Discussion for article #232985
I have no idea if fracking has caused any harm in California, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that it has caused harm in other states. Can’t we evaluate it’s harmfulness by examining other places with longer histories of fracking, rather than waiting to see if fracking is somehow magically environmentally neutral here in CA? Once it’s discovered to be damaging, I can’t imagine it will be easy to reverse that damage. And fracking is causing earthquakes in areas that have never had earthquakes before, can we all agree it’s a bad idea to mess with the San Andreas fault, or any other faults? Jerry, Jerry, Jerry… bad idea.
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Nobody’s perfect and neither is he and for someone who is such an environmentalist, it is difficult to understand
“I don’t agree with the notion that Jerry Brown is in the pocket of big oil. Some people think that, I don’t,” said Ross Bates, who headed a successful campaign last November to ban fracking in San Benito County. “When you try to take a middle road, people on either side have a problem with it.”
I think that, like this guy quoted in the article said, people who try to stake out positions in the middle get attacked by both sides. So, to some, he is still the ultra-leftist “Gov. Moonbeam,” and to others he’s a greedy tool of Big Oil. Maybe the truth is that he’s somewhat in the middle and trying to chart a path between responsible exploration and responsible stewardship of the environment.
Just like with President Obama, some environmentalists will not be satisfied with his record: even though Obama is championing stronger emissions standards on power plants, unilaterally reached a deal with the automakers to boost fuel efficiency, reached a climate deal with China and a climate understanding with India.
I am by no means an expert on fracking, but it could be that the restrictions/regulations in place in California are more stringent and help to avoid some of the problems seen in Pennsylvania, for example.:
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The tale of Starrh v. Aera in itself should cause the governor to reverse his assertion. However, there is a much wider issue of production water, especially in Kern County where about 90% of all the state’s fracking permits have been issued. We’re talking about 10,000 18-hole golf courses worth of water. Brown is a lawyer, so I think this was actually a great time to throw the frackers a bone. Because the break-even price in some of these fields is $80 a barrel, many oil companies are idling capacity.
The Polluting of Ca’s aquifers was in the news. Brown is ignoring the proof that Ca’'s water is being polluted from fracking. Brown is a liar, so are his spokespeople, as they have been told for almost a year that oil/gas fracking is polluting Ca’s water.
News Bulletin -
After ordering a review of possible contamination within California’s aquifers, the US Environmental Protection Agency
found that about three billion gallons of wastewater have illegally
contaminated central California’s farm-irrigation and drinking water
aquifers.
The Central Valley Water Board
found high levels of toxic chemicals, such as thallium, arsenic and
nitrates, had leaked into water-supply wells near wastewater-disposal
sites.
According to documents obtained and reported on by the Center for Biological Diversity,
the wastewater entered the aquifers through at least nine injection
disposal wells, which are used by the oil industry to aid in the
disposal of the toxic pollutants that are a byproduct of hydraulic
fracturing, or fracking.
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This guy wants to send most of the water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta, which feeds San Francisco bay (and a huge bulk of California’s agriculture - wine, walnuts, etc.) south to thirsty desert areas, LA, etc.
Besides being an economic disaster, it would absolutely destroy one of the nation’s most important and largest wetlands areas, migratory bird stopovers, etc.
It’s an absolutely insane idea, far worse than anything Mulholland did.
The man has lost his mind.
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As we speak, protesters and non-protesters are burning up gasoline that is being shipped from Iraq, from Russia, from Venezuela and all sorts of other places
Ah, the old “Al Gore has a big house!!” squelch. I’m not sure which should be pissing us for more: this pathetic teabagger tactic, or (as OtterQueen noted) the “It hasn’t caused harm IN CALIFORNIA (yet, that we acknowledge)” bit of misdirection.
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Color me unsurprised.
If he was serious about reducing individual auto use, he’d work to improve our public transit system. For starters, can we get the full BART system we were promised when it was approved? And how many people stopped relying on BART because they never know if the employees are going to go on strike, or if some protest is going to shut down their station? And for Christ’s sake, there’s only one bus line that comes anywhere near my house, the closest stop is slightly more than a mile away, it runs just once every hour (if the driver shows up that day) from 8am to 3pm, and it doesn’t stop in any residential areas. This is the SF Bay Area. Can we at least try to catch up with major European cities?
Gee, there is no evidence that drinking is damaging your liver until it turns to stone and the Drs say you got Cirrhosis and then you die. You don’t wait till the diagnosis of Cirrhosis to change your drinking habits.
Uh, Jerry, I always thought you were a smart guy. But you just left the barn door open and then announced to the world that there is no evidence that the cows have run away. Go back and look again. And again tomorrow. I guarantee you, that one day, you will look, and the cows will be gone. And the cows may never come home.
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Fracking has helped the environment??
BTW How much water is used to FrackCali?
How much is used to fill swimming pools ?
How much water is used to water golf courses. ?
And Cali is begging for funds for drought relief…
Well, Brown and many dems have taken huge contributions from the oil/gas lobby.I hope you have looked at the facts Ca’s aquifers are being polluted, known about for a few years.
How about solar charged electric cars?. Mass transit is not available to many.
There needs to be thinking out of the box, and away from urban think.
There will be reasonably priced 200 mile range electric cars in the next 2 years. The bullet train to nowhere won’t serve the most populated areas in Ca.
Brown has diverted much needed funds to the pipe dream train, a scandal.