FRACKING BRITISH COLUMBIA DEATH
BY
A
THOUSAND
FRACKS
(Updated: July 9, 2014)
People with their Own Ideas are Cracking the Minds of the Frackers! NoFracking Way (Rock Music Video) – Leo Sayer – Australia – Call to Arms – In Support of Lock the Gate Alliance FREE DENTON ! FRACK-FREE DENTON (Texas) A MUST WATCH VIDEO! YouTube - Denton's Stand Against Fracking (Published on July 23, 2014) MAKE THE WORLD, FRACK FREE (P.S. - Are You Listening, Christie???) Harper Government Enabling the Frac Harm Cover Up? Environment Canada Criticized for Leaving Fracking Chemicals Off Pollutant List, Saying Not Enough Frac Chemicals Used - 362,000 Litres of Diesel Invert Lost Underground Near Alberta (Ernst Versus Encana Website Link: CBM & Frac News) Released on July 9, 2014 YouTube Video (72 minutes) Jessica Ernst Presentation, March 25, 2014, at the University of Lethbridge In BAD Faith: "These People Will Get Nowhere" February 24, 2014 - Big Lies Public Poster (46.7 inches wide, 66.7 inches high, 72 dpi, jpeg file, 1.1 megabytes) For higher resolution BIG LIES posters: (28 inches wide, 40 inches high, 300 dpi, jpeg files) Big Lies (6.6 Megabytes) Big Lies (13.9 Megabytes) February 20, 2014 - Environment America News Release 1,000 (+) Health Professionals Call on President Obama to Act on Fracking Februrary 1, 2014 - Talk of the Town: Christy Clark's TERRIFYING Math (by David Broadland, Focus Online magazine) January 27, 2014 - Press Conference, Vancouver Yukon First Nations & NGOs Announce Lawsuit Against Yukon Government Over Peel River Watershed Land Use Plan (YouTube - 50 Minutes) Presentation - Whitehorse - January 15, 2014 Don't Frack the Yukon Tour 64 minutes - YouTube Video January 23, 2014 - Media Release CAPP CONTINUES TO LIE - NOW TO YUKONERS (YouTube - Yukon Chamber of Commerce - Jan.15, 2015 - CAPP Presentation) NEW REPORT - January 18, 2014 BC LNG - A REALITY CHECK By Dave Hughes (Pdf - 1.8 Megabytes) (The BIG SCOOP on BC's LNG Poop !) Dave Hughes Report on LNG was publicized first through the Watershed Sentinel. Yukon Tour Info - January 13 - 18, 2014 New Report - December 11, 2013 Frack-Math Confidential: Cracking Open the Big Mystery on Water Volume Use in British Columbia's Multi Fracking Operations (Pdf file: 14.8 Megabytes ) November 27, 2013 The Tip of BC's Fracking Iceberg: Frac-Focus Toxic Chemical Data, Water Volumes, Fracking Locations, and Operators in the Altares Gas Field, North of Hudson's Hope, BC, Near and Within the Farrell Creek Watershed Area (pdf - 5.6 megabytes - A new informative and interactive tool designed to examine chemical data and fracking operations) - Main Reference Map (10 megabytes) November 18, 2013 -Talisman Frackwater Pit Leaked for Months, Kept from the Public (Published in Common Sense Canadian) The Contradiction of Fracking as Public Water Stewardship in BC's Laws and Proposed Water Sustainability Act (November 15, 2013 - Submission to Proposed Water Sustainability Act) LIPG (Lochend Industry Producers Group) Fails to Reveal the Fine Print! Link Here for the pdf explanatory document For Your Daily Dose of
Big Oil Propaganda, take one pill a
day!
(Free pills supplied by Encana, Alberta Energy Regulator, and CAPP) For a history of Synergy in Canada, this link. October 9, 2013 - Press Release Chief Justice Rejects Alberta Government's Attack on Rosebud Water Contamination Case - But Dismisses Case Against Alberta's key Energy Regulator, the ERCB * Andrew Nikiforuk's article in the Tyee -Alberta Energy Regulator Given Immunity in Landmark Fracking Suit September 15, 2013 Is There a Media Blackout on the Fracking Flood Disaster in Colorado??? (Blue Daze Drilling Reform blog had over 300,000 visits by the end of September 17th on this blog!) Common Sense Canadian - Colorado Flood Raises Fears September 11, 2013 - Press Release Dubious Track Record in BC Legislature - BC Liberals Trash Public Accountability for Fracking / LNG Agenda (pdf - 1.34 Mb) * BC Legislature Standing Days Graph (1976-2013) * BC Liberals Hold Worst Legislature Attendance Record - by Damien Gillis (Common Sense Canadian website) September 10, 2013 Open Letter to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers from B.C. Tap Water Alliance Quote from the letter: “I respectfully request that the
Association apologize, in writing, to all Canadians for falsely stating
that there has never been a documented/proven case of hydraulic
fracturing contaminating groundwater.”
