Access to Frack Fluid Ingredients provided by Private Citizen at NB Govt.'s Public Meeting on Shale Gas in Bouctouche

Friday evening June 22nd in Bouctouche the government of New Brunswick held another one in its series of Public Consultation Meetings on Shale Gas atl'ecole Clément-Cormier.These meetings have ostensibly been employed by government as a way to hear from the people of the province and the questions came fast and furious right out of the starting gate.

As has been the case at previous meetings, the public has broached the topic time and time again on the subject of "frack fluid ingredients".The government's proud response to these queries has been that the New Brunswick government, unlike governments in other jurisdictions, will force Industry to reveal- via full disclosure - the ingredients of the frack fluids to the public. However nearly two years into the Industry's presence in the province, government Hydro-geologist Annie Daigle, had to admit the ingredient' list for fracking fluids had not been released to the public.

While the government has repeatedly held the promise of 'disclosure' up as evidence of their transparency to the public and their "hard line with the Industry" - it simply doesn't wash with this public, and they are getting tired of this 'well-worn' promise, yet unfulfilled.

The weariness showed itself yet again Friday night at Bouctouche when a question related to the frack fluid ingredients was asked by a member of the audience:"Will the pre-testing of nearby drinking water wells include tests of the fracking fluid ingredients for comparison purposes post-fracking?". While the govt. panel hedged their responses, the audience was clearly not satisfied.

A rejoinder on that same topic came a few minutes later when a member of the audience holding up a two-inch binder stated that she had 30 material safety data sheets that she had downloaded from internet containing 30 chemical cocktails and single ingredients of "fracking fluid. " If I can download them so easily why is it that the government has not provided them to New Brunswickers?" she inquired. If the govt. is not going to provide the information and no one else will provide this information, then I will," she stated, as she proceeded to recite an email address for audience contact.

At this point Annie Daigle was forced to jump in with damage control - finally revealing to the audience the name of a website where the audience could view a list of frack fluids, insisting that there was no need to 'spam this lady's email'.

Could it be that the possibility that people in the audience could use this opportunity to make further connections and solidify relationships over this common bond of anti-shale sentiment distressed Ms Daigle to the point where she had no other choice but to resort to helpfulness? It seemed a trifle odd that Ms Daigle had not offered this vital information prior to this time in the proceedings.

Her insinuation that the audience would be "spamming" a total stranger was a Public Relations faux pas that underestimated her audience's knowledge on the topic.This tech savvy audience knew enough to know that "an outright" and public invitation to an email box can in no way be construed as 'spamming' - maybe a magnanimous offer, but not spamming. 

No doubt, steering the audience away from the generously 'offered email' and toward the Frac Focus site was Ms Daigle's best chance of extricating herself from the "non-disclosure" corner into which she had painted herself.

As for the website Frac Focus that was revealed by Ms Daigle - the site gives a laundry list of complicated and unpronounceable chemical names to be sure, but provides no information whatsoever as to the toxicity or human permissible exposure limits (PEL's) of these chemicals.The site is industry-run and chemicals used by industry tend to be shrouded in secrecy.The Frac Focus site does an excellent job of perpetuating that secrecy. After all, the real focus on the Frac Focus site is on Fracking not on public health.

Ms Daigle may think she pulled the Alward government's reputation for transparency 'out of the fire' by providing the Frac Focus website to the audience.However, New Brunswickers - being a very discerning public - don't like to be trifled with - and by this time, many, if not most of her audiencehave logged onto Frac Focus only to discover that the transparency that this government so proudly displays on its sleeve is simply another diversionary tactic intended to delay full disclosure and obscure the truth from public view.

In fact, rather than satisfying the public's appetite for greater disclosure, Ms Daigle has led the public down the garden path to a dead end, and in so doing, she has simply re-enforced the belief by the voters of New Brunswick that their government cannot be trusted.

But one nagging question will continue to linger in the minds of New Brunswickers (who are only two years away from a provincial election): Why was it necessary for a member of the public to threaten disclosure of frack fluid chemical ingredients before Ms. Daigle would provide a source document?Why indeed?

If this is an example of the "full disclosure" that the Alward government intends for the public regarding 'fracking' - then it's a little late in coming because the Govt.'s Johnny-Come-Lately attitude about frack fluid disclosure has revealed the cracks in this government's facade concerning "full disclosure" and New Brunswickers are way ahead of the 'game' leaving their government once again, behind in their dust.

Parents Against Everyday Poisons (P.A.E.P.)

Email:paep@live.ca

NOTE:Fracking Chemicals can cause liver, kidney and lung damage, blindness and coma.The best way for the public to gain meaningful information about the chemicals in fracking fluid is to consult the Material Safety Data Sheets.These documents contain information on toxicity, permissible exposure limits (P.E.L.'s) by the Occupational Health & Safety Administration (U.S.), dangers posed to aquatic life, first aid measures, physician advice and fire fighting protocols.
Thirty of the MSD Sheets can be viewed at:
http://public.bakerhughes.com/shalegas/additives.html?placeValuesBeforeTB_=savedValues&TB_iframe=true&height=450&width=850

Alternatively, the public can attach the words "Material Safety Data Sheet" to any chemical name they find and just"google" for the results.

