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Ban Fracking on Public Lands

fracting gas fire

Fracking gas burn off in North Dakota, photo courtesy of National Geographic

Sedona AZ (August 17, 2013) – In a Letter to the SedonaEye.com editor, Mary Russell of Colorado writes:

I’m Mary Russell, a MoveOn member in Carbondale, Colorado, and I started a petition to Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and President Barack Obama, which says:

I am calling for an immediate ban on oil and gas fracking on all federal lands. The Bureau of Land Management’s draft rules for fracking on public lands fail to protect the water we drink, the air we breathe, the climate we depend on, and the land many of us call home. This land is our land and should be managed for the good of the people, not corporate profits for the oil and gas industry.

I recently sold my house because it sits on the edge of the lower Roaring Fork River, threatened by possible hydraulic fracturing in the Thompson Divide. My property value has plummeted since the doubling of oil and gas development around my home in the past ten years. I’ve been diagnosed with asthma since moving into my home five years ago.

I’ve seen the public lands I used to swim, bike, hike, and backcountry ski closed to me. I used to lead my students through the back roads and trails of Grand Mesa, on skis, bikes, and on foot. No longer can I hike or bike due to gates erected to keep me out of the public lands my taxes support. I don’t swim in the North Fork of the Gunnison for fear of water contamination from hydraulic fracturing in areas whose creeks feed this river.

Click here to sign my petition calling on President Obama to ban fracking on public lands—and then pass it along to your friends.

President Obama is about to issue his first major policy on fracking. The Bureau of Land Management has issued draft rules for hydraulic fracturing on 600 million acres of public and Indian lands, like those near me in Colorado. Unfortunately, these rules are straight out of the oil and gas industry’s playbook.

Fracting site

Fracking site

The provisions on disclosure of the toxic chemicals used in fracking were written by ExxonMobil and taken straight from model bills peddled by ALEC, the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council. And the draft rules do nothing to protect watersheds that provide drinking water to millions of people.

We have until August 23 to submit our comments to the Bureau of Land Management, and on August 22, anti-fracking leaders will hand-deliver our comments to the BLM in Washington, D.C.

Will you add your name by signing my petition to President Obama’s BLM to ban fracking on public lands?

Thanks!

Mary Russell
Carbondale Colorado
For the best in Arizona news and views, read www.SedonaEye.com daily!

For the best in Arizona news and views, read www.SedonaEye.com daily!

21 Comments

  1. Liked this article on Facebook.

  2. Liked this article on Facebook.

  3. Stan Coors says:

    I resent your assertion that right-wing groups are not in opposition to the fracking. They are. Big time. I don’t know of a solid conservative Republican in my neighborhood supporting fracking.

  4. Dear Mary of Carbondale,

    While your motives are pure and your logic infallible, I must tell you that you’re living in LaLaLand. The House of Saud in Saudi Arabia is near collapse as is OPEC. Militant Islam is overtaking the middle-east, Persia, the Caucausus, north Africa and Indonesia. What do all these places have in common?…Oh, yes, these are the geographic locales that have provided our industrial base, not to mention our massive war machine, with vital fossil fuel. The U.S. Government knows that sooner or later we will be cut off from those sources of supply. But, the U.S. has found a savior…hydraulic fracturing (aka “fracking”)! Fracking, in only four years, has made the United States energy independent such that we have surpassed OPEC in oil production and, therefore, can finally wean ourselves off foreign oil imports. There is simply no way that the U.S. is going to ban fracking no matter what the consequences to our national state of health. To think otherwise is a sad pipe-dream (if you’ll excuse the horrible pun!) What most environmentalists don’t understand, though, is that high volume hydraulic fracking WITHOUT the use of its 600 dangerous fracking fluid chemicals IS POSSIBLE. It’s already being done with CO2 gas and liquified natural gas, both of which exist naturally in the ground. So, is your hope, indeed, hopeless? No, but it needs redirection. May I suggest that you focus your efforts, not on banning fracking, but on pushing our government to provide the oil & gas industry incentives to proceed with more expensive non-chemical fracking fluid, or proppants, that will not put our ground water at risk.

  5. John Stecko says:

    Liked this article on Facebook.

  6. Liked this article on Facebook.

  7. Mary Russell says:

    Hi there—The deadline to submit comments on the Obama administration’s draft rules for fracking on public lands is this Friday, August 23 — and on Thursday, we’ll join allies in Washington DC at a rally to deliver these comments to the Bureau of Land Management. More than 125,000 have already submitted comments on what amounts to President Obama’s biggest decision yet on fracking. Can you help us reach 150,000 comments today by signing this petition calling on President Obama to ban fracking on public and Native American lands?