September
5,
2013
Valhalla Wilderness Society Press Release * Heartland of the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary Threatened by Proposed Prince Rupert Gas LNG Route (pdf) * Map of Khutzeymateen Sanctuary with Proposed Pipeline * TransCanada Pipeline LNG Pipeline Corridor Map September 3, 2013 Open Letter to 15 BC First Nations Participating in the LNG Pipeline Agreement(s) Sharing LNG Fracking Riches Means Sharing Fracking Shame: Ecological and Political Crossroads Crisis in British Columbia / Western Canada (pdf) Media Release - August 30, 2013 B.C. Energy Mnister's Public Response Plan for BC Hydro's Future Planning Report “Deficient and Unreasonable,” Claims Alliance (Note: The BC Hydro Integrated Resource Plan Report contains proposals to provide significant electrical power for Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) plant proposals in BC, directives established through new BC Liberal government fracking/LNG policy: i.e., see Chapter 2 and Appendix 2A of the report) Fracking Industry hits Northwest Territories with Trade Secrets (August 13, 2013 Northern Journal article) London, Ontario 1290 AM Radio Interview (August 12, 2013) with Jessica Ernst Ernst: “I think the division of community is the most horrible” consequence of fracking! http://www.ernstversusencana.ca/andy-oudman-1290-am-cjbk-london-ontario-and-pam-killeen-health-and-wellness-coach-interview-jessica-ernst PRESS RELEASE - July
12, 2013
The Big Squeeze: North American Regulator and Protective Agency Close Controversial Groundwater Contamination Cases New June 2013 Duke University
Study report -
Increased Stray Gas Abundance in a Subset of Drinking Water Wells near Marcellus Shale Gas Extraction PRESS
RELEASE - June 16, 2013
Contamination of North America's Groundwater from Fracking (Hydraulic Fracturing) Revealed in a New Case History Catalogue (English and French Translation) For website links to Jessica Ernst's document: Landmark
Alberta
Fracking
Lawsuit
(Jessica Ernst) Court Hearing - Calgary, Alberta, on January 18, 2013 - Press Release http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/landmark-alberta-fracking-lawsuit-resumes-calgary-court-klippensteins-barristers-solicitors-1747008.htm Ernst Versus Encana Corporation - Lawsuit Documents (English and French) http://www.ernstversusencana.ca/the-lawsuit Andrew Nikiforuk's January 16, 2013 article in the Tyee - How Alberta Will Fight Fracking Hero Jessica Ernst HO HO HELL - MERRY FRACKMESS CANADA
http://www.frackingcanada.ca/how-the-west-was-lost/ Link to Fracking Canada's new page, HOW THE WEST WAS LOST! November
30,
2012
-
FRACK
POKER
(The Biggest Gambling Game in Canada) CAPP's Big Poker Bluff (One of the top ten quotes of the Frack Era from CAPP's nervous David Pryce on CBC Television on link below): http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/story/2012/11/30/calgary-hydraulic-fracking-oil-cochrane-guidelines.html We've hydraulicly fracked about 175,000 wells in Western Canada without any problems !!! There
is
plenty
of
water
(for
fracking).
It's
just
not
in
all
the
right
places. It's not that (we) have a water resource problem; we have a
water distribution problem.
(Quote from Exxon ceo Rex
Tillerson on June 27, 2012, at a presentation sponsored by the Council
on Foreign Relations), from:
www.cfr.org/energy/new-north-american-energy-paradigm-reshaping-future/p28627 (2011 photo of Rex Tillerson, by Jeff Malet) November 29, 2012 - Frack Sand Mining
Pit
(5 kilometres wide, 200
metres deep)
Proposal by Stikine Gold Mining Corp., story by Desmog Blog http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/29/mining-corporation-looks-bc-frac-sand-open-pit-mine Should
Fracking Be Allowed in British Columbia?