Govt. Panel Tries to Shut Out Speaker for Verbatim Reading of Frack Toxin Facts from Safety Data Sheet: Hillsborough Public Consultation on Shale Gas

Note: The below article should be read in the context of the following information containing Material Safety Data Sheets: http://public.bakerhughes.com/shalegas/additives.html?placeValuesBeforeTB_=savedValues&TB_iframe=true&height=450&width=850

Shale Gas in Hillsborough, N.B. Canada.  There was a crowd of about 75 people who attended from as far away as Memramcook across the river and Fredericton - people who were incensed by what is being perpetrated against them in the name of Corporate Profit and made no bones about it.   I actually was not planning to speak at any of the Public Consultation meetings at all, but yesterday morning a friend whom I respect and admire - called to ask me if I would, and I could not turn him down.   I had no idea what I would talk about  10:00 a.m. yesterday morning as I had nothing prepared  and little time to do so, but I pulled together some research and a few comments a couple of hours before the meeting, and the gist of it - as I delivered it to the govt. panel and the public last night went something like this:

Hello, my name is Stephanie Stoneleigh and I am the Founder of Parents Against Everyday Poisons.   I started this organization several years ago and I originally studied the health effects of Fabric Softener for about 7 or 8 years.   It's amazing how - when you think you've conquered one thing a bigger and worse boogey-man appears on the scene.  And I believe that Shale Gas is the Real Boogey Man.

I'm speaking tonight as a person who has experienced first-hand the effects of chemically -induced illness.  Due to a chemical exposure some years ago I have suffered from Chronic Respiratory Problems since 2001.  Chemically-induced illness ravages its sufferers as it is often the case that it affects multiple organ systems of the body  -  I would not want anyone to have to suffer what I have suffered through in the last several years.  And I am sure this illness is not something you would want to have affect your family, your children or grandchildren.  But the risks for chemically-induced illness increase as we become more and more exposed to chemical pollutants.  And we know Shale Gas Industry utilizes a large array of chemical pollutants to frack gas wells.

So I have to wonder about my grandchildren, the children and grandchildren of New Brunswick and I worry - what kind of legacy are we leaving them?

I've obtained a List of some of the chemicals used in Fracking from a Supplier to the Frack Industry Baker-Hughes of Texas.  The Baker-Hughes List contains 46 Chemical cocktails and subsidiary list of 37 constituents of Frack Fluid.   I will direct my comments to only 2 or 3 of these chemicals.

The difference between the 46 Chemical Cocktails and the 37 constituents is that the 37 constituents are not accompanied by MSD Sheets.  The absence of such safety sheets might suggest that safety data sheets are not needed for the Constituents because they are innocuous substances, but as you will see in a moment this is not the case.

What I have here in my hand is a Material Safety Data Sheet also known as an MSDS. Now an MSDS is what we use in North America (for those of you who are not familiar) to tell us which substances are toxic, what their level of toxicicity is, and what organ systems of the body are targeted by a particular toxin because toxins tend to be attracted to particular organs in the body.   The MSD Sheet is supposed to be our  protection in North America against harm from chemicals.

I'm going to start with a Chemical Cocktail called CI-111- a corrosion inhibitor used in Frack Fluid and these are some of the facts about this "Cocktail". First of all, it's composed of three chemicals: Quaternary Ammonium Compound, Sulfur Compound and Isopropanol.  The primary routes for exposure are listed as skin, eye and lung (inhalation).  (The list of exposure effects was long so I pointed out only the first on the list and the most important:  which warned that the chemical may cause central nervous system depression or Lung Damage.)

As I continued to the section on Exposure Limits I pointed out that the LD50 was Not Available (LD stands for "Lethal Dose".  LD₅₀ is the amount of a material, given all at once, which causes the death of 50% (one half) of a group of test animals. The LD₅₀ is one way to measure the short-term poisoning potential (acute toxicity) of a material.)   And the PEL (Permissable Exposure Limit) for Quaternary Ammonium was also NOT AVAILABLE.  The information was simply not there (indicating at best that the substance had never been tested).  I pointed out to the Panel that the Document was incomplete and that this was the document that was supposed to supply us with the information for our protection.   Pointing out the first of what would become a litany of fatal flaws in the Material Safety Data Sheet's reliability, I then went on to discuss other important topics from the so-called "Safety Data Sheet".

For First Aid measures it was stated that, "if the victim is not breathing give artificial respiration".  (At this point, there was an audible gaffaw that arose from the crowd.)  I continued to read verbatim from the document: "Remove contaminated clothing and launder before re-use.  Remove contaminated shoes and discard.  "If breathing is difficult give oxygen.  Only Trained personnel should administer oxygen."   At this juncture I had to interrupt myself to divulge a little-known fact about Quaternary Ammonium compounds, and that is that there's a reason why this advice is given.  There are some Quats (Quaternary Ammonium Compounds) that actually damage the lungs so severely that adding oxygen to the mix merely compounds that damage because of a synergistic chemical reaction between Quats and Oxygen.   Was it a murmur or an audible hush that I heard after that revelation?  

It was at this point I believe that the Government's Moderator for the evening interrupted me telling me that there were a number of people behind me who wanted to ask questions and advising me that I could leave my research with "their people".  However, as I had not used up even a quarter of the time that had been permitted for some others to speak, I recognized this tactic as one intended to have the TRUTH shunted out the door and I would not tolerate it.  I stood my ground and continued with information that showed that even though the MSD Sheet is intended to be our protection, that the company Baker Hughes at the end of the MSD Sheet makes the following Disclaimer, and I quoted: "no warranty is expressed or implied regarding the accuracy of these data...... vendor (that is, the Seller of the CI-111) assumes no responsibility for injury to vendee or third persons (I interjected: "that would be us - the public, our families, our children and our grandchildren") ... even if reasonable safety procedures are followed."  

