Fracking or Chemtrails? Study Shows Water Wells Closest to Fracking are More Contaminated

The peer-reviewed paper focuses on the presence of metals such as arsenic, barium, selenium and strontium in water samples.

Activist Post

A new study of 100 private water wells in and near the Barnett Shale showed elevated levels of potential contaminants such as arsenic and selenium closest to natural gas extraction sites, according to a team of researchers that was led by UT Arlington associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry Kevin Schug.

Brian Fontenot, who earned his Ph.D. in quantitative biology from UT Arlington, worked with Kevin Schug, UT Arlington associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and a team of researchers to analyze samples from 100 private water wells.

The results of the North Texas well study were published online by the journal Environmental Science & Technology Thursday. The peer-reviewed paper focuses on the presence of metals such as arsenic, barium, selenium and strontium in water samples. Many of these heavy metals occur naturally at low levels in groundwater, but disturbances from natural gas extraction activities could cause them to occur at elevated levels.

Obama Bankrupts Coal, Boosts Fracking

Shutting Down Coal-Powered Plants Is Making Energy More Expensive, and Hydraulic Fracturing More Common

Aaron Dykes

All over America, coal power plants which provide stable, cheap energy are being shut down under Obama-led regulations and the C02 control agenda. Although coal is dirty, regulations have helped clean it up, and natural gas from fracking is worse … but hydraulic fracturing is exactly what Obama is using to replace coal – at great cost to the environment.



Based on what we already known about fracking, it is contributing to groundwater contamination, adding radioactive material into water supplies, creating at least minor earthquakes and tremors and otherwise creating massive pollution and contamination.

Hydrofracking Boom or Bust

James Hall

The economics of oil or natural gas hydrofracking are seldom analyzed from the perspective of the American consumer. Most discussions focus upon the investment opportunities of specific companies, royalties to leaseholders, windfall tax revenues that state governments will benefit from and the bonanza that local communities will enjoy from the added business activity. Missing is a clear understanding of the pricing points and factors that will determine the actual selling charge and total all inclusive retrieval costs in the domestic market. Will the price of energy drop precipitously, or will the net effect be that the native end user sees no direct benefit from the rush to drill?

The environmental risks of the fracking process are real.

Floridians Alarmed As Industry Signals Desire To 'Frack' and Drill Populated Areas

Collier-Owned Company Leases Populated Area In Collier County for Exploratory Drilling
Sayer Ji

In what is shaping up to be a move as potentially disastrous for the Collier family name as the Collier county environment, a May 2013 drilling permit application by Dan A. Hughes company describes their intent to drill a 13,900 foot deep exploratory well in close proximity to a relatively densely populated residential area known as Golden Gate. 

In an official statement made in April, Dan A. Hughes announced they had "recently entered into a mineral exploration leasing agreement with Collier Resources Company, LLP to explore for oil in Collier County." In fact, Dan A. Hughes has applied for six drilling permits in Collier county in the past six months, four of which are pending and two of which have been approved.

The Collier Resources Company proudly traces its roots to Barron Gift Collier, the founder of Collier County, and the two Collier family owned businesses, Barron Collier Companies and Collier Enterprise, which jointly own it. Additionally, they claim that despite being part of a 69 year history of oil exploration and production in Southwest Florida, they "take pride in our legacy of environmental stewardship."

Disaster Preparedness or Public Relations Disaster?

‘Shaking Booms’ Snapped Trees in Half Days Before Indiana Radiation Incident

Mike Barrett

It was recently reported that a rather significant, concerning, and mysterious spike in radiation occurred in the north Indiana / south Michigan area, causing widespread alarm throughout the nation.

Not only are the reports of the radiation spike concerning in and of itself, but the appearance of military helicopters, aircraft, and Department of Homeland Security Hazmat fleets is also generating some raised eyebrows.

Reports are continuously coming out updating on the event occurring throughout June 6-7, with locals reporting on a series of explosions, house-shaking rumbles, and even large trees being completely snapped in half on a clear day just days before.



The thunder-mimicking sound led some locals to believe that explosions took place in their own basements. Planes breaking the sound barrier, earthquakes, and extremely powerful fireworks were ruled out – so what could it have been?

Could the shakes and loud sounds have been a result of a terrible fracking incident? In the past fracking has caused concerning explosions both in Pennsylvania and Nixon.

As for the radiation spike reaching levels as much 7,139 CPM without warning, which is over the average of between 5 and 6, what could be the true cause?

One network responsible for measuring the increased level went on record (after removing the live measurements abruptly) stating that it was a unknown fluke in the system of which the operators are unsure of the origin.

