Shale

It was shale, specifically,shale gas drilling for natural gas, that pulled me into the land of politics.

Up until fall 2011, I was only vaguely aware of elections, candidates, public policy.

I’d enjoyed Pete Seeger’s lyrics when he sang in junior high assembly.

I’d been part of a sit-in in high school – dragged along by friends.

And I watched some of the Watergate hearings with my much more politically savvy college roommate.

After that - I voted. Yes. Took my kids to the local polling place, pulled levers. Made sure they got “I voted” stickers to wear on their jackets.

Paid no attention until the next election.

Then shale.

I voted for Tom Corbett, our current governor, because he had the proper views on the few key issues Christian voters pay attention to.

I didn’t know – and probably wouldn’t have cared -  that his largest supporters were gas and oil companies.

Or that he had signed the Grover Norquist “No Tax” pledge.

Or that he would invite those with most to gain from expanding shale gas drilling to set the rules and recommend fees as part of his Shale Gas Advisory Commission. 

Why would any of that matter? Who had time to pay attention?

Somehow, during the summer of 2011, information seeped through my complacency.

News of toxic waste water released into Pennsylvania’s rivers.

Reports of wells contaminated by fissures far underground.

Analysis of the untaxed profits.

In September 2011 I found myself feeling like someone who has been sleeping in a backyard hammock, only to wake and find her house on fire. Were we really defunding environmental protection agencies at the same time we were handing over permission to shatter the linings of subterranean aquifers?

Were we inviting shale gas companies to a free-for-all that rivaled the western gold rush?

I went to a community screening of Gasland, and watched Josh Fox walk through creeks and rivers like those I love most. Watched the green wastewater slide into quiet streambeds. Watched him light the water from homeowners’ taps.

Then I went to the first Freedom from Fracking symposium in Philly, and listened to Dr. Sandra Steingraber talk about water: millions of gallons per well, removed from the ongoing water cycle, lost in deep fissures in the earth, or pumped back out so full of toxins there’s no way to ever reclaim it.

Water seemed to be a common theme, in a way that reminded me of the poisoned water of Jeremiah, punishment for a culture of dishonest leaders and deceptive practice.

I went back to Philly two weeks later to march in the first Shale Gas Outrage, drove to Penn State to protest outside a natural gas industry Marcellus Summit.

I blogged about it then: Becoming a Fractivist.   And Fracking Hysteria?  And Power.Money.Justice.Love? 

Since then I’ve visited shale gas drilling sites with the League of Women Voters and member of Pennsylvania’sResponsible Drilling Alliance. 

I’ve sat in meetings with activists who believe natural gasdrilling should be banned. Completely. 

USGS: Record Number of Oklahoma Earthquakes

And I’ve sat over dinner with women from states around the country struggling under the burden of shale gas drilling. One told me quietly that the Wind River Valley of Wyoming now has the worst air quality in the country. Another mentioned in passing the earthquakes of Oklahoma, a region with little earthquake activity until wastewater deposits were injected deep into the earth. Her sister’s home was knocked off it’s foundations. “And she didn’t have earthquake insurance. No one in Oklahoma had earthquake insurance."

This weekend the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania is hosting its second annual Shale Drilling and Public Health: Days of Discovery, with experts in environmental toxicology, shale gas impacts on human health, endocrine disruption, occupational hazards for shale gas workers. The resource guide developed from last year’s conference, Shale Gas Extraction and Public Health, has been translated into several languages, and used by citizens in other states and countries looking for ways to understand the implications of shale gas drilling on air, water, land, and human health.

I don’t support a ban on shale gas drilling – not in regions where wells are already in place. Resources will be used, wisely or unwisely, and wells once drilled can cause harm if abandoned.

But I do believe that drilling in key watersheds is too dangerous to allow. The Delaware River is the sole water supply for about 15 million people in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. So far there has been a moratium on fracking in the Delaware River basin, but Governor Tom Corbett has pushed hard for that moratorium to be lifted. In July 2014, he passed a budget that cut Pennsylvania’scontribution to the Delaware River Basin Commission in half, “a move environmentalists and Democrats say is retaliation for the commission's failure to enact rules governing oil and gas development in the basin.” 

I also believe that companies that demonstrate repeated disdain for environmental regulations should lose their license to drill.

Between January 2008 and 2011, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection cited 47 well operators for more than 900 environmental health and safety violations. Chesapeake Appalachia, a division of Chesapeake Energy, had the most, with 109 violations.

In May 2011, the company was fined $1.1 million for a February 2011 Washington County tank fire, and for contaminating several drinking wells in Bradford County. 

David Masur, director of PennEnvironment, questioned the deterrent value of a $1 million fine for the nation's second-largest gas producer, which last year earned $1.7 billion in profits on $9.4 billion in revenue, and whose chief executive, Aubrey K. McClendon, famously earned a $75 million bonus in 2009.
 "This is mostly a slap on the wrist," Masur said. 

