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Did someone forget to send the good people of North Dakota that memo about how you’re not supposed to look a fracking gift horse in the mouth and actually wave a Geiger counter over the drilling waste as the truckers bring it to the dump?
Of course it’s gonna sing. Here’s how you do it, Williston frackers — just pay farmers to turn their acreage into dumps.
We think those Norwegian bachelor farmers are going to want a little more than a wink and smile to guarantee that come summer, the corn, wheat and the sunflowers won’t glow.
Meanwhile, good luck and godspeed to those poor truckers.
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Those of us who’ve seen neighbors nearly come to fisticuffs in the town hall parking lot weren’t surprised by the latest on the psy-ops boys who think they’re Rambo. But there was this other conference that we would really like to hear more about. A representative from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention said more study is needed on the human health effects of shale gas drilling, but he wouldn’t answer questions from the press because he wasn’t authorized to do so.
Get this: Cornell University researchers called shale gas “an uncontrolled human health experiment on an enormous scale.”
Thanks for finally saying it out loud, New York. Despite some efforts in Denton to get cautious — now that we’ve been guinea pigs for the last decade — many of us think that Texas doesn’t have the courage to do so.
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The feds nab some more bad guys from our area. Read more about these companies. Some real. And some not-so-real.
Western Pipeline
Aspen Exploration
Prosper Oil & Gas
Excalibur Energy
T-Bar Resources
Reunion Resources
United Star Petroleum and North Texas Partners
Progressive Investment Partners.
Because easy money is the best kind of money for supporting a lavish lifestyle.
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This article was published on the American Lung Association’s website:
Lung Association Expresses Concern Over Air Pollution From Fracking
Statement by Jeffrey Seyler, CEO, American Lung Association in New York
(January 11, 2012)—
In response to the Revised Draft of the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement on The Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Regulatory Program in New York (dSGEIS), Jeffrey Seyler, CEO of the American Lung Association in New York, released the following statement:
Today, we submitted comments to the State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) voicing the Lung Association’s serious concerns that DEC’s draft plan for hydraulic fracturing in New York contains troubling air quality deficiencies that must be corrected before any standards governing extraction are finalized.
As written, this plan will increase air pollution in the state, placing residents’ health at serious risk. DEC’s draft plan neglects to cumulatively assess or mitigate the negative impacts to air quality in drilling communities. It is also lacking essential air quality monitoring that is needed to ensure New Yorkers will not breathe in harmful emissions from this process. Perhaps most significantly, the dSGEIS completely fails to assess the substantial air pollution that will occur with the tens of millions of truck trips that will take place with high volume drilling.
Unless these issues are addressed in the final standards, we believe that there is a very real and unacceptable risk that the air emissions will make people sick and shorten the lives of those living in the communities where the extraction will take place.
More than 2.5 million New Yorkers now suffer from lung diseases including asthma, COPD and lung cancer. What’s more, our State of the Air Report 2011 found that nearly half of the state’s residents live in areas where air pollution threatens their lives and health. We’re concerned that this plan, as proposed, would increase pollution in areas of the state that now benefit from clean air. Such an outcome is unacceptable.
For the sake of the public’s health, we urge the DEC to conduct a more thorough assessment of the emissions impacts and release its findings for public comment. We believe that this is an essential step that must be taken before the state moves forward with any plan for hydraulic fracturing and begins issuing permits.
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Editor’s note: The Lung Association’s comments submitted to DEC regarding the dSGEIS can be found here at www.alany.org.
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Google maps reveals what is under construction near Argyle’s Intermediate School Campus.
(click photo to enlarge)
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Here’s what we found out about Gulftex and their busy times at the Frenchtown well site before the holidays. These are excerpts of emails sent by the operating crew to town officials:
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Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2011 12:09 AM
The crane was not active yesterday. I had two trucks onsite between 5:30 and 9:30 offloading some water. I tried to finish as early as possible, there were some delays getting the trucks out there. I apologize for any inconvenience.
______________________________
Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2011 3:45 PM
The piece of equipment you are referring to is not actually a crane. It is called a swab unit, it is used to assist in removing fluid from the well. We had used it for about an hour that morning but had to shut down. We left the mast erect because we were planning on using it again the next day.
I ordered a truck at 6:30, the dispatcher told me that it would be there in 45 minutes. The truck had a problem with the brakes and had to make an unexpected stop at the shop and didn’t arrive until 8:15. We began offloading but the hose kept clogging because of rocks in the tank, which took longer than expected. We are not planning on freaking.
It was not my intention to have any trucks out there past 8:00 and I finished as quickly as I could.
_____________________________
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 8:31 AM
The well was dead and shut in.
This situation underscores yet another occasion where local, state and federal regulations fail to address current uses and conditions. Zero notification of chemicals being used. Zero evidence of efforts to limit community exposure — Exhibit A: our canary in the coal mine.
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