Chris Hedges: ‘Clean’ Energy and Poisoned Water

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



‘Clean’ Energy and Poisoned Water
Posted on May 25, 2009

By Chris Hedges


In the musical “Urinetown,” a severe drought leaves the dwindling supplies of clean water in the hands of a corporation called Urine Good Company. Urine Good Company makes a fortune selling the precious commodity and running public toilets. It pays off politicians to ward off regulation and inspection. It uses the mechanisms of state control to repress an increasingly desperate and impoverished population.

The musical satire may turn out to be a prescient vision of the future. Corporations in Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and upstate New York have launched a massive program to extract natural gas through a process that could, if it goes wrong, degrade the Delaware River watershed and the fresh water supplies that feed upstate communities, the metropolitan cities of New York, Philadelphia, Camden and Trenton, and many others on its way to the Chesapeake Bay.

“The potential environmental consequences are extreme,” says Fritz Mayer, editor of The River Reporter in Narrowsburg, N.Y. His paper has been following the drilling in the Upper Delaware River Valley and he told me, “It could ruin the drinking supply for 8 million people in New York City.”

Trillions of cubic feet of natural gas are locked under the Marcellus Shale that runs from West Virginia, through Ohio, across most of Pennsylvania and into the Southern Tier of New York state. There are other, small plates of shale, in the south and west of the United States. It takes an estimated 3 million to 5 million gallons of water per well to drill down to the natural gas in a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The water is mixed with resin-coated sand and a cocktail of hazardous chemicals, including hydrochloric acid, nitrogen, biocides, surfactants, friction reducers and benzene to facilitate the fracturing of the shale to extract the gas. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090525_clean_energy_and_poisoned_water/

[Wednesdays]

1. K&R

:kick:

[CrispyQ]

2. The corporate behemoths will take us all down.

snip...

The natural gas companies, not surprisingly, insist that the millions of gallons of poisoned water left underground or collected in huge open pits pose no threat to watersheds. Let us hope they are right. The truth is, no one knows. And these corporations, in a move that suggests the drilling may not be as benign as they contend, had their lobbyists ensure that the natural gas industry was exempted by Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 from complying with the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, which is designed to regulate groundwater.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a congressional hearing on Tuesday that the agency would consider revisiting its official position that this drilling technique does not harm groundwater. A 2004 study conducted by the EPA under the Bush administration concluded that hydraulic fracturing causes “no threat” to underground drinking water. The study was used to support the provision in the 2005 energy bill that exempted hydraulic fracturing from federal regulation.

We do not know, because there is no federal oversight, the exact formula of the chemicals added to the water. We do not know, because the industry has been greenlighted through state regulatory agencies, what the millions of gallons of poison underground will do to our drinking water. We are told to trust the natural gas industry, as we were told to trust Wall Street. And if our drinking water becomes contaminated, then expect corporations to profit from the desperation.

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The movie "The Corporation" has a segment about the Boliva/Bechtel water story. I'll be most Americans aren't even aware of it.

k&r

[DCKit]

3. More on Bechtel in Bolivia in "Flow: For Love of Water"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1149583/

Many other national and international water issues are covered as well, but the gist is that the polluters are getting a free ride while huge multi-national corporations are buying or simply taking over (with government help) the water supplies of hundreds of millions of people. Why should we get water for free when they can find a way to make us pay for it?

As for the claim that this extraction method won't cause harm, well the hundreds of people in upstate NY whose well water is now poisoned and/or flammable (yes, actually flammable) might have something to say about that.

[CrispyQ]

5. Flammable water - unfuckingbelievable.

But I do believe it. I'm surprised that people believe any claims government or corporations make anymore. They lie & lie & lie. They will tell us anything to protect their profits.

In "The Corporation" I remember the scene of angry Bolivians protesting in the streets & chanting "The people, united, cannot be defeated." It was inspiring to see a human community take on a corporate behemoth & win, especially on an issue so vital.

Interesting you should mention "Flow." I was looking through the documentaries at Netflix & added it to my queue a few weeks ago. I will be getting it tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. BENZENE ?? How can that even be legal ??

Benzene is a known liver carcinogen, and has been phased out of use in almost every application.