Siegel: Fracking harms environment, planet's climate

Ventury Company Star , Saturday, November 24, 2012
Correspondent :
A tidal wave is about to sweep over our state. Oil companies are snapping up thousands of acres across central and Southern California. Armed with dangerous new techniques, the petroleum industry aims to exploit a vast reservoir of previously inaccessible shale oil — and the consequences for our air, water and public health could be devastating.

This oil will be extracted using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as the industry commonly calls it. Fracking is a rapidly evolving technique that involves blasting huge amounts of water, along with toxic chemicals, deep into the ground to break up rocks and extract oil and gas.

Many Californians don't realize we're facing a fracking boom and don't know much about the technology's risks.

But our nonprofit organization, the Center for Biological Diversity, has documented fracking in nine California counties, including Ventura.

Petroleum industry documents show growing interest in the approximately 14 billion barrels of shale oil in the Monterey Shale formation, which lies beneath some of the most beautiful wildlife habitat and most productive farmland in America.

Some claim that California's environmental laws will protect us. But state officials have admitted that they currently do not even track, let alone regulate, fracking. The state has even been criticized by the Environmental Protection Agency for doing too little to protect our underground water supplies from oil-industry pollution.

Under pressure from concerned lawmakers, the state Department of Conservation's oil and gas division has belatedly begun to develop fracking regulations. But the public has yet to see even a draft version of these rules. Meanwhile, state officials have little idea when or where fracking is occurring — or what chemicals are used in the process.

The oil industry often claims there's nothing to fear because fracking has been used for decades. But today's fracking is new and different, and as the practice has changed and expanded, so has damage to the environment. New techniques include the use of chemical concoctions called "slick water" that help generate the pressures needed to break apart rock.

The risks are well documented. The EPA, for example, recently confirmed fracking-related water pollution in Pavillion, Wyo. That's disturbing when you consider that fracking routinely employs dangerous chemicals like methanol and benzene.

About 25 percent of fracking chemicals could cause cancer, while many others harm the nervous, endocrine, immune and cardiovascular systems, according to scientists. A recent study from the Colorado School of Public Health found that fracking contributes to serious health problems in people living near fracked wells.

Fracking will increase air pollution. Our poor air quality already keeps far too many children home from school and adults home from work because of asthma and other respiratory ailments. Protecting the air we breathe and our children's health is urgent.

And fracking also threatens our planet's climate by releasing large quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Fracking the billions of barrels of oil in the Monterey Shale will light the fuse on a carbon bomb that will shatter our state's efforts to fight global warming.

Other risks may be hidden by industry secrecy. Few knew, for example, that radioactive probes were used with fracking until one of these dangerous devices fell off a truck in Texas earlier this year. This radioactive probe wasn't found for almost a month.

California lawmakers must move quickly to address fracking. To protect our health and our future, this dangerous practice should be banned in California. Trashing our air, water and climate is not the right way to move our state forward.

 
SOURCE : http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/nov/24/siegel-fracking-harms-environment-planets/
 


Back to pevious page



The NetworkAbout Us  |  Our Partners  |  Concepts   
Resources :  Databases  |  Publications  |  Media Guide  |  Suggested Links
Happenings :  News  |  Events  |  Opinion Polls  |  Case Studies
Contact :  Guest Book  |  FAQs |  Email Us