It appears that fracking is impossible to safely regulate A Response to the November 15, 2012 report, From Stream to Steam: Emerging Challenges for BC's Interlinked Water and Energy Resources (pdf file) NO DUTY
OF CARE
http://www.frackingcanada.ca/no-duty-of-care/ Fracking Canada examines the tragic state of Alberta's collective Petro Fracking Sins on its Citizenry and Natural Environment (a portent of things to unfold in British Columbia???) UNIST'OT'EN CAMP
Website
http://unistotencamp.wordpress.com/ A resistance community on Wet'suwet'en (First Nation) territory, situated on the Pacific Trail Pipeline (PTP) deep shale gas right-of-way, and other proposed gas and oil right-of-ways, located south of Smithers and Moricetown, British Columbia. (See also: our Pacific Trail Pipeline Chronology (pdf) report; and our (pdf) Final Argument to the National Energy Board of Canada) National Canadian
Petition against the Canada/China Foreign Investment Promotion and
Protection Act agreement (posted on AVAAZ.org)
http://www.avaaz.org/en/one_man_is_selling_out_our_democracy/?tLHAYab (Related: New Report from the
Corporate Europe Observatory and the Transnational Institute - Profiting From
Injustice: How Law Firms, Arbitrators and Financiers are Fuelling an
Investment Arbitration Boom
http://corporateeurope.org/publications/profiting-from-injustice ; and The Tyee article, November 30, 2012, Investment Treaties like FIPA Spin Huge Profits for Lawyers,http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/11/30/FIPA-Profits-For-Lawyers/ by Jamie Biggar and Emma Pullman) FORT
NELSON FIRST NATION
Press Conference and Community Presentation in Vancouver, November 13, 2012 YouTube Videos and Information Page Press Release -
November 13, 2012 -
by the Alberta Surface Water Rights Group First Shot in the War Against Bill 2 KEEPERS OF THE WATER VI -
YOU-TUBE VIDEOS (Sixth conference of the Keepers, held in Fort Nelson, British Columbia, September 26-29, 2012) * CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS (42 minutes) * Wade Davis (70 minutes) * Ben Parfitt (16 minutes) * Gilles Wendling (63 minutes) BRITISH COLUMBIA OIL
TIMELINE
History of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain Pipeline and the Federal Offshore Oil Moratorium - July 2006 report presentations to the National Energy Board by the B.C. Tap Water Alliance Main Report (pdf, 31 pages) Appendix A - Oil Timeline (pdf, 80 pages) NEW REPORT -
January 23, 2012
FRACK EU: UNCONVENTIONAL INTRIGUE IN POLAND (Click Here to Go To Report Page) Regulations and Mitigations will never
make fracking safe!
(Quote from the Executive Summary) According to Will Koop, coordinator of the B.C. Tap Water Alliance, the shale (gas) issue (in northeastern British Columbia) is one that presents “a deep set of problems for the future, both environmentally and politically”. (Georgia Straight newspaper, December 29, 2010) FOR BRITISH
COLUMBIA INFORMATION,
CLICK ON THE UPPER RIGHT LINK, BRITISH COLUMBIA FRACKING INFORMATION CENTER. NEW - FOR ALBERTA INFORMATION CLICK UPPER RIGHT LINK (POWERS WORKSHOP) FOR QUEBEC INFORMATION CLICK ON UPPER RIGHT LINK FOR SOUTH AFRICA INFORMATION
CLICK ON UPPER RIGHT LINK NEW CANADIAN
WEBSITE:
http:www.frackingcanada.ca Jessica
Ernst
-
Truth &
Consequences of Fracking
May
21,
2012
-
Elmira,
New
York
State - first speaking date of a
four-day speaking tour, May 21-24. (For background information on
leaking well-bores and gas migration, with contributions by Jessica
Ernst, Anthony Ingraffea, and other researchers, see chapter 14 of our Frack EU report, above, and chapter 10,
Harper's Men in Poland, and chapter 12, Operation Synergy, for
background information on Alberta.) Here's the link to the
Shaleshockmedia website which features Ernst's presentation:
January
4,
2012
Alberta Surfac Rights Group Press Release English - Hydraulic Fracturing: Alberta's Water in Peril French - La Fracturation hydraulique: l'eau de l'Alberta en péril Two Banner photos location (on an ASRG trailer located 2 miles south of Trochu, Alberta, on Highway 21) December
28,
2011: The
Campbell's
contaminated
water case - Ponoka, Alberta (Information Page with articles and descriptive links) PRESS RELEASE -
November 9, 2011
Scientist Slams Mother Goose Energy Board and Clark Government in Shale Gas LNG Export Approval - Related
- November 10, 2011 -
Andrew Nikiforuk's compelling article in The Tyee Natural Gas Exports Threaten Energy Security Says Expert Global TV's program 16:9 - UNTESTED
SCIENCE
November 5, 2011 Television Link no longer working (Why Not???) Here it is - in two parts Part One - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXChH1xw4Rk Part Two - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKm-gKj4sho PRESS RELEASE -
September 6, 2011
Western Canadian Energy Ministries "Collaborate" in Secret with Influential Petroleum Cartel on Development of Controversial Fracking Policies (Download 33-page Press Release Backgrounder here) What
Fresh
Hell
is
This?