Masur’s question of deterrence was validated as Chesapeake has continued to compile violations and fines: $600,000 in Pennsylvania in 2012 for cavalierly destroying a waterfall and wetlands that happened to be in the way; tenmillion in West Virginia the following year for more destruction of wetlands and streams. The company has been repeatedly sued for systematically underpaying royalties to leaseholders, forced to repay $7.5 million to Pennsylvania landholders in 2013, and currently under investigation for a class-action suit claiming the company “wrongfully retained” as much as $5 billion in unjust profits since 2007. Chesapeake is also facing felony racketeering and fraud allegations in Michigan, as well as an antitrust investigation. 

Range Resources, another company that regularly finds itself on the short-list of most frequent violations, was fined 53 times between 2008 and 2012, with 17% of wells drilled reported in violation. Despite a stated philosophy of “Be good stewards for our shareholders and our environment,” Range has been repeatedly sued by landowners for both environmental harm and misreported royalties; in 2013 the company agreed to a $87.5 million lawsuit brought by Oklahoma leaseholders. In September, 2014, Range was fined $4.15 million for violations at six different impoundments

Protecting Our Waters: Black Waters and Broken Promises

For years, critics and concerned observers have raised questions about when and how often wells are inspected, how accurately rates ofviolation are reported, what oversight accompanies disposal of the millions of gallons of toxic wastewater each well produces. Our governor has repeatedly dismissed those concerns, recently approving shale gas drilling in parks and state forests. with assurances about the safety of natural gas, the excellent environmental record, how good it has been and will be for the state.

The recent fines and lawsuits suggest otherwise, as does a sober critique of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection released in July by state Attorney Eugene DePasquale, The report makes clear that there has never been a system for timely inspection of wells, no comprehensive approach to oversight of waste-water disposal, ineffective response to citizen complaints, reliance on industry personel to complete inspections and evaluations, dependence on voluntary compliance with regard to “adversely impacted” water supplies. An executive summary concludes: 

the meteoric growth of the shale gas industry caught the Department of Environmental Protection unprepared to effectively administer laws and regulations to protect drinking water and unable to efficiently respond to citizen complaints. 

Much has been written about the revolving door between the shale gas industry, the DEP,  and Pennsylvania’s legislators.

And about the fact that recent Pennsylvania legislators have received more than their share of shale political contributions, from industry coalitions as well as corporate CEOs.

While those companies, and individuals, have surely benefitted, Pennsyvlania as a whole has seen little of the promised prosperity from shale gas drilling. The few jobs created by the industry  have not kept pace with jobs lost in education and infrastructure, and little of the billions in profit have found their way into state and local budgets (in part due to the “No Tax” pledge that swept current officials into office).  

A key issue in the election next week will be the fact that Pennsylvania, alone among the major shale states has no severance fee on gas extracted, relying instead on an impact fee. In effect, natural gas companies are paying on average less than 1,9% tax  on profits made in our state. Imposing a severance fee of 5% to bring the state in line with neighboring shale states would raise an estimated $1 billion a year in revenue, and would send a message to the shale gas industry that it no longer owns the state of Pennsylvania.

Shale gas is not the first resource that Pennsylvania has been both blessed and cursed with. Lumber, then coal, divided communities, benefited some while leaving others poorer than before, and scarred the environment in ways still unresolved. Shale promises a legacy more damaging than either. Carelessly linedwells don’t get stronger over time. Toxic chemicals leaked into underground fissures aren’t gone, just dangerously forgotten.

We sometimes drive through the ghost town of Centralia, the coal town lost to an underground fire that still burns to this day, half a century from its start in 1962.

No one planned it.

No one prepared for it.

No one paid much attention until it was far too late to manage.

I’ll be thinking of Centralia when I go to the polls next Tuesday.

This is the ninth in a series looking at specific issues of importance in state and local elections, as an extension of my 2012 series "What's Your Platform?"  

Earlier posts:  

What are Workers Worth, September 1, 2014
Back to School Lament, September 7, 2014
Privatization and Elementary Math, September 14,  2014
Who is Allowed to Vote? September 21, 2014
Let the People Draw the Lines, September 28, 2014
A Prayer for the Broken, October 5, 2014
 Dreaming of Home, October 12, 2014
Vote Smart, October 19, 2014

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places?

The Synchroblog topic this week is “What does social justice mean to you?”

After two months of exploring "God’s Green Equity," puzzling over environmental issues, grieving at the groaning of our sadly battered globe, social justice, to me, has much to do with our mistreatment of places. Social justice would mean clean water restored to the town of Dimock, now struggling with a toxic water supply after contamination from fracking wells. Restoration to communities impacted by mountain top removal in Virginia,West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and in places far beyond. Reclamation of the

Alberta Tar Sands

devastated tar sand region of Alberta, and repair of indigenous communities shattered by the “slow industrial genocide” of tar sand extraction. 

