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Backyard Talk

Halloween Nightmare

I dreamed that just as I entered a Halloween haunted house the first monster I ran into was Frackenstine.  Just like the book Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley about a creature produced by an unorthodox scientific experiment I noticed that the Frackenstine that stood before me was also made up by combining many parts.  Frackenstines legs turned out to be the Ohio legislature that gave the monster his legs to make his way around Ohio, his torso was made of the Ohio oil and gas industry, his arms were the different state agencies that gave the monster the strength to strong-arm Ohio communities by not allowing citizens or local government to have any say into whether or not they wanted this massive industrial process to destroy their community.  The Frackenstine monster was so big I was having a hard time seeing who or what made up the head  but as I moved farther away from the monster I could see that the monsters head was Ohio’s own governor, Governor John Kasich who has become the mouthpiece and cheerleader for industry.

Down a long dark hallway I came to a closed door, as I opened the door I saw a room full of bubbling cauldrons.  As I looked around the room I saw thousands of Material Safety Data Sheets with all of the toxic chemicals blacked out.  There was also a flashing sign that warned of radiation.  While trying to read all of the signs I was suddenly approached by someone dressing in a hazardous materials moonsuit telling me that bubbling brew was safe and not to worry.  Even though he was dressed in protective garb he informed me that I was not allowed to know what was in the bubbling toxic brew and the door was quickly closed in my face.  As the door closed I could hear the sinister laugh of a crazy person who had spent too much time inhaling the toxic vapors of the bubbling cauldrons full of fracking fluid.

As I continued down the dark hallway I turned a corner and was face to face with a Vampire with blood dripping from his fangs. NO wait, it wasn’t blood dripping, I realized his fangs are drilling rigs that were dripping oil and he is hungry for more and more.  He can’t get enough; he is sinking his rigs into hundreds of thousands of acres of Mother Earth just to see if he can find more oil or gas to feed his needs.  I thought if I can just hold out until dawn the sun would destroy this vampire, but I was so wrong.

As I was about to exit the haunted house I heard the screams of the banshee foretelling the death of life as we know it.  No longer will we have local communities where we can cross the street without worrying about being hit by one of the thousands of trucks or being harassed by out of state workers that have no since of pride for the community.  We face industrial facilities in places where they have no business being in.

But wait, I suddenly realized I was not asleep, I was not having a nightmare.  What I had thought was a horrible nightmare was indeed reality for many communities in Ohio and across the nation that are faced with the nightmare known as fracking.

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Backyard Talk

The Answer to Climate Change-A Floating City

For years I’ve thought that those who advocate “clean coal” or hydro fracturing, oil drilling off shore or even nuclear power plants thought that once the earth has been totally contaminated, climate change has dried up our lakes and streams and deserts have replaced once lush farmland that they believed there was another planet where they could rebuild the new America. It is the only plan that made sense to me since they, their children and their children’s children have to live somewhere. All the money in the world can’t protect them when the air is no longer breathable or the water drinkable.

But I now know I was wrong. No, they can’t buy their way out of the nasty planet earth they have ruined. Nor is there another planet to move to. However, those with money could make a family reservation on the Seascraper. That’s right a self contained floating city. It was highlighted in National Geographic News.

Here’s the story.

The Seascraper—a self-sufficient community of homes, offices, and recreational space—was designed with the intention of slowing urban sprawl, according to its designers.

The vessel’s energy independence would come from underwater turbines powered by deep-sea currents as well as from a photovoltaic skin that could collect solar energy. The concave hull would collect rainwater and allow daylight to reach lower levels. Fresh water would come from treated and recycled rainwater via an on-board desalination plant.

This green machine would also help keep marine populations afloat, so to speak, with a buoyant base that serves as a reef and discharges fish food in the form of nutrients pumped from the deep sea, the U.S. design team says.

The idea that engineers and designers are even thinking about this floating city as an answer to climate change is ridiculous. Instead of getting our arms around and our policies focused on prevention or protection of our homeland and planet, we are designing and building a bigger mouse trap. Unbelievable.

Furthermore, everyone knows that decisions on what happens in this floating city will be the responsibility of the Captain not through a democratic process.

O.K. so I was wrong. The other planet to move earthlings to is out but the floating city, which looks like a Nike shoe by the way, is the alternative. Now all we need to do is figure out how to make a reservation for the next generation of our families.

Or we need to worker harder and smarter to save our planet and ourselves.

