What the Frack?

Hydraulic fracturing - or Fracking as it is called - is the hot topic today. This is the process of drilling and injecting highly toxic chemicals into the ground to break up soil and release natural gas deposits. The process itself sounds terrible - and it is. Thousands of Americans have become victim to their water supply being contaminated by the gas and chemicals from this process. Some can even set their tap water on fire. But if this is the case, why isn't there a bigger outcry?

The reason is simple: Republicans, led by Dick Cheney, orchestrated a quiet coup de gras on environmental protection by getting oil and gas companies exempted from all provisions of the clean air and water acts. In layman's terms, each law in place to protect our environment from toxic pollution could no longer be applied to oil and gas companies. This was done with a clear conscience and the full understanding that despite all the known dangers, profit outweighed all.

Once an oil company moves in and begins fracking, any reported water contamination is met with a visit from the oil companies' scientists. They take water samples, analyze them and then report back that the natural gas contaminating your water isn't THEIR natural gas - even though the fracking took place 2 inches from your underground water supply. If an affected individual persues the matter further, the company denies responsibility yet settles out of court for a small monetary incentive, an agreement to provide "clean" water and an ironclad no disclosure agreement. Why all this if they bore no responsibility?

And the "clean" water they supply is more often than not simple a filtration of the existing water supply. The issue is that the fracking chemicals that leak into the water destroy any filtration equipment leaving our landowner to continue to drink contaminated water. The health effects from the chemicals used are too numerous to list but a short sample is cancer, destruction of red blood celss and brain damage.

If you look at a satellite image of Yellowstone National Park, the cornerstone of "pure" America, you may begin to wonder where and why all the gas wells around it came from. This was the Republicans once again strong-arming the Bureau of Land Management into giving up PUBLIC land that has been held in trust for decades. On top of this, the Republicans are now using the Federal deficit as an excuse to completely get rid of the EPA in a cost-cutting measure. Now, the EPA is about as corrupt an organization as there is, however it is the only entity in place to provide some form of environmental common sense.

So, instead of working to develop new energy technology (which, by the way would create jobs and stimulate the economy), we continue to suck the teat of fossil fuels. Not because it is the sensible way, but because it makes a few people a lot of fucking money. Profit ALWAYS outweighs decency and common sense.

Therefore, if you think fracking is a necessary evil, then I invite you to slit your own throat and promptly remove yourself from the gene pool for you obviously do not posses the insight and intelligence needed to move the human race (much less America) into the next century.