-
Fracking
Alberta
September 10, 2011 Public workshop, hosted by POWERS
(Protecting Our Water and Ecological Resources Society) beld in Cochrane, Alberta, featuring two speakers, Jessica Ernst and Andrew Nikiforuk on hydraulic fracturing (fracking). See POWERS website, www.powersalberta.ca Powers Conference You Tubes Click here for workshop descripton and information on You Tube video presentations 1. Workshop Introduction (featuring Corb Lund's music video of This is My Prairie) 2. Mike Bruised Head (Fracking and Arrests on Blood Tribe Reserve, southern Alberta)
NEW YORK TIMES - FEATURE ARTICLES
ON NATURAL GAS INDUSTRY (compiled into a sinble pdf) June 25-2011 - Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush June 26, 2011 - Behind Veneer, Doubt on Future of Natural Gas June 27, 2011 - S.E.C. Shift Leads to Worries of Overestimation of Reserves June 28, 2011 - Lawmakers Seek Inquiry of Natural Gas Industry NEW YOUTUBE VIDEOS
PART 1 - Independent BC MLA Bob Simpson's address to BC Legislature, May 30, 2011, calling for a special Legislative Committee to study unconventional gas fracking in northeastern British Columbia. PART 2 - MLA Bob Simpson, response by North Peace MLA Pat Pimm, with wrap-up by Bob Simpson, May 30-2011. POST
CARBON INSTITUTE'S NEW REPORT,
May 2011 - Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century?, by J. David Hughes (A Must Read!) DESMOGBLOG'S
NEW REPORT, May 6, 2011
Fracking the Future: How Unconventional
Gas Threatens Our Water, Health and Climate
(commentary:http://www.desmogblog.com/fracking-future-how- unconventional-gas-threatens-our-water-health-and-climate-report) EARTHWORKS & TEXAS OGAP'S NEW REPORT ON
FRACKING IN TEXAS:
Natural Gas Flowback - How the Texas Natural Gas Boom Affects Health and Safety - April 2011 April
26, 2011 - Media Advisory
- Announcement of Multi-Million Dollar
Landmark North American Lawsuit on Hydraulic Fracturing and its Impact
on Groundwater and Press Conference in Calgary, April 27, 2011
April
21, 2011 - South Africa Announces Moratorium on
Fracking
April 19-2011 - NEW REPORT
FOLLOW THE GA$: KITIMAT LNG EXPORT TERMINAL AND PACIFIC TRAILS PIPELINE CHRONLOGY (revised on May 16, 2011) (Pdf file - 4.3 Megabytes) Press
Release - April 14, 2011 and
Petition Letter to B.C. Ministers - April 13, 2011 Public Inquiry Needed in British Columbia to Address Human Health and Environmental Risks Posed by Shale Gas Drilling, Coalition Says (Pdf file) New York Times - Special Series - Drilling Down
February 26, 2011 (includes 347 public comments) (Pdf- 569 kb) February 23, 2011 - NEW REPORT ANTS TO THE PICNIC: Canaccord's 2008 New Frontier Emphasis to Investors on the Development of Quebec's Utica Shale Gas, and an Account of What Happened to the Larin Family in Saint Louis Press
Release - February 15, 2011
China's Entry into British Columbia Means Bigger Trouble, Says Alliance (French version - click here) Press Release
- February 3, 2011
Candians Being Fracked by International Energy Producers, B.C. Tap Water Alliance Warns February
3,
2011 - Presentation by Will Koop
before Canada's Standing Commmittee on Natural Resources (Theme: absence of cumulative effects studies in northeast BC) Go to link on right: Canadian Standing Committee
on Natural Resources for complete information November 9, 2010 - Report
EnCana's Cabin Not So Homey: Cumulative Environmental Effects An Unfolding and Emerging Crisis in Northeastern British Columbia's Shale Gas Plays - An Introductory Journey into BC's Dirty Domino Zone (13.725
Megabytes)
(Including: 100 images, maps, diagrams, and information on EnCana's most recent, largest fracking site in the world) (See also: BC Cumulative Effects Discussion Page) New Videos December 2, 2010 Ben Parfitt's presentation to the Federal Standing Committee on Natural Resources on the deep shale gas industry and water use, and criticism of the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wu472CVGo7A November 30, 2010 Excerpts from Voice of BC November 25, 2010 Broadcast Community Television interview with Ben Parfitt (original - http://vimeo.com/17221139) Part 1 - deep shale gas & water http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZzdo5pOrWI Part 2 - deep shale gas & BC Oil & Gas Commission http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqmW9AJF6zk Part 3 - Site-C dam and deep shale gas producers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv-p9AzmlEY October 28, 2010 My Very First Frack! - Or, No Love at First Frack! (Talisman Energy Farrell Creek Operations frack, north of Hudson's Hope, British Columbia) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejYhAdmHIVs November 1, 2010 The Komie Commotion - The BIG Gallop to Siphon British Columbia's Deep Shale Gas (A journey into the Horn River Basin fracking playground, east and northeast of Fort Nelson.