Social justice, to me, means wanting for you what I want for myself: clean air, clean water, good schools, decent jobs. It’s the logical extension of the command to love your neighbor as yourself. I was fortunate to have good public schools, grants and scholarships that made college possible. I want the same for my kids and grandkids, but also for yours, and the kids I know in Kensington, an urban neighborhood where schools are understaffed, under resourced, over-burdened with children who start off behind and never catch up.

This past week was “New Economy Week,” calling attention to the need to rethink our economic model. If you took time to watch the Wendell Berry portrait I linked to several weeks ago, you heard discussion about “the two great aims of industrialization: replacement of people by technology and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a small plutocracy.” According to Berry, both have been accomplished.

The New Economy Coalition invites conversation on the resultant issues: “growing inequality, chronic unemployment, financial instability, undemocratic consolidations of power, environmental crisis, and the
declining wellbeing of communities, families, and individuals.  Many of us have come to the realization that our economy is out of control, undermining many of those things we hold most dear. ”

Social justice suggests that love of my neighbor takes precedence over love of our current economic model, and the New Economy Week points to alternative approaches. In worker-owned cooperatives  (like REI, Equal Exchange  or King Arthur Flour), profit stays in the hands of those who create it. In localized food markets, food dollars benefit farmers who grow the food, rather than global corporations with huge marketing and lobbying budgets. In local credit unions, money stays in the community, and profits are shared by members. B Corps (or Benefit Corporations) another idea supported by the New Economy Coalition, are companies legally authorized to prioritize social and environmental needs equal to or above profit. These “triple bottom line” companies agree to sustainable practices, equitable labor arrangements, investment in local communities. Pennsylvania is one of 20 states that have passed B Corps legislation; 18 more are on the way.

Another piece to this past week, also part of my reflections on social justice, was a conversation with a friend. She is a very intelligent, thoughtful, generous person who told me when I first met her, over a decade ago: “I don’t believe the Bible, and I don’t like Christians.”

In many conversations since then she’s explained that in her experience, Christians are hypocritical, judgmental, often mean-spirited, rarely willing to listen to any view but their own. She continues to assemble evidence from colleagues and acquaintances; I continue to listen and grieve.

In this week’s conversation, we decried the amazing waste caused by the government shutdown, shook our heads at the disrespect toward the president shown at the veteran’s rally last Sunday, and wondered together at the adamant, continuing resistance to the idea of universal health care. To my neighbor, these

Confederate Flag in Front of White House:
Our Politics as War by Other Means

were more evidence of the illogical, unjust behavior of Christians. To her, the face of Christ is the face of the man waving the Confederate flag outside the White House, or the angry faces of her Christian acquaintances who enjoy good health care but can’t see why the government should get involved in providing care for those without.

An article two days ago in Huffington Post describes “The Far Right Christian Movement Driving the Debt Default.” Whatever you think of debt default, political parties, or the Huffington Post, it’s worth pausing to consider the energy behind efforts to defund public education and the new health care act. Public education was historically a high priority of Christians, people of “the book.” When did that change? 

And the extension of health care, historically, globally, has been driven by Christians, following in the footsteps of Christ, the healer. How did we lose that longing to see the health of others? 

Which leads me back to social justice: I would much rather have “socialized” health care, with everyone guaranteed coverage, and no insurance companies doling out treatment and extracting billions of dollars to fund an unneeded layer of profit-driven beaurocracy. But I’d rather have Obamacare – the Affordable Healthcare Act – than see teenagers miss months of school because their teeth ache too much to concentrate, or young adults veer toward suicide because they can’t afford good mental health care, or friends lose their homes because unexpected illness leaves them buried in unpayable hospital bills.    

I’ve been haunted this week by a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem: "As Kingfishers Catch Fire" (quoted in full below). Hopkins poems are hard to read, with strange use of language, and layers of meaning. The punctuation is odd, the accent marks disconcerting. To explicate them feels a bit like sacrilege, yet in this case, I’ll attempt it.

    Hopkins suggests that all creatures reveal their own natures, while also reflecting something greater. Kingfishers in flight reflect the sun on their shimmering feathers; dragonflies glisten with the flame of sun-rays. Stones echo back the sound of well depths beyond. Each “deals out that being indoors each one dwells,” that is, each reveals what it’s made of, what it is,  while hinting at something more. The creaturely call is “myself”: “myself it speaks and spells, Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.”

The just man goes beyond this: acts out the justice and grace inside in reflection of  the grace and justice experienced from God himself, takes on the role of messenger of love by acting out the role of Christ: “lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his.”

Each phrase of this poem could take paragraphs to explore fully: “lovely in limbs” reminds us of Christ’s limbs stretched out on the cross, in forgiveness and embrace. “Lovely in eyes not his” can be read in multiple ways: who is lovely? In whose eyes?  Like an endless array of mirror images, justice, grace and love reflect from God’s eyes, to Christ’s, to ours, to the watching world, and back to us again.

Here is the question that woke me up last night, that follows me through the day, that cries through every headline: why is the face of Christ, for so many, a face of judgment, anger, dismissal, rather than a face of love? 

