We've from time to time tried to alert you to the utter, blatant contradictions between the public presentation of the Shale Gas boom and the stark realities of the thing, i.e., the vast differences between sober US Government geological assessments of the size of the resource and what's being touted by the industry and repeated in the press.
And, we've tried to alert you to the immense environmental dangers inherent in the practice of fracking, especially with unregulated and unreported - - as they, through the Dick Cheney-promulgated Halliburton Loophole, lawfully are - - dangerous, toxic chemicals.
There have been some locals who have attempted to raise the alarm, as, for instance, the apparently now-censored Stanley States of the Pittsburgh Water Authority.
If you will also recall, we were able at one time to document the apparent silencing of physicians in PA who tried to report instances of treating people exposed in one way or another to frac chemicals.
Certainly, the environmental disaster at Dimock, PA, which has since been smoothed over and silenced, deserved both far more press attention than it got; and, far more public attention paid to the press reports that were made.
We have conjectured for you that the only way the situation could have evolved to this juncture is that undue influence was being wielded; that, in fact, some outright corruption was involved, as was the case with the, as we documented for you, Chesapeake Nat Gas $26 million funding of the Sierra Club's "Beyond Coal" campaign; and, the nat gas industry's direct funding of a "Coal Is Filthy" PR campaign in Texas, to stop construction of two new Coal-fired power plants, so that an artificial market for nat gas would be created.
We have just been alerted that Pittsburgh-area reporter Don Hopey is making ready to publish reports of direct, Nat Gas payola to, or at least undue, questionable and surreptitious direct Nat Gas influencing of, PA state legislators and regulators.
There is, apparently, a grand jury, or other investigative body, now in place to investigate nat gas corruption; and, at least two, former or still-current, PA government employees have testified to that body that drinking water analysis results were falsified to hide evidence of chemical contamination caused by fracking.
We have no other details, cannot genuinely assure you that is the case, and can only say that we at this time believe our source to be reliable and accurate. It will be follow on to work that Hopey has previously and recently published, such as the piece we enclose, via the link, herein:
"Study reports 'hidden costs' in gas drilling
September 22, 2012; By Don Hopey / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A PennEnvironment Re-search & Policy Center report has identified more than a dozen categories of hidden costs -- including aquifer contamination, human health problems and damage to roadways, home values and natural resources -- linked to Marcellus Shale gas development in Pennsylvania.
The report, released Thursday in Pittsburgh as Gov. Tom Corbett was welcoming the industry at the Marcellus Shale Coalition's second annual conference in Philadelphia, also stated that bonding amounts required by the state will be inadequate to cover long-term future costs of plugging abandoned wells.
"There are a staggering array of threats to the environment posed by Marcellus Shale gas development and myriad costs," said Erika Staaf of PennEnvironment, a statewide advocacy organization. "We're advocating a moratorium on drilling until additional safeguards and appropriate bonding is put in place.""
----------------------
Shale Gas is a puny resource, in terms of total, recoverable Btu energy content, relative to Coal.
We are nuts to have bought so deeply, so uncritically, into it, to have glorified it, at the expense of ignoring, devaluing Coal.
