When USA Means "United (Frack) Shills of America": The Marcellus Shale Coalition's Big Gas Parade, May 6th 2014, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

I remember a time--not all that long ago-- when the Marcellus Shale Coalition promoted itself as a largely neutral  coalition of interests connected to the the Marcellus Shale formation under the farms and forests of Pennsylvania and New York. When I look back on that brief moment --when we didn't quite yet surmise the tsunami coming (we could call it BG--Before the Gas), I now realize just how naive we were with respect to the motives of MSC and their well-funded advertising agency analogues. Now we live in the AG--After the Gas--and even the most cursory gander at MSC's sponsoring corporations makes quite clear what their big fat rally is for--and it's certainly not Pennsylvania or Pennsylvanians. 

The MSC executive board reads like a corporate roll call of gas companies--and a cavalcade of environmental violation, liability avoidance, community destruction, property value decimation, and good old fashioned corporate-litigated denial:

Range Resources Corporation--most recent notice of violation "a “significant leak” at the John Day Impoundment in Amwell Township, Washington County, a scary prospect given that Range Resources admits that it doesn't know what's in its frack fluids. As reported by Marcellus Monitor (DEP Issuing Notice of Violation to Range Resources for ‘Significant Leak’ at Washington County Impoundment | Marcellus Monitor) : 

Range Resources impoundments in Washington County have been the subject of

both controversy and national headlines this past year – mostly over questions about what exactly is in the water stored at the sites.

State Impact reported that company executives testified in a civil court case that they do not know what chemicals they are using in the fracking process.

Then there's EXCO--for whom the nation's Safe Drinking Water Act is simply an inconvenient obstacle to its profit objectives--and if that seems unduly harsh, wait to make that judgment after you take a look at the company's connection to the SAGO Mine

disaster:   THE WRENCH: Pretending to Forget What’s Right Under Our Feet Until the Ground Gives Way: EXCO’s Marcellus Gambit, the SAGO Mine Disaster, and the Price of Natural Gas.

Then of course, there's Williams--whose own recent gambit to construct a 42 inch expansion of the Transco natural gas pipeline absurdly named the Atlantic Sunrise" offers a cornucopia of misleading claims, misrepresentation, and potential disaster for ecologies, communities--and property values--all for the sake of global export to China: THE WRENCH: When Sunrise for the Global Gas Markets is Sunset for Pennsylvania: Williams Partner's "Atlantic Sunrise" Expansion of the TRANSCO. Williams--well, they're just a charmer:

Williams Companies, through three pipeline subsidiaries, paid the most in fines in 2013 for excess erosion and drilling mud spills into creeks during pipeline construction and underground boring operations. The subsidiaries, Laser Northeast Gathering, Williams Field Services and Laurel Mountain Midstream, paid a combined $388,694 in fines for 105 violations between March 2011 and September 2012. Williams Field Services and Laser paid one fine each for a host of problems at their sites in Susquehanna, Wyoming and Luzerne counties; they were the second and third largest fines of the year, at $169,648 and $164,622. Laurel Mountain Midstream paid three fines totaling $54,424 for operations in southwestern Pennsylvania. (DEP fined oil and gas companies $2.5 million last year | StateImpact Pennsylvania).

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

Add to this list of fracking celebrities EQT (Unfolding Story: Flowback Leaked from Fracking Pit in Tioga County; Pit Liner Full of Holes | Protecting Our Waters), MarkWest Energy Partners (Pa. DEP Slaps MarkWest Gas Plant With Smoke Violation - Law360), Consol (Not a good night for the Extreme Extraction Profiteers: Presentation and Debate at University of Pittsburgh, Greensburg, 4.10.13 | Raging Chicken Press), Chevron (Chevron blocked access to DEP after fatal well fire in southwest Pa. | StateImpact Pennsylvania), XTO ( EPA Fines XTO Energy for Lycoming County Frack Water Spills | StateImpact Pennsylvania), EOG Resources (Oil-by-rail disasters prompt crackdown on risky shipments — Business — Bangor Daily News — BDN Maine).

You get the picture.