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH8y2pSUvnU Many of North America’s ancient aquifer systems are the source of domestic waters for human and animal (wild, domestic) uses. The B.C. Tap Water Alliance has also come on board (as of February 22, 2010) to help advocate the end of impairing and poisoning North America’s and the Earth’s fresh water aquifers by the oil & gas industry complex through a process nicknamed “fracking”/“fracing” (hydraulic ‘frac’turing) which involves the use of toxic chemicals, and to ban fracking. Fracking bans are currently advocated by Philadelphia City Council and similar movement in New York City and State. First, and foremost, this means that here in Canada, and specifically in B.C., our legislations must undergo immediate and serious revisions by our legislators, the public’s representatives, to remove and ban the use of these chemical poisons (some which are still unidentified through company patents) from the fracking process, and to ban fracking methodologies which fracture the integrity of underground aquifer structures. New report - September 4, 2010 - Natural Gas Operations from a Public Health Perspective (Endocrine Disruption Exchange) See report, Drilling Around the Law, www.ewg.org/ drillingaroundthelaw, by the Environmental Working Group, for details on the toxics. For an excellent video (47 minutes long) on the entire process, produced by the U.S. group, The Endocrine Disruption Exchange: http://www.endocrinedisruption.com/chemicals.videoplayer.php According to information in Chapter 4, Hydraulic Fracturing Fluids, a lengthy study completed and released in June 2004 by Environtmental Protection Agency in the U.S., (Evaluation of Impacts to Underground Sources of Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs), an outcome of litigation that began in 1989 about fracking in Alabama: Most
of
the
literature
pertaining
to
fracturing
fluids
relates
to
the
fluids’
operational
efficiency
rather than their potential
environmental or human health impacts. There is very little
documented research on the environmental impacts that result from the
injection and migration of these fluids into subsurface formations,
soils, and USDWs (U.S. Drinking Waters).
The Denver U.S. Regional Office of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health stated its concerns about chemical exposures of these toxics, mists and particulate dusts to gas and oil workers, namely that there is a lack of existing information on the diversity and magnitude of potential chemical exposures. The BC government also needs to hire many more field officers to stringently, conscientiously police and effectively monitor the oil and gas industry in BC’s northeast energy sector. Such provisions, in addition to new legislations, will help stimulate and initiate the highest international standards applied to protect the earth’s surface and aquifer sources. It is irrelevant how much tax revenue may be generated to aid government coffers as the oil and gas industry always harps upon, and which some elected administrators partner preach as a necessary economic tradeoff: this is literally where “the buck stops”, because absolutely no one should tolerate the use and application of chemical poisons into fresh water systems! After many frustrating years of hardship to mostly rural residents, a large inter-State movement was eventually formed in the United States in September 2009 to help address and remedy the poisoning of the Nation’s groundwaters through fracking (see petition). Evidently, since 2001, former vice-president Dick Cheney is attributed as the primary culprit in leading private industry (through his secretive Energy Task Force) to counter Court instructions to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by withholding new regulations and restrictions (nicknamed the ‘Halliburton Loophole’) to be implemented under the Nation’s Safe Drinking Water Act, thereby also setting up an international precedent. This corrupt loophole tragedy permitted private industry, supported through professional and special interest associations, to continue with escalated exploration drilling in numerous States and to reap enormous profits (including Cheney’s large oil and gas service industry company, Halliburton) while escaping penalties and prosecution from indiscriminately disturbing acquifer integrity and poisoning numerous aquifer sources, people, domestic animals, and wildlife and the ecology, creating atmospheric pollution and increased Green House Gas emissions (see our section, Cabin Gas Plant, under the British Columbia Information Center link, for info on atmospheric pollution) under the collective banner of "jobs". Similar to the scene in the Hollywood movie, The Insider, where the seven big tobacco CEOs (alias, the seven dwarves) testified at a congressional hearing in the 1990s and were later found to have