  8. Can you call President Obama today — as we get ready for a massive delivery of public comments to his Interior Department—and tell him to ban fracking on public lands?

    Tell him: “The Bureau of Land Management’s draft rules for fracking on federal and Native American lands will allow oil and gas companies to contaminate our drinking water, pollute our air, and exacerbate climate change. You can do better: Ban fracking on public lands.”

    President Barack Obama 888-660-2594

    Tomorrow, MoveOn members and our allies at Americans Against Fracking, Food & Water Watch, and 350.org will gather in Washington, DC, to hand-deliver more than 400,000 public comments to President Obama and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, calling on them to ban fracking on all federal and Native American lands.

    This will be the largest single demonstration of public support for President Obama to ban fracking.

    But why wait? Let’s flood the White House with calls today, demanding that President Obama protect the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the climate we depend on—by banning hydraulic fracturing on 600 million acres of public lands.

    You’ll hear a short message from Josh Fox, the director of Gasland and Gasland Part II, and you’ll be connected to the White House.

  9. Mary and Victoria,

    Your comments above evidence some of the usual MoveOn.org standard tactics to create hysteria.

    As per my comments above, it should be obvious that I am not a fan of the current use of chemical proppants (fracking fluid) but to ban the methodology of fracking rather than the only the chemical proppants shows, as I said, you just don’t get it. You’re fanatics and President Obama is NOT going to back you for a total ban. Maybe you both should think about this:

    You know it’s over when even the EPA is in favor of fracking:

    “As far back as 1995, the Environmental Protection Agency studied whether hydraulic fracturing contaminated drinking water. The EPA studied a site in Alabama at the request of environmentalists and found “no evidence” of “any contamination or endangerment of underground sources of drinking water.”‘

    “In 2004, the agency conducted a broader study and also found fracking “poses little or no threat” to water supplies.”

    “In 2009, another study from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Ground Water Protection Council — an interstate body of environmental regulators — concluded that fracking is a “safe and effective” technology for producing energy from deep geological formations like California’s Monterey Shale.”

    Let’s start with a simple, verifiable fact: In its 60-plus year history, there has been no generally accepted peer reviewed scientific study demonstrating negative impacts of fracking on water supplies. That’s zero, zip, nada. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson — hardly a fossil fuel advocate — told Congress just last year that there have been “no proven cases where the fracking process itself has affected water.”

  10. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the dangerous practice of injecting cancer-causing chemicals, sand, and massive amounts of water at high pressure deep underground to release hard-to-reach oil and gas deposits.

    President Obama says he is serious about curbing climate change. But he’s also overseen the near-doubling of natural gas production, using fracking, from 2010 to 2012.1 Methane, which is released in fracking for natural gas, is at least 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas over the critical 100-year period, and scientists have called fracking a “gangplank to a warm future.”

    That’s why MoveOn members have joined our allies to take the message directly to President Obama: “Yes we can ban fracking!”

    But not just President Obama! We’re fighting back on multiple fronts. Earlier this month, twenty-two-year-old community college student Ashley Williams delivered more than 16,000 petition signatures to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, demanding that he block a mining project near Illinois’ most popular state park—Starved Rock State Park—for the special silica sand used in fracking that threatens the park, Ashley’s hometown of Ottawa, Illinois, and workers’ health.

    Last week, MoveOn members and our friends at CREDO rallied in Ventura County, California—where fracking is happening now—calling for a statewide ban on fracking, and earning headlines in the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Ventura County Star. California has 15 billion barrels of heavy crude oil buried underground—that if fracked and burned, would create nearly as much global warming pollution as the Keystone XL pipeline.

    That’s not all. Also this month, Kentucky MoveOn member Corlia Logsdon made headlines and got Governor Steve Beshear’s attention when she and 200 supporters delivered thousands of petition signatures to Governor Beshear, calling on him to stop the construction of the Bluegrass Pipeline that would carry fracked gas from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, and destroy her community’s land.

    I could go on and on. MoveOn members in 37 states have launched local campaigns to protect our climate and our communities from fracking, and hundreds of thousands from across every state submitted comments to President Obama.

