Greetings from CDOG January
21, 2010
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January 25th Rally in Albany to
Protect our Environment from Natural
Gas Drilling
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Horizontal drilling and hydrofracking pose an
unacceptable risk to our
drinking water and the
quality of groundwater,
aquifers, lakes and streams
Communities where
hydrofracking has occurred
have experienced explosions,
fires, spills, stream
contamination, well
pollution, and degradation
of aquifers and other water
supplies
Local emergency services,
including volunteer fire
departments, EMS units, and
healthcare providers, would
be severely stressed and
placed at considerable risk
from accidents
Gas drilling will involve
construction of a massive
infrastructure of wellheads,
pipelines, compressing
stations, and processing
centers spread across much
of rural upstate NY
Infrastructure development
will involve extensive
clearcutting, 24 hour noise
and light pollution, huge
increases of truck traffic,
and the permanent altering
of existing landscapes
The projected scale of such
industrialization is
incompatible with
agriculture, tourism,
recreation
Compulsory integration of
neighboring landowners to
allow gas extraction against
their wishes is an immoral
seizure of land and an
unconstitutional abuse of
power
Extensive drilling will
undermine the value of
adjacent properties and
increase tax burdens on
local citizens, and create
boom and bust economic
cycles in local communities
New York City's Dept. of
Environmental Protection has
concluded that hydrofracking
is too dangerous for the
city's Catskill/Delaware
watershed
NYS DEC's draft
Environmental Impact
Statement (dSGEIS) is
fatally flawed in its open
support of drilling, its
minimization and dismissal
of risks, and its failure to
consider the cumulative
impacts of thousands of
wells in every county.
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Also:
Sign the petition to ban unconventional
extraction
of natural gas in New York
State
here
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What do you love about living here? Clean
air? Clean water?
Whatever is precious to you, the time to take a
stand for it is now.
want to know what you can do? visit
http://un-naturalgas.org/organizers.htm
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What's in store for New York under
petrocracy - unless we act now |
‘Petro-pirates’ robbing Alberta’s
resources
Flushing justice down the pipeline with
Wiebo Ludwig’s arrest
Published January 14, 2010
by
Jack Locke in
Viewpoint
Corey Pierce
. . . .
. Alberta is not a democratic province.
It is a province controlled by
international corporations that see
profit and extraction of natural
resources as their prime object.
In order to accomplish their objective, the industry
will use its abundant resources to do
things that are not very nice. Companies
will send crews of desperate men to
attack the land and lay waste on anyone
who gets in their way. These crews may
wear uniforms and call themselves Royal
Canadian Mounted Police. Or the
petro-pirates may hire private security
forces to instigate dirty tricks to
dissipate legitimate opposition to the
destruction of Alberta’s air, water and
land.
There is a great amount of opposition in Alberta to
what the Progressive Conservative
dynasty allows. There are voices in
every Alberta city that oppose the
wanton poisonings of citizens who happen
to live downwind or adjacent to an oil
or gas well.
But Oilberta is a one-industry town. It
is run by the bosses of EnCana, Shell
and other giant corporations. They have
infiltrated every aspect of Alberta
society: hospitals, schools and the
government. They have put a clamp on
dissension and discussion in a most
disgraceful way.
. . . . .
I have lived 15 km downwind of a gas
plant. I can tell you stories about the
clouds of toxic chemicals that are
emitted in the dark of night, while
country children sleep in their beds. I
can tell you how the Alberta government
watchdog agency prohibited me from
speaking at a public hearing over
whether to allow Shell Canada to expand
its Caroline gas plant. I can tell you
how the government of Alberta
intercepted my private communications
for at least four months in 1999.
Nobody likes explosions of pipelines. Nobody
likes to have a seismic crew destroy the
ageless aquifers that provide drinking
water for cattle and country folk.
Nobody likes to have a gas well spewing
harmful vapours into the air. But people
do like automobiles, and they like to
receive unnaturally healthy returns on
investment. Ah, there’s the rub.
The situation in Alberta will continue for some time to
come. So long as birds are found dead on
tarsand tailings ponds, so long as
drinking water ignites in the rural
homes of Albertans, so long as the
government permits these atrocities, not
much will change.
All that Ludwig wanted was a decent place to live, free
from the dangers of modern life. A
simple rural existence, subsistence.
You’d think it could be found in remote
Hythe, Alta. But obviously not.
The idea of sustainable development, respect of
citizens and nature and a just society
are words not often heard in Alberta’s
highest offices. And even if they are
heard, they are meaningless in the
current political environment.
. . . . .
As a large, cold nation we should develop a national
policy that protects the land for future
generations, one that protects our
natural resources. Depletion of our
life’s blood will only ensure a
miserable future for our children.
Read full piece at
Fast Forward
Weekly |
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un-naturalgas.org/weblog
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