PENNSYLVANIA used to be a Commonwealth ( : a nation, state, or other political unit: as
a : one founded on law and united by compact or tacit agreement of the people for the common good
b : one in which supreme authority is vested in the people) but no more. Decades of control of the legislature by corporations and the rich who have bought the loyalty of the majority of the politicians in Harrisburg has destroyed the education system, workers rights and protections, the environment, the health care system and the Commonwealth's infrastructure to the point while people were once proud to be citizens of Pennsylvania now it seems they leave as soon as they can. It is a sad state of affairs when the governing of the Commonwealth has become an act of political hypocrisy as nothing seems to be accomplished in Harrisburg that is for the common good of the people of Pennsylvania. The current governor, tom corbett r tb, has willing practiced this hypocrisy during his political career, as Commonwealth Attorney investigating Penn State child molesters to passage of the discriminatory voter I.D. law (struck down by the courts) to waging war on a woman's right of choice
and now this report of a coverup through denial of knowledge of citizens illnesses due to fracking. But it must be pointed out, the citizens of what was the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania share the blame for this decay and degradation because they elected these fools or were so lazy and ignorant they didn't bother to vote. From +Think Progress & +NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) .....
The
Pennsylvania has had more than 6,000 hydraulic fracturing wells drilled within the last six years, and zero state studies on their health impacts. In Pennsylvania, and near fracking operations across the country, people have won settlements from fossil fuel companies after being sickened. In many cases the drilling company imposes a gag order to prevent sickened people from spreading the word about what caused their illness and building the case that fracking has negative health effects.
In 2011 Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission recommended a registry to collect health data from people living near fracking operations. Three years later, it still doesn’t exist. Across the country in Colorado, legislators tried to commission a study on the health effects of living near drilling, but fossil fuel advocates ensured its demise. Doctors want more data on health effects of fracking, but the interests of the drillers usually win out.
A Texas case where a family was sickened by toxic emissions from gas and oil drilling operations shows why so many families accept a settlement even with a restrictive gag order. The Parrs filed suit against Aruba Petroleum in March 2011, saying they were “under constant, perpetual, and inescapable assault of Defendants’ releases, spills, emissions, and discharges of hazardous gases, chemicals, and industrial/hazardous wastes.” A jury awarded the Parrs $2.9 million, but even after a judge upheld the jury’s verdict this Thursday, Aruba is expected to appeal and drag the case out longer. If it stands, it will be one of the first-ever cases in the U.S. where a drilling company was successfully sued for sickening people.
When the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality sent an inspector to look into the Parrs’ case and collect air samples, he was sickened as well. The Texas Attorney General’s office sued, and Aruba ended up settling for $108,000.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health’s hostility to examining the health effects of fracking is just the latest development in a series of policies and laws that make it easier to make money from fracking — at the expense of public health. For instance, a Pennsylvania law makes it illegal for doctors to tell their patients which fracking chemicals are poisoning them, to protect the secret blends they inject into the earth. Drillers like it because they assert it helps them compete against one another. But it also makes it very difficult for residents to build the case for the health effects of a particular chemical, or even the health effects of fracking generally.
As Pennsylvania State Senator Daylin Leach (D) told Mother Jones in March of last year, “The importance of keeping it as a proprietary secret seems minimal when compared to letting the public know what chemicals they and their children are being exposed to.”
RISKY GAS DRILLING THREATENS HEALTH, WATER SUPPLIES
Drilling
of the Marcellus Shale has already begun in nearby Dimock Township,
Pennsylvania, and so have the first reports of dangerous spills. In
September 2009, three spills of hydraulic fracturing fluid totaling more
than 8,000 gallons polluted local wetlands and a creek, causing a fish
kill.
photo: © J Henry Fair Photography
The oil and gas industry is seeking to expand natural gas production
across the nation, as new technology makes it easier to extract gas from
previously inaccessible sites. Over the last decade, the industry has
drilled thousands of new wells in the Rocky Mountain region and in the
South. It is expanding operations in the eastern United States as well,
setting its sights most recently on a 600-mile-long rock formation
called the Marcellus Shale, which stretches from West Virginia to
western New York.
