Editor’s Note: This article is continued from the January 2017 People’s Tribune. The first part explained the corporate origin of “fracking” for underground natural gas, a process that is exempt from environmental laws that protect the public.
Not only is fracking unsafe and secret, it is often done by major water supplies. When the chemically induced water is retrieved – and only about 30% is actually brought back – it is reinjected into the ground because it is too toxic to reuse for any other purpose.
In places like Oklahoma, this causes earthquakes and contaminates water tables. In other areas, where they do not reinject it, they use evaporation ponds. These are plastic lined ponds that allow the water to evaporate and the chems to stay. But many of the chems are dispersed into our atmosphere along with the water. This sludge is then reinjected into the ground.
Fracking also releases methane. This methane, as they claim, is trapped underground and does not affect the water table. Yet where fracking is done, millions of people see their tap water catch fire. They become sick from methane poisoning and this has even taken out whole herds of cattle and other farm animals all across the world where they frack.
The main concern I have and millions of others have, is that this fracking is not used for a new fuel source, but for control of our water. If water is contaminated, it comes under control of FEMA or the EPA – that is, the government. It then becomes theirs by attrition. And, as with the leasing of our national forests to the energy companies, the rights to this water are also sold to other corporations such as Nestlé, which, for the record, has said that water is not a right but is a commodity to be sold.
Now do you see our concern?
When you see an oil spill from a train wreck, or chemicals spilled into a river from pipelines or rail systems, you will see the government take over that water supply and even the land around it. And with fracking being exempt from the law, they can do it where they wish, damage the earth and water, and control it through FEMA or the EPA.
At this time in our history, when we see water protectors out West fighting for water, maybe now you can see why they do. Maybe now you can see that governments take care of corporate interest before they take care of ours. And these interests are now for water and land since they already own the food. And by controlling the very things we need just to live, they control us.
So, please, research and educate yourself on fracking and pipelines. I am sure that, as the bright people you are, you will see where this is going and join the growing number of people who see this as an attack on us as well as on our planet.
I have always said if it is not good for the planet, it is not good for us. In these days of greedy corporate rule, I think that is a good way to look at what is going on.
