Hydrofracking Summits: Two this week

A summary of the two hydrofracking summits I attended this week; one in Albany and one at Finger Lakes Community College.

So I have to admit, I didn't know a whole bunch about hydrofracking until I attended a summit in Albany last Sunday, and then a summit at Finger Lakes Community College this Friday, about hydrofracking. Both summits where very well attended, although I was a bit suprised and I have to say, a little bit disappointed that both where primarily attended by people who appeared to be older, and probably middle-class and well educated. This appears to be an issue which does not concern or perhaps interest twenty-somethings, although I could be wrong about that.

Hydrofracking is summed up very well in Gasland, the documentary made by Josh Fox which was shown at the second summit I attended, so perhaps I don't need to sum it up again, but for those who don't know; this is what hydrofracking is, in a nutshell. Hydrofracking is a fairly new way to drill for natural gas, the so-called "green" energy. Although the old methods of getting natural gas seem to be fairly benigh, hydrofracking is a frightening way to get small amounts of natural gas, and proves to me that we are truely desperate for energy these days. It starts when a borehole is drilled somewhere between 5,000 to 20,000 feet down, into the bedrock where heavy metals lie. Heavy metals like lead and mercury, which are never suppost to be brought to the surface of the Earth. Then, the drill is turned 90 degrees, sideways, and they drill farther into the bedrock. Then, typically they will cause explostions to happen underground, in order to break into the bedrock even more. As if this wasn't enough, they blast water under high pressure, mixed with all sorts of toxic chemicals, which are also suppost to help break down the bedrock, into the holes they've created. About half of this water will seep back to the surface, containing the chemicals which where purposefully added to the water to break up the rock, as well as the heavy metals it has now accumulated. And what happens to the rest of the water, the water that disappears underground? Well, according to the companies that participate in hydrofracking, it is "contained" and does not pollute groundwater, but as anyone with a shred of common sense knows, water that doesn't seep back up must end up in the watertable, which means people's wells, drinking water, rivers and streams are all being polluted.

Here's the kicker; while Bush was in office, he helped create what is known as the Halliburton loophole. (Halliburton is perhaps best known for creating weapons, but they are also heavily involved in hydrofracking. Oh, and Cheney is heavily invested in them.) Apparently, what the loophole says, is that Halliburton and other companies involved in hydrofracking are not responsible for any contamination that occurs during fracking. This was justified at the time as a way to get "green" energy, and to "create jobs."

So fracking got underway in a very large way in states like Colorado, Texas and PA. The filmmaker who created Gasland, Josh Fox, lived in Pennsysvinia, close to a town called Demic, where he's been hearing rumors of people getting really sick after hydrofracking started near them. He gets out his video camera and goes to investigate. What he found, I think is truely shocking and disturbing. Near where fracking has occured, in all the states visted in Gasland, people have unexplanable illnesses soon after the hydrofracking starts, and not just minor illnesses either. People develop nervous system disorders, brain lesions, migranes, asthma, have their doctors acuse their partners of poisoning them (because, in reality, they are being poisoned, but not by their partners,) and so forth. Animals, both wild and domestic, are getting really sick too. In some places, large quantities of fish are dying off, birds, rabbits and other animals are dying in droves. Domestic pets get mysterious ailments and lose their hair. People begin to discover that they can set their tapwater on fire. When people start getting their water tested, they find, in many cases, that it is unfit to drink. In some cases, the gas companies do supply people with water, but only after they've become really sick and even then, the gas companies won't admit that they are to blame. Because many people signed contracts with the gas company stating that the gas company is not responible for what happens to the environment around the drill sights, they feel like they have nowhere to turn, once they do develop cancer or brain lesions. And the people whose land the gas companies most often drill on, tend to be poor, rural folks, who need the royalties they are being offered very badly, and who may not be well educated enough to always understand what they are agreeing to.

One woman, at the summit at FLCC, brought up a good point, that this was as much a struggle of class, as it was an environmental struggle. She said that poor people feel desperate, and are therefore preyed upon by the gas companies. She said the gas companies are counting on people being divided down class lines in this struggle. She may be right. Certainly many people interviewed in Gasland where the types of folks who live rurally because they crave peace and quiet, so they perhaps have a hard time speaking up for themselves when things like this do begin to happen. They tended to be poor, farmer/rancher types, who said the royalties had often saved the family farm, but at what cost? Can we really afford to give up clean water in order to save our family's farm? Are we willing to give up our health, and the health of our loved ones (not to mention the environment as a whole,) in order to recieve royalities?

So far, the beautiful state of New York has managed to keep hydrofracking out (with the exception of some toxic waste water, which has been brought here to be dumped in our landfills,) but for how long? When more then half of the states in our nation experience some degree of hydrofracking, and all of them certainly suffer some of the consiquences, and when we, the people, are up against major corporations with their major lobbying dollars, can we continue to have our safe, clean(ish) water for our future generations? Or will we be foolish, and trade it all away for a few dollars? Let us band together and fight hydrofracking as a united team, for the sake of our lives and our health.