Unpopular Opinion: Fracking You: Dick Cheney Style

Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is the procedure the energy industry and drilling companies use to blast through underground rock to uncover natural gas, oil and ground water wells. It has been used commercially since 1949. Each well requires a pressurized injection of nearly 600 chemicals, including known carcinogens and neurotoxins. These hazardous chemicals are finding their way into drinking water. One month before the gulf oil rig explosion, an independent publication, published a draft to exempt chemical disclosure rules pending Senate energy and climate legislation . BP America was the creator of this draft. Similarly, back in 2005 Vice President Dick Cheney along with the energy industry and drilling companies such as former employer Halliburton Corp., efficaciously pressured congress to exempt fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air ACT and other environmental laws.

Tomorrow HBO is airing a documentary by Josh Fox, called Gasland. It is a documentary that traces hydraulic fracturing across 34 states from California to Louisiana to Pennsylvania.This award winning piece, shows dozens of interviews with residents suffering from neurological damage after their water was contaminated. In some cases, it shows residents in rural Colorado lighting their lighters near kitchen faucets and watching their drinking water burst into flames as high as 3 feet. A myriad of these residents said they were compelled by drilling companies into signing nondisclosure agreements in exchange for measly settlements.

Now gas companies are trying to secure drilling rights to the Marcellus Shale Fields This massive field sits below New York and Pennsylvania and is located beneath the last unfiltered watershed in the U.S. It supplies water to tens of millions of residents In New York and Philadelphia.

So while we as a country are being distracted by the gulf oil disaster, BP and others are trying to slink their way into bypassing essential safety regulations, because what we don't know cant hurt them. So thank you Josh Fox for bringing awareness to the masses, because information is power and we will not let corporations get away with crap like this anymore!
Written by, Maureen Hill