The only interesting question is what--besides either greed or inexcusably willful ignorance would induce anyone to jump on the MSC bus to the United Shale Advocates rally? Well, here's what Tom Shepstone--gas cheerleader extraordinaire says: (USA...USA...United Shale Advocates | Natural Gas NowNatural Gas Now)

United Shale Advocates will set out the facts and the real shale stories of success so many supporters witness with their own eyes every day; how shale gas development is changing lives for the better, revitalizing rural areas and

delivering inexpensive energy to businesses and consumers. It will also unabashedly defend the natural gas record of cleaning our air, for example, and safeguarding our water.

In other words--greed. 

But if you're not convinced, you have two choices: either just wave your mouse over any of the items in the previous paragraphs, click, and read--or just continue on here to enjoy a look at the USA rally speakers, and see for yourselves just how interested these fellas are in the continuation of the frack--regardless the cost to you, your water, your air, your life (and I do mean fellas--fully invested members in the Good Old Boy Extraction Club, Wendy Lynne Lee at Susquehanna University - YouTube).

Speaker 1: Gene Barr, President and CEO of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, Executive Director of APIP, Associated Petroleum Industries of Pennsylvania, and member of the law firm of McNees Wallace Nurick, the largest Harrisburg-based law firm, to start a government relations practice  (::: Pennsylvania Chamber Of Business And Industry :::). here's his schtick:

Increased natural gas production is helping consumers by delivering cheaper natural gas, such as the recent rate cut of more than 13 percent announced in the area by UGI. But the longer the oversight debate drags on and the longer drillers face rules that differ from municipality to municipality, the less investment, energy savings, jobs and revenue will be realized in the commonwealth. (Pennsylvania needs uniform Marcellus Shale rules | PennLive.com).

Barr then refers to Washington County, touting its high rate of job growth, the 7th fastest growing metropolitan area in 2010. Trouble is, by 2013 things in Washington County are not so rosy for the residents who actually live there. As reported in The Nation:

DEP whistleblowers have disclosed that the agency purposely restricts its chemical testing so as to reduce evidence of harm to landowners. A resident in southwestern Pennsylvania’s Washington County is suing the agency for failing fully to investigate the drilling-related air and water contamination that she says has made her sick...Theo Colborn, founder of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange and recipient of the National Council for Science and Environment’s Lifetime Achievement Award, identified 353 industry chemicals that could damage the skin, the brain, the respiratory, gastrointestinal, immune, cardiovascular and endocrine (hormone production) systems. Twenty-five percent of the chemicals found by the study could cause cancers. (Fracking Ourselves to Death in Pennsylvania | The Nation).

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

Need a little more evidence for the suffering and death scale?

"In the days leading up to an unreported spill of more than 21,000 gallons of flowback water in Washington County, Pennsylvania, by Red Oak Water Transfer, executives from Range Resourcesexpressed frustration with the company – one of its subcontractors – calling Red Oak employees “lying bastards” in a chain of emails detailing issues including three additional leaks of a water supply line flowing from an Amwell Township frac pond, public documents show.
The emails are part of a 31-page supplemental exhibit filed Dec. 19 to compel a response from Red Oak as part of a civil lawsuit that originated in 2012 after three Washington County families living near the frack pond sued Range and more than a dozen of its subcontractors, alleging that toxic exposure from the impoundment caused those residents to suffer various illnesses. It also alleges that those companies were responsible for contamination of their drinking water. While the original motion to compel Red Oak, now doing business as Rockwater Energy Solutions, to provide photographs of the spill included internal emails and personnel files from Red Oak detailing both the spill its “cover up” by an employee later suspended for three days without pay for the “serious incident,” exhibits included in the most recent filing reveal a tense relationship between the company and Range around the time of the unreported spill, which was never reported to the state Department of Environmental Protection, despite clear reporting requirements set forth in Pennsylvania’s Clean Streams Law."  (Range Resources Calls Subcontractor That Admitted Unreported Spill “Lying Bastards” – Suggests Fracking With Employees’ Bodies | Marcellus Monitor).

Now maybe we'd accept illness, suffering, and potential death if there really were lots of well-paying jobs to compensate for these albeit somewhat daunting problems. And we might feel better that at least one real Red Oak (now Rockwater) employee got a whole

three days suspension without pay for trying to cover up a toxic exposure that made folks sick. But the trouble still is that the whole "lots-a-jobs" thing is bull shit. Just plain unvarnished, you can't make this shit up bull shit.

From the Multistate Research Collaborative, 2013 report:

• While shale-related employment has made a positive contribution to job growth, the number of jobs created is far below industry claims and remains a small share of overall employment in the region.

