Fracking’s International Politics

While we struggle to understand the health and environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing here in the U.S., the financial implications of the decisions made about the process reach around the globe. Electricity in Japan is expensive as Japan’s nuclear power industry is struggling to bring its nuclear reactors to a standard level of safety, http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201302240052   while others are maneuvering into position to export “cheap” natural gas,  http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/T130224003880.htm

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Sandra Steingraber is a Heroine of Mine

Biologist, ecologist, poet, author. Sandra Steingraber “explores the links between human rights and the environment.”

 

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BIG HEADLINES ~ Big Questions Follow :

                               FRACKING HEALTH STUDY ANNOUNCED IN PA

A Fine Idea!

One common type of post-hydraulic fracturing dispute between landowners and gas companies occurs over the landowners’ conviction that the “fracking” ruined the quality of their water, and, because baseline data documenting the quality of the water before fracking occurred was not obtained, the landowners are at a disadvantage to prove their point. Sometimes gas companies do pre-test the water, but the results are not made public.

Gov. Mead of Wyoming is considering making water quality testing prior to hydraulic fracturing mandatory, and this article suggests that there also be requirements that the data obtained be made public on an easily-accessed web site. A fine idea!

http://trib.com/opinion/editorial/wyoming-can-lead-by-example/article_c68f3b67-7d71-5053-8364-aafde6ae385b.html

 

Why Do Natural Gas Companies Need “Gag Rules”?

“Gag” rules, quietly placed in government legislation, and in agreements citizens have with gas companies when their water becomes polluted, that prevent physicians and the citizens affected from talking about the health effects resulting from hydraulic fracturing, are wrong!

Five Things Your Doctor Should Tell You, But Won’t

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/02/5-things-your-doctor-should-tell-you

Silicosis on the Rise as a Fracking Side Effect

Silicosis is a serious lung disease caused by the inhalation of silica dust (think “sand”), and is one of the dangerous health threats affecting not only fracking site workers, but school children and communities near fracking sites, as sand is part of the fracking fluid pumped deep underground to prop open cracks in the shale made to release the natural gas.

HAZARD ALERT – Worker Exposure to Silica during Hydraulic Fracturing
http://www.osha.gov/dts/hazardalerts/hydraulic_frac_hazard_alert.html

 

WATER=LIFE

Allowing water in such vast quantities to be polluted beyond redemption by fracking is profoundly lacking in foresight. We need to demand immediate changes.

WATER = LIFE
http://www.westernresourceadvocates.org/frackwater/