Meet Aubrey McClendon, billionaire :
"We're the biggest frackers in the world," he declares proudly over a $400.00 bottle of French Bordeaux at a restaurant he co-owns. "We frack all the time. What's the big deal?"
Rolling Stone in another of their excellent in-depth articles
"The Big Fracking Bubble: The Scam Behind the Gas Boom" by Jeff Goodell in the latest issue.
McClendon is to natural gas what the Koch brothers are to pipelines and refineries.
Mr. McClendon is a Landsman.
For Chesapeake, the primary profit in fracking comes not from selling the gas itself, but from buying and flipping the land that contains the gas. The company is now the largest leaseholder in the United States, owning the drilling rights to some 15 million acres – an area more than twice the size of Maryland.
Now it didn't matter where you drilled – the gas was pretty much evenly distributed throughout the earth's deep shale layers. The edge suddenly belonged to operators who could lock up as much land as quickly and as cheaply as possible
That means, they can frack anywhere. Although rivers and lakes are protected, permits are issued close to them. If you think drinking water in Pennsylvania is being protected by government agencies check this:
AP: Pennsylvania is approving gas drilling permits with scant review
More from Aubrey McClendon's company Chesapeake:
This, in essence, is the mantra at Chesapeake: Everything we do is safe and environmentally responsible. Trust us.
In these parts, the company's PR efforts are squarely aimed at quelling any environmental fears. To underscore how safe fracking is, Brian Grove, Chesapeake's director of corporate development in the Marcellus region, explains that the layer of shale being drilled is 7,000 feet beneath the surface, whereas drinking water rarely runs deeper than 1,000 feet. "That leaves 6,000 feet of rock in between," he says. "There is no way that any fluids are going to migrate from the shale rock up to the drinking-water aquifers."
That's the PR, but talk is cheap and this PR is downright false. Here's the reality:
An even larger threat is the flowback waste that is pumped out after a well is fracked. It's a salty brine, mildly radioactive, and laced not just with toxic chemicals but with natural hydrocarbons and heavy metals like barium and benzene, which are known carcinogens even in minute quantities
The deal is buy up as much land as possible with credit based on future natural gas production, drill everywhere, getting a permit is piece of cake, lie to the public about the dangers to their drinking water and make millions of dollars. Where is most of the natural gas headed?
Turning vast stretches of Pennsylvania into a pincushion in order to ship gas to China doesn't exactly mesh with McClendon's emphasis on making America energy independent.
From the letters to Rolling Stone:
You don't need to look very far in PA to understand with this natural gas industry there are no "best practices" For those who believe it's being highly regulated, open the news papers. There are serious, irreversible damages being done. This is not being done right and it needs to stop. It's criminal what is going on in PA. The governor was bought and paid for by the gas industry, another reason why PA is the only state where they are allowed to have open "Frack Ponds" and no taxing on the industry. There is something really wrong when people can't even bathe in the water that comes out of their taps and children living near drilling have toluene, benzene and barium in their blood streams.
"100% left wing propaganda"
Really? I think this article is outstanding. And just so you know, I'm a Republican. This is not a political issue; this is a human rights issue. It's a social justice issue.
My brother took his life because he was so sick from the water in his well.. I can only hope the truth gets out so that this is stopped. Who cares if jobs are brought to Pa if the jobs are killing the people and ruining the water supply.. Does anyone care about the rights of the people or is it just all about the almighty dollar--Absolutely absurd!!!!!!
Read more:
http://www.rollingstone.com/...
DKos Diary by freemark
Getting Fracked in PA