• Between 2005 and 2012, less than four new direct shale-related jobs have been created for each new well drilled, much less than estimates as high as 31 direct jobs per well in some industry-financed studies.

• Region-wide, shale-related employment accounts for just one out of every 794 jobs. By contrast, education and health sectors account for one out of every six jobs.

• Job growth in the industry has been greatest (as a share of total employment) in West Virginia. Still, shale-related employment is less than 1 percent of total West Virginia employment and less than half a percent of total employment in all the other states.

• Many of the core extraction jobs existed before the emergence of hydrofracking.

• Together, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia had 38 percent of all producing wells in the country in 1990 and 32 percent in 2000.

• Some counties with a long history of mineral extraction have experienced a shift in employment from coal to shale extraction.

• Industry employment projections have been overstated.

• Some industry supporters have equated “new hires” with “new jobs” and attributed ancillary job figures to shale drilling even when they have nothing to do with drilling.

• Industry-funded studies have used questionable assumption in economic modeling to inflate the number of jobs created in related supply chain industries (indirect jobs) as well as those created by the spending of income earned from the industry or its suppliers (induced jobs).

• Drilling is highly sensitive to price fluctuations, which means that job gains may not be lasting.

• In some counties, employment gains have been reversed as drilling activity shifted to more lucrative oil shale fields in Ohio and North Dakota.

• Direct shale-related employment across the six-state Marcellus/Utica region fell over the last 12 months for which there are data — the first quarter 2012 to the first quarter 2013.

What's the upshot? We are being poisoned. We are being lied to. We are being extorted--and the single benefit we were told over and over that we'd get out of this--jobs--as if "jobs" were itself some magical mantra that could dispel all of the other harms this industry delivers--even that was a lie. It was a lie during the first round of the gas boom. Will we see a few more jobs during the potential second boom--the one we're promised if the gas industry gets its big fat wish for pipelines galore? 

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

Sure! 

Right up to the BIG BUST, followed by the BIG INDUSTRIAL WASTELAND, followed by the creeping realization that the only purpose of shill parades like this one is to extort, manipulate, and "patriotize" us into thinking that guys like Barr--or any of the other USA speakers give a good goddamn about us. They Don't. 

Jim Kunz

Business Manager, International Union of Operating Engineers

Hank Rettew
CEO, RETTEW Associates, Inc.

Dennis Gilfoyle
CEO, Junior Achievement of Western Pa.

Beth Powell
VP & General Manager, New Pig Energy

Rawley Cogan
President & CEO, Keystone Elk Country Alliance

Brian Smith
Northeast PA landowner, Wayne County farmer

Les Houck
Supervisor, Salisbury Township, Lancaster County

Paula Jackson
President & CEO, American Association of Blacks in Energy

Scott Roy
Chairman, Marcellus Shale Coalition

Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

The Pennsylvania Jobs/Pennsylvania Energy flag-wavin', bus-ridin', media-schmoozing, cavalcade is just another moment in this ugly human drama where you get to be treated like a sucker. 

Take a good look at this gorgeous picture of Loyalsock Creek.

Only a sucker could be duped into giving up this.

Don't be one.

Wendy Lynne Lee

The Shale Justice Coalition

John Hanger Wants To Be Your Big Gas Greenwash Governor: A Gander at His Gubernatorial Campaign Donors

When I came upon this campaign advertisement for John Hanger's run for the Democratic Party's governor's race nomination, I had to laugh--in that dark "this is just surreal" kind of way. It's not just that Dimock resident, "Gasland Starlet," now welcomed to the pro-gas fold ( http://marcellusdrilling.com/2013/10/gasland-ii-starlet-leaves-anti-drilling-behind-adopts-realism/) Victoria Switzer, has gone "total commitment" for Hanger. It's not even that the language of the ad is grammatically awkward, "I do not want the candidate that is given a thumbs up by the industry" (http://thewrenchphilosleft.blogspot.com/2014/01/realism-is-frack-speak-for-so-long-as-i.html).

It's that the ad's claim that "For sure, the gas companies do not want Hanger" is patently, demonstrably, laughably false.