I then went on to talk about the Constituents List that is pain-stakingly "dressed up" in descriptions of Common Use so benign that one would think the Constituents could be added to one's morning coffee with no harm done.   I chose just one item from the "Constituents List" - Propargyl Alcohol on which to speak, starting with the fact that the PEL (permissible exposure limit) for that Constituent is 1 ppm over an eight hour time period and pointing out that the safety parameters have been based on this short space of time only.  (I noted for the benefit of the audience that the parameters established for safety of these chemicals is most usually based on an eight hour work period and testing is done for an average healthy male.) The further information on this "Constituent" revealed that it is classified as a harzardous waste by the EPA, has been placed on the Toxic Release Inventory in the States and is a reportable substance under section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.

I summarized thus: 

So I guess my question in all of this is "Who is going to oversee this "Constituent" of Fracking Fluids to make sure my eight year old grandson is not breathing in more than 1 ppm in an eight hour time period?

Can we reasonably expect this to be regulated?  I don't think we here in New Brunswick believe it can be done. 

At least not this Grandmother. 

My question was not a rhetorical one - but was never answered by the Govt. Panel. 

Holding Oil & Gas Industry Accountable - A Crime in Texas?

Dr. Al Armendariz (was also in the Texas portion of Gasland) was the EPA Region 6 Administrator that spoke before the citizens of DISH TX shortly after his appointment, and was discussing how he would attempt to hold the Oil and Gas Industry accountable for their actions. A video of this was made public and a brief clip of this was blown out of proportion by the oil and gas industry.  Subsequently Dr. Armendariz resigned from the EPA, and is still being forced to testify before congress, below is a campaign to show support for Dr. Armendariz. If you support what Dr. Armendariz was attempting to do, please consider participating.                

Calvin Tillman

Former Oil Industry Exec. Blowing the Whistle

» Cover Story »   Artvoice Weekly Edition » Issue v11n22 (05/31/2012) »
http://artvoice.com/ 

From the ArtVoice Website - Weekly News on the Net from Buffalo

Why is This Texan Against Fracking New York?

by Buck Quigley

James “Chip” Northrup brings his straight-shooting views to a forum at the Burchfield Penney

He looks like the kind of guy you’d get from central casting if you were trying to make a Western movie. A long, tall Texan with pioneer roots and the drawl to match, you quickly get the sense that while he believes in fairness, he is not an hombre to mess with. Then again, it’s not every cowboy who spends his younger days getting degrees from Southern Methodist University and the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. No, this dude didn’t spend windswept nights out on the range, yodeling around the campfire and tending cattle.

Like many successful Texas businessmen, James “Chip” Northrup spent a lot of time heavily involved in the fossil-fuel industry from 1986 to 2006. He currently winters in Dallas, but spends summers in Cooperstown, New York. That’s why his thoughts on the issue of high-volume, deep-well horizontal hydraulic fracturing as a way to tap natural gas in New York State carry weight. Artvoice caught up with him at his home in the Lone Star State.

“In Texas, I’m just another oil and gas investor. There are thousands of guys like me in Texas who’ve had experience in oil and gas deals. And there’s a more limited number who’ve invested in oil rigs—maybe only dozens I guess, if that,” he explains. “Most of what I did for over 20 years was invest in oil rigs. The reason why people should listen to me in New York—it’s not because I’m so brilliant—it’s because what I know, not that many people know, in New York. And the ones that know what I know are not going to tell the truth. Meaning they work for the industry. I’d defy anybody in the state of New York to say they’ve owned more oil rigs than I have.

“What sets me apart, what sets [former Mobil Oil vice president] Lou Alstadt apart, what sets [Cornell University engineer] Tony Ingraffea apart, is we know what the industry guys know—and we’re not gonna bullshit people about it. It’s a cliché, but it is the one-eyed man in the land of the blind.”

Northrup points out that he’s retired from the drilling business. He sold off his last interest in a well in 2006. He doesn’t invest in drilling anymore. When you boil it all down, another reason not to frack New York, he argues, is because it doesn’t make financial sense.

“First, the financial aspect of it is there’s damn little of that stuff up there—and I’m putting it mildly—that makes any economic sense whatsoever. That’s the cold, hard fact of the thing. Secondly, I got out of the business before the EPA was fracked out of business. So everything we ever did was subject to state and federal regulations. We never drilled any horizontal wells. None of what we did was remotely as polluting as horizontally fracking shale. I wouldn’t do that in New York. I’d do it in west Texas, probably. If I was out in west Texas or New Mexico, where there are no groundwater wells, where it’s flat and remote as the desert, I might. But I certainly wouldn’t do it if I knew I was going to gas somebody.

“This is something that cannot be understated: It is just flat uneconomic to drill for shale gas in New York, and that’s not likely to change for years—well into the next decade, because of the depressed price of natural gas,” he says.

He likens much of the fracking boom to the housing bubble that precipitated the global economic crisis that led to all the bank bailouts, recession, and unemployment we are still struggling with today.

“Wall Street, et cetera, literally threw too much money at shale gas. Now, you think that’s a good thing because the price of natural gas is $1.85. This is similar to the mortgage crisis. The housing market was grossly overbuilt because money was being thrown willy-nilly at building houses and condominiums and whatnot. There was a 10-year overbuilt supply of housing, which depressed the price.

“Similarly, they drilled more wells than they knew what to do with,” he says. “The domestic natural gas market has collapsed.”

One way to get around that problem is to export it overseas. This, Northrup points out, eats away at the original arguments in favor of going ahead with fracking despite its attendant environmental damage here at home.

