Tom Corbett has a fracking problem
Corbett needs to crack down on fracking
Tom Corbett has a fracking problem
The second-best surprise of the hours-away-from-ending Ed Rendell administration in Harrisburg (the first best, of course, being his nomination of me for a Pulitizer Prize in the new category of Weather Rants) was the Democratic's environmental record. He didn't seem especially "green" during his tenure as mayor of Philadelphia, but as governor he was a strong advocate for alternative energy. He wasn't perfect, though -- while he was smart to realize the income potential of taxing the hydraulic "fracking" of valuable natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, his administration could have done much more to regulate the dirty "gold rush" upstate.
Here is a major piece of the puzzle he leaves undone:
The natural-gas boom gripping parts of the U.S. has a nasty by-product: wastewater so salty, and so polluted with metals like barium and strontium, that most states require drillers to get rid of the stuff by injecting it down shafts thousands of feet deep.
Not in Pennsylvania, one of the states at the center of the gas rush.
Here, the liquid that gushes from gas wells is only partially treated for substances that could be environmentally harmful, then dumped into rivers and streams from which communities get their drinking water.
In the two years since the frenzy of activity began in the vast underground rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale, Pennsylvania has been the only state allowing waterways to serve as the primary disposal place for the huge amounts of wastewater produced by a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
More Pennsylvania exceptionalism, apparently. Shame on Rendell for letting this slip through the cracks, because on Jan. 18 the fox -- a.k.a. Tom Corbett, the frackers' best friend -- is going to be guarding Pennsylvania's henhouse, not to mention its drinking water. Corbett not only stacked his transition team with pro-fracking business advocates while mostly shunning environmentalists, but he even resisted a tax deal that the frackers were apparently willing to accept, perhaps to prove his Tea Party bona fides.
Pennsylvania is also the only major state that doesn't impose a severance tax on the gas drillers, even now with its massive budget gap for the new year. Corbett has pledged some new oversight of fracking in the Marcellus Shale, but all signs are it will still be too little, and clearly too late. Fracking is not the most important issue facing the state -- that would be jobs and the economy -- but it's the most important one where leadership in Harrisburg can make the biggest difference right now. Instead, the Leslie Nielsen lookalike is going to be Pennsylvania's "Naked Gun." The public must seize this issue on Jan. 18 before Corbett's little frackers get their way.
You know the capitalist and "free-market" shills have no problem with this. After all, Love Canal provided some of the most entertaining genetic mutations on record. Gotta look on the bright side. After all, if heavy metal poisoning gives you lemons, stop your beyotching and make some lemonade......Chances are they'd have little chance at a job, and freak shows do provide some stability.— CiceroSpuriousDeodatus
Wow, he really does look like Nielsen!— Les Ismore
this is what the conservatives mean when they rail for less government and less regulation.— potus
Comment removed.- Are you kidding both the democrats and the republicans were bought and paid for a long time ago!— mark carr
- "You know the capitalist and "free-market" shills have no problem with this." Or they'd simply point out that the state does a particularly poor job protecting its property, ie streams and rivers. I'd be willign to bet that if theese were privately owned, the frackers wouldn't be dumping waste in them with impunity.— RG
To hear the frackers talk you would think it's the safest thing in the world, that the poisons never get into the ground water, but they do. Now, you are telling me that they are allowed to dump fracking fluid into PA waterways. That's insane!
But not to worry, we have one of "the adults" coming to Harrisburg so everything will be fine.— Hamlet- Comment removed.
- Comment removed.
- Hmm, I wonder if these frackers have a lot of $peech - hey, the USSC said money is speech so we might as well start calling corporate money $peech, right? In America, those with the most $peech win.— Hamlet
- No,t hey just read the first part of the amendment: "Congress shall make no law...." You know who had the most speech the last election cycle? AFSCME, the government employee union. Should they not be able to run ads? — RG
- It's cheaper to frack if you can just dump the waste into the nearest river. It would be cheaper for me to dump my construction garbage on someones front lawn and let them pay to have it taken away. This isn't about eco-marxism. This is about a cost of doing business. Why should everyone else pay to clean up their mess?— Sammy T
- it's what killed the birds in Ark.— gee1971
- At long as it doesn't effect MY drinking water, it doesn't matter. Why should I care about YOUR water or the collateral damage to the environment. My tax-free libertarian bubble keeps me independent from anything that effects the rest of you. Now when it starts to effect MY life, MY health, MY immediate environment, then I'll holler the loudest.
Hey the drillers paid their dues. They got their man. Their free speech paid off. Let the future eat the consequences.— Simone
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