When Democrats Go Bad

Kerry and Boxer are pushing it in their latest energy bill. Obama is advocating it. Even Al Gore is singing its praises.

Natural gas.

It burns cleaner than oil. We've got lots of it in the United States. What's not to love?

Unfortunately, just about everything.

Just five miles from where my husbands' folks live, there is an environmental catastrophe in the making. The natural gas industry, which has been drilling nationwide with substantial reported problems, has started drilling the Marcellus Shale in NE PA, and is on its way to NY.

A few months ago, folks lost their water. Last month 6,000-8,000 gallons of chemicals found their way into wetlands, and fish are dying.

This catastrophe comes with the advent of a new kind of natural gas drilling called hydraulic fracturing. This unconventional drilling involves breaking up the shale structure underneath hundreds of miles of land, using about five million gallons of water per each frac, about ten fracs per well, for of each of the two-thousand wells projected for New York state. The water that is rendered poisonous by a chemical fluid; much of the fluid and equipment is supplied by Halliburton.

The fracing fluid is exempt from right-to-know. We don't what is in it. Independent scientists, like the renowned Theo Colbourn has found toxic and carcinogenic substances.

The process is exempt from the clean air act, the clean water act, the safe drinking water act, storm protection, and the superfund.

Oil companies using Halliburton equipment and know-how have been drilling throughout the country, and we already have 1000's of cases of water contamination. Under the Bush administration, these were not studied, but officials in Wyoming have found benzene in the aquifer and a toxic plume of 28 miles. Last week, the EPA finally got involved and has directly connected natural gas production with water contamination.

Scientific American gave it a very thorough treatment last November, and so did, of all magazines, Business Week. However the progressive press has been silent on this issue. Nothing on the Daily Kos, from what I know. The Huffington Posthas been featuring articles by T.Boon Pickens telling us of green natural gas and national security. I wrote TPM about it, but haven't seen anything here - and darned I wish someone would pay attention.

I will seem to be exaggerating, but this process is akin to having ten Love Canals in thousands of communities all around the country many affecting major watersheds.

The lack of attention is, to say the least, bizarre.

Part of the problem is the Sierra Club national (much to chagrin of many chapters) along with other national environmental organizations decided last year to endorse natural gas as a "transition" fuel because it burns about 23% cleaner than oil.

My guess is that Pickens was successfully able to pitch his idea, and so, garnering the names of well-respected environmental organizations, basically rebuild himself as a clean-green progressive.

Sadly, the environmental organizations seem to have endorsed Pickens' plan when we were still ignorant about the process used to obtain this gas, which (as stated) uses billions of gallons of water that is never returned to the ecosystem but which is contaminated with carcinogens and toxins associated with reproductive disorders, brain damage, nerve damage and cancer -- among other health problems.

The process also involves the creation of ozone and methane, greenhouse gasses more dangerous than CO2. A scientific study has found that the pollution caused by the process causes twice as much pollution in the Fort Worth area than all traffic in that area combined, and Fort Worth has already been facing pollution remediation due to pollution from traffic.

As a bonus, the drilling also brings radon and heavy metals to the surface (like lead and mercury) and radon has already found its way into the air and food chain in Texas as is reported in the Denton Record Chronicle.)

To say this stuff is deadly is an understatement. A nurse in Durango spent ten minutes with a rig worker who was doused in the fracing fluid. She did not touch him, but still ended up in intensive care for days. The company would not tell doctors what chemical she had been exposed to for days, either, and even then swore the doctor to confidentiality.

Yet thanks largely to democratic leadership, a very dangerous fossil fuel industry is about to gain footing in the American economy.