Category Archives: Environment

Standing Tall for Landowner Rights

  By Walter Brasch | May 19, 2013 8:04 am - 8:04 am | , ,
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by Walter Brasch   Julia Trigg Crawford of Direct, Texas, is the manager of a 650-acre farm that her grandfather first bought in 1948. The farm produces mostly corn, wheat, and soy. On its north border is the Red River; to the west is the Bois d’Arc Creek. TransCanada is an Alberta-based corporation that is building the controversial Keystone Pipeline that will carry bitumen—thicker, more corrosive and toxic, than crude oil—through 36-inch diameter pipes from the Alberta tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast, mostly to be exported. The $2.3 billion southern segment, about 485 miles from Cushing, Okla., to the Gulf Coast is nearly complete. With the exception of a 300-mile extension between Cushing and Steele City, Neb., … Continue reading →

Senator Boxer’s Statement on 43rd Earth Day

  By Pamela Leavey | April 22, 2013 6:47 pm - 6:47 pm | , , , , , ,
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Today is the 43rd anniversary of Earth Day as Walter Brasch noted below. Senator Barbara Boxer released the following statement on Earth Day: “As we celebrate Earth Day, it is important to remember the significant progress we have made since the first Earth Day in 1970 and prepare for the serious work that lies ahead.  “The first Earth Day helped lead to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.  It also helped spur strong bipartisan legislation, such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Superfund law, which have been some of the most successful laws ever enacted in the U.S. “Over the past four decades, we have made a tremendous difference in … Continue reading →

Pennsylvania: You Are Fracked

  By Walter Brasch | April 22, 2013 8:34 am - 8:34 am | ,
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  by Walter Brasch    AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a special Earth Day edition of my weekly social issues column, Wanderings. The information is from my latest book, Fracking Pennsylvania, an overall look at the nature and consequences of high-pressure horizontal hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking. Even if you are not a Pennsylvanian or living in the recent boom in the Marcellus Shale, fracking is destroying the health of people, livestock, pets, and wild animals; it is impacting the environment and ecological diversity. It is going on across the country, and is about to expand into the urban and agricultural areas of central California. If you don’t want your wine, lettuce, or hundreds of other fruits and vegetables to be … Continue reading →

You Can’t Wash Away Fracking’s Effects

  By Walter Brasch | February 22, 2013 9:24 am - 9:24 am | , ,
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José Lara just wanted a job. A company working in the natural gas fields needed a man to power wash wastewater tanks. Clean off the debris. Make them shining again. And so José Lara became a power washer for the Rain for Rent Co. “The chemicals, the smell was so bad. Once I got out, I couldn’t stop throwing up. I couldn’t even talk,” Lara said in his deposition, translated from Spanish. The company that had hired him didn’t provide him a respirator or protective clothing. That’s not unusual in the natural gas fields. José Lara did his job until he no longer could work. At the age of 42, he died from pancreatic and liver cancer. Accidents, injuries, and … Continue reading →

Pennsylvania Politics Continues to Trump Health and the Environment

  By Walter Brasch | July 5, 2012 4:43 pm - 4:43 pm | , , , ,
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    by WALTER BRASCH   Politics continues to threaten the health and welfare of Pennsylvanians. The latest is how the Republican-dominated legislature and Gov. Tom Corbett separated one of the wealthiest and more high-tech/industrial areas of the state from the rural areas. Less than a week before the 2011–2012 fiscal year budget was scheduled to expire, June 30, the majority party slipped an amendment into the 2012–2013 proposed budget, (SB1263), to ban natural gas drilling in a portion of southeastern Pennsylvania for up to six years. The South Newark Basin includes portions of Bucks, Montgomery, and Berks counties, and could provide at least 360 billion cubic feet of natural gas, according to estimates by the United States Geologic Survey. … Continue reading →

The Snipers of Jersey Shore

  By Walter Brasch | June 7, 2012 2:59 pm - 2:59 pm | ,
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  by WALTER BRASCH   Garder54 calls Kevin June “a real scum.” LadyDawg4 calls him a “sleazeball.” Proud2bMom calls him a “liar and a thief.” Kevin June is the reluctant leader for the 37 families of the Riverdale Mobile Home Village in Jersey Shore, Pa., who were evicted from their homes, most of which they owned and paid a monthly lot fee. Some of the residents lived there for more than three decades. Most of the residents are elderly, disabled, or living slightly above the poverty line. Several are employed; all are struggling to survive in a bad economy. In late February, Aqua–PVR, a joint operation of Aqua America and Penn Virginia Resource Partners, bought the 12-acre trailer park for … Continue reading →

Collateral Damage in the Marcellus Shale

  By Walter Brasch | April 6, 2012 4:55 am - 4:55 am | , ,
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    by WALTER BRASCH   There’s nothing to suggest that in his 51 years Kevin June should be a leader. Not from his high school where he dropped out after his freshman year. Not from his job, where he worked as an auto body technician for more than 35 years. Both of his marriages ended in divorce, but did produce two children, a 31-year-old son and a 28-year-old daughter. June readily admits that for most of his life, beginning about 14 when he began drinking heavily, he was a drunk. Always beer. Almost always to excess. But, he will quickly tell you how many weeks he has been sober. It’s now 56, he says proudly. In October 2008 he … Continue reading →

FRACKING: Corruption a Part of Pennsylvania’s Heritage

  By Walter Brasch | March 22, 2012 6:24 am - 6:24 am | , , , , ,
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  by WALTER BRASCH  (part 3 of 3) The history of energy exploration, mining, and delivery is best understood in a range from benevolent exploitation to worker and public oppression. A company comes into an area, leases land in rural and agricultural areas for mineral rights, increases employment, usually in a depressed economy, strips the land of its resources, creates health problems for its workers and those in the immediate area, and then leaves. It makes no difference if it’s timber, oil, or coal. In the 1970s and 1980s, the nuclear energy industry promised well-paying jobs, clean energy, and a safe health and work environment. Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima Daiichi, and thousands of violations issued by the Nuclear Regulatory … Continue reading →