Of course this does not make much sense, as a number of different privately owned radiation measurement facilities had confirmed the readings — even some private enthusiasts. But let’s say that it was a fluke — why the sudden interest of military, government, and the abrupt eruption of unheard of ‘shaking booms’ rocking the incident zone?

It seems that extremely large amounts of radon is one possible answer, with high radon levels existing in St. Joseph County — the area in question.



The mainstream media and government organizations have decided to shy away from even examining any of the real aspects of this questionable event. In fact, the only stories out on the subject — outside of the reported interest of Al Jazeera on the subject — is that it was all a ‘system error’. There is no mention of the military vehicles, shaking booms disrupting 60-foot trees, or even the radon factor.

What do you think caused this incident?  Please leave your comments below. 
  
Explore More:

1. Indiana Radiation Spike Triggers Elevated Levels In Other States, Media Stays Silent
2. Spices & Seasonings Exposed to Half a Billion Chest X-Ray’s Worth of Radiation
3. Developing: Nuclear Cover-Up? Extreme Radiation Levels Prompt EPA Censorship, DHS Hazmat Team
4. Nuclear Cover-Up: Explosions, Military Helicopters Filmed Near Blacked Out Radiation Zone
5. Radiation Exposure | Variables to Consider for Protection
6. Cellphone Subscriptions Outnumber People in US, Radiation Threatens Public Health

This article first appeared at Natural Society, an excellent resource for health news and vaccine information. 

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Survival tips for the urbanite: Part 1 – Nuclear Radiation

Rady Ananda
Activist Post

Though many survivalists like to prepare for TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it), joblessness and homelessness have led me to the end of the world as I know it. With coffee in hand, I opened the warehouse door of my temporary digs to greet the dawn. Only, it’s noon, there’s a downpour, and the smell of rubber from a pile of decomposing tires greets me. This marks Month 4 in New Orleans and two years since I was laid off.

In this vein, I finally started reading Mat Stein’s two survival books, When Technology Fails (2008) and When Disaster Strikes (2011). I also headed over to Jim Rawles’ Survival Blog and Mat’s website, whentechfails.com.

Instead of a lone-wolf, Mad Max world which plays well on film, Stein reasonably argues that individual survival relies on a community of like-minded folks. So plan your survival migration or shelter with room for your core group. The essential wisdom from both books and most survival websites is to plan a strategically sound survival budget, taking into account the climate of where you expect to be after you hit the road.

Few experts would call the US a failed or fragile state given to eco-migration, but most Americans already live in toxic zones, with our land, air and water being systematically poisoned by industry. New Orleans is only one of many areas suffering from hyper-industrialization and weather destruction. Locals call the corridor from here to Baton Rouge, “Cancer Alley.”

Study Predicts Fracking Fluids Will Reach Water Supplies 'In Just a Few Years'

Activist Post

Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and oil may be one of the most well-documented horrors to disgrace the planet. Despite only being practiced for roughly a decade, the evidence is piling up that fracking utilizes cancer-causing chemicals, causes earthquakes, and pollutes the air with hydrocarbons such as benzene.

Government regulatory agencies have made half-hearted attempts to suggest that they actually will halt the practice, but so far the oil and gas industries have largely been left alone, even as the EPA admits that fracking causes groundwater pollution. In fact, the USDA dropped their plan to review the environmental impact of fracking for land owners who host fracking stations. Investigative reporter, Greg Palast, discusses in the video below the wide-ranging impact of this decision, as well as alluding specifically to the potential consequence to aquifers. For instance, a resident in Pennsylvania demonstrates in the video how his tap water is now flammable - so it appears that contaminated aquifers are already a reality.

Cancer Causing Chemicals Contaminating Water Supply Through Fracking

Wiki image

Mike Barrett
Activist Post

Fracking has been known to be cause environmental and health damage. Doctors have begun warning the United States government along with gas and oil producers of the dangers revolving around fracking, with many on a quest to end fracking completely.

Fracking, or the act of pumping water and chemicals underground in order to facilitate the flow of oil or gas, is resulting in contaminated and polluted groundwater. Environmentalists and activists alike have long been trying to force oil and gas companies to disclose which chemicals are being used for their drilling and fracking process, but efforts have been less than successful. A 2011 congressional report states that many of the chemicals being used in the fracking process do pose a health risk, and so individuals should know exactly what chemicals are being used. Another report released by the Food & Water Watch states that the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is to become a global and environmental health threat.

Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch, states:

“Fracking is a dangerous American export that should be viewed critically by countries just starting to engage in the practice. Modern drilling and fracking have caused widespread environmental and public health problems, as well as posed serious, long-term risks to vital water resources…while the oil and gas industry is profiting off of this technology, it has been a disaster for Americans exposed to its pollution.”

