A screening of the film “Gasland” at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, a documentary on the damage caused by “fracking” for natural gas, makes me wonder if “life as we know it” can long survive if we remain on our current destructive course.
Whether drilling for oil miles under the Gulf of Mexico or through the earth to gain access to the so-called “transition fuel,” natural gas, these desperate actions will inexorably make Planet Earth uninhabitable.
Of course, supporters of the oil and gas industries say the destruction caused by these processes is a necessary price for maintaining life as we know it. As Dick Cheney said: “The American way of life is not negotiable.”
This declaration is soon to be seriously challenged as recurring confrontations between the perceived needs of the economy and the need to maintain an environment that can support human life become more frequent and intense.
Engulfed
The severe and possibly permanent destruction in the Gulf is gradually being revealed. The loss of 24 percent of the U.S. seafood supply, however, is a fact not widely publicized. Now couple that with the destruction of the water supply in farming and livestock areas in the U.S. Tap water near these gas-drilling sites is toxic enough to make humans sick and animals to lose hair, among other things.
In “Gasland,” numerous examples of faucets exploding into flames when a match was placed near the water illustrated the total loss of usable water in homes near gas drilling. Another factor to consider ”“ the cattle that are drinking that chemically laced water may be destined to wind up on your dinner table, unless you are a vegetarian.
Meanwhile, the same gas-drilling procedure is inexorably moving east, already on the border of Pennsylvania and New York. As you read this column contracts are being let in the New York City watershed in the Catskills while new regulations controlling this activity are being thrashed out at the state and federal level. There is a moratorium on drilling in the New York City watershed while all this is going on. That does not mean it is halted, merely held up for a while.
The real costs
The fracking process is used to forcefully break up the rock thousands of feet under the surface, freeing up the natural gas which is then piped to the surface and captured in tankers. It is the millions of gallons of water laced with 500-plus chemicals used at each well that are so profoundly damaging to humans and animals.
Though the gas industry says the process is so far below the water level that it poses no danger to the aquifers, the material covered in “Gasland” proves otherwise. But even when the toxic water reaches the surface it can cause damage. It winds up in a pool, sometimes plastic-lined and sometimes unlined, which, of course, allows the polluted water to seep down to uncontaminated aquifers. The fracking process is also contributing to the polluting of many of this country”™s major rivers.
In addition, to service this process miles of paved roads must be cut through pristine forests in order to allow the hundreds of trucks access to the site, the largest number of them carrying the millions of gallons of water required for each well. The runoff from the trucks also contributes to polluting the waterways.
How can you maintain a sound economy and constantly chip away at the environment that supports that economy? This is a question that has clearly not been asked by those delegated to protect the environment.
Incredibly, the fracking process is currently exempt from the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act. If we add together the actual costs of fossil-fuel development we might find that the “externalities,” the real costs, might well outweigh their benefits.
Surviving the Future explores a wide range of subjects to assist businesses in adapting to a new energy age. Maureen Morgan, a transit advocate, is on the board of Federated Conservationists of Westchester. Reach her at maureenmorgan10@verizon.net.
