Anadarko's (Kerr McGee's) plans to frack the Loyalsock State Forest. And our commitments are getting deeper and more resolved. After all, Nelson Mandela didn't settle for a little apartheid. So why on earth should we settle for a little cancer? A little neurological damage? A little childhood asthma? There's no such thing as a little acceptable slavery--and there's no such thing as a little acceptable ecological destruction--not when the necessary conditions of life depend on the air and water the industry is content to destroy.

These examples are merely a sample of the work Shale Justice is crazy proud to have participated in over the past year. We are looking forward to a 2014 that grows our coalition. We now have a speaker's bureau, a wicked busy calendar of events, and a commitment that makes 2013 look like the baby steps of a toddler just learning how to walk.

This year, we're not just walking, we're charging into this struggle to end extreme fossil fuel extraction.

Our mission:

EXTREME EXTRACTION MUST BE BANNED.
NO COMPROMISE.
NO CONCESSION TO "REGULATIONS."
NO NEGOTIATING THE CONDITIONS OF OUR SURRENDER TO BIG ENERGY.

If your idea of a "special place" is the planet, and you'd like to participate in one of the most important and meaningful human rights and ecological stability movements of the 21st century, join us.

Happy First Anniversary Shale Justice!

Wendy Lynne Lee, Executive Committee
Shale Justice/ http://shalejustice.org/



All photoographs, Wendy Lynne Lee: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wendylynnelee/sets

Shale Justice Anniversary "It's Going to be a Gas!" Bash: https://www.facebook.com/events/1399785923606722/?context=create&ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

CADAVER COSMETICS: WHEN THE NATURAL GAS INDUSTRY GETS TO BE CALLED A "GOOD SAMARITAN," NOTHING MEANS ANYTHING, AND ANYTHING MEANS "WHATEVER THE FRACKERS WANT"-- PENNSYLVANIA SENATE BILL 411

I have mostly stopped wondering what lengths the natural gas industry is willing to go to insure they meet their objectives: fracking as much gas as they can possibly get out of the ground, getting it into pipeline, shunting it to export depot, and then off to the global markets as fast as they can--and before we in the "sacrifice zones" really comprehend the full extent to which we have become an extraction colony gas factory for folks who already have made more money from fossil fuel "development" than "god"--yet not so much money that they don't want more.

And of course by that time, it will be too late for our air, soil, and water.

You know, that stuff we depend on for life.

What's clear is that the gas industry wasted no time at all finding ways around Act 13--the bill that made the entire state into an EZ-Frack bonanza for the drillers all the while making it impossible for us to find out what made us sick if we're fortunate enough to live down stream, downwind--or anywhere within the relevant region.

And that's anywhere when what we're talking about is climate change.

So, long before Act 13 was found unconstitutional, the natural gas industry was buying off legislators on both sides of the isle, crafting bills to advantage themselves, gutting laws that make some part of the fracking infrastructure a teeny bit more difficult or expensive, and making sure to cover their tracks, by, in the case of SB 411, appropriating a vocabulary reserved to people who actually do good things to themselves as green-washing cover for the damage they're about do.

SB 411 is just one more version of what I have been calling cadaver cosmetics (http://openstates.org/pa/bills/2013-2014/SB411/):

1. The actual cover up of the deforestation, water contamination, soil erosion, etc. caused by fracking via the cosmetic use of green paint, high fencing, grass seed, and straw (short of commandeering public roads and just scaring us away).
2. The figurative cover-up affected through the appropriation and frack-friendly transformation of language like "environmental," "green," "regulation," "middle ground," "realism"--and in this case "good samaritan" and "beneficial use."

Either way, they're trying to make a cadaver look like it's alive all the while they--like the vampires they are--suck out the blood, the bone marrow, and the life from Pennsylvania's rural communities, state forest lands--even Pennsylvania state college and university properties (http://thewrenchphilosleft.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-industrialization-of-passhe-where.html).

SB 411 is just one more strategy for the cadaver cosmeticians. As reported at the Delaware River Keeper:

SB 411’s scope of liability protection includes: “any person who uses and any person who allows the use of or provides mine drainage, mine pool water or treated mine water, as part of a water pollution abatement project, including a mine operator or water pollution abatement project operator that provides for payment or otherwise treated mine drainage for hydraulic fracturing or other development of a gas well, industrial or other water supply or other beneficial use of the water.”

The bill defines “other beneficial use” as, “Any use of water for a purpose that produces any economic, environmental, ecological, or other benefits, including irrigation, silvaculture, cooling water, flow maintenance and augmentation, consumptive use makeup, and any other use of water deemed to be a beneficial use under common law.” (http://delawareway.blogspot.com/2013/03/oppostion-topa-senate-bill-411.html).

In other words "beneficial use" may now be defined as the use of one highly polluting mining process to the ends of another highly polluting mining process--acid mine drainage for frack water.

Imagine what that will look like when it's done!