    Victoria, Bobby, Carinne, Matt B., and the rest of the team

    1. “As Obama Visits Upstate New York, the Fracking Debate Takes Center Stage,” Time, August 22, 2013
    http://www.moveon.org/r?r=292836&id=73699-24058440-mM5jfjx&t=5

    2. “Gangplank to a Warm Future,” The New York Times, July 28, 2013
    http://www.moveon.org/r?r=292305&id=73699-24058440-mM5jfjx&t=6

    3. “California’s Fracked Up Oil: Nearly As Bad as Keystone XL?” Daily Kos, February 18, 2013
    http://www.moveon.org/r?r=289224&id=73699-24058440-mM5jfjx&t=7

  11. Glenn says:

    I hope all the people that are against the oil companies are riding bicycles and not using the oil and gas from any of these procedures. Like Gore that was yelling global warming and flying his private jet, huge vehicles, huge houses and heated swimming pool ECT. fracking has been going on for years in the Arab countries and they are doing just fine. Environments like to lie to push their scare tactics and have been caught showing a water well with gas coming up in it but of course it was proven that was happening long before fracking even began. People just being on earth damages the environment so do we all kill ourselves to protect the earth or what do you suggest?

  12. Bill says:

    Go ahead, waste your time and money!

  13. Victoria, Bobby, Carinne, Matt B. of MoveOn:

    Why don’t you stop posting scripted marketing pieces and actually write something original. Every thing you have posted on this site is orchestrated marketing designed to create a hysterical response. If you were doing otherwise you would have responded to my very specific comments about non-chemical fracking proppants, which obviously don’t understand. And, btw, all your mentioned petition participation is grossly exaggerated. Yesterday, August 23, constituted a monumental failure of your efforts.

  14. P.S. Victoria, Bobby, Carinne, Matt B. of MoveOn:

    Yesterday, on the heels of Monday’s report revealing New York state is set to allow hydraulic fracturing, over 350 people gathered outside a policy summit hosted by Governor Cuomo on Wednesday to protest the controversial plan. A whopping 350 people out of the entire state of New York showed up. What a bust!

  15. Mary says:

    Greetings!

    Our petition provided 85,000 signatures, as part of the 650,000 signatures presented to President Obama on Thursday, August 30th. It’s also made news locally, in my community, and nationally. I invite you all to reach out to your local news media, understanding that a good news story reports both sides of the issue. With this in mind, I spoke to my local reporter honestly and from my heart. The attached article highlighted my point, which is that our public lands deserve to be managed so the public still has equal access to them, regardless of who has purchased the mineral rights below them. To learn more about the “Split Estate” laws, watch the documentary with the same name, or Google the term.

    In the article from my local paper, the reporter also spoke to the spokeswoman for Western Colorado’s Oil and Gas membership organization. Her portrayal of you and me as, “…a million liberal activists from around the country, the vast majority of whom are not tied to productive public lands communities, are naively responding to an emailed action alert” may inspire you, as it has me, to continue this conversation with your family, friends, neighbors, and elected officials. I’m not sure what she means by us not being tied to productive public lands communities. I will surely ask her when I invite her to the next Garfield County Energy Advisory Board meeting, if she agrees to attend.

    I know I’m tied to the public lands surrounding Carbondale by the simple fact that I see the wildlife out my window and drink the water from the ditch running through the property I live on. I enjoy the images others share from their explorations and adventures into the backcountry, on skiis, bikes, horses, four-wheelers, and cars. I support my neighbors rights to hunt on public lands by purchasing my winter meat from them. I breath fresh air that comes from the trees in the forests, surrounding the oil and gas industry’s operations.

    I’ve applied for a $1,000 scholarship to document the closures of public lands by the mineral lease holders in Garfield County, Colorado. I will use the photos I take to bear witness to how private corporations are closing off access to public lands, although their leases are for the minerals underneath them.

    Here are two publications about our petition:

    http://www.postindependent.com/news/7833354-113/public-fracking-lands-petition

    http://www.eenews.net/energywire/stories/1059986263

    Thank you again, for signing my petition. I have received a handful of emails from people who want to learn more, and from people whose livelihoods are dependent on the exploration and distribution of oil and gas. I have reassured them that I am not against either, I’m just against the process used to extract natural gas. I know there are innovative ways to extract resources while also maintaining the integrity of the land, air and water. If not now, when?

    Have a great day.

    Mary

  16. you get all sides here, and like that, i think some of what both sides say has merit. but now i understand it a bit better than the evening news or az republic with the sides here. like the sex predator notifications. my grandbaby lives in an area that seems to have dozens of misfits. thank you. norma lee scott (don’t print my town because i don’t want those misfits knowing i wrote something)

  17. Mary Russell says:

    Greetings,

    Labor Day Weekend is upon us, and I’d like to encourage you all to get out into our public lands to enjoy their beauty and serenity. National Parks, State Parks, Wilderness, BLM lands and US National Forests and Seashores, and town, city and county parks all provide places for you, your friends and families to relax, take a cool dip, meditate, practice yoga, read a book, ride a bike, horse, 4-wheel, skail, and hike. While you’re out there take a photo, write a poem or share your memories of times past. Either way, enjoy the lands and waters you cherish.

    http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/ban-hydraulic-fracturing-1?source=mo&id=73329-17675177-A_qlzox

    If you’re so moved, post your photos, videos or verse to your Facebook page, or the page of the public land you enjoyed. Share your adventures! If you’re not on Facebook, share your experiences with me and I’ll post them for you.