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Backyard Talk

Over 5,000 March On D.C. To Stop Fracking


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Photo by Hendrik Voss


Over 5,000 people traveled from all over the country this past Saturday July 28th to be part of a rally and powerful voice against fracking on the West lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Their goal: to end dirty and dangerous fracking; closure of the seven legal loopholes that let frackers in the oil and gas industry ignore the Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act; and full enforcement of existing laws to protect families and communities from the effects of fracking. Not unreasonable demands given that hydro fracturing for gas or “Fracking” has already destroyed people’s land, water, air, property and health. Asking congress to stop this destructive practice is a no brainer but then some in congress don’t act on intellect but only focused on greed and/or how they can get reelected.

Congress has the power to stop the fracking of our country and the destruction of the American Dream for so many people. The fracking industry, astonishingly, doesn’t even have to adhere to the laws that other industries are held to like the safe drinking water act — a critical law — because when there is no safe water people die.

If you were at the rally you would have experienced people’s feelings of fear and frustration among many who were gathered to speak to the issue and talk with congressional representatives. So many of the participants expressed how they have experienced or fear their lives being destroyed, their families left helpless and frustrated because they cannot stop the frackers. “Our land has been in our family for generations and now it’s poisoned, polluted and unusable. We received no benefits, no money from the frackers and today we have nothing but poisoned land not fit for livestock or crops. This is so wrong,” said a grassroots farmer from Pennsylvania.

“I support any legislation that we can get passed that will cost the companies money,” said another activist who attended the demonstration. “I don’t think that there can be a safe form of fracking.”

If you were at the rally you would have also been swept up in the enthusiasm, energy and sense of power people felt. Together we are strong . . . together we can make a difference, said many of the participants. There were all kinds of people there, young, old, farmers, businessmen and women, rich, poor, black, white, brown a reflection of the diverse American populace.

Rally speakers included, Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org; Josh Fox, producer of Gasland; Calvin Tillman, former mayor of Dish, Texas; Allison Chin, board president of the Sierra Club, and community members from swing states affected by fracking. After the rally people marched for more than one hour, stopping at the headquarters of the America’s Natural Gas Alliance and American Petroleum Institute.

“As the increasingly bizarre weather across the planet and melting ice on Greenland makes clear, at this point we’ve got no choice but to keep fossil fuels underground. Fracking to find more is the worst possible idea,” said McKibben.

This was an impressive rally with grassroots people impacted by fracking in their communities joined together with 136 local and national organizations to call on Congress to Stop the Frack Attack and protect Americans from the dangerous impacts of fracking. CHEJ was proud to play a small role in the event.

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Backyard Talk

NC Legislator Fracked It Up

Governor Bev Perdue vetoed the controversial fracking bill Sunday, July 1st the last day she had to act before it would have become law.

The governor said she supports hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking,” but believes additional safeguards are needed in the bill. Without those safeguards in place to protect drinking water and the health of North Carolina families, Perdue said she was forced to veto the bill. “If they improve the bill to strengthen the protections for North Carolina families, I will sign it into law.”

Then two days later, Representative Becky Carney solved the problem for the Governor when she accidentally voted to override her veto.  That’s right accidentally pushed the wrong button.  Unbelievable.

The most important job of an elected representative is the power of their vote based upon their constituencies needs.  We elect people who Americans feel will pay attention and support their issues. Rep. Carney said she felt rotten but when you are responsible for the future of the states well being you don’t have the right to feel bad or rotten as she said.  It is your job to pay attention no matter what time of day or night it is and responsibly vote.

She said it was late after 11 o’clock and she was tired.  “I pushed the wrong button – the green one.”  Even if you’re tired doesn’t green mean go?  Oh she tried as best she could to change her vote but couldn’t – house rules.  I certainly wonder about what really happened, despite her drama on the floor after her green not red voting exercise.

In any case this is the second time the Governor vetoed the bill from the legislators and sent them back to make a change.  And today Carney’s vote has created the opportunity for the fracking industry to exploit North Carolina just as they have in PA, OH and so many western states.

Maybe voters in NC should ask tired Carney to take a break and let someone else take on the tiring effort of working past 11 o’clock in the evening and voting responsibly.

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Backyard Talk

Ohio Grassroots Call Out Lies of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association

During recent testimony on Ohio Governor Kasich so called “energy bill”, Tom Stewart, vice-president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association testified that Ohio has the highest quality crude oil known to be produced in the world.  He testified that the crude is highly paraffinic and that they skim off the paraffin at the refineries to make candy out of it and also use it for coating on items like Advil and M&M’s.