“The domestic market is saturated for the next 10 years. That’s why they’re trying to convert these inbound LNG [liquid natural gas] terminals to outbound—so they can export it to Europe and to Asia. So this whole business about ‘We’re gonna drill, baby, drill’ to be energy independent—in a sense, that mission is accomplished, at least, vis-à-vis natural gas. So now, we’re gonna have to ‘Sell, baby, sell’ to the Chinese. There’s a real irony there, because the pollution and the problems are created locally, but the commodity goes overseas—and cheap. There’s nothing patriotic about it. They tried to wrap it in the flag early on, but there’s no glory in selling this stuff to the Europeans.”

It’s going to be a job creator for New York—that’s another big argument for lifting the ban on fracking here. Northrup sets the record straight about that:

“The whole thing is a carny deal. A rig is a carny worksite. When the rig moves, the camp moves. They all go with the rig. They set the tent up, they have the carnival, they take the tent down and go to the next town. I tell people, look, even in Texas, if you got hired to work on a rig in Texas, the first thing you’d do is you’d leave town. You don’t stay in your own town. The rig doesn’t stay in town—it moves. If you’re lucky, you wind up in the North Sea, or the Bay of Campeche, or the South China Sea. And with the glut of gas, there’s no reason to train a crew in New York State. If you’re gonna explore for gas with wildcat wells, you’re gonna bring experienced crews in from out of state.”

Viewed through Northrup’s experienced eyes, it’s difficult to see how lifting the moratorium on horizontal fracking would be a good move for New York. What does he think about the recent bills introduced by Republican State Senator Mark Grisanti—who is also the chair of the Senate’s environmental committee—which claim to insert regulations that would make fracking safe here?

“The ones that go through that relate to fracking will be trivial,” he says. “I think that what Grisanti is doing is playing this little marginal game of incremental regs that won’t mean much. And frankly, the wording on some of this stuff is pretty flawed on top of that. He’s just beating around the bush with that stuff.”

Part of the problem Northrup sees is that New York legislators, in general, have little understanding of the technology involved in fracking. This sets them up to be the rubes at the carnival—the same as many of us in the economically pinched Empire State—where the idea of a gas boom gives some folks visions of the Beverly Hillbillies. Even a lot of the anti-frackers would be hard-pressed to speak intelligently on the subject for any length of time.

“[The legislators] are basically dependent on people who are paid liars,” he says. “Lawyers turned lobbyists. PR guys turned lobbyists. Whatever. Ex-government employees…now basically paid to lie. Unfortunately, on the other side, I get these environmentalists that really don’t know entirely what they’re talking about. They know they just don’t like it. And there’s no in-between.”

What’s Northrup’s advice for New Yorkers?

“He doesn’t seem like a bad guy, really, but I think they’re gonna have to get rid of Grisanti, because the Democrats are gonna have to get control of that State Senate,” he says.

But what about Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo? He hasn’t exactly come out as being against fracking.

“I think Cuomo got sold a bill of goods. He bought it. And I think he really thought that it was gonna be the great economic boon for a depressed part of the state. And the DEC could deal with the environmental issues. I think he wanted to buy it because obviously it would make him look good if it worked. But the people who bet on this being an economic boon for the state bet wrong. They got it wrong. They were extrapolating out of Pennsylvania—and it stopped. We have to call them out on that. We have to say, ‘Look, you were for it because you thought it was gonna be a lot of jobs and a lot of money. Now what are you gonna do? Now why are you for it? There’s no jobs, there’s no tax money. Why? Tell me.’

“That’s what it’s come down to. There’s no fracking rush. If there ever was one, there is now no rush to do this in New York State. They have years to prepare for this. The drillers say, ‘We’ve waited long enough.’ Well, sorry. There’s certainly no reason to do it now.”

Won’t the outcry then be that New York is unfriendly to business?

“They’re so silly. Nobody is buying the leases that were for sale in Otsego County. The leases that were for sale in Chenango County, nobody will buy them. The leases that were for sale in were for sale in Tioga County, nobody will buy them. And it’s not because of Cuomo. It’s because there is no economic reason for them to come buy those leases. It’s like, ‘We have all that we can handle in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana…thanks a lot, fellas, we’ll call you back in five years.’

“That’s the reality of the situation. It’s got nothing to do with the DEC or anything else. They could issue permits tomorrow, and those leases would still be worth nothing. The mineral rights owners themselves know that this is dead, but the PR guys won’t admit it. And the politicians who’ve supported this will not admit it. They will not admit that it’s dead.”

Online

Visit Northrup’s blogs at blog.shaleshockmedia.org and www.scribd.com/northrup49 to get a fuller sense of his take on fracking in New York State. You can also hear more of Northrup’s straight-shooting views when he speaks in person this Saturday, June 2, at A People’s Hearing on Fracking. Click here for details.

So what is the motivation for the PR machine to continue the push to frack? According to Northrup:

“The more hastily the regulations are written, the worse they’re going to be. It helps them for the DEC to do this in haste. What they are spending on PR in New York is trivial compared to what they are making nationally. It always amazes me that they hire these local PR types to be their spokesman. When you look at who these people are—they have no oil and gas experience. I was supposed to debate Chesapeake’s PR guy in Dryden. I say I was supposed to because I showed up and he didn’t. I read his bio on the way over to the debate and it was a guy who’d worked in the planning department in the city of Binghamton. He didn’t know a damn thing about the gas business. But he was a local, and he could go through the spiel.

“It’s not that much money. They basically bought governor Corbett in Pennsylvania for about $600,000. PR and lobbying is by far the best return on investment the industry has. Think about what they bought in Pennsylvania. There’s no government severance tax. There’s no state production tax. So for whatever they spent they avoided tens of millions of dollars in tax, which they have to pay in every other state.”