    Now get out there and have some fun on your public lands and waterways this weekend!

    Cheers,

    Mary

    P.S. This petition is managed by me, solely. I don’t have a staff. I’m not soliciting money from you for any overt purpose. If you receive any emails asking for money, through my petition, it has not been initiated by me. I apologize in advance, and just ask you to delete the email if you choose not to respond.

  18. Mary Russell says:

    Fall is in the air. I hope your community is getting ready for a fabulous fall. Snow has already fallen in Colorado’s high country.

    Here are some updates on what’s happening around the country in reference to fracking.

    THE COLORADO OIL AND GAS COMMISSION IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
    Two citizens of Garfiled County have collaborated to enact a class action lawsuit against Colorado’s Governor Hickenlooper, for supporting the actions of the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission (COGCC). The suit includes details about the actions that led to the formation of the COGCC, and outlines examples of how it has ignored Colorado’s constitution, ignoring the Home Rule status of many of Colorado’s towns and cities.

    If you’re a Colorado resident. If you’re not a Colorado citizen, consider looking into your own state’s use of commissions such as the COGCC and see if they are acting in opposition to your own rights as “We the People”.

    COLORADO’S FLOOD WATERS, OIL AND GAS DON’T MIX
    You’ve all probably heard about the flooding on Colorado’s Front Range. What is now making the news are the oil and fracking fluid spills associated with the flooding. Here’s another example of why this industry needs to be forced to change its ways, and stop fracking on all lands until this process uses NON-TOXIC fluids.

    http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_24132296/oil-spill-along-st-vrain-river-near-platteville

    FRACKING IN CALIFORNIA IS “NECESSARY” FOR PROSPERITY?

    Michael, from California, shared this bit of information about the direction agricultural communities in his state are headed.

    “…we’ve had confirmation that over the past five years all the mineral rights leases throughout what is the fertile agricultural grounds on either side of California’s 101 Freeway passing through the cities of Camarillo, Oxnard and Ventura (all sitting above what is part of the vast Monterey Shale deposits) have been purchased with the aim of eventually fracking and tapping into the potentially lucrative oil deposits below. There are definitely those who run Ventura County (our Board of Supervisors) who – though agriculture has long been the largest $$-earner for the county – are looking over the horizon and perceive that oil may yet be the number one economic engine for Ventura County – transforming it back to its earlier history as an oil economy before agriculture expanded to where it is today. None of this can happen without the use of fracking. The future looks quite scary to a lot of us.”

    These are the questions I want answered:

    1. Can we extract non-renewable fossil fuels without the process of hydraulic fracturing?
    2. Can oil and gas companies make a fracking fluid that does not pollute the land, air and water?
    3. Should we hault all fracking operations until we can find a way to frack without polluting our environment?
    4. Should “We the People” have a direct say in what our public lands are used for, and be able to vote on whether private industries can use our lands for energy development, providing them with high profits and us with energy and the environmental costs of cleaning degraded lands, water and air?

    PUBLIC LANDS FACEBOOK PAGE
    I started a Facebook Page titled “Keep Public Lands Open for Public Use”, for all to share their thoughts, photos, etc. about public lands. Remember, you neighborhood streets, sidewalks, parks, gardens, playgrounds, etc. are public lands. You don’t need to get into a car to find public lands. They’re right outside your door.

    Get outside and play!

    MARY

  19. Mark Ruffalo says:

    When I’m not playing a superhero, I do my best to help out the real superheroes who are fighting to keep our water clean. That’s why I started a petition to President Barack Obama and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, which says:

    Preliminary studies by the EPA linked fracking to water contamination in three communities: Dimock, Pennsylvania; Parker County, Texas; and Pavillion, Wyoming. But the EPA abandoned its own findings and stopped these investigations. President Obama and new EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy must reopen these fracking investigations and provide residents with safe drinking water.

    I first got involved in the fracking fight years ago when I traveled to Dimock, Pennsylvania, to meet families who were suffering serious health impacts from using water contaminated from fracking operations. I met many people whose children and pets were suffering from skin lesions, hair loss, vomiting, severe headaches, dizziness and pain throughout their bodies—and they could light their tap water on fire!