How did we come to give our allegiance to economic power, political parties, religious traditions, rather than to the one who calls us to come die with him, arms outstretched in loving embrace of a hurting, watching world?

What would happen, to our economy, our politics, our churches, if we were lovely in limb and lovely in eyes, if we lived justice daily, if all our goings reflected grace?

What would it mean if we wanted for even our enemies the same welcome, forgiveness, generosity, health, joy, shalom we crave for ourselves?

What if we actively took steps to make that happen?

What if Christ played, through us, in ten thousand thousand places?

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
 

I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

This post is part of the October Synchroblog. Links to other posts:

• K.W. Leslie – Social Justice and Social Darwinism 
• Jeremy Meyers – Did Jesus Teach Social Justice? 
• Glenn Hager – Notes on Not Saving the World 
• J.A. Carter – The Gospel Truth About Social Justice
• Sherri Huleatt – Sex Trafficking: the Story of a Young Girl, the Problem of a Generation
• Edwin Pastor Fedex Aldrich – Social Justice or Social Programs
• LIz Dyer – A Social Justice Story  
• Leah Sophia – Justice is Important, Food is Essential
• Kathy Escobar – Justice is More Than Equality 

It is also the concluding post of a series on God's Green Equity:

• God's Green Equity: August 4, 2013
• Seed Parables: August 11, 2013 
• Miracle Seeds of Sorrow's Kingdom: August 25, 2013   
• How Much  Does Justice Cost? September 1, 2013
• Taxonomy of Ignorance and the Unknown Unknowns: September 8,2013
• For God so Loved the Earth, September 15, 2013
• Reflections and Refractions on the Anacotia River, Sept. 22, 2013
• Imagining Wholeness, Sept. 29, 2013
• Summoned toward Wholeness, Oct. 6, 2013
• Generative Grace, Oct. 13, 2013

Earlier posts on the same topic:

• Green Grace: May 15, 2011 
• Earth Day Shalom: April 22, 2012
• Hungering Far Past Rightness: March 3, 2013

Taxonomy of Ignorance and the Unknown Unknowns

from What is Ignorance? QCubed

As we know,  

There are known knowns.  

There are things we know we know.  

We also know  

There are known unknowns.  

That is to say  

We know there are some things  

We do not know.  

But there are also unknown unknowns,  

The ones we don't know  

We don't know.
  ( Donald Rumsfeld, DOD briefing, 2002 )

It’s migration season in the mid-Atlantic region, and the night sky is full of small birds traveling south, prompted by internal warnings calibrated uniquely to each species. This past week, according to the ebird birdcast, my region expected nighthawks, red-eyed vireo, and a variety of warblers. I headed out in my kayak early this morning to see what I could see, and sure enough, in a stand of trees hanging over my favorite part of Marsh Creek Lake, red-eyed vireo, black and white warblers and black-throated greens were foraging for insects, readying themselves for a day of rest and another long night of flight.

I had never seen a red-eyed vireo until this morning. Yet, all my life, fall and spring, they’ve been traveling overhead. No one is quite sure how they know what routes to travel. No one knows for certain what determines their start.

And no one knows completely why song bird populations are declining. Loss of habitat, changing weather patterns, pesticide overload on monoculture fields . . . 

The same mysteries surround declining bat populations, and the alarming colony collapse disorder, threatening not just bees, but food crops and agricultural economies. A large percentage of the world’s food supplies depends on pollination by bees. As bees vanish, yields fall. According to a recent US News report: "More than $30 billion worth of crops in the U.S. could be seriously at risk if the continuing die off of honeybees were to reach critical levels." The article continues:

"Academic researchers from the University of Maryland and federal scientists from the Department of Agriculture decided to collect pollen from seven major types of crops along the East Coast where CCD has been especially destructive - where bees had been in serious decline – and fed them to healthy bees.

"The pollen fed to the healthy bees contained an average of nine different types of pesticides and fungicides. One pollen sample had 21 different chemicals."

"The researchers discovered that the healthy bees that ate the fungicides – which are supposedly harmless to bees – were actually three times more likely to become infected with a parasite that's known to cause Colony Collapse Disorder . . .

"What the study also indicated is that there may not be a single cause of the collapse of bee colonies in North America – it could be a complex web of many chemicals that involves different types and classes of pesticides and fungicides."

I’ve long appreciated Wendell Berry’s 2004 essay “The Way of Ignorance,” discovered in a library book of the same name, eventually purchased so I could read - yet again - Berry’s discussion of helpful and foolish ignorance. He begins with this:

"Our purpose here is to worry about the predominance of the supposition, in a time of great technological power, that humans either know enough already, or can learn enough soon enough, to foresee and forestall any bad consequences of their use of that power. . .

