The Gamble: Gas vs. Water

The Gamble: Gas vs. Water

R.D. Wilson

The gas hydraulic fracturing (fracking) controversy has recently struck close to home, the Northern Neck of Virginia.  We’ve read conflicting opinions regarding (fracking).  Those who see the opportunities to cash in, are for it.  Those who have legitimate concerns about the environmental dangers are against it.  Those who have voiced concerns about the plan to drill through the aquifer on which the region depends are shouted down by the gas advocates.  Absent from the arguments I’ve seen has been input from anyone who has seen and experienced the consequences of fracking.  Someone like me.

In the late 1970’s there was a gas well drilling frenzy in the area around Clarksburg, West Virginia.  We knew that we were purchasing only the surface rights when we bought our farm 12 miles outside of Clarksburg.  This was normal in West Virginia.  The locals liked to say that out-of-state interests owned 65% of West Virginia’s surface, 95% of the minerals, and 100% of the state legislature.

Our property ran from ridge top to ridge top near the head of the hollow. The house and outbuildings were on one side of the hollow and a hillside meadow on the other.  There was an old gas well in the meadow.  It was no longer commercially viable, but the gas pipeline still ran from the well across the hollow and over the far ridge.  The terms of the contract for the mineral rights gave the owner of the surface unlimited free gas as long as the well was producing.  And, it was producing enough to take care of our needs.

When we drove out to our new home on the day we settled on the property, a bulldozer was ripping up our hillside meadow near the old gas well. The gas company was preparing to sink a new well. No one, at any point in our purchase process, had mentioned the possibility of another gas well.  But as we learned, in West Virginia, whoever had the mineral rights could do whatever was necessary to extract their minerals, and there was no need for them to consult with the surface owners.

They bulldozed a level area out of the hillside for a drilling platform and dug a containment pond (without a liner) for water produced and used during the drilling.  We were told not to worry because the hillside would be restored after the drilling operation was completed. 

When the Halliburton trucks arrived, I asked the local man reactivating the gas pipelines on the farm what was going on.  He said that they were getting ready to frack both the new well and the old well to rejuvenate it.  That was a new term to me, so he explained.  He said that they pumped a slurry of gravel, water and chemicals into the well under high pressure to crack the rock and allow the gas to flow freely.  The gravel was to wedge into the cracks and hold them open after the pressure was released.  

I asked if this would jeopardize our water supply.  He said that it could.  If the process ruptured the bedrock on which the water table flowed, the water could go down into the fractured rock. Even if we still had water, it was possible for the gas to invade the water table, and we could light our taps.  But he didn’t think we would be affected because our water well was on the opposite side of the hollow from where the gas wells were located.  

We were lucky, our water wasn’t affected. However, we had friends in the area that could light their taps and couldn’t drink their water.  In some cases, the wells weren’t even on their property.  The gas company had no enforceable liability.  During the drilling frenzy the weekly newspaper published in Clarksburg frequently reported house explosions due to gas invading the house through the water system.

The land restoration amounted to filling in the containment pond, and spreading straw on the bare earth.  Only weeds would grow on the barren gash across the meadow.  The stream draining the hollow that had once been alive with aquatic life was dead from the silt and drainage from the drilling site.  I called the Governor’s Office to try to find out how to enforce restoration of the surface from the drilling activity.  Their only advice was, “Buy the mineral rights.”  

My experience in West Virginia, reinforced by other catastrophes in the news related to oil and gas extraction convinces me that there is no 100% safe way to extract, transport or process oil and gas.  When accidents happen, and they do, the people whose lives are turned upside down are rarely, if ever, made whole.  If an aquifer is poisoned, how is that going to be fixed?  How will the people affected be made whole?  Who will pay the cost? 

In the uphill battle to clean up the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers and the Chesapeake Bay, who will bear the consequences of fouling the streams and groundwater draining into the Bay?  In spite of precautions taken by the drillers, there will be human and equipment failures that foul area water resources.  Some may be limited and quickly contained.  Others may be potentially catastrophic. Who pays?  We all will.  Who benefits from the gas exploration?  The oil and gas industry, and, perhaps those who have leased or sold their mineral rights.

Those seduced into selling or leasing gas rights under their land as a low risk, but high reward gamble are betting their farms on what looks like a sure deal.  However, if the water is contaminated, they aren’t going to be the only losers from their bet.

An Independent Makes a Choice

AN INDEPENDENT MAKES A CHOICE
 By R.D. Wilson

I will be voting for the Democrats on my ballot this November. I have voted both for Republicans and for Democrats over my years of participating in elections. This year I am voting for the Democrats. I am very concerned about the state of the country and the world my grandchildren are inheriting, and the anti-government positions of those who have hijacked the Republican Party scare the hell out of me.

I did vote for Obama in 2008 with some reservations and a lot of hope. He was a bright guy with an optimistic outlook about bridging the partisan divide, and he seemed to have an appreciation for the looming economic crisis that he would surely inherit, but he had no proven executive experience. However, his Republican opposition was too old, too compromised by pandering to the right-wing of the party, and chose a pop-politician running mate who was too clueless. The choice was easy; although, I did tell my wife that whoever was elected to follow George W. Bush would probably be a one-term president.

I was profoundly disappointed in Obama’s early performance. That was mostly because I had unrealistically high expectations. Deep down, I knew that he couldn’t walk across the Potomac; he was going to have to use a bridge like everyone else. Recognizing that Obama inherited the embers and ashes of the catastrophic Bush administration, I do have to cut him some slack. At least, now he knows the job and the hostile environment in which he is expected to perform. I hope he also understands his own personal limitations and surrounds himself with people who can do better those things that he doesn’t do well. He should have learned that he can’t start a political negotiation with his compromise position, and that the crop of Republicans that he is likely to face has his failure as their prime objective, without regard to the damage it will do to the country.