The gas industry would love a Hanger governorship. Let's ask, for example, Hanger's campaign donors:

1. Eckert Seamans, for whom Hanger is employed as "special council," has donated $5,000. But, among other endeavors, Eckert Seamans makes a very tidy sum defending the natural gas industry. Here's just one example of Eclert Seaman's devotion to the continuing development of natural gas:

Eckert Seamans’ Natural Gas Vehicle (NGV) practice group is dedicated to the development of a growing, sustainable and profitable market for vehicles powered by natural gas and hydrogen in the East Coast and Mid-Atlantic regions. We are focused on assisting and representing companies interested in the promotion and use of natural gas and hydrogen as transportation fuels or energy sources, including: local port authorities, trucking companies and transporters, vehicle and equipment manufacturers; fleet operators and service providers; natural gas distributors and producers. We will strive to help industry create and develop a profitable, sustainable and growing market for vehicles powered by natural gas and hydrogen.

Our Mission:

To be the primary "go-to" law firm for the NGV industry who reaches positive solutions through collective action; to provide sophisticated, innovative and high quality legal services, serve as a trusted advisor who will facilitate development, seek incentives for clients and successfully navigate the regulatory morass at both state and federal levels; to leverage our interdisciplinary skills, knowledge and experience from a wide variety of legal disciplines to address the broad spectrum of issues facing the dynamic natural gas vehicle industry; and to effectively guide our clients through strategic decisions, policy initiatives, commercial transactions, project financing and development, state and federal regulatory proceedings and litigation.

Clearly, a Hanger election is a win for Eckert Seamans' natural gas vehicle "mission."

In fact, when you read Eckert Seamans' "Environmental Practice" page, what you discover is that what these folks mean by "environmental" is defending its "heavy industrial and manufacturing clients against, well, folks from places like Switzer's Dimmock. Cue the dark, just surreal, laugh here:

The Environmental Group of Eckert Seamans is national in scope and is as diverse and broad-based as the subject matter itself. In addition to the firm’s traditional heavy industrial and manufacturing clients which include steel, glass, aluminum, chemical, coal, natural gas and other industries and manufacturers, as well as electric, gas, water and waste water utilities, the firm also represents financial institutions, real estate developers, food processors, construction and high tech companies. The firm’s clients range from closely held businesses to large publicly held companies.The firm’s environmental lawyers assist and counsel clients with compliance, enforcement, self disclosure, permitting, government rulemaking, responding to information requests, strategic planning and other matters that are subject to the major environmental regulatory programs, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and their state and local counterparts in numerous jurisdictions across the country.

In other words, Eckert Seamans helps keep companies like Cabot from being sued, and their lawyers like John Hanger get paid good money (say, like the 430,000 Hanger donated to his own campaign) to insure minimal compliance--what groups like Breathe Easy Susquehanna County want to sucker us into believing is a company's employ of "best practices." Then they greenwash it all by calling "compliance" environmental.

How surreal is that?

Only slightly more so than the "Practice Area" Energy page:

The Energy Group represents every segment of the natural resources industry, including renewable energy companies, traditional utilities, domestic energy companies, foreign energy companies, mineral companies, exploration and extraction companies, financial institutions, private equity firms, government entities, and other companies associated with the natural resource industry.

In other words, pay us, and we will defend whatever form of extraction you're into.

Even better:

As the domestic and international market for energy becomes more diverse and globally connected, it is important to select counsel that has the depth of knowledge, understanding and multidisciplinary experience to provide efficient and cost-effective representation.

Translation: We can't wait for those export depots like the one Dominion has planned at Cove Point Maryland goes into LNG transport.

But the real kicker is the Eckert Seamans "Marcellus Shale" "Practice Area" page where they announce right at the top their proud membership in the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry funded trade group whose membership includes not only some of the worst polluters and human rights violators on the planet, for example, Chevron ( http://ran.org/chevrons-toxic-legacy-ecuador), but the very companies responsible for the gag order agreed to by Switzer concerning water contamination (http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2013/07/30/silenced-critic-of-dimocks-water-problems-switches-to-air-pollution-concerns/).

So: Switzer (and Breathe Easy Susquehanna County) are supporting for governor an attorney who works for a powerful law firm that actively defends the gas companies against people just like her, and belongs to an organization--the Marcellus Shale Coalition--whose membership includes the company--Cabot--who is not only responsible for massive ecological and water damage in Dimock, but has somehow persuaded her to never talk about that fact. And to add surreal insult to injury--Hanger was head of DEP all the while Cabot was converting Dimock into a frack-gas extraction colony (http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/nearly-a-year-after-a-water-well-explosion-dimock-twp-residents-thirst-for-gas-well-fix-1.365743).