"Ignorance plus arrogance plus greed sponsors “better living with chemistry,” and produces the ozone hole and the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico." (53)

Berry offers a taxonomy of ignorance, his own classification of the kinds of ignorance that shape our understanding (summarized online along with a variety of other attempts to classify the unknown/unknowable):                                                      

Varieties of ignorance:

• Inherent ignorance — ignorance that stems from the limitations of the human brain

• Ignorance of history — due to our unawareness of what we have forgotten, and never learned

• Materialist ignorance — willful refusal to recognize what cannot be empirically proved (narrow-mindedness)

• Moral ignorance — willful refusal to come to a moral conclusion on the basis it may not be ‘objective’

• Polymathic ignorance — the false confidence of knowledge of the past and future

• Self-righteous ignorance — ignorance arising from our failure to know ourselves and our weaknesses

• Fearful ignorance — stemming from the lack of courage to believe and accept knowledge that is unpopular, unpleasant or tragic

• Lazy ignorance — stemming from not being willing to make the effort to understand what is complex

• For-profit and for-power ignorance — deliberate obscuring or withholding of knowledge (e.g. advertising, propaganda)

                     (Dave Pollard: The Way of Ignorance)

Berry’s interest in discussing ignorance is to probe the ways that lack of humility lead us into harm, not just on a personal level, but even more, on a societal, even global scale:

"What I have said so far characterizes the personal minds of individual humans. But because of a certain kind of arrogant ignorance, and because of the gigantic scale of work permitted and even required by powerful technologies, we are not safe in dealing merely with personal or human minds. We are obliged to deal also with a kind of mind that I will call corporate, although it is also political and institutional. This is a mind that is compound and abstract, materialistic, reductionist, greedy, and radically utilitarian. . . The corporate mind is remarkably narrow. It claims to utilize only empirical knowledge – the preferred term is “sound science,” reducible ultimately to the “bottom line” of profit or power – 

"Ignorance, arrogance, narrowness of mind, incomplete knowledge and counterfeit knowledge are of concern to us because they are dangerous; they cause destruction. When united with great power, they cause great destruction. They have caused far too much destruction already, too often of irreplaceable things. Now, reasonably enough, we are asking if it is possible, if it is even thinkable, that the destruction can be stopped. To some people’s surprise, we are again backed up against the fact that knowledge is not in any simple way good. We have often been a destructive species, we are more destructive now than we have ever been, and this, in perfect accordance with ancient warnings, is because of our ignorant and arrogant use of knowledge."(59) 

The topics I’ve been tracking of late all call into focus the forms of ignorance Berry describes. Advocates of fracking, genetic modification, consolidated animal feeding, monocrop agriculture dependent on pesticides and herbicides, all point to “sound science” that denies, or ignores, potential harm.  Caution flags are dismissed as “unproven” scare tactics, while the historic record of corporate/industrial malfeasance (tobacco? Agent Orange? DDT? asbestos?) is politely disregarded.

At the same time, I encounter fearful ignorance (“I don’t want to know!”), moral ignorance (“Whatever is happening is inevitable”) and all too often, lazy ignorance (“Who has the time to understand this, and really, does it matter?”)

Plea for help from fifth-generation farmer Bruce Kennedy, East Smithfield,
 Bradford County, PA. Photo by Iris Marie Bloom

I find myself wondering, in the light of this: what does it mean to love my neighbor?

The woman I met not long ago sick at heart that fracking fluid is being injected into abandoned oil wells in her rural county.

The friends who can no longer eat out – anywhere – for fear a simple meal, cooked in the wrong oil, or with unacknowledged ingredients, will make them sick for days.

What does it mean to love the beekeeper who shared her grief at the devastation in her hives?

Or the daughter of generations of gulf shrimpers lamenting the dead zone that’s destroyed her family’s way of life?

How has my own willful ignorance contributed to the harm experienced by others?

How, through lazy ignorance, am I complicit in past, present, and future calamity?

What should I know, that I've chosen not to know?

And how can I “dissent and withdraw,” in Berry’s words, from the tragic arrogance that ignores the dangerous “unknown unknowns”? 


This is the fifth  in a series on food and farming, Jesus' nature parables, and the intermingling of justice, sabbath, shalom, and the sweet, shared hope of God's green equity:

• God's Green Equity: August 4, 2013
• Seed Parables: August 11, 2013 
• Miracle Seeds of Sorrow's Kingdom: August 25, 2013   
• How Much  Does Justice Cost? September 1, 2013

Your comments and questions are welcome.

Courage, Hope, Generosity

No, no, there is no going back.

Less and less you are

that possibility you were.

More and more you have become

those lives and deaths

that have belonged to you. . .

Now more than ever you can be

generous toward each day

that comes, young,

to disappear

forever, and yet remain

unageing in the mind.

Every day you have less reason

not to give yourself away.

  (Wendell Berry,

         The Timbered Choir)

I spent this past weekend in the company of women of great courage, hope, and generosity.

I have been on an interesting journey, and most recently it’s been leading me into political engagement with the League of Women Voters. I’ve been working on a national agriculture study, leading caucuses and workshops about food and farming, and have just been voted onto the local and state League of Women Voters boards.

