New York Times Series on "Fracking"

Howdy friends and neighbors of the hills!

In October of 2009, the Save the Montebello Hills Task Force of the Sierra Club hosted a free showing of the Emmy Award winning documentary Split Estate.  Some of you may have attended this event at the Montebello City Council chamber.  The movie has a lot to say about the health hazards of a drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" for short, and how it has affected the lives of folks living in Garfield county, Colorado.  One of the guest speakers at this event was a staff lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, Mr. Damon Nagami.

Hydraulic fracturing has been used in the Montebello hills and recently there have been sightings of trucks bearing the name "Halliburton" printed on their sides heading up into the hills.  Halliburton is one of the leading manufacturers of hydraulic fracturing fluids.

Now the New York Times has published a 3 part series on fracking.  This series, Drilling Down, by Ian Urbine also talks about Garfield county, Colorado.  These articles have been attracting so much attention across our nation that I felt they were something the folks here in Montebello needed to know about.

The three part series of articles are:

Part 1 Regulation Lax as Gas Wells’ Tainted Water Hits Rivers

Part 2 Wastewater Recycling No Cure-All in Gas Process

Part 3 Pressure Limits Efforts to Police Drilling for Gas

You can read the entire series along with extra interactive pages "Chemicals and Toxic Materials That Come With Hydrofracking", "Extracting Natural Gas From Rock", "Toxic Contamination From Natural Gas Wells" and the short video "Natural Gas and Polluted Air"  by clicking HERE.

Take time to look at the extras.  It's too bad these visuals weren't available to show folks at the free screening here in Montebello.

The Natural Resources Defense Council [NRDC] has a good commentary on the New York Times series, "New York Times Exposé on Fracking Offers Lessons for New York."

Articles have a tendency to become "unavailable" pretty quick on the internet so I recommend you get a chance to read these before they disappear.  The issue of hydraulic fracturing has been garnering more attention since the documentary Gasland was nominated for an Oscar award.  It didn't win but it sure got a lot of publicity courtesy of the ruckus the oil and gas industry made about it's nomination.

Makes you wonder what all the fuss was about, don't it?


Daisy Mae