The Road Paved With Frack-Tax Dollars Leads to an Industrialized Hell

Collapsed road sign, sharp curve, public road, Chief's Dacheux Well Pad, Cherry Township, Sullivan County, PA
Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

Below is my response to Democrat Party candidate, Steve Todd, and his defense of the claim that it is consistent with identifying as a "fractivist" the Democrat Party gubernatorial candidate, Tom Wolf's plan to impose a tax on the natural gas industry. 

The response can be found here: 

Former state health employees say they were silenced on drilling | StateImpact Pennsylvania

The defense of a tax on the gas industry is not consistent with any position whose goal is to end fracking. In fact, it's self-defeating. 

Steve Todd:

Collapsed road sign, sharp curve, public road,
Chief's Dacheux Well Pad,
Cherry Township, Sullivan County, PA
Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

"Wendy, I call myself a fracktivist. And I support a tax. Because I know the entire world is not going to march lockstep to my edicts. I admire your work (we have attended numerous events together, are FB friends and have met several times). I am on your side. And Alex Lotorto’s side. The same Alex I had to unfriend on FB because of his relentless and very personal attacks on my positions. I am backing Wolf, being a Dem Committeeman (Dauphin County), but I wish you and Glover all the best. But if you do win, I am 100% certain you will be a little disappointed. Winning a political office does not mean you march in and everyone shuts up, and prepares their pens for orders. Folks like Victoria and Tom (with whom I am also acquainted and have worked) are on our side…yours, Alex’, Vera’s, Rebecca’s and mine. It should shock no one to learn that none of those folks march lockstep on the issues of the day…it would be a scary world in which we did."

Wendy's response:

Hi Steve, and thank you for your reply. The argument against a tax--severance or otherwise-- is very clear, as are its implications with respect to who gets to honestly call themselves anti-fracking--and that is not and cannot be you or, for that matter, anyone who supports a tax.

1. A tax on natural gas extraction via fracking will institutionalize the industry by making social programs dependent on its revenue stream. However much the industry resists it, they know that any tax will have this positive effect for them--and so their resistance is feigned and simply aimed at the lowest tax possible. The amount of the tax has no real bearing on the extent to which it institutionalizes the industry as part of the state's internal revenue structure.

2. Wolf is the best thing that could happen to the gas industry--far better than Corbett--because while the duped are celebrating Wolf's imposing a tax, the industry will go about their dirty business as usual--but with the added bonus that they now have the cover of legitimacy behind a painless tax that will guarantee their presence in the state forever--or until they leave us a spent industrialized wasteland. Corbett could never have lent them this cover.

3. Taxing the industry will actively encourage even less regulation. The formula is simple" Imposing a tax=insuring dependence of social programs=pressure to generate more revenue=pressure for the industry to make more money=weakening regulations. In other words, the more dependence, the more pressure to generate greater tax revenues, and because the tax as a percentage of profit is never going to amount to anything substantial, the thing that's going to have to give is the regulations and their enforcement. When you add to this the fact that--as this article demonstrates once again--the regulations are meaningless and unenforceable now, just imagine what that will mean given the institutionalization of the industry. Welcome to Texas.

4. Once the industry is institutionalized in the state's tax structure, they will be able to exert pressure like never before. They will be in a position to level substantive threats of withdrawal and whoever is governor will cave to the threat precisely because essential social programs--and (thanks to Wolf) funding for education will now be tied to gas tax revenue. The regulations will then be enforced even less, more and more Democrats will jump on board for horrendous bills like the gutting of the state's endangered species act--and representative like yourself will have paved the way for the future industrialization of the state including the further erosion of property rights, rights to clean air and water, rights to speak out against the industry. In short, an invitation to become part of the state's essential economic wherewithal in an invitation to corporate hegemony.

5. (1)-(4) can have only one conclusion: more fracking including all of its dirty and damaging infrastructure.

Erosion and Sediment Plan,
Chief's Dacheux Well Pad,
Cherry Township, Sullivan County, PA
Photo, Wendy Lynne Lee

I invite you to demonstrate where this argument fails.

You might argue, for example, that the argument for a tax is "being realistic," and that a tax is better than no tax.

The problem with this reasoning is that I have shown that a tax is far worse than no tax because it institutionalizes the industry in the state's fiduciary structure--with the implications I have spelled out.

You might argue that these implications-- social program dependence, education funding--don't necessarily follow. But indeed they do, and the history of the state shows it. Moreover, we cannot rationally believe otherwise given that Corbett has gutted these programs such that there exists a funding vacuum that Wolf is clearly prepared to fill with frack-dollars.