Nearly all natural gas extraction today involves a technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which dangerous chemicals are mixed with large quantities of water and sand and injected into wells at extremely high pressure. Fracking is a suspect in polluted drinking water in Arkansas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming, where residents have reported changes in water quality or quantity following fracturing operations.
NRDC opposes expanded fracking until effective safeguards are in place.
Natural gas producers have been running roughshod over communities across the country with their extraction and production activities for too long, resulting in contaminated water supplies, dangerous air pollution, destroyed streams, and devastated landscapes. Weak safeguards and inadequate oversight fail to protect our communities from harm by the rapid expansion of fossil fuel production using hydraulic fracturing or "fracking."
Americans shouldn't have to accept unsafe drinking water just because natural gas burns more cleanly than coal. Many companies don't play by the rules that do exist and the industry has used its political power to escape accountability for its actions, leaving the American people unprotected. And no industry can claim to be part of the solution if it supports exemptions from basic laws designed to ensure that we have clean water, clean air, and the ability to make our voices heard.
NRDC works to build a healthier energy future -- one that is centered on clean, safe, renewable sources of power, used efficiently. Energy efficiency and renewable energy must be our country's top energy priorities because they are the quickest, cleanest and cheapest solutions to global warming and other pollution problems.
We also support strong safeguards for production of all energy sources to minimize risks to our health. Since natural gas burns more cleanly than other fossil fuels, it can contribute to protecting public health when it is used to displace dirtier fuels like coal.
NRDC supports establishing a fully effective system of safeguards for hydraulic fracturing to protect our health and land and is committed to working with the federal government, states, communities and industry to put these safeguards into place right away.
These safeguards include:
and now this report of a coverup through denial of knowledge of citizens illnesses due to fracking. But it must be pointed out, the citizens of what was the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania share the blame for this decay and degradation because they elected these fools or were so lazy and ignorant they didn't bother to vote. From +Think Progress & +NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) .....
Pennsylvania has had more than 6,000 hydraulic fracturing wells drilled within the last six years, and zero state studies on their health impacts. In Pennsylvania, and near fracking operations across the country, people have won settlements from fossil fuel companies after being sickened. In many cases the drilling company imposes a gag order to prevent sickened people from spreading the word about what caused their illness and building the case that fracking has negative health effects.
In 2011 Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission recommended a registry to collect health data from people living near fracking operations. Three years later, it still doesn’t exist. Across the country in Colorado, legislators tried to commission a study on the health effects of living near drilling, but fossil fuel advocates ensured its demise. Doctors want more data on health effects of fracking, but the interests of the drillers usually win out.
A Texas case where a family was sickened by toxic emissions from gas and oil drilling operations shows why so many families accept a settlement even with a restrictive gag order. The Parrs filed suit against Aruba Petroleum in March 2011, saying they were “under constant, perpetual, and inescapable assault of Defendants’ releases, spills, emissions, and discharges of hazardous gases, chemicals, and industrial/hazardous wastes.” A jury awarded the Parrs $2.9 million, but even after a judge upheld the jury’s verdict this Thursday, Aruba is expected to appeal and drag the case out longer. If it stands, it will be one of the first-ever cases in the U.S. where a drilling company was successfully sued for sickening people.
When the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality sent an inspector to look into the Parrs’ case and collect air samples, he was sickened as well. The Texas Attorney General’s office sued, and Aruba ended up settling for $108,000.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health’s hostility to examining the health effects of fracking is just the latest development in a series of policies and laws that make it easier to make money from fracking — at the expense of public health. For instance, a Pennsylvania law makes it illegal for doctors to tell their patients which fracking chemicals are poisoning them, to protect the secret blends they inject into the earth. Drillers like it because they assert it helps them compete against one another. But it also makes it very difficult for residents to build the case for the health effects of a particular chemical, or even the health effects of fracking generally.
As Pennsylvania State Senator Daylin Leach (D) told Mother Jones in March of last year, “The importance of keeping it as a proprietary secret seems minimal when compared to letting the public know what chemicals they and their children are being exposed to.”