Members of Frack Free Ohio sent Mr. Stewart some personalize M&M’s that read “Don’t Frac Ohio, Complements of Frack Free Ohio” and also posted on Mar’s Facebook page demanding to know if it is true that paraffin from crude oil is used to make the coating on M&M’s.  This morning a member of Frack Free Ohio received this from the company;

M&M’s U.S.A.
“Only high quality ingredients that meet or exceed all federal standards are used to manufacture M&M’S® Chocolate Candies. Only materials made from natural plant sources are used to coat the outside of the candies. Any information to the contrary is inaccurate.”

People should go to M&M’s Facebook and ask the company to either admit to using well paraffinic from oil and gas wells or to request a public apology and retraction from Tom Stewart. Here is M&M’s Facebook link http://www.facebook.com/mms

Here’s summary of the transcript of Tom Stewarts testimony:

Let me give you a good example. If you have a gas well, that flows naturally, but it produces some water, and if you don’t maintain that well, in such a way, the water will build up and creates hydrostatic weight in the formation and the well will stop producing.

You got a couple ways you can solve that problem. You can go into the well and swab it out, you can try putting pump equipment and get it to pump out, or you can try to get the well to flow again. Here’s how a producer gets it to flow again, he goes to the grocery store and he buys, Tide, and he puts it down the backside of the well which causes it to bubble up and foam up, lighten the fluid and the well flows.

So to ask the question, what do you want me, as a producer, to give you the CAS number of… Tide? ‘Cuz it’s something that’s put down the well and it’s stripped and brought back.

You’re pumping the well (unintelligible) with pump jacks, they’re actuated by separate rods connected to a bottom hole pump where the bottom of the tube is four thousand feet deep in the ground. You’re pumping that well, over time, scale builds up on the balls and seats that actuate the pump. . . You can put scale remover down the, uh, back side of that well, pump it up through the tubing, it eliminates the scale you don’t have to pull the well or the tubing for it pump. Ohio produces, probably the highest quality crude oil known to be produced in the world, it’s Penngrade 38 degree oil.  It’s highly paraffinic, they actually skim the paraffin off in refineries and make candy out of it, they also make, the coatings on Advil and M&M’s, so when you’re eating your next box of M&M’s, you’re eating crude oil.

And here is the You Tube link to word for word testimony.  Click here: Tom Stewart Testifies at Ohio Statehouse – YouTube

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Backyard Talk

Fracking Waste is Too Toxic For Niagara Falls

We’re not selling out future generations of our children for corporate greed.

This was a statement made by a Niagara Falls Council Chairman who at one time attended school in the Love Canal contaminated neighborhood.  It is refreshing to hear someone who has learned from our society’s past mistakes and takes steps to avoid the same problems in the future.

Niagara Falls has recently gone on record against treating wastewater from hydraulic fracturing, with elected officials saying they don’t want the city that endured the Love Canal toxic waste crisis to be a test case for the technology used in gas drilling operations.

The City Council also approved an ordinance Monday that prohibits natural gas extraction in Niagara Falls, as well as the “storage, transfer, treatment or disposal of natural gas exploration and production wastes.”

This does not mean that the Niagara Falls Water Board, who owns the treatment facility can’t agree to take the fracking waste, despite the city council decisions.  However, they would have to air lift the wastes in which would be costly, because the City will not allow it to be transferred or stored.

After celebrating this proactive and protective decision by the city council I realized that years ago a similar policy was passed in the city of New Bedford, MA.  In that situation the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) wanted to place a portable incinerator near the shoreline and burn the PCB wastes that were going to be dredged from the harbor.

When the city said no and passed a similar policy, the USEPA said we can air lift the incinerator on to the site.  The city countered by saying they would refused to give them permits for water and electricity. The USEPA came back with, we’ll air lift the incinerator, a generator and water tanks.  This became a big scandal and EPA backed down.

The lesson here is — believe the unbelievable when it comes to greed at any costs.  The city of Niagara Falls needs to watch carefully to make sure that their proactive intentions of protecting public health and the environment are in fact accomplished.

As a former resident I have to say that I am proud of the recent decision and foresight the city has demonstrated. If only Ohio could see the problem in the same light. They’ve had earthquakes and other related problems with waste disposal already. When will they ever learn?