You might argue that there's no necessary connection between social program dependence and the weakening of already weak environmental and safety regulations. You're correct--there is no necessary relationship. But there will be an empirically demonstrable one since the need to fund these programs will continue--and for some escalate--creating pressure to generate more revenue. That just IS the history of taxation.

To use the language of "march lockstep to my edicts" is ad hominem and implies that I have acted in a dictatorial fashion. That is false--I have laid out arguments premised on reason and evidence, and to resort to this variety of name-calling only implies that because you can't offer reasoned and evidenced objections you're comfortable with punches that are below the belt. That is unbefitting a candidate for office.

That you are backing Wolf because--as you put it--you are a Democrat councilman is simply to say that you feel yourself compelled to march lock-step with your party regardless their positions. You are not so bound--and this is the pot calling the kettle black.

Wishing myself and Glover the best is wholly disingenuous and easy for you because it costs you no political capital. I also am not interested in being patronized--and your claim about being disappointed that winning does not mean people will simply "shut up" and follow orders is just that. But it is consistent with your strategic attack to get readers here to identify a clear and resolute position with "lock-step" and dictatorial.

This is how those who want to have it both ways--be identified as anti-fracking, all the while acting in a fashion that is in fact complicit with the gas industry--paint those who are genuinely anti-fracking as irrational because we argue that given the failures of regulation and the inherent hazards of extraction infrastructure, the only morally defensible rational position to take is to fight for a ban.

But your unwillingness to take up this fight can neither be identified as moral nor rational--and one evidence for this is your willingness to paint those who'd defend a ban as the dictatorial radicals in order to make yourself appear reasonable. But in this case appearances are deceiving.

Truck with unspecified filled containers heading up narrow muddy road to frack operations, Dacheux Well Pad
Cherry Township, Sullivan County, PA. Photo, Wendy Lynne lee

Your promotion of a tax is not morally defensible because--as I have shown--it will lead to indefensibly harmful consequences. Now that you know this, to continue to defend the tax can only be seen as politically expedient--about being electable--but it is not anti-fracking.

The time to defend a tax, to defend regulation--especially in the face of pieces like this one--to defend "best practices" is over. None of us have a right to this ignorance--least of all those who'd pretend to represent us. To make this claim is not dictatorial, sectarian (and nathan Sooy would have it) or narrow. It is realistic. It is to acknowledge the fundamental truth that none of us involved in this struggle have any right to find one iota of this article about silencing surprising.

We all know better, and it is high time we acted like it.

Doh! When "Neutral" Ain't: The Columbia County Landowner's Coalition Meeting, 6.2.14, Benton, Pennsylvania

TRANSCO pipeline cut through farmland, Hughesville, PA. Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

Bruce Anderson goes to great lengths to reassure his audience that he's an "environmentalist," and that he's not employed by the gas companies. He is keen to establish his credibility as a " federally licensed nuclear reactor control room operator" presumably to reassure us that he's got his own income and that he's a smart guy.

Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

But that's just the set up for a meeting of the Columbia County Landowners Coalition (Columbia County Landowners Coalition) designed to reassure the audience that what they'll be hearing is neutral, objective information. 

And that's true--as far as it goes. But clues that this isn't really an informational meeting--but a promotional for Williams Partner's (WPZ)"Atlantic Sunrise" (ASP) expansion of the TRANSCO begin to pile up the minute Anderson transits from "you can trust me" reassurance to what amounts to lease coordinator for WPZ.  


Clue One: Consider Anderson's first content slide. This claim is true--but it assumes that all that is needed to make the region's shale plays productive are the pipelines to move the gas to market--leaving his audience with the impression that if they had leased land to drilling they might still make out on future royalties. 

Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

But while that is possible, it's unlikely. Here's the Martin Well Pad (DEP permit #037-20001) as of 9.29.11:

Not much has changed. There was a truck rig on site last week. Williams is still prodding the well. Workers were pumping out frack fluid and attempting an operation to try to bring the well to life. The well has no pressure. When the workers opened the well cap there was a huge 'whooshing sucking sound' I was told.  The sound was the frack fluid in the well bore dropping. Think of how you put a straw in a glass of water, place your thumb over the top of the straw and remove the straw from the glass..then remove your thumb from the straw. The water quickly drops through the straw. I'm told what the workers are attempting is a long shot. Evidently the Marcellus has dead zones where the shale is so compacted that the gas can't escape after the initial fracking operation. The pressure in the well went from 2200 psi the day the fracking was completed to about 5 psi five days later. (Forum 656148: Martin Well Status)

And as of the last status report for Williams' drilling interests in Columbia County, 11.17.11:

All drilling activity by Williams is on hold in Columbia county pending the status of the Martin well. The well next to Bear fuel on #118 is also on hold indefinitely. That site had a test well drilled earlier this year. The major operator is EXCO with Williams being a joint venture partner with a 10% interest. Williams was informed several weeks ago that EXCO has abondoned any further operations at that site due to lack of positive data from the test well and the failure of the Martin well to produce any meaningful gas volume. (Forum 656148: Don't Get Too Excited).