Doctors Urge Fracking Halt Over Health Concerns

Source

Anthony Gucciardi
Activist Post

Doctors are warning United States government officials and gas producers about the dangers of hydraulic fracking, the controversial act of pumping water and chemicals underground in order to facilitate the flow of oil or gas.

As previously admitted by the EPA, reports have revealed that fracking is leading to groundwater pollution that could be endangering your health.

Jerome Paulson, a pediatrician at George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, is calling upon gas producers who are heavily involved in fracking to finance studies examining the safety of the process. Until then, he is calling for hydraulic fracking to come to a freeze.

While there are many corporations involved with fracking, top independent producers include Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Devon Energy Corp., both of Oklahoma City, and Encana Corp. of Calgary.

Due to concerns over the process, Paulson is not alone in his quest to end fracking. Adam Law, an endocrinologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, shares the vision of Dr. Paulson. In an interview, Law discussed how studies are necessary in order to go forward with fracking, if they make way for the continuation of the process at all:

We’ve got to push the pause button, and maybe we’ve got to push the stop button.

Thyroid cancer, fracking and nuclear power

An Activist Post Special Report, please share.

Rady Ananda
Activist Post

Thyroid cancer cases have more than doubled since 1997 in the United States, while deadly industrial practices that contaminate groundwater with radiation and other carcinogens are also rising.

New information released by the U.S. National Cancer Institute(NCI) estimates that 56,460 people will develop thyroid cancer in 2012 and 1,780 will die from it.

That’s up from 16,000 thyroid cancer cases in 1997 – a whopping 253% increase in fifteen years, while the US population went up only 18%.

From 1980 to 1996, thyroid cancer increased nearly 300%, while the population increased by (again) 18%.

Most thyroid cancers don’t develop for 10-30 years after radiation exposure, but the monstrous spike in thyroid cancer from 1980-2012 is only partly the result of Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear accident in 1979 (TMI).

Pennsylvania, with its nine nuclear reactors, does have the highest incidence of thyroid cancer across nearly all demographics among 45* states, reports epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, MPH MBA, of the Radiation and Public Health Project. In 2009, he analyzed data from the Centers for Disease Control’s national survey of thyroid cancer incidence for the years 2001-2005 and compared it with proximity to nuclear power stations, finding:

[M]ost U.S. counties with the highest thyroid cancer incidence are in a contiguous area of eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and southern New York. Exposure to radioactive iodine emissions from 16 nuclear power reactors within a 90 mile radius in this area … are likely a cause of rising incidence rates.

Well Water Burns; Homeowners Are Hot Too

Fracking Pollution

Bonnie Baron
Courthouse News Service

WEATHERFORD, Texas (CN) - A couple says the well water for their $5 million "dream house" west of Fort Worth has become flammable because of natural gas drilling - and the drilling company had the brass to accuse them of trying to profit by it by seeking a lower tax valuation and phonying up "little videos for the people out there." 
   

Steven and Shyla Lipsky say both the EPA and the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas production in Texas, have traced the problem to drilling by defendant Range Resources Corp.
   

The Lipskys also sued the developer, Silverado on the Brazos Development Co., which they say promised them that there would be no oil or gas drilling in their development.

The Indignity of Industrial Tomatoes

Tasteless, indestructible and picked by literal slaves, our favorite fruit has become a national shame

Heirloom Tomatoes - Wiki Image

Barry Estabrook
Gilt Taste

Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook/Andrews McMeel Publishing

My obituary's headline would have read "Food Writer Killed by Flying Tomato."

On a visit to my parents in Naples, Florida, I was driving I-75 when I came up behind one of those gravel trucks that seem to be everywhere in southwest Florida's rush to convert pine woods and cypress stands into gated communities and shopping malls. As I drew closer, I saw that the tractor trailer was heavy with what seemed to be green apples. When I pulled out to pass, three of them sailed off the truck, narrowly missing my windshield. Every time it hit the slightest bump, more of those orbs would tumble off. At the first stoplight, I got a closer look. The shoulder of the road was littered with green tomatoes so plasticine and so identical they could have been stamped out by a machine. Most looked smooth and unblemished. A few had cracks in their skins. Not one was smashed. A 10-foot drop followed by a 60-mile-per- hour impact with pavement is no big deal to a modern, agribusiness tomato.