So, this past weekend, I went to the biennial state convention of the Pennsylvania League in the lovely town of Lewisburg, PA.

The start of the weekend was a wild caravan ride to see some natural gas drilling sites in the hillsides near Loyalsock State Forest. Guided by a local member of the Alliance for Responsible Drilling, our group drove down steep back roads, stopped along roadsides, counted waste water tank trucks in caravans of their own, then hiked across a muddy field for a birds-eye view of six active fracking wells.

One of the members of our group, a woman well into her seventies, carried a small note pad and jotted notes at every turn.

Another, just weeks after hip surgery, gratefully accepted a hand to climb a slippery slope, eager to see and understand further a topic she’s been studying for years.

The conversation never stopped: How many gallons. What happens to the waste water. How far is the nearest stream. How many trucks per day.

From there we went back to our convention site, for meetings about judicial reform, industrial farming, the broken party system, how best to advocate for more open primaries.

Some of those in attendance were younger than I am (57, if you’ve been wondering).

Many were older.

Some much older.

One woman spoke of working for thirty years to find a way to promote a more impartial, well-prepared judiciary.

Another has been studying Pennsylvania politics for almost as long, looking for possible points of reform, showing up for hearings, offering testimony, meeting with legislators, tireless in pursuit of something approaching a more open democratic process.

I sat several times next to a woman working to protect lakes, farms, and a fragile wetland area from the dangers of fracking wastewater being dumped into old, crumbling wells just miles from her home, not far from Lake Erie.

I spoke with another woman working hard to ensure adequate funding for education in rural schools far from any center of political power.

At one meeting we talked about the Pennsylvania Justice Bell and the 1915 statewide referendum on women’s rights. While my county and many western counties voted for women’s right to vote, the majority of state voters (all men) voted emphatically “no.” We were reminded of the 72 years between the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, hosted by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the final ratification of the 19^th Amendment in August, 1920.

At another meeting we recognized fifty-year members – women who joined the league to work for Civil Rights, to advocate for the still-unpassed Equal Rights Amendment.

I was struck by the energy and resolve of these women, and the endless hours they give, showing up to register new voters, writing letters, making calls, trying to understand issues. One meeting paused over a motion about sales tax: Who is harmed by higher sales tax? Who benefits? Why should it matter?

Listening to the passionate discussions over morning coffee, over lunch, between meetings, late into the night, I found myself thinking about this month’s Synchroblog topic: ordinary courage. 

“In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown has this to say about ordinary courage:

'The root of the word courage is cor—the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage had a very different definition than it does today. Courage originally meant “to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart.'

“The great thing about ordinary courage is that it leads to wholehearted living.”

We live in a world that encourages us not to care: 

Don’t vote, they’re all the same. Give up, things will never change.
 It’s all too complicated, so why bother?
 Look out for yourself, it’s the best you can do. 

It seems unwise to engage our hearts, to let ourselves care too deeply. Somehow it’s okay to be passionate about a TV show, a new restaurant, a hairstyle. But keep your voice level when you talk of politics. Don’t say too much about poverty or prison reform. Don’t offend, don’t insist, don’t dig too deeply.

Please, don’t think too much.

 

This past weekend, one of the women I was with spoke laughingly of a reporter who wrote of “whip-smart women in comfortable shoes.”

Well yes – it’s hard to visit fracking sites in anything but comfortable shoes. Or to run down hallways lugging laptops and projectors in a pair of narrow high heels.

What kind of culture is more interested in women’s shoes than in what chemicals are in our water, what toxins are in our food?

I’m reminded of a passage from Wendell Berry’s essay “On Difficult Hope”: 

"We are living in the most destructive and, hence, the most stupid period of the history of our species. The list of its undeniable abominations is long and hardly bearable. And these abominations are not balanced or compensated or atoned for by the list, endlessly reiterated, of our scientific achievements. Some people are moved, now and again, to deplore one abomination or another. Others . . . deplore the whole list and its causes.
 "Much protest is naive; it expects quick, visible improvements and despairs and gives up when such improvement does not come. Protestors who hold out longer have perhaps understood that success is not the proper goal.  .  .
 "Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one’s own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.” (Wendell Berry, "On Difficult Hope") 

Both hope and courage are qualities of the heart, essential to whole-hearted living, worth preserving no matter the stupidities of the age.

Yet, as I think of the women I came to know this past weekend, I see in them something beyond the  the perseverance Berry describes. I turn back to the poem I started with: the idea of generosity.

What motivates these women of courage is the wish to give something better to those who come

behind us.

The woman living near the waste-water wells, organizing town meetings, writing the EPA, protesting, once again, a dangerous practice she fears will do great harm, said emphatically:

“It’s not about us. Or even our children. It’s our grandchildren. And the children after them. What happens when those well-linings break? What happens when those chemicals leach into the water table, into the lake?” 

