Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2011 09:56:39 -0400
From: Tom Glendinning”
Subject: Daryl Wally
I will guarantee that the gas drilling process will be managed to the best professional standards, if we can arrive at a meeting of the minds. You ask for a concession from me. In exchange, I ask one from you.
You guarantee that all the pollution directly emitted from anti-gas drilling protesters ceases, period. Now, for the details of my request:
No vehicles ever drip oil from any drive component, engine, transmission, rear end.
No vehicles ever leak anti-freeze from radiators.
No mascara or cosmetic are ever used by any protestors, their families, heirs and assigns.
No benzene, pentane, toluene, Ethylbenzene or fuel produced compounds are used in protestors homes, vehicles, places of employment, or in the manufacture of any products they cause to be used.
No gasoline/diesel fuel is used in any internal combustion engines.
No cooking utensil surfactants or lubricants are used in kitchens.
No carpets, paints or coatings are used on anything.
No products whose manufacture uses either cleaning compounds, surfactants, or chemical enablers. This list is quite long.
These requirements for your side of the contract are based on uses of the chemicals protested in the gas drilling fluid. Most of them are found in common household products, on store shelves everywhere or in common manufacturing processes.
I make that guarantee with the full force of government regulation and oversight, both state and federal for that is their responsibility. Now, you make sure that the sources of pollution from personal habits mentioned above does not pollute my water supply.
You will have to explain how a fluid encased in a concrete tube to the depth several thousand feet deep can migrate vertically and get into aquifers a few hundred feet deep. How many incidents have been reported of leaks from the Alaska pipeline? How many from the tens of thousands of miles of gas pipelines criss-crossing the US?
Same principle – they are contained.
The point here is that the substances and compounds in “fracking” fluid are part of our lives in everyday products. The focus of some “environmentalists” is to pick the low hanging fruit of an easily targeted industry, not to stop pollution in our lives. Further, the effort seems to be based on zero tolerance for this industry while the same environmentalists/protestors excrete or cause to be excreted the pollutants against which they rail every day.
My main argument for this industry is that it offers employment for those who have lost jobs in our county and a stable supply of fuel within our borders. These two benefits far outweigh my concerns about pollution from a what will be a well regulated process. Deal with the difficult products, industries and sources. Find solutions, not causes for protesting. Be productive, not destructive. By the way, I do not expect that the sources mentioned in the list above will cease polluting. I am too pragmatic for that expectation.