Mr. James Mulva of Conoco Phillips and Mr. Marvin Odum of Shell just love going to conferences to talk about how great it is going to be to pull natural gas out of the ground in upstate NY. They say WE are going to benefit. They say we’re going to get a lot of jobs out of it. The places they go to talk in D.C. are usually very hospitable and tend toward not asking uncomfortable questions that are the elephant in the room. Like what will the average family do when its water supply is no longer drinkable. Or what these companies will do if the entire city of New York, 8.5 million people, suddenly is stuck with nothing to drink or bathe in but Evian and Poland Spring.
This is an open invitation to both of them to prove to the rest of us that there is no danger to the water supply of New York City or to the people of upstate NY; and that the inconvenience of having trucks and all manner of vehicles clogging upstate roads around fracking sites is worth the trouble. The way to convince us is for them to pack up their families and move to NY, to a property located next to a fracking site, from their current homes in Texas and wherever else.
I can’t wait to see them trying to enjoy an expensive drink on their expansive porches, trying to imagine what the beautiful Catskills looked like before the frackers set up shop; and trying to imagine hearing the quiet of the countryside over the roar of heavy load trucks that haul the toxic runoff water from the fracking wells.
If they can put up with seeing and hearing fracking everyday, then maybe some of us will be more willing to put up with it too. Until then, neither one of these gentlemen is going to sway the public opinion. Although they probably are smart enough to know that this is no longer a nation that consults its people. Both of them already have the idea that if they want to frack, they probably will be able to. After all, we’ve seen how they capitalize their profits, but socialize their losses–it was weird to watch such rich and profitable men stand before Congress saying they need welfare (I means their subsidies) the same week they were posting mega profits.
Washington D.C. think tanks should stop inviting them to give so many C-SPAN televised talks. Nothing of what they say will ring genuine until I see them upstate trying to live life surrounded by the noise, ugliness and poisoned air and water their fracking will bring.
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