Chief concern
December 27th, 2011
I hope that everyone is having a wonderful holiday... to serve as distraction from my accountant's voicemails to get my taxes in order, here is a new clip found in the Jan/Feb issue of
Mother Jones. I got a call from PE Mark Murrmann to go learn about fracking and to meet Crystal Stroud, a mother and hairdresser near Towanda, PA. Chief Oil & Gas signed a lease with the Strouds and began drilling a well 400-yards behind her home... not long after Crystal got really sick. Hmm, I wonder if there's a connection?
You can guess at the rest of the story... a water test of the Stroud's well showed incredible levels of barium, the state's department of environmental protection investigated but sided with the gas company (most of the regulators are either formerly employees at the companies they are supposed to keep in check; or will be soon). Crystal and her family had to move away from their home because they couldn't afford to truck in water they could drink and bathe in every week; and to add insult to injury shortly after she got sick the tiny creek along their home flooded at the worst levels in history and destroyed their house anyway (many residents believe the flooding is also related as the gas companies dump chemicals and their backfill into the rivers which run through this part of PA; hard to say, but historically they've never seen flooding like this before).
I didn't know that much about fracking before but did know that it has been used for dozens of years in other parts of the U.S. without such incredible impact. Now I know that the reason fracking is so dangerous in the NE is that deep in the earth, coal, and shale of PA and NY there are a lot of heavy metals which the fracking process releases, poisoning wells and spoiling the watershed of farms and communities down river. It's one of these issues (akin to abortion in Kansas) that is ripping apart these small towns, especially in such a bad economy where the additional income is seen as worth the risk for some people.
Crystal and her son were incredibly gracious with their time and a joy to meet. We shot at her now abandoned home, and it was especially sad because they lived on a really beautiful spot. Here are a couple of more, including the one (bottom right) that they magazine published.
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I hope that everyone is having a wonderful holiday... to serve as distraction from my accountant's voicemails to get my taxes in order, here is a new clip found in the Jan/Feb issue of Mother Jones. I got a call from PE Mark Murrmann to go learn about fracking and to meet Crystal Stroud, a mother and hairdresser near Towanda, PA. Chief Oil & Gas signed a lease with the Strouds and began drilling a well 400-yards behind her home... not long after Crystal got really sick. Hmm, I wonder if there's a connection?
You can guess at the rest of the story... a water test of the Stroud's well showed incredible levels of barium, the state's department of environmental protection investigated but sided with the gas company (most of the regulators are either formerly employees at the companies they are supposed to keep in check; or will be soon). Crystal and her family had to move away from their home because they couldn't afford to truck in water they could drink and bathe in every week; and to add insult to injury shortly after she got sick the tiny creek along their home flooded at the worst levels in history and destroyed their house anyway (many residents believe the flooding is also related as the gas companies dump chemicals and their backfill into the rivers which run through this part of PA; hard to say, but historically they've never seen flooding like this before).
I didn't know that much about fracking before but did know that it has been used for dozens of years in other parts of the U.S. without such incredible impact. Now I know that the reason fracking is so dangerous in the NE is that deep in the earth, coal, and shale of PA and NY there are a lot of heavy metals which the fracking process releases, poisoning wells and spoiling the watershed of farms and communities down river. It's one of these issues (akin to abortion in Kansas) that is ripping apart these small towns, especially in such a bad economy where the additional income is seen as worth the risk for some people.
Crystal and her son were incredibly gracious with their time and a joy to meet. We shot at her now abandoned home, and it was especially sad because they lived on a really beautiful spot. Here are a couple of more, including the one (bottom right) that they magazine published.