Talk about your facts of the day. Sheesh!

But the gas-soaked campaign donations don't stop with Eckert Seamans.

2. There's the $1,000 from discredited Penn State Professor Terry Engelder, the self-styled "father" of the shale gas boom (http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2012/02/15/the-unholy-alliance-of-big-energy-big-university-big-state-my-exchange-with-terry-engelder/)

3. There's Seth Obitz, $5,000 of Worley and Obitz (http://www.worleyobetz.com/):

We offer a wide array of energy products and services for your home, business and fleet, including AMERIgreen Energy products, 100% American Fuels, propane, farm propane, electricity, natural gas and natural gas conversions, heating oil, biofuels, renewable energy, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) service and HVAC installations, fleet fueling, and wholesale transport trucking.

4. There's the $1,000 from EQT:

EQT has poured nearly $328,000 into Pennsylvania elections since 2001 and $281,000 into statewide races across the country since 2003. On the whole, the fracking industry has spent $23 million to influence Pennsylvania politics since 2003. What do EQT and the rest of the industry reap from this political spending? On the national level, the industry’s influence has resulted in fracking– the process of injecting millions of gallons of toxin-laced water deep underground in order to break up shale rocks and extract “natural” gas – being exempt from major environmental regulations, including the Safe Drinking Water, Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. In Pennsylvania, 47 percent of state forestlands have been leased to shale drillers and 80 percent of state park mineral rites have been privatized. The influence is also obvious when you look at EQT’s tax receipts. EQT’s effective federal tax rate over the past five years was -1 percent – meaning that, instead of paying, the corporation actually received $2 million back from the IRS. In Pennsylvania – where EQT is headquartered – the corporation’s five-year effective tax rate was only 0.1 percent. (http://www.citizenvox.org/2013/04/18/activists-to-fracking-corporation-eqt-elections-are-not-for-shale/).

5. There's the $1,000 from Joseph Dworetzky, an attorney from Hangley, Aronchick, Segal, Pudlin, Schiller:

We have been involved in projects to assist clients with both traditional and alternative energy projects. For example, we have assisted clients with myriad permitting aspects of wind farms, as well as permitting issues associated with the build-out of new pipeline systems. We have also been involved in representing landowners in negotiating agreements for the development of natural gas resources in the Marcellus Shale region. (http://www.hangley.com/Energy/)

6. There's $2,000 from Steven Kean, Kinder Morgan, the folks who'd build the Tennessee Pipeline that could effectively end the fracking moratorium in the Delaware River Basin:

The Tennessee Gas Pipeline—the Northeast Upgrade Project—is essential to Kinder-Stiltskin’s vision: “The 13,900-mile Tennessee Gas Pipeline serves the Northeast with access to the Marcellus and Utica shale plays” transporting natural gas from “Louisiana, the Gulf of Mexico and south Texas.” (Kinder Morgan – Tennessee Gas Pipeline). KMEP promises a myriad array of benefits including the hire of local union-shop workers, revenue for local businesses, and an energy source that is “versatile, clean, and abundant” (Benefits of Natural Gas | Northeast Upgrade Project). The KMEP strategy is clear: amass as much pipeline infrastructure as possible across a wide array of extraction ventures (including, but not limited to, shale plays), distributing both risks and gains across that array, thereby defraying against production declines, and limiting competition. Then, via the advantageous corporate structure provided by the MLP, utilize incoming revenues to acquire additional pipeline. For example, KMEP “operates the only pipeline that carries tar sands crude out of Alberta over the Rocky Mountains to its tanker terminal in Vancouver. Kinder acquired the Trans Mountain Pipeline in 2005 and now seeks to expand it from 300,000 barrels per day to 750,000 bpd by building a new $4 billion pipe alongside the first. He’s already signed up nine oil companies eager to fill the proposed line with their crude.” Kinder is also gearing up for the Northern Gateway Project as well as part of the action in the Keystone XL Pipeline “to bring more oil sands crude into the U.S. and ultimately down to Gulf Coast refineries,” much to the discontent of environmentalists, (Rich Kinder’s Energy Kingdom – Forbes) (.http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2013/03/16/kinder-morgan-energy-partners-a-new-rumpelstiltskin-tries-to-cash-in-on-the-last-gasp-of-industrialized-extraction/).