It takes courage to look past the economies of today, to spend time, energy, resources tirelessly, generously, in hope of passing on something of value to generations to come.

In a world of self-protectiveness, of turning inward, of looking out for number one, I admire, celebrate, and am happy to walk with those tireless, fearless, generous women who refuse to settle for a life in stylish shoes. 

Every day you have less reasonnot to give yourself away.

This post is part of the June Synchroblog. There are lots of links this month - take some time to visit them and join the conversation.

This Is Courage by Jen Bradbury
Being Vulnerable by Phil Lancaster
Everyday Bravery: Overcoming the Fear of Being Wrong by Jessica
Moving Forward Takes Courage by Paul W. Meier
How to Become a Flasher by Glenn Hager
Ordinary Courage by Elaine Hansen
The Courage to Fail by Wendy McCaig
The Greatest Act of Courage by Jeremy Myers
Sharing One’s Heart by K. W. Leslie
All I See Is Rocks by Tim Nichols
I Wonder What Would Happen by Liz Dyer
What is Ordinary Courage? by Jennifer Stahl
Loving Courageously by Doreen A. Mannion
Heart Cry: The Courage to Confess by Elizabeth Chapin
The Act to the Miraculous by VisionHub
the spiritual practice of showing up & telling the truth by Kathy Escobar
It’s What We Teach by Margaret Boelman

Fracking Hysteria?

When I was twelve or so, a camp counselor described me as “phlegmatic.” I had just put six arrows through an archery target's bull’s eye, and instead of jumping up and down, or screaming enthusiastically as some girls my age might have done, I silently went to pull the arrows out (in the proper way, left hand against the target, right firmly grasping the arrow), and handed the bow off to the next girl in line.

I wrote the word down and next time I was near a dictionary, I took a look. “Phlegmatic: adjective: (of a person) Having an unemotional and stolidly calm disposition.”

Well, maybe. I don’t resonate with the description, but it’s true that I’m not given to wild enthusiasm, tend not to worry much, and I’m rarely overcome by panic. I like a little drama now and then, but hysteria? Never. Not even close.

Hysteria has become the word of choice in describing those who express concern about fracking, hydraulic fracturing.  Spend time on Shale Gas Coalition websites (boring, I agree, but someone has to do it) and you’ll find a consistent message:

• Oil companies have been using hydraulic fracturing for 60 years.
• Hydraulic fracturing is safe and effectively regulated.
• Misrepresentations, hysteria and fear-mongering threaten this clean energy resource.                                     
  

We live in an interesting time. In fact, the more I read, see, listen, think, the more convinced I am that the next few years will be long remembered as a watershed, or turning point. Where we’ll end up is still not clear, but it will be someplace very different from where we are right now. 

The oil and gas industry has a great deal of money committed to preserving the status quo, reliance on fossil fuel, even though that fossil fuel is harder and harder to get, and extracted from more and more sensitive regions, in more and more untested and dangerous ways.

The industry could use its profits to lead the way into a different future, but instead is spending millions fending off criticism and concern about the current course. This is tragically true in Pennsylvania, which has no limit on campaign contributions.  Donors from the oil and gas industry gave Governor Tom Corbett’s campaign over $1.6 million; more than a quarter of that was from individuals subsequently named to serve on his Marcellus Shale Commission. Another 1.9  million was given to people running for the state legislature. 

Add in the money spent on TV spots promoting “clean energy and good jobs”, an army of high-priced lobbyists, and the military psy-ops hired to make sure the industry maintains control at small town meetings and it’s clear the industry is determined to have it’s way, no matter who objects, or why.

from the Gasland movie website

Yes – I know eyes glaze over at the mention of hydraulic fracturing. It’s complicated, it’s science (who wants to think about science?) and those hysterical fear-mongers are putting snail darters, or some other environmental nonsense, over energy and jobs. And we know how much we need energy and jobs.

But we need our health more. And clean water. And clean air. Not to mention democratic discusson, among real stakeholders, about what’s best for our both our environment and our economy.

While the natural gas industry has been drilling for gas for the past sixty years, the techniques that are the focus of the current controversy are much more recent, and still untested. Slick-water fracking (injecting a stew of chemicals to keep seams in the shale from closing) was first tried in 1997. Horizontal and multi-stage fracking (which extend fractures far beyond the initial drill site) were introduced in 2004.

So – it’s all safe, right? Not at all. For each concern raised, for each disaster that happens, the industry says “That has nothing to do with this,” “You can’t prove we’re responsible,” “That was a glitch, but we’ve solved that now.”

Problems? Books can, and will be, written. I did blog on this a bit back in September, but the more I know, the more concerned I am:

     ·   Contaminated well water, either from mishandled fracking fluid, or from migration of fluids and methane through the fracture shale, causes headaches, rashes, dizziness, cancer, kidney failure, miscarriage. Pets and livestock have died. No count on how many wells have been contaminated so far. And no good research yet on what happens when the same contaminates find their way into larger drinking water supplie

Explosion near San Francisco

  ·    Toxins that evaporate from the fracking ponds — heavy metals, non-biodegradable chemicals, radioactive substances — settle on farms, on growing food, on pastures, waterways. Gases and dusts lingering in the air cause asthma, headaches, itchy eyes, leukemia, other cancers.