To imply that "lack of pipeline" is responsible for lack of frack gas production is a bit disingenuous--there's no pressure down the hole, and there isn't likely to be in these "dead zones." 

Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

Moreover,  the claim that "the economics were not here," while also true isn't the whole story. As I've shown, the economics aren't here, or even "here" in the United States. The economics are in LNG export to global markets, and while Williams claims that "there are no LNG [Liquified Natural Gas] terminal facilities related to or proposed as part of the Project," the relationship between Williams and Dominion--who wants to convert an LNG import to export at Cove Point, MD--is cozy if not incestuous. Dominion purchased the Cove Point facility from Williams in 2002 for $217 million, and the reference to Fairfax County, Virginia in the WPZ FERC Pre-Filing Documents is at least indirectly connected to Dominion's plan at Cove Point. 

Dominion's project slogan is "Support Maryland Sending Clean Energy to the World," and Williams certainly comprehends the opportunity to export to Chinese and Indian buyers, for example, the Gulf Trace Project (THE WRENCH: When Sunrise for the Global Gas Markets is Sunset for Pennsylvania: Williams Partner's "Atlantic Sunrise" Expansion of the TRANSCO). At the CCLC WPZ Promotional, Anderson bristled audibly when I pointed out that ASP was on its way to LNG export--but the maps he himself presented make this clear.

Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

UPSHOT: (1) whatever money lease-holders might stand to make off the ASP, it isn't going to be because any drill sites in Columbia County are going to miraculously re-pressurize. So it just isn't lack of pipeline--at least not here--that's going to make folks rich. (2) Any notion you might have that you're doing your patriotic duty or contributing to national security is unvarnished Bull-Pucky. As I have said a gazillion times, the gas industry waves the flag for one reason, and one reason only, to sucker you into leasing your land so they can make piles of profits all the while externalizing the long-term costs to your property value loss, your polluted water, your fractured community, your ill-health, and your screwed over kids.  

Clue Two: Anderson resorts to fear-mongering and an "us against them" strategy to get his audience to circle the wagons--and lease their land.

Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

One of the public meetings Anderson attended was a meeting of Columbia County Pipeline Awareness (CCPA)--a newly formed group aimed primarily at encouraging folks along the ASP right-of-way to engage the FERC comment process. Despite his claim that "all the guest speakers were from outside Columbia County" all of the speakers at the CCPA meeting --guest or otherwise--were either local or regional--and several had farms directly on the ASP right-of-way. To claim otherwise is not only false, it's an attempt to create distrust--fear--among landowners on the ASP right-of-way by implying that these "outsiders" have some agenda other than, say, telling the truth. 

It's also notable that when Anderson and his wife were cordially asked to identify themselves and provide a reason for coming to the meeting, they did not reveal that they headed the Columbia County Landowner's Coalition, and that CCLC's stated objective is "to help land owners in their respective communities to obtain the best value and lease options for a comprehensive gas lease on their property in the Marcellus Shale and other formations," AKA: make the most money leasing their land (Columbia County Landowners Coalition). The Anderson's came to the CCPA meeting to do reconnaissance for CCLC in the interest of insuring that resistance doesn't reach the landowners.

Why else have Benton Police at the CCLC Shin-dig?

TRANSCO, Hughesville, PA. Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

What Anderson means by "fear," of course, is that these out-sider meetings include factual information that CCLC doesn't want its members to think about too much--like WPZ' record of accident and explosion. But if this was my land, I'd surely want to know stuff like this--wouldn't you?

 

1. 2008 – Natural gas explosion in Virginia [Transco] the blast ripped a 32-foot section of pipe from the ground and caused a 1,100 feet burn zone. Property damage reported to exceed $3 million. 2. 2010 – Transco Pipeline leak in Texas. Leak was not reported for 4 days. The 1/4 inch diameter leak caused a reported $57,000 in property damage. Aerial patrol did not see the leak. Found by an operator who saw some bubbles.
 3. 2010 / 2011– FINED $275 Thousand over failing to implement and/or maintain storm water measures to prevent potential pollutants during planned construction in Parachute, Colorado. State inspectors notified Williams (Bargath) in Nov. 2010 of violations and told them to take immediate action. According to report, Williams did not fix violation for 7 months. 4. 2013 (Jan) – Williams discovers leak of NGLs in Parachute plant while working on construction to expand the plant. Reports say the leak was found by ACCIDENT. Leak stopped, but Benzene, a cancer causing agent, has contaminated soil. Williams says leak not affecting creek. (March 15) – Groundwater in Parachute is contaminated with Benzene from NGL leak. Spill finally announced to public. Benzene is cancer-causing agent that breaks down bone marrow. 5. 2012 – Gas leak caused explosion at Natural Gas Compressor Station inPennsylvania. Williams restarts the station within 24 hours and started pumping fracked gas despite request from PA Dept. of Environmental Protection not to do so. DEP states they make it very clear on the above matter but because it was not an official order no fines were issued. 1 ton of Methane released.