To give you an idea, here's a acid mine drainage:

"Acid mine drainage is one of mining's most serious threats to water. A mine draining acid can devastate rivers, streams, and aquatic life for hundreds, and under the "right" conditions, thousands of years.

How does it form?

At metal mines, the target ore (like gold, silver, copper, etc) is often rich in sulfide minerals.

When the mining process exposes the sulfides to water and air, together they form sulfuric acid.

This acid can and often does dissolve other harmful metals and metalloids (like arsenic) in the surrounding rock.

Acid mine drainage can be released anywhere on the mine where sulfides are exposed to air and water -- including waste rock piles, tailings, open pits, underground tunnels, and leach pads.

Acid drainage is often marked by "yellow boy," an orange-yellow substance... that occurs when the pH of water drops low enough so that previously dissolved iron precipitates out.

Harm to fish & other aquatic life

Acid mine drainage can have severe impacts on fish, animals and plants. Many impacted streams have a pH of 4 or lower -- similar to battery acid.

For example, acid and metals runoff from the Questa molybdenum mine in New Mexico has harmed biological life in eight miles of the Red River.

Perpetual pollution

Acid mine drainage is especially harmful because it can occur indefinitely -- long after mining has ended. Hardrock mines across the western United States may require water treatment in perpetuity.

For example, government officials have determined that acid drainage at the Golden Sunlight mine will continue for thousands of years.

Water treatment can be a significant economic burden if a company files for bankruptcy or refuses to cover water treatment costs.

For example, acid runoff from the Summitville Mine in Colorado killed all biological life in a 17-mile stretch of the Alamosa River. The site was designated a federal Superfund site, and the EPA is spending $30,000 a day to capture and treat acid runoff.

- See more at: http://www.earthworksaction.org/issues/detail/acid_mine_drainage#.UtH4ESiUD8s

So, what's in frack water? Just to review:

500,000 wells in the United States; average of 8 million gallons of water per frack, per well; up to 18 times a well can be fracked.

That's 72 trillion gallons of water and 360 billion gallons of chemicals like Benzene, Diesel, biocides, surfactants, neuro-toxins, endocrine disrupters, and carcinogens.

And that's just the frack--not the emissions from the compressors, the idling trucks, the pipeline explosions (Sissonville, West Virginia, anyone? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wNA86eyr1Q). None of this is pretty. But the real issue, as the Delaware Riverkeeper points out, is that

The groups’ letter points out that SB411 eliminates liability under the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act for possible spill and release in the transport and use of mine drainage water, the Solid Waste Management Act, and liability in the discharge of industrial waste or pollutants under The Clean Stream Law, when using AMD as specified in the Bill. (http://delawareway.blogspot.com/2013/03/oppostion-topa-senate-bill-411.html)

That's beneficial alright--for the natural gas industry! And that, of course, is the whole purpose--a double benefit for the natural gas industry:

1. Immunity from liability under the Hazardous Sites Clean-Up Act and the Clean Streams Act.

2. The appearance of the Good Samaritan--isn't it nice that the gas companies are going to use that nasty water for their nasty fracking?

Let's review what a Good Samaritan really does:

The parable of the Good Samaritan is a parable told by Jesus and is mentioned in only one of the gospels of the New Testament. According to the Gospel of Luke (10:29–37) a traveller (who may or may not be Jewish[1]) is beaten, robbed, and left half dead along the road. First a priest and then a Levite come by, but both avoid the man. Finally, a Samaritan comes by. Samaritans and Jews generally despised each other, but the Samaritan helps the injured man. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Good_Samaritan).

Now let's lay out the gasser's version of the parable:

According to the Gospel of, say, WPX the streams of Pennsylvania were indeed beaten, robbed, and left half dead by the coal mining industry. First a gas company representative--like Helen Humphies--comes along and then a government official--say, Patrick Henderson--and both avoid looking at the streams (after all, they have champaign luncheon later that day with their friends in Big Coal). Finally, the Good Samaritan comes by, say, Anadarko's Mary Wolf, who generally hates the streams and other water ways of the Commonwealth, but has a vision with the sound of "cha-ching" ringing through it. The Anadarko Good Samaritan says to the acid mine drainage damaged stream, "We will syphon your waters off and away to a drill site, where we will contaminate you far further, and we promise we'll not leave you for half dead. We'll finish the job."

How about that for a caring response to our already eroded stream beds and polluted water? Why leave half-dead what you can just leave for dead?

Here's the simple take-away: don't be suckered by this latest gambit to bamboozle you into thinking that fracking and all of its nasty infrastructure is safe.

It isn't.

And the fact that the gassers are going to such lengths to convince you that it is should be the first clue to the big lie.

SB 411 is just another version of cadaver cosmetics: the effort to cover up in manipulative rhetoric what they won't be able to cover up in our streams: death.

So, please, sign the petition:

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/no-profiting-from-pollution.fb56?source=s.fb&r_by=192341