The Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration Committee, Baltimore Quaker
Peace and Justice Committee of Homewood and Stony Run Meetings and Chesapeake
Physicians for Social Responsibility are continuing the FILM & SOCIAL
CONSCIOUSNESS DVD SERIES. The DVDs will be shown at Homewood Friends
Meetinghouse, 3107 N. Charles St., Baltimore 21218, usually on the First
Friday. After the peace vigil, there will be a potluck dinner. At 7:15
PM, from September through December, a DVD will be shown with a discussion to
follow. There is no charge, and refreshments will be available. The
series theme is CAN WE HAVE HOPE FOR THE FUTURE?
On Fri., Sept. 11 see the film WALL-E (USA, 2008, 98
min.), an-animated comedy produced by Pixar Animation Studios. Directed
by Andrew Stanton, the story follows a robot named WALL-E, who is designed to
clean up an abandoned, waste-covered Earth far in the future. He falls in love
with another robot named EVE, who also has a programmed task, and follows her
into outer space on an adventure that changes the destiny of both his kind and
humanity. The film is seen as a critique on larger societal issues. It
addresses consumerism, corporatism, nostalgia, environmental problems, waste
management, human impact on the environment, and risks to human civilization
and the planet Earth. Contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at Verizon dot
net.
McCauley writes: "Among the litany of risks posed
by the continued extraction and use of fossil fuels, an Associated Press
analysis published Tuesday exposes yet another harmful side effect of the oil
and gas drilling boom: an uptick in toxic wastewater spills."
A pipe pours fracking waste into an unlined holding pond in Kern County, California. (photo: Faces of Fracking/Flickr)
Fracking Boom Responsible for 175 Million Gallons of
Toxic Wastewater Spilled Since 2009
By
Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams
09 September 15
mong the litany of risks posed by the continued
extraction and use of fossil fuels, an Associated
Press analysis published Tuesday
exposes yet another harmful side effect of the oil and gas drilling boom: an
uptick in toxic wastewater spills.
According to data obtained from leading oil- and
gas-producing states, “more than 175 million gallons of wastewater spilled from
2009 to 2014 in incidents involving ruptured pipes, overflowing storage tanks
and other mishaps or even deliberate
dumping,” Associated Press reports, tainting agricultural land,
poisoning drinking water and sparking the mass die-off of plant and animal
life.
Most of the incidents involved the spill of fracking wastewater, which is a combination of
underground brine mixed with a slurry of undisclosed chemicals. As the story
notes, “A big reason why there are so many spills is the sheer volume of
wastewater” produced, which according an organization of state groundwater
agencies, amounts to roughly 10 barrels for every barrel of oil or more than
840 billion gallons a year.
The report details a sampling of incidents, which help
illustrate the scope of the problem. In one instance, a roughly 1 million
gallon spill in North Dakota in 2006 caused a “massive die-off of fish, turtles
and plants in the Yellowstone River and a tributary.” In another case, a
decades-long seepage of toxic brine onto Montana’s Fort Peck Indian Reservation
polluted a river, private wells and the municipal water system, making the water
“undrinkable.”
What’s more, the amount of toxic byproduct spilled
along ranch land, streams and forests has grown each year since the so-called
fracking boom began.
“In 2009, there were 2,470 reported spills in the 11
states; by 2014, the total was 4,643. The amount of wastewater spilled doubled
from 21.1 million gallons in 2009 to 43 million in 2013 before dipping to
33.5 million last year,” Associated Press reports.
The analysis found a total of 21,651 individual spills
reported in Texas, North Dakota, California, Alaska, Colorado, New Mexico,
Oklahoma, Wyoming, Kansas, Utah and Montana during that period. However, Associated Press notes
that this figure is incomplete because “ninth-ranking oil producer Louisiana
and second-ranking gas producer Pennsylvania” failed to provide spill data and
other such incidents often go undocumented.
C 2015 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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