Photo Posters on this site are downloadable full color Posters.  See right side bar for instructions for download. 

Fracking? Here? Around My Mom?

Parents Against Everyday Poisons (PAEP) is having Fun with Posters as you may have noticed.  This little guy is helping us send our message out.  The photos are of course, download-able printable, full color Posters which can be made borderless on any home printer.   We simply ask that you keep the copyright intact.

A Rallying Cry: From One Mom Against Fracking to Many

An amazing thing is happening.   All over North America, and in fact, all over the world an astounding set of events is unfolding.  Ordinary people are rising up against what's wrong in this world and they are rising up with noble hearts and steel in their spines.   Yes, folks this is happening in YOUR  community and mine, in your back yard and down the street, in shopping malls, and barber shops. 

There is a movement afoot - a movement that is democracy in action, at its core and full-blown.   And although it is Democracy at its best, it is not however, diplomacy - it refuses to tiptoe around the issues that beset us, the dangers that threaten us at our very doorsteps, it refuses to 'whitewash' or "greenwash" the facts, it refuses to back down or bow out.    It refuses to euphemize the truth until it is unrecognizable from a lie.  It refuses to talk about "gray" areas when the writing is on the wall for all to see in black and white.   It is a voice that will be heard in the hallowed halls of government, from the Town Hall to the Offices of Prime Ministers and Presidents.   FOR IT IS THE TRUE VOICE OF DEMOCRACY - it is the voice of the people - and it won't be quelled!

Mothers have become a part of this "voice" - mothers in Erie, Colorado who fight to keep shale gas industry, a.k.a. "fracking" out of the schoolyards where their children play and whose children breathe the very air that may one day, in the not too distant future, become laced with cancer-causing benzene from the "fracking" industry that stands to profit handsomely from it. 

Mothers and Fathers can be found all over North America who will continue to fight for their children's well-being and a future bright with hope.  Calvin Tillman the father of two young boys is another one of those parents who will not back down from the fight.   His children suffered health problems in the tiny Town of Dish, Texas - a Town surrounded by Gas Wells.   Mr. Tillman, now the former Mayor of the Town, continues to fight the unreasonable demands that the Industry places on Communities, Families and children's health.   The demands of the Industry  insist that you breathe benzene-laced air, quench your thirst with industry-tainted water and raise your children in the cesspool of toxic waste and human misery that Frack Industry leaves behind.

Another community of Mothers and Fathers and Grandparents are taking the lead to keep Shale Gas from threatening the health and lives of their children - and that is the Community of Wales, New York where Grandmothers and Grandfathers are leading the charge to stop plans to turn the Sgt. Mark A. Rademacher Memorial Park into a Shale Gas Industrial Zone of Compressor Stations.

We could examine every scientific fact -  pro and con -  surrounding the Fracking Industry, but as Parents and Grandparents, only one scientific fact is important to us - and that is the finding that children are more susceptible to toxins  and  to damage by air pollution due to the physiological differences between them and adults (Mt. Sinai Children's Environmental Clinic). This finding is the single most important fact concerning Shale Gas Fracking Industry. It is the one thing that occupies my mind when I get up in the morning and when I go to bed at night. This one fact tells me that whatever we as adults suffer at the hands of Fracking Industry - our precious children will suffer immeasurably more.

In an Industry where fully-grown lies appear more and more to masquerade as 'truth' - the Mothers and Fathers, indeed the Grandparents of Erie, CO and the Right to Farm Community in Wales, New York, and the folks in the tiny Town of Dish, Texas do not sit idly by and will not stand for a shabby counterfeit of the truth. These Mothers and Fathers and Grandparents fight for our children, our next generation with everything in their being and they are not about to stop.

While all of these Parents and Grandparents fear for their children's and grandchildren's health, they do not fear Oil and Gas Companies, for there is nothing too fearsome to face for a Mother or Father in the protection of their young. There is a drive, an instinct, that unmistakable warning signal that alerts them of dangers to their children.  We call it Mother's Instinct but the truth is that Father's too possess this wonderful trait.  Nature gives clear example of how a mother will defend her young.  Mothers in the wild such as polar bear mothers have been known to fight to the death to defend the life of their young bear cubs.

 A human mother (or father) becomes completely fearless in the face of danger where that danger concerns her/his  helpless offspring.   A threat to their child becomes the flashpoint - the point of no return - the point where the mother's one goal - her single-minded and sole focus is to remove all threat to her child - her beloved son or daughter.

When danger threatens - mothers can be counted on for several things - a Mother will possess an astonishingly razor-sharp mind completely focused on the eradication of danger, instantly equipped to face and neutralize the danger that threatens her child to the extent that her own well-being is no longer of any consequence.  A Mother will become the immovable, unstoppable force - a line drawn in the sand THAT YOU WILL NOT CROSS! - a force greater than any other on earth! 

It is our Raison D'etre - our Reason for Being - as Mothers - to defend our Children from any and all threats and we join with the Parents and Grandparents of Erie, Colorado along with the Parents and Grandparents of the Community of Wales, New York and with Fathers like Calvin Tillman who have fought the good fight in Dish Texas - we stand in solidarity with you in defence of your children.