committed perjury, is this photo of gas " industry-affiliated groups and an executive of Chesapeake Energy " who appeared before a Congressional Hearing on June 4, 2009 " vigorously defending the practice of injecting toxic fluids underground without federal regulatory oversight. " (Source, Propublica, Industry Defends Federal Loophole for Drilling Before Packed Congressional Hearing, June 5, 2009. Photo: from the film documentary, Gasland) What the oil and gas industry complex now fears the most (as the collective tobacco industry did in the 1990s) from the public and its conscientious representatives, as Congress begins its underfunded side-show inquiries (while fracking continues unabated, or TALK and FRACK), is the looming possibility of a state or national legal inquiry or court case that may lead to severe related penalties and prosecutions, and related restrictions to its agressive and bullying-style fracking operations. Such a possibility could then quickly domino into its international investor-based operations as a precedent, much like the impacts and policies passed globally concerning big tobacco. Rather than surrendering peacefully, due to the escalated scale and projected increase of its global operations, big oil and gas will likely exercise all of its resources (through its tentacled public relations networks and lobbying) to maintain the status quo as much as possible and prevent this outcome (i.e., one of its present refrains: "there are no documented cases of ..."). It was reported on March 29, 2010 (Halliburton Hunts New Bacteria Killer to Protect Shale-Gas Boom, Bloomberg.com) that the oil & gas industry is now concerned about permitting costs associated with a possible regulatory crackdown with the federal environmental inquiry into its controversial practices of toxic chemicals and air emissions. A recent unidentified report by the U.S. Energy Department stated that because of the federal inquiries and expected regulatory outcomes they " would cut drilling by as much as half and add compliance costs as much as $75 billion over 25 years. " The industry fears it would have to obtain formal approval for each gas and oil well in the United States, which seems to be a worry to gas producing Houston billionaire George P. Mitchell. There are dozens of websites, hundreds of newspaper articles, videos, audios - testimonial accounts and investigations devoted to uncovering the disgusting secrets and effects of this vexing issue which has been brewing throughout the U.S. (i.e., the March 26, 2010 television airing on PBS' Now of the video documentary director of Gasland). One of these troubling issues relates to the raging battle over New York City’s water supply, threatened by fracking within the large inter-state Marcellus geological formation (i.e., provided in our compilation of ProPublica feature news articles), a provocative issue in many ways responsible for finally igniting the national movement. Overall, BC, Canada, and the globe desperately requires new “clean” and “wise” governance, strict legislations, and ethical leadership to overcome the “failed” governance problems that are continuing to plague our collective and sacred fresh waters. In the 1900s, the rise of the chemical industries not only produced a new host of toxics but it also produced a new societal culture and public relations mechanisms that burrowed deep inside inter-governmental institutions - The Toxics Invasion. It was citizen-based groups, formed throughout North America, and globally, that would bring about change, that is, only after the multiple severe damages, afflictions, mutations and cancers had already been perpetrated to the world's life forms. These general sets of problems are well described and documented, for instance, in the 1983 book by Carol Van Strum, A Bitter Fog - Herbicides and Human Rights. It tells a tragic tale of Dow Chemical's production of toxic herbicides leashed upon the world over a period of decades (the herbicides, 2,4-D, 2,4, 5-T, dioxins, accounted for only 0.2% of its annual sales), how that company, alongside federal agencies (primarily the US Forest Service), defended it use, despite persistent objections from citizens and newly formed organizations, including the Vietnam Veterans poisoned by Agent Orange, aimed to educate the public and lobby governments. A similar scenario is emerging: citizen organizations and groups have emerged to solve and denounce the use of toxics in fracking. And, similar argumentative statements by the oil and gas industry, and by many represenative Statesmen and professionals, that the use of toxics for fracking have not caused any harm to groundwater or surface water sources, were the identical type of statements that eminated from the herbicide industry and government agencies not so long ago. |
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