I’ve just been informed by my Goddaughter, Liz Arnold, that the Newfoundland provincial government in eastern Canada has put a moratorium on all fracking pending a scientific review. Liz should know. She’s organizing across Pennsylvania for a similar moratorium.
Newfoundland action was sound and measured. They did not ban fracking or outlaw fracking forever. They just stopped it till some vexing questions could be answered.
So far it is clear that the energy industry has been lying about the environmental and human effects of fracking. The industry says it is harmless, but water has been poisoned and people have been forced off their land.
In the last two weeks I’ve just read that the energy industry is seeking to transport fracking waste via inland waterways. So far the Coast Guard is blocking that. The Coast Guard wants to know what is in the waste. The industry says that information contains trade secrets.
Given the coal industry’s poisoning of the water table and drinking water of 300,000 people in West Virginia, their practice of blowing tops off mountains, which results in subsequent environmental destruction, and given the lies fracking proponents have been caught in, IT ONLY MAKES SENSE FOR PENNSYLVANIA TO PLACE A MORATORIUM ON FRACKING.
Economically, there are many more jobs to be created for Pennsylvania’s people by harnessing the God-given potential of wind and solar — reliable, renewable, sustainable. But fracking generates already over-bloated profits for energy companies.
It is time for the people of Pennsylvania, the decision-makers of Pennsylvania, and those who would be governor of Pennsylvania to say NO to fracking now.
Photo source: SchuminWeb on Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)