If you have ever eaten a fresh tomato from a grocery store or restaurant, chances are good that you have eaten a tomato much like the ones aboard that truck. Florida alone accounts for one-third of the fresh tomatoes raised in the United States, and from October to June, virtually all the fresh-market, field-grown tomatoes in the country come from the Sunshine State, which ships more than one billion pounds every year. It takes a tough tomato to stand up to the indignity of such industrial scale farming, so most Florida tomatoes are bred for hardness, picked when still firm and green (the merest trace of pink is taboo), and artificially gassed with ethylene in warehouses until they acquire the rosy red skin tones of a ripe tomato.

Turning the Tide: The Eccentric’s Memorial Day Weekend Review

Blake Walley, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Since there were so many exciting stories and developments this week, I’ve decided that I just can’t focus on only one issue this time. So in case you weren’t paying attention to the news this week, I’m going to get you up to speed on several issues you may have missed:

First off, it’s official! The “birther” story is finally getting really interesting!

Sorry Obama fans, but just when you thought the “birther” issue was over and done, it’s now looking like we could actually be seeing the unfolding of the next Watergate.

Critical thinking question of the day: Let’s pretend that the whole Obama/birth certificate story never happened… in real life. Instead, let’s pretend that the exact same story was turned into a movie, and you were at the theater watching it. Okay, so there you are at the theater, the show begins, and in a synopsis: a new “president” gets elected even though he apparently never showed his official birth certificate. Okay, I know that doesn’t sound that worrisome just yet, but on his first day in office, hesigns a suspicious executive order regarding the sealing of presidential records.

Okay, now that’s a bit odd, but the story only continues to get weirder. You see because later, it gets pointed out that there’s still no proof that the president has an official birth certificate; and possibly because of that, rumors start floating around that two million dollars have been spent to keep the issue secret. Now that might not be true, but wouldn’t you think, “Hey, he’s the frickin president of the United States! Couldn’t he just order someone to just get the stupid birth certificate and simply just have it flown to him… that same afternoon?” No, apparently that would be too simple and make too much sense. But then things continue to get crazier….

What Will Fracking Do to Your Food Supply?

The controversial gas-drilling practice is tainting water. Your food might be next.

Barry Estabrook

Fracking Pollution

GiltTaste

There's a stunning moment in the Academy Award-nominated documentary Gasland, where a man touches a match to his running faucet—to have it explode in a ball of fire. This is what hydraulic fracturing, a process of drilling for natural gas known as "fracking," is doing to many drinking water supplies across the country. But the other side of fracking—what it might do to the food eaten by people living hundreds of miles from the nearest gas well—has received little attention.

Fracking well. Photo credit: RiverkeeperUnlike many in agriculture, cattle farmer Ken Jaffe has had a good decade. But lately he's been nervous, worried fracking will destroy his business. Jaffe's been good to his soil, and the land has been good to him. By rotating his herd of cattle to different pastures on his Catskills farm every day, he has restored the once-eroded land and built a successful business with his grass-fed and -finished beef. His Slope Farms sells meat to food coops, specialty meat markets, and high-end restaurants in New York City, about 160 miles to the southeast. "If you feed your micro-herd—the bacteria and fungi in the soil—then your big herd will do well, too," he said when I visited him recently on a cool, sunny afternoon.

But a seam of black rock lies nearly a mile beneath the topsoil he has so scrupulously nurtured, and the deposit contains enormous quantities of natural gas. Profit-hungry energy companies—and the politicians that their campaign donations support—are determined to exploit that resource, even though it could destroy the livelihoods of thousands of small farmers like Jaffe who have sprung up in New York City's vibrant, alternative food shed.

All Fracked Up, Down and Sideways

Richard Sauder
The Intel Hub

Practically everything that you can imagine is going to be happening in the coming months and years, and then, after the things that you can imagine happen, a lot of things that you cannot imagine are going to happen.

The outbreak of near-apocalyptic storms in the southeastern region of North America in recent days, [1] is only part of the first wave of the sort of things that will become commonplace. The huge earthquake, tsunami and ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan are also only part of the first wave of the sort of things that will become commonplace.

So get ready. Really big events are in the works. The future will be here very soon, whether you are prepared for it or not. In the memorable words of the Cypher character from the first Matrix movie:

“…(B)uckle your seat belt, Dorothy, because Kansas is going bye-bye.”

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What Is In The Fluid Used To Drill For Natural Gas in Arkansas and What Is It Doing To Your Drinking Water (Promo Video)

Arkansas Matters-This promo about KARK 4's investigation generated a lot of discussion last night  on Facebook. KARK is asking the tough questions as to what is in the fluid used to drill for natural gas in Arkansas and what is it doing to your drinking water. Some say it's totally safe. Watch this promo and tell us if you'd feel good about drinking the water in this video. Don't miss KARK 4 News TONIGHT at 6 now in HD.

Watch Promo Video on Facebook 

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Fracking the life out of Arkansas and beyond

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