NRDC's staff blog
- Pennsylvania ignoring fracking health reports
- posted by Amy Mall, 6/20/14
- Another deeply troubling story about the failure of our government leaders to protect Americans from ...
- NYS Senate Must Enact Three-Year Moratorium on Fracking Now
- posted by Kate Sinding, 6/17/14
- The mad end-of-session rush in Albany is upon us, the time of year for frenetic horse-trading and multiple ...
- New report: BLM using outdated rules and not inspecting priority wells
- posted by Amy Mall, 6/13/14
- The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report in May on BLM's oversight of oil and gas ...
- What Kind of "Impact" Has Cabot Oil and Gas Had on Pennsylvania?
- posted by Daniel Raichel, 6/9/14
- Just about a week ago, Cabot Oil and Gas Corporation, the company associated with widespread methane ...
- Leaky Oil and Gas Wells Threaten the Environment and Public Health and Safety
- posted by Briana Mordick, 6/5/14
- A new report from researchers at the University of Waterloo in Canada highlights a serious problem for ...
Related NRDC Webpages:
RISKY GAS DRILLING THREATENS HEALTH, WATER SUPPLIES
The rapid expansion of natural gas drilling across the nation endangers human health and the environment.
Drilling
of the Marcellus Shale has already begun in nearby Dimock Township,
Pennsylvania, and so have the first reports of dangerous spills. In
September 2009, three spills of hydraulic fracturing fluid totaling more
than 8,000 gallons polluted local wetlands and a creek, causing a fish
kill. photo: © J Henry Fair Photography
Nearly all natural gas extraction today involves a technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which dangerous chemicals are mixed with large quantities of water and sand and injected into wells at extremely high pressure. Fracking is a suspect in polluted drinking water in Arkansas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming, where residents have reported changes in water quality or quantity following fracturing operations.
NRDC opposes expanded fracking until effective safeguards are in place.
Natural gas producers have been running roughshod over communities across the country with their extraction and production activities for too long, resulting in contaminated water supplies, dangerous air pollution, destroyed streams, and devastated landscapes. Weak safeguards and inadequate oversight fail to protect our communities from harm by the rapid expansion of fossil fuel production using hydraulic fracturing or "fracking."
Americans shouldn't have to accept unsafe drinking water just because natural gas burns more cleanly than coal. Many companies don't play by the rules that do exist and the industry has used its political power to escape accountability for its actions, leaving the American people unprotected. And no industry can claim to be part of the solution if it supports exemptions from basic laws designed to ensure that we have clean water, clean air, and the ability to make our voices heard.
NRDC works to build a healthier energy future -- one that is centered on clean, safe, renewable sources of power, used efficiently. Energy efficiency and renewable energy must be our country's top energy priorities because they are the quickest, cleanest and cheapest solutions to global warming and other pollution problems.
We also support strong safeguards for production of all energy sources to minimize risks to our health. Since natural gas burns more cleanly than other fossil fuels, it can contribute to protecting public health when it is used to displace dirtier fuels like coal.
NRDC supports establishing a fully effective system of safeguards for hydraulic fracturing to protect our health and land and is committed to working with the federal government, states, communities and industry to put these safeguards into place right away.
These safeguards include:
- Putting the most sensitive lands, including critical watersheds, completely off limits to fracking;
- Not allowing leaky systems by setting clean air standards that ensure methane leaks are well under one percent of production to reduce global warming pollution, and requiring green completions and other techniques to reduce air pollution;
- Mandating sound well drilling and construction standards by requiring the strongest well siting, casing and cementing and other drilling best practices;
- Protecting the landscape, air, and water from pollution by closing Clean Air, Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water loopholes, reducing toxic waste, and holding toxic oil and gas waste to the same standards as other types of hazardous waste, funding robust inspection and enforcement programs, and disclosing fully all chemicals;
- Using gas to replace dirtier fossil fuels like coal by prioritizing renewables and efficiency, implementing recently established mercury, sulfur and other clean air standards, and setting strong power plant carbon pollution standards; and
- Allowing communities to protect themselves and their future by restricting fracking through comprehensive zoning and planning.