In other words, Hanger takes campaign donations from a corporation invested and committed to the Keystone XL Pipeline (http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/07/youth-plan-mass-civil-disobedience-to-protest-keystone-xl/).

7. There's $5,000 from Charif Souki--WOW! Here's just a tiny sample, "The Export King: Meet America's Unlikeliest Gas Mogul":

Souki and his top executives were becoming more committed to the idea of exporting natural gas. They were convinced that they could retrofit the Louisiana terminal to make it capable of turning natural gas into LNG for selling abroad. In the early spring of 2010, Souki and his team received an estimate from Bechtel, the global construction firm, with a cost to reconfigure their plant. Bechtel judged it would cost about $450 for each ton of LNG it wanted to export. At that price, it would cost over $8 billion to convert the terminal into one that could export natural gas using four “trains,” or liquefaction and purification units. That would be enough to ship 18 million tons of gas a year. (http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140250/gregory-zuckerman/the-export-king).

In other words, Hanger is taking money from folks committed to shipping natural gas overseas. So much for his stake in "American, cheap, natural, and abundant."

8. There's $10,000 from Steve Huntoon, Florida Power and Light--also, WOW!. I'll let you read the FERC decision for yourselves: https://www.ferc.gov/whats-new/comm-meet/2007/041907/G-1.pdf.

9. There's the $3,000 from Nora Meade Brownell: "Nora Mead Brownell is the co-founder of Espy Energy Solutions, LLC, an energy consulting firm and a former Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from 2001–2006 under the administration of President George W. Bush."

Nora currently serves on the boards of the following public companies: Comverge, Inc. as the chair of the nominating and corporate governance committee and Spectra Energy Partners LP (http://www.forbes.com/profile/nora-brownell/).

Spectra Energy Partners, LP (http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=211014&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1729456&highlight=):

The Spectra pipeline, a high-pressure natural gas delivery system that aims to bring hundreds of millions of barrels of hydrofracked gas directly into New York City, has sparked controversy just a few short months before its scheduled completion . The $1.2 billion project will pipe 800 million barrels of natural gas a day directly underneath Manhattan's iconic West Village neighborhood. The pipeline is an extension of Houston-based Spectra Energy's Texas Eastern gas delivery network, which exploits the huge Utica and Marcellus shale natural gas resources in western Pennsylvania and Ohio. But now, with the pipeline nearly complete (construction started almost a year ago and is expected to be done by November), activists are up in arms...High-pressure pipelines are also liable to explode, as the video points out. In 2012 alone, there were 244 significant incidents on U.S. pipelines that caused a total of 10 deaths and more than $180 million of property damage, according to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA.)...Spectra's safety record isn't exactly pristine. An explosion at a large underground Texas gas facility that was owned by Spectra's parent company, Duke Energy, caused a 1,000 foot-high fireball in 2004 that led to the evacuation of hundreds of residents within a three-mile radius of the storage facility, the Houston Chronicle reported at the time. (The explosion, caused by a faulty valve, was followed by a second explosion that prompted a second, wider, evacuation.) (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/03/spectra-pipeline-fracking-new-york-city-activists_n_3209242.html).

So here's the simple upshot:

John Hanger could not be more in the tank for the gas. While he takes other money (from EverPower Wind, for example: http://www.everpower.com/), there simply is no denying that he solicits--and gets--donations from folks who will certainly expect Hanger to be every bit as frack-friendly as his predecessor.

And we have every reason to think he will be.

The only interesting question (and not very) is why all these Big Gas Companies haven't donated more. but that's actually pretty easy: they're hedging their bets. After all, they've got a pretty full slate on the Democrats side of candidates happy and willing to do their bidding. In fact the only two who won't are Paul Glover, Green Party (http://www.paulglover.org/) who, if tradition sets the standard, may get to act as a spoiler, or Mad Max Myers, whose religious affiliations and apparent anti-gay beliefs have likely already sunk his candidacy (http://thewrenchphilosleft.blogspot.com/2014/02/mad-max-myers-is-not-my-anti-fracking.html).