Mothers - WE ARE the Leading Edge! -  the Unstoppable Force - the Immovable Obstacle rising up in our Communities and Community Centers, our Towns and in our Town Halls, our Villages and Recreation Centers, in our Cities, our Daycare Centers and Nursery Schools, our Elementary, Middle Schools, Junior and High Schools, on the Schoolyard and off, at Soccer Matches, in Football Fields and Baseball Diamonds, in our Churches and at our Places of Work  - in the United States AND Canada

....to defend and protect OUR CHILDREN from the threat of Shale Gas Industry  - in defence of  our children's health and their lives - their very future!  THIS IS OUR SOLEMN DUTY AND OUR GOD-GIVEN RIGHT AND OUR BELOVED PRIVILEGE AS PARENTS! 

WE arE mothers

and we WILL TAKE ON ALL COMERs!

Will YOU join the Fight to Protect Our Children? 

and Stand with

Moms (and ALL Parents) Against Fracking?

(Parents Against Everyday Poisons - copyright 2012)

There is no fear in love.

But perfect love drives out fear.

1 John 4:18 NIV

New International Version

Taking Environmental Protection Agency Down Constitutes Bragging Rights in Texas

Bloomberg News

Texas Judge’s Campaign Says He’s Taken on the EPA

By Mark Drajem on May 24, 2012

A Texas state judge is promoting his recent decisions favoring a gas driller in its dispute with a local landowner as part of his election campaign, a move some legal scholars say may violate state judicial ethics rules.
With aspects of the case still pending in his courtroom, Judge Trey Loftin sent fliers to voters saying he forced the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to back down.
Loftin, who is campaigning to keep his state judgeship in a county west of Dallas, also sent out materials with the image of talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who credited the judge’s ruling in favor of driller Range Resources Corp. (RRC) (RRC), based in Fort Worth, Texas, for getting the EPA to reverse course.
“The problem of having judges run for office is that sometimes they cross a line in trying to get elected,” James Alfini, a professor of law at South Texas College of Law in Houston and co-author of a book on judicial ethics, said in an interview. “In this case, I think he crossed a line.”
Texas is one of 39 states that select trial court judges by election, and one of eight that do so through partisan elections, according to the American Bar Association. Others chose judges through appointment.
The Texas code of judicial conduct prohibits judges from commenting on pending or impending cases “in a manner which suggests to a reasonable person the judge’s probable decision.”Alfini said that the State Commission on Judicial Conduct should conduct an inquiry.

Commission Reaction

The commission’s executive director, Seana Willing, said it doesn’t disclose whether a complaint has been filed against a judge. Unless a complaint is filed and examined, there is no way to know if a particular campaign statement violates the state code, she said in an e-mail.
Loftin, who is running to retain the post to which he was appointed on the 43rd district court in Parker County, has ruled in favor of Range three times in a legal dispute with landowner Steven Lipsky and consultant Alisa Rich. Lipsky sued Range, accusing it of contaminating his well water. Range, in a countersuit, alleged that Rich and Lipsky conspired to defame the company by getting the Environmental Protection Agency to intervene in the case, which prompted media coverage.
While one decision in the case is under appeal, parts of the case continue to be argued in Loftin’s courtroom. Last week, Loftin ruled that blogger Sharon Wilson must turn over e-mails Range demanded.
“The EPA, using falsified evidence provided by a liberal activist environmental consultant, accused and fined a local gas driller of contaminating wells,” according to a campaign flier for Loftin’s campaign. President Barack “Obama’s EPA backed down only after Judge Trey Loftin ruled that the evidence was‘deceptive.’”

In Public Record

A message left at Loftin’s office was returned by Craig Murphy, who runs the Austin-based political consulting firm Murphy Turner Associates. Murphy, who said he is a campaign spokesman for Loftin, declined to elaborate on the text in the brochures, or even say whether they referred to this case.
“We were real careful in the mailings to make sure everything in there was appropriate,” he said. “What we’ve done is strictly reprint things that are in the public record.”
Range, Rich and Lipsky aren’t named in either of the two fliers provided to Bloomberg. The news stories and Limbaugh commentaries they cite are about the case.
Loftin’s campaign Facebook page includes a reprinted“morning update” by Limbaugh from April 9, in which he says the judge’s decision in favor of Range in the Lipsky case forced the EPA to backtrack. Loftin’s campaign mailer also credits a story in the Fort-Worth Star Telegram about his decision in the Range case.

Recusal Could be Sought

Even without specific references, the mailer may cause a reasonable person to think Loftin was biased in the case, said Keith Swisher, a professor of law at the Phoenix School of Law and expert on judicial ethics.
“The fact that a specific name wasn’t used doesn’t provide” an out, Swisher said in an interview. The materials could also be used by Lipsky or Rich’s lawyers to get Loftin removed from the case, he said.
Lipsky didn’t return a telephone message seeking comment.
“It would be disturbing to think that there was any association between this mailer and myself,” Rich said in an interview. Rich’s lawyer, George Carlton, said he is reviewing the documents.
“I’ve never run across anything like this before,” he said in an interview. “We’re deciding what, if anything, we need to do.”

Loftin’s Opponent

“I don’t think a judge should ever comment about a case pending in his court,” Craig Towson, Loftin’s opponent in the Republican primary on May 29, said in an interview. “One could feel slighted if you have a judge commenting on the case.”
The case in Weatherford, Texas, has become fodder for a nationwide fight between activists increasingly worried about the effects of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas on human health, and drillers complaining about increasing scrutiny from federal regulators.
It is one of at least three examples nationwide in which the EPA initially linked water contamination in a well to fracking, in which millions of gallons of water are mixed with sand and chemicals and shot deep underground to free gas trapped in rock. The agency has since backed off in each case, settling with Range, agreeing to more testing in another case and concluding that homes in a third area are largely free of contamination.
Lipsky initially sued Range in early 2011, after the EPA had issued an administrative order saying Range was responsible for contaminating his water with dangerous levels of methane and benzene, which can cause cancer. Range countersued, saying Lipsky and Rich conspired to persuade the EPA to intervene.
Loftin ruled that Lipsky had to take his original complaint to the state Railroad Commission, not to the court.

