Watching the Democrats - it's Fun and Macabre!

[Adak]

[quote=SamIam;841615]I don't mean to turn this thread into an expose' of environmental crimes now being committed in the American West, and I'll try not to turn my reply into something nobody else but tw can understand. But your statements are so completely wrong that I can't let them go unchallenged. I live here and it's happening to the mountains and back country plateaus that I love. It breaks my heart and I have VERY strong feelings about it.

You obviously know nothing about current oil shale and natural gas extraction methods in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. Fracking is used to extract natural gas, not oil shale. [quote]


Stop! I live in the American Southwest, and fracking also allows access to oil that is in shale - it's not just natural gas (although there is a lot of that gas, as well, and natural gas burns VERY clean).

Your "burning water" was investigated (that was in Pennsylvania, btw), and found to be a contamination by above ground mishandling and contamination -- had NOTHING to do with fracking. You can't contaminate with fracking because they're working FAR deeper than ground water, UNLESS your well casings and pipes BOTH crack and leak, AND are passing through an area with groundwater.

The gov't has checked this out, (they wanted to stop it), and found that they could not, because there was NO evidence it contaminated ANYTHING. I will add that there is of course, SOME risk in doing ANYTHING - in the environment, or just crossing the street.

Fracking often leads to the pollution of ground water with methane. As a result of this contamination, some communities in my part of the world - Colorado's Western Slope - have tap water that can actually be set on fire:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEQMA0zwMM4

Yes, this was checked out - above ground contamination, by poor handling of wastes. Had nothing to do with fracking.

Out here, burning water is like burning $100 dollar bills. Water is a precious commodity in this land of little rain. It's bad enough that the energy companies come in and contaminate our water supplies, but the crime is compounded when outfits like Halliburten and Shell steal our water completely. Farmers and ranchers are being driven out of business because they can no longer afford the high costs of water rights - a price skyrocketing thanks to drought and energy exploitation methods.

That's just a few of the evils of fracking natural gas.

So now companies are to blame because costs are rising in the marketplace, for a scarce supply of water?

I cringe at your lack of understanding of supply and demand. Do you believe these companies can help that? They would LOVE to pay low prices for the water they need.

There is nothing responsible or sustainable about oil shale either. The process of extracting oil shale is similar to tar sands. The land is strip mined, then the oil is baked out of the rock by heating it to high temperatures. This is a process that destroys the land, uses massive amounts of water, and uses massive amounts of energy.

Shale mining IS strip mining, AFAIK, but I'm not very knowledgeable about shale mining. It's completely wrong to group Fracking, with Shale Mining. The former is like drilling a well. The latter is like tearing the shit out of everything on the surface, and working with the shale, below it, directly, with huge mining equipment.

You'll be pleased to hear that this is one area where the Obama administration is in bed with the big oil and energy corporations. Obama's decision to allow big energy to pillage our public lands is worthy of Republicans like James Watt and Dick Cheney.

Actually, Obama has blocked a lot of oil projects, on Federal lands.

While I supported Obama in the election, he was merely the lesser of two evils. I and other Western environmentalists are fighting a losing battle to keep our backyards from becoming slag pits.

The first two pix that follow are of my beloved Uncomphaghre Plateau - two hours drive to the north of me. It's spectacular and one of Colorado's best kept secrets. Few tourists venture up there and I usually have the entire Uncomphaghre to myself when I go there - or so it feels. The Uncomphaghre is also a rich source of oil shale and falls under the Bureau of Land mis-Management (BLM). Obama is turning BLM lands into national sacrifice areas in the quest for so-called alternative energy sources.

What's so "alternative" about strip mining for oil, from shale? I don't get the "alternative" description here. Looks like same-ol' stuff to me.

Pix three and four are of shale debris and a shale strip mine, respectively. Obama wants to delete pix one and two and replace them with pix three and four.

Y'all can go back to the budget thing now. I think I'll go outside and look at the mountains for a while.

Oh there's no doubt that strip mining is about the only thing worse than clear cutting a huge forest - it destroys everything. What's the plan to restore the area's being mined, when they're done working with the shale? That's what I'd like to see. I don't believe you can stop strip mining, in area's rich in deposits. You CAN and SHOULD insist that the area be returned to something akin to it's former state though, when they are done.

We do need the energy - that's critical, but we don't need to strip mine and then leave the area a slag dump.

Yes, it will not be the same for a hundred years, but it should be enjoyable, and be slowly returned to it's former beauty, as large trees grow in, etc. That will only happen if it gets worked into shape with the slag put back below the level of supporting top and secondary soil. If the slag stays at or very close to the surface, then nothing good will ever grow there. All plants depend on the micro organisms and micro nutrients in soil - and that is not present in slag.

All Good Medicine.