Pipeline Rupture, Rt. 220
Sonestown, PA
Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

 6. 2013 (April) – Williams say faulty pressure gauge cause of leak in Parachute. Diesel found at gates of Parachute water supply. Benzene detected in creek. State Health Dept takes over oversight of leak. (8) (9) (May) – Benzene levels rise in Parachute, CO creek. State agency tells Williams violated it the law. (8). Williams announces it will not expand the Parachute, Co plant expansion NOT because of the NGL leak but due to low gas prices. 7. 2013 (June 13) – Williams’ Natural Gas Liquid (NGL) cracker plant that process NGLs in Louisiana. Explodes and Burns. That chemical plant was in middle of $350 million expansion. 700 contract workers were present; 2 people killed (ages 29 & 47); 70 injuries; 62,000 pounds of toxic chemical released.
 8. 2014 (May 14)A probe into safety practices at pipeline operator Williams Cos. (WMB) is being expanded after a natural gas plant fire led to the evacuation of a town in Wyoming last month, the company’s third accident in a year… In December, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Williams for six safety violations at the Geismar plant and proposed a $99,000 fine.

Does that information potentially create fear? You bet. At least if you've got any sense. But that's not rightly called "fear mongering." In Williams' case, it's called truth telling.

Upshot: just because you may not want to know the ecological and health hazards of Williams expansion of the TRANSCO doesn't mean they don't exist. Any informational meeting that does not include this is far more than remiss--it is grotesquely liable for omission.

Photo Wendy Lynne Lee

Clue Three: Anderson tells the audience that the letters they've received from Williams "contain a permission form which grants permission for survey work only." While that may be true--it is a serious misrepresentation of Williams' intentions. Once you grant them access to your land, they are going to exert all the pressure of an invading army to get you to sign a lease.

If you still refuse to do so, they're coming back as a "public utility" granted to them through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to take your land as eminent domain. If you experience any confusion about what this means--especially in light of legitimate worries borne of the nasty accident record profiled above, please go here, and scroll down to the property owner's guide to eminent domain: 

Atlantic Sunrise Project: Williams Companies, Inc. | Shale Justice

Anderson acknowledges the possibility that Williams can take your land without your permission--but hedges it. He then answers a question about whether land can be taken via forced pooling by claiming that it can't because ACT 13 was overturned!

It's hard to know where to begin to dispel this level of ignorance. But suffice this much for now:

1. ACT 13 was a state law overturned in part--not in whole, and the part that was overturned did effectively gut municipalities from being able to control drilling operations within their borders. This was patently unconstitutional, reflected the corruption of the Corbett administration, and was rightly shot down.

2. Act 13 never addressed forced pooling. Period. End of story.

3. The ACT 13 decision  is irrelevant at least to the extent that ASP crosses not only municipality boundaries--but state boundaries--and hence state law would have had virtually no say about ASP in any case. This will be reinforced if FERC grants Williams the status of a public utility. All the Act 13s in the world weren't going to keep Williams from appealing to eminent domain to get right-of-way on your land.

4. By allowing Universal Field Services to survey, you're helping Williams plan and execute a 42 inch natural gas pipeline--including its compressors, dehydrators, and LNG export to the highest bidder. 

Upshot: don't waste your time thinking that a little bitty survey isn't an agreement with Williams. It is. Once that flagging is up, once Williams is settled on their route, they are going to build that pipeline, and if they have to use eminent domain to do it, be prepared.

  
The moral of my story  is simple: there are lots of "Andersons," and whether they're on the payroll of the gas companies or not, their aim is to deliver you to the landman. Meetings that advertise themselves as informational--but omit critical data about property rights, potential for accident, the refusal of insurance companies to insure you if you have a gas lease (See Erie's above) do you a serious disservice.

Could be your land. Picture Rocks, PA. Photo Wendy Lynne lee

Starting with the survey "request," tell the landman no. Tell him to leave. Then make a copy of this, and go talk to your neighbor. FERC is entirely useless, but when enough folks on the right-of-way say no, stick to their guns, and act like a community, Williams just might get the message.

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