SLAPP Law

Lawyers for Rich and Lipsky tried to get Loftin to throw out Range’s countersuit, arguing that it violates a Texas law against so-called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, or SLAPPs. Loftin rejected that argument on Feb. 16, and the case was appealed to the Texas Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth.
A month after Loftin made that decision, the EPA settled its dispute with Range. In his campaign materials, Loftin takes credit for EPA’s about face.
“Judge Loftin’s decision regarding deceptive actions by environmental extremists made the EPA re-evaluate its national policy,” his campaign said in a flier.
The case in Texas state court is Lipsky v. Durant, 11-cv-0798, 43rd District Court of Texas, Parker County (Weatherford, Texas).
To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Drajem in Washington at mdrajem@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net

The NEW Declaration of Independece AGAINST FRACKING - May 10 2012

Dr. J. Stephen Cleghorn's Solemn Remembrance of his Wife, Lucinda.

Blessing the land with Lucinda’s ashes.

Welcome, everyone.
Today I act to declare my farm, all that lives above on its surface, the very air and sunlight that caresses and enlivens all of us here today, and all that lies below it as firmament, I hereby declare off-limits from shale gas extraction and its toxic impacts, in perpetuity. Some will say what I do is against the law. But I say this: I act in the spirit of the founders of this nation who proclaimed in our Declaration of Independence that “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” entitled them to throw off the oppression of the British Crown. I act to throw off an oppression manifesting itself in the threat of “fracking” for methane gas, an extreme form of fossil fuel extraction that is but representative of a much bigger oppression that is bearing down on all of us.

There is an increasing collusion between corporate power and the governmental powers of the United States of America, Pennsylvania and other states. This flag beside me is losing its potency as a symbol of justice and freedom. The republic for which it stands is being bought and sold as though being traded on the commodities market. We are losing our democracy. Governments are protecting corporations, not people.

Seeing energy companies dictate laws such as the recently passed Act 13, I can now understand better what our nation’s founders discovered in trying to negotiate with the British Crown. Act 13 is a corporate-sponsored form of organized crime perpetrated upon the people and democracy of Pennsylvania, written by politicians purchased for that purpose by lubricious campaign contributions that exceeded $4.4 million in the 2010 election cycle, more than one-third of which went to Governor Corbett, and almost two-thirds of which went to Gov. Corbett, Senator Joe Scarnati, Speaker Sam Smith and the Republican Party Committee. That is not to count the $5 million in gas company lobbying in Harrisburg and being the Gold Sponsors of the annual meeting of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors.

We are being systematically colonized by multinational corporations who give no quarter. There has come a time when negotiation is capitulation, when our petitioning for redress “in the most humble terms” has failed, and when our “repeated Petitions” are being “answered only by repeated injury.”

The America we love is fast becoming America, Inc. – a wholly owned subsidiary of faceless corporations that get to speak with money to get the politicians they want to make the laws they need to despoil our environment and even what we eat for their exorbitant profits. Monsanto is buying up and patenting our seeds and poisoning us with their genetically engineered crops. The USDA and Food Safety Administration – at the behest of the industrial food lobby – are preventing the labeling of genetically modified food products that a super majority of Americans want to see labeled. Chesapeake Energy and Range Resources and CONSOL Energy and EXCO Resources (allied with British Petroleum) and Cabot Oil & Gas and Shell Oil and many others are being given license to run roughshod over local zoning protections. Their transgressions against water and air and human and animal life where they drill are being shielded by court gag orders. PNC and other banks are financing mountaintop removal of coal that is destroying entire ecosystems in West Virginia.

Our political leaders, beholden to corporations to fund their campaigns, refuse to lead us out of a fossil fuel era that is warming our planet, and refuse to prevent the chemical contamination of our environment and food for corporate profits. The environment is becoming more and more toxic. Species are disappearing by the hundreds annually and many of our own human kind are finding themselves dealing more and more with the calamities of climate change.

Act 13 codifies injuries against our democracy and our earth itself. It was an outright victory for the “Shale Army” of which one energy executive boasted: “The shale army has arrived. Resistance is futile.”

But resistance is not futile. The “shale army” will find that out soon enough, after we have taken more losses at their hands, to be sure, but soon enough. Resistance can be liberating. It is also a little scary, of course. That is why our Declaration of Independence ends, knowing that war is at hand, on a somber note that appeals “to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions” and comes to a close with these words: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

That is what today is for me. And I dare say many of my friends gathered here. Our lives. Our fortunes. Our sacred honor. Maybe even our liberty will be required of us as we resist the shale army. But we shall pay those costs. We shall pledge all that to Nature and to our fellow human beings who are part of Nature, God’s Nature, even those who perpetrate the harm.
I am putting all of that into this fight, risking it all without any assurance of victory.

Why? Because we need a new paradigm for how we live on this Earth. Our individual acts of resistance such as this one today must be part of an ongoing organization to create a foundation of law based on the Rights of Nature.

Now, for a moment, let me turn to those who were invited but chose not to come today. Mr. & Mrs. Burkett. Senator Scarnati and Speaker Smith. J. Brett Harvey of CONSOL Energy and Douglas Miller of EXCO Resources.