Nope, what this sad story points to--even beyond fracking--is the sheer vacuity of the political process, especially with respect to elections. I am tempted to conclude that this means we've got nobody. But the truth is just the opposite:

We have our collective will, our capacity to build community rights organizations, our commitment to stand up against both corrupt politicians who'd sucker us into believing--like the sad folks at Breathe Easy Susquehanna County (http://www.shalereporter.com/blog/tara_zrinski/article_20748998-3a98-11e3-8f50-0019bb30f31a.html)--that there's some magical causal powers attached to phrases like "best practices," and "being realistic."

As I have said many times now, "To hell with being "realistic."

No movement for anything worthwhile got a damn thing done by being "realistic." Better that we should do a little real work--as I have done here--vetting a candidate.

Better that we should risk practically everything, as Socrates advised, than lose it all to the cowardice that "being realistic" really means.

A primary vote for John Hanger is a vote for the continued march to 100,000 frack gas wells in Pennsylvania, with all the bells and whistles--pollutions and explosions and disease--that go with them. It's a vote for frack gas export. It's a vote for climate change.

And if you've read this piece, your excuse for remaining self-deluded about what Hanger really stands for is over--and it ain't you.


* Awesome poster by Paul Glover, Pennsylvania Green Party candidate for governor.

Of Flooding and Fracking

To the editor,

Every time I drive or walk down West Main, or out to Espy, or to Town Park, I am struck first by the staggering damage flooding and endless rain can cause, and second by the resilience, tenacity, and generosity of Bloomsburg’s people, especially in a crisis, who have volunteered their time, energy, and dollars to help folks they don’t even know.

I know why I love my town:

the sheer contrast of one lightless, rain-soaked, morning drive to the elementary school shelter compared to so many I’ve taken down a Main Street glowing with life is indelibly stamped onto my memory, onto my very understanding of what it means to live in this beautiful region as a resident of its “only town.”

As we quickly learned, the crisis of these past weeks only began with the 32.7 ft. rise of the Susquehanna, the flooding of Fishing Creek, etc. The real crisis is what follows, some of it stunningly visible—like houses washed off their foundations and cavernous gullies cut through paved streets—some of it’s quite invisible, at least at first.

This latter comes in the form of health hazards like mold, like exposure to toxins and other forms of industrial waste polluting the Susquehanna and its tributaries. Dawning rubber gloves, FEMA footwear, and masks became de rigueur for anyone mucking basements, tearing down saturated drywall, or getting the toxic-sludged remains of folks photo albums and Christmas ornaments to the curb—a job as heart-breaking as it is dangerous.

And dangerous it is.

The American Rivers Organization, a non-partisan advocate for our waterways, reports the Susquehanna is the most endangered river in the country. In addition to the massive industrial, medical, and household waste already demonstrably present in the shiny sludge with which we’re familiar, waste fluids from hydraulic fracturing—fracking—threaten further contamination:

• “…limited facilities for treating the highly toxic wastewater that results from the extraction process and few government regulations to prevent it from seeping into rivers like the Susquehanna, which provides drinking water for more than six million people.”

• “In the Marcellus Shale region in Pennsylvania alone, drilling companies were issued approximately 3,300 gas-well permits in 2009 compared with 117 in 2007.”

• “…ground water pollution in Susquehanna County resulting in loss of a community's drinking water, a blowout in Bradford County that went uncontrolled, allowing toxic fracking chemicals to flow into the Susquehanna...”

• “A natural gas well blew out during fracking operations, sending thousands of gallons of toxic fluid — containing hazardous chemicals, some potentially cancer-causing — over fields and into Towanda Creek, which feeds the Susquehanna River and supplies water for millions of people in the area.”

What will the next flood be like?

The one that happens once fracking is in full-swing as I’ve detailed in my previous three letters? Can we really afford to be scraping THAT sludge off our salvageables? Are we willing to brook THAT for the few jobs that will come of the gas boom?

What adds insult to injury—what makes it personal—is that an industry poised to make billions from something that offers us little but cancer, destroyed property values, obliterated roads and bridges, and community division—brags on its propaganda website—The Marcellus Shale Coalition—about corporate donations to communities affected by Hurricane Lee. A million dollars total from eleven corporations compared to Chesapeake’s chief executive officer Aubry McClendon’s $112.5 million take-home pay last year—the biggest CEO package in the U.S.—should leave us nothing but cold.

If we don’t muster our collective voices and demand fracking be BANNED, we’ll won’t just be cold. We’ll be fools.





Wendy Lynne Lee
wlee@bloomu.edu

600 words