Reminiscent of 2008, the Republicans aren’t giving me a choice. I had hopes when Jon Huntsman entered the primaries, but he was too sensible and pragmatic in pursuit of what is best for the country to appeal to a Republican base financed by the plutocrats and energized by neoconservatives.

I can’t vote for any politician that signed Grover Norquist’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge”. Any politician who decries the growth of the national deficit but adamantly refuses to consider any increase in revenue to support government obligations can’t have my vote. The federal government didn’t acquire its obligations in a vacuum. Congress authorized them, now Congress has an obligation to support the federal government in meeting its obligations. It may be uncomfortable for the Republican deficit hawks to recognize this, but the only balanced budgets that any of them can probably remember occurred in a Democrat administration. During the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations the deficit reached record highs in combatting the Cold War. When Soviet Russia fell apart both countries were broke; the U.S. advantage was that we still had credit. Paul Tsongas was a Democrat who lost out to Bill Clinton in the 1960 primaries, and a cofounder of the Concord Coalition with the Republican, Warren Rudman. Tsongas used his campaign to make the deficit a major issue that led to balanced budgets and a surplus in the Clinton administration ( that George W. Bush squandered). The Republications like to use “tax and spend Democrats” from their campaign phrase book. The genesis of the deficit problem, however, lies with the “borrow and spend Republicans”. The deficit does have to come down, but the first step is to elect a Congress that is less concerned about financing their next elections and their personal political careers than they are with making government work for all Americans. I want representatives in Congress that will give their Pledge of Allegiance to America, not to a lobbyist.

I can’t vote for anyone endorsing supply-side, “trickle-down”, economics as the path to economic recovery and prosperity for all. George H.W. Bush called it “voodoo” economics” during his primary campaign against Ronald Reagan. He was right. I was asked by a colleague during the Reagan administration, “What is “trickle-down economics?” In an intuitively inspired answer, I told him, “Trickle-down economics is an economic theory whereby the wealthy prosper by impoverishing of the middle class.” Unfortunately, that’s the way it has worked. If the wealthy get money they will invest it where it will make them the most money with the least risk anywhere in the world, without considering the impact on the people and communities affected by their financial decisions. If they can find a way, it will safely sit in their bank accounts and compound.

Even if it weren’t for the Tax Pledge and his endorsement of “trickle-down economics”, I still could’t vote for Mitt Romney. After six years of campaigning, I don’t know what Romney believes in or how he plans to lead the country. All I really know is that he wants to be President and he is willing to do or say anything and spend any amount to achieve that goal. He does have a successful executive background, but I don’t know how being a leveraged buyout expert transfers to a job where all decisions are high risk, with inadequate information, and they will be coming at him from a fire-hose. Although job creation has been a cornerstone of his campaign, I found nothing in his history that convinces me that he can or will create jobs.

I’m not voting for Obama because Romney is a Republican or because he is a Mormon, it’s because he’s a shark. Under Romney’s leadership Bain Capital’s only objective was to create wealth for the partners and investors, at which he was successful. Job creation wasn’t part of that equation. Jobs lost, jobs created, or jobs moved overseas were incidental to creating wealth. The human cost of his decisions wasn’t a consideration. From what I have read, Romney is scrupulous about avoiding actions that are clearly illegal, but he has no qualms about trying to exploit that gray seam that lies between black and white. If he can’t lawyer his way out of a “gray” dispute, he’ll negotiate a settlement. He didn’t claim all of his deductions on last year’s tax return so that his effective tax rate would be higher for the campaign. It will be interesting to see if he files an amended return after the election. He is an expert at gaming the system, and an expert at creating wealth for himself and others through investments - even when it means avoidable suffering for workers and communities. Why would I think he would create jobs if there there wasn’t a payoff for him in the deal?

I will not vote for Mitt Romney because of the Supreme Court. The Republicans have been keen on creating ways to limit voter access or sway elections in their favor. They made a concerted effort before the upcoming election to intimidate people who would be inconvenienced by “Voter Id” laws. In spite of all their impassioned rhetoric on the subject, it has been conclusively proven that the “Voter Id laws” are a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist. On the other hand, voting irregularities in a Republican county in Florida threw the 2000 presidential election into the hands of the Supreme Court who decided for George W. Bush. Before voting began this year, invalid voter registrations were turned in to some Florida counties by the contractor hired by the Republican National Committee (RNC). The RNC would definitely like to throw a close election into the Supreme Court. I don’t believe that the Supreme Court should be in the business of deciding elections. The Supreme Court has already invalidated campaign finance laws making campaigns appear to be up to the highest bidder. Women’s rights are likely to be in jeopardy if Romney gets the opportunity to name a justice to the court. The Supreme Court is already tilted toward the conservative side. Another conservative justice and the creationists, and anti-abortion activists are likely to have powerful friends in Washington.

If people who are in what Romney considers “Obama’s 47%” (the poor, the elderly, the former middle class, and, for that matter, the middle class) expect to get anything out of a Romney administration, they are deluding themselves. However, if they blow him a kiss, he might give them a haircut.

This 2012 election is critical for our country, and I wish we had stronger, less controversial, choices. But, we don’t. I can’t remember an election where the choice of who we send to Congress is as important. If we send someone pledged to Grover Norquist and owned by the plutocrats, we can expect a Congress that places partisan objectives over good government. This could lead to continued paralysis and a deep recession in which all but the wealthy are hurt. Or, it could prompt a spurt of legislation to get the government out of businesses and put it into your bedroom, limit your access to health care, and set in motion the next global financial meltdown.