Mr. & Mrs. Burkett – If you were here I’d say this to you. When you bought the deed to the gas rights for $150 in 1995 from a previous heir of this farm, you could not have known anything about the highly invasive and toxic processes of drilling into an unconventional gas field such as the tight shale of the Marcellus. No one did. And you could not have known that someday two people would come and pour their entire life savings into making this an organic farm. And when you made a smart deal for $80,000 in leasing bonus and looked forward to 12 ½% royalties, it must have seemed such a good thing for your family, but you had no idea that this type of drilling could destroy another family’s dreams for sustainable farming and nurturing a new generation of young farmers. But now you do know, and when you told Lucinda and me that you were not interested in selling the gas rights back to us, you said it was because you were “greedy.” I asked how you could allow the earth to be destroyed for some money, and you told me that it did not really matter because at the end of time, according to your faith, Jesus Christ would return and make the world whole again for his faithful, and those people who did the damage to the world would receive their just due. But don’t you see, Mr. & Mrs. Burkett, that “those people” are you? “Those people” are all of us if we allow the destruction of our earth.

Senator Scarnati, for two years I have tried to get you to understand the suffering that afflicts people and animals in contact with this drilling, wherever it has occurred. You refuse to take in any information about that. In fact you recently blocked a $2 million fund to develop a health registry that would track cases of people who are being sickened. Today we have presented news accounts of more than 115 such cases, but for you (on purpose) you will not pay attention to these. These are all the “disappeared ones” for you (on purpose). They do not exist for you, they cannot exist for you, and you do not want information about them to exist for anyone else. I pity you, sir, and – believe it or not – I continue to keep you in my prayers.

Speaker Smith, Mr. Harvey and Mr. Miller – let me offer this to all of you who have refused to be here today. Also to you, Mr. & Mrs. Burkett and Senator Scarnati. If you were here I’d ask you to stand up, turn slowly and look around this beautiful farm, this beautiful farmland and woods before you. Just turn your bodies slowly around and see all of it, see and imagine it as habitat for me, my family and friends, my neighbors, these goats, the fox and the deer and the moles and the mice and the groundhogs, the ground-nesting birds and peeping frogs and the slithering snakes. “Look Out” on this place and see it as a home for many, not a commodity to be exploited. “Look Out” on this particular place, which in some ways stands for all places where earth and sky and water and air and life are under threat by our insatiable “economy” built on fossil fuels, built on wars for fossil fuels, and try to hear there words from a poem called “Look Out” by the farmer Wendell Berry. Hope that these words are not about you. Hope that some day these words will not describe any of us:

Look Out – by Wendell Berry

Come to the window, look out, and see
the valley turning green in remembrance
of all springs past and to come, the woods
perfecting with immortal patience
the leaves that are the work of all of time,
the sycamore whose white limbs shed
the history of a man’s life with their old bark,
the river quivering under the morning’s breath
like the touched skin of a horse, and you will see
also the shadow cast upon it by fire, the war
that lights its way by burning the earth.
Come to your windows, people of the world,
look out at whatever you see wherever you are,
and you will see dancing upon it that shadow.
You will see that your place, wherever it is,
your house, your garden, your shop, your forest, your farm,
bears the shadow of its destruction by war
which is the economy of greed which is plunder
which is the economy of wrath which is fire.
The Lords of War sell the earth to buy fire,
they sell the water and air of life to buy fire.
They are little men grown great by willingness
to drive whatever exists into its perfect absence.
Their intention to destroy any place is solidly founded
upon their willingness to destroy every place.
Every household of the world is at their mercy,
the households of the farmer and the otter and the owl
are at their mercy. They have no mercy.
Having hate, they can have no mercy.
Their greed is the hatred of mercy.
Their pockets jingle with the small change of the poor.
Their power is the willingness to destroy
everything for knowledge which is money
which is power which is victory
which is ashes sown by the wind.
Leave your windows and go out, people of the world,
go into the streets, go into the fields, go into the woods
and along the streams. Go together, go alone.
Say no to the Lords of War which is Money
which is Fire. Say no by saying yes
to the air, to the earth, to the trees,
yes to the grasses, to the rivers, to the birds
and the animals and every living thing, yes
to the small houses, yes to the children. Yes.
My friends, please, now join me as we set aside this farm from the destruction of shale gas drilling.

The Invocations:
(To those gathered). As I move now to release a portion of my wife’s ashes upon this land, I will end each invocation with her name. When I do that, please say with me “¡Presente!” to recognize that she is here with us in spirit. “¡Presente!” is a way of saying that she here with us to take new spiritual action as guardian and protector of this farm that she so loved. So… (lifting the first handful ashes)
1. May she who was soft, warm and moist to me – now made dry by cancerous death – come now in these ashes to mingle with earth and water below our feet, come to protect the soil and water of this farm and all the lives which they sustain. Come now, Dr. Lucinda Hart-Gonzalez! (¡Presente!)
2. May she who was quench to my thirst, who was water of this good earth’s loving waters – now made grit and grief to me by cancerous death – may she come now to her final home, come speak with these ashes her final words of peace and wellness for her beloved organic farm. Come now, Dr. Lucinda Hart-Gonzalez. (¡Presente!)
3. May she who was tender and close and loving of me – now made dust and distant from me by cancerous death – come now in these ashes to declare this farm forever inviolate of shale gas drilling or any other attack upon it as a living system. Here now she declares a new right of love on the surface and below this farm that no gas drill will ever penetrate.” Come, be with us now, Dr. Lucinda Hart-Gonzalez. (¡Presente!)
Thank you. Now we will take your questions.