·         Methane migration into basements has caused explosions. “Blowouts”, well sites that explode from uncontrolled methane, have caused whole communities to be evacuated. Local volunteer fire companies are not prepared to handle these events, and are put at risk when they are called on to put out these fires.

·         Whole streams have been killed from improper dumping of fracking fluids, or from toxins released by well site blowouts. Vegetation dies on contact.

·         And remember those strange earthquakes last summer? In places that don’t normally have earthquakes? The natural gas industry says there’s no possibility that they’re connected, but just this week an oil industry newsletter publicized the headline: U.S. Government Confirms Link Between Earthquakes and Hydraulic Fracturing.

I could go on. And on. And on. About the Halliburton Loophole, the exemptions the industry has from clean air and clean water regulations, the maneuvering by the industry, in individual states and in the national arena, to cut regulation and defund regulatory agencies, the potential impact on tourism, farming, food and water supply. 

This is an important month in the fracking world. And an important month for anyone in Pennsylvania, or the mid-Atlantic states. The Pennsylvania legislature is debating proposals from Governor Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission for regulating fracking in the state. The proposals don’t address questions of density, don’t acknowledge the limited research on a host of health questions, and don’t go far enough to protect citizens, the environment, or the over-loaded roads and municipal water systems. A bipartisan Citizens Marcellus Shale Commission has offered its own recommendations, which have so far been ignored. Concerned watchdog groups are asking for a complete ban on further wells until more research is completed.

from the Josh Fox documentary Gasland

At the same time, the Delaware Basin River Commission is preparing to lift a moratorium on drilling in the Delaware watershed. The water supply of over fifteen million people is at stake, including public water in New York City, Trenton, Philadelphia, and Wilmington. As a regional paper notes: "The rule-making process is technical and complicated, yet it must be tempered with one precaution: If a fracking spill or blowout or illegal dumping of waste fluid ends up contaminating the Delaware River, it might not be easy to contain. Shutting off the intake valves for the public water supply of millions of people is not an option."

Sandra Steingraber, a biologist, professor, author, poet, mother and environmental cancer survivor, spoke at the conference I attended last month, and offered a compelling analogy she’s used in other settings: 

“Consider the drunk who has already cashed out his kid’s college fund, hocked the family heirlooms, burnt the furniture and terrified the dog. He’s beginning to grasp that he has a problem. And he’s also running out of whisky. He flirts with the idea of alcoholics anonymous. But wait. He suddenly discovers a fully loaded wine cellar buried deep beneath the basement of his house. Falling in love with his own cleverness, he begins to lay plans to blow up the foundation to get at it. His own family members hold an emergency meeting. What will they decide to do? Stay out of his way? Help him get the wine and regulate its consumption? Insist on overseeing the detonation of the basement? Or will they all join together and bar the way to the cellar steps?”

It’s time for intervention. And given the scale of the problem, it needs to be a big intervention.  The gas industry is rolling out fracking plans around the globe; France has already banned the practice, and other states and countries are watching Pennsyvlania to see if the industry can be stopped, or regulated in some way that ensures the safety of people, water, and air.

Need more information? Here are some places to start::

o        Fractracker

o        No Fracking  (a New York group, but scroll down on the site for a wealth of informative links)  

       

Organizations working together? Here are a few of the biggest. There are dozens more:

o        Clean Water Action

o        Damascus Citizens

o        Delaware Riverkeeper Network

o        Earthjustice

o        PA Campaign For Clean Water

o        PennEnvironment

Want to do something right away?

o        Email the president:    

o        Sign a petition:  

o        Contact your legislators:

o        Or – in Pennsylvania  - call Governor Corbett’s office, 717-787-2500, and ask him to declare a  statewide moratorium on fracking.

The Loyalsock - a river at risk/ 2010

I’ll be participating in two protest events in the days ahead, one in State College on November 18, another at the Delaware River Basin Commission’s shale gas conference in Trenton on November 21.

Not because I’m hysterical. And not because I’m a fear-mongering activist.

But because I’ve seen the devastation of mystery illnesses – health lost to hidden dollars. I’d like to see less of those – not more.

Because I love streams, birds, cows, clean water, healthy food.

Because I want a say in the world we leave our children. 

1. How much poison are you willing to eat for the success of the freemarket and global trade? Please name your preferred poisons. . . .

4. In the name of patriotism and the flag, how much of our beloved land are you willing to desecrate? List in the following spaces the mountains, rivers, towns, farms you could most readily do without.

5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes, the energy sources, the kinds of security, for which you would kill a child. Name, please, the children whomyou would be willing to kill. 

      (From “Questionnaire,” a poem by Wendell Berry)

Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.