    When the going got rough, a group of concerned citizens and I stepped in to help these people get safe drinking water. Thankfully, the Environmental Protection Agency came to the rescue and delivered families water while conducting an investigation. But when the EPA abruptly closed the case, stopped water deliveries to the residents and deemed the water safe to drink, we knew something was wrong.

    Thanks to EPA whistleblowers, the Los Angeles Times was recently able to report that the fracking investigation in Dimock was shut down despite evidence from the EPA’s water tests showing that Dimock’s drinking water was severely impacted by fracking. Since that time, many residents have not had access to safe drinking water.

    That’s why I started a petition to President Obama and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy calling on them to reopen the investigations into water contamination from fracking. We’ll deliver the petition signatures to the EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday this week to show the public demand for action.

    Can you add your name to my petition, and then share it with your friends?

    The EPA has also shut down investigations in Wyoming and Texas. Early results of all three investigations showed that the EPA had evidence linking gas drilling and fracking operations to groundwater contamination. Yet instead of protecting people in these areas, the EPA ignored its own scientific data and abandoned the investigations.

    It’s time for the EPA to do its job and protect the drinking water of the American people from toxic fracking. Join me in calling on the new EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, and President Barack Obama, to reopen the EPA investigations in Dimock, Pennsylvania; Pavillion, Wyoming; and Weatherford, Texas; and provide safe drinking water to the residents of these communities during the investigations.

    Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends.

    Thanks!

    Mark Ruffalo

  20. Mary Russell says:

    “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But, the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” Mother Teresa

    Thank you everyone for signing my petition, “Ban Hydraulic Fracturing on All Public Lands, President Obama.” Your signature was imperative in creating a strong voice to halt “Frac’ing” from “…sea to shining sea”.

    I am calling my petition a success, with over 90,000 signatures. On the 2nd anniversary of the Global Frackdown, I’m closing it down and taking my own actions to the next level by, 1) signing on as a co-complainant in a class action lawsuit against the formation of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and 2) becoming a member of a new, local chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby.

    I appreciate all the emails I’ve received during the life of my petition.

    Peace and Love,

    Mary

  21. Josh Fox says:

    My name is Josh Fox, director of the films Gasland and Gasland 2.

    In 2008 my family’s home and my neighbors’ homes came under siege by the gas industry, which was buying up leases left and right to start fracking all over the Delaware River Basin. I’ve experienced first hand the devastation that fracking brings.

    My two documentaries, Gasland and later Gasland 2, became award-winning films precisely because they called out the fracking industry for its lies and put a face on the millions of Americans at risk—along with our environment and global community—because of the largest domestic fracking campaign in history.

    Traveling all across the U.S., I witnessed the destruction that drilling and fracking brings to communities, to public health, and to the environment. Water so contaminated it lights on fire, air so polluted it causes multiple health problems, and communities overrun by this destructive industry.

    And along the way, I’ve seen that our only way out is to organize—to rally together, to petition our elected officials, to get out into the streets.

    That’s why I’m very excited about MoveOn’s new initiative to support the fracking movement at its heart, and why I hope you’ll apply to be one of 50 MoveOn #FrackingFighters.

    Click here to learn more and apply to become a MoveOn #Fracking Fighter.

    Applications are due this Tuesday, December 3, at 10 p.m. local time—so don’t wait any longer to apply.

    You can also help by forwarding this email to friends or family who might be affected by fracking. Or click here to share this opportunity with folks in your network on Facebook. Nearly every state is touched by some part of the fracking process, and the climate change caused by the fossil fuel industry truly affects us all.

    If you’re selected as a FrackingFighter, you’ll receive a $500 grant to use for your campaign, a toolkit of materials like banners and clipboards, and training from experienced organizers. And you’ll join a network of grassroots leaders fighting fracking across the country—from the oil fields in California and Texas, to the gas fields in Pennsylvania and Colorado, from the Midwestern dunes being mined for the silica sand used in fracking, to the New Jersey and North Carolina neighborhoods threatened by pipelines and export terminals that would transport fracked gas.

    I had the pleasure of working with MoveOn members to screen Gasland 2 at movie parties coast to coast earlier this year—and I’ve since met MoveOn members across the country who are educating their neighbors, lobbying their elected leaders, and earning media coverage to put an end to fracking.

    In my town, after years of meetings, letters, and phone calls, we won. This summer, the two biggest gas companies fracking in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, announced they were canceling all leases and backing out of fracking in our county.

    It’s only the start of what our movement can make possible. We need more victories like that across the country—and you can be part of it by applying to be a MoveOn #FrackingFighter before the deadline at 10 p.m. this Tuesday, December 3.

    Thanks—and good luck,
    Josh Fox

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