Sign on! A Fracking Manifesto from the people of Illinois to the nation June 3, 2013 We know that high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracking (HVHF) is an accident-prone, inherently dangerous industrial process with risks that include catastrophic and irremediable damage to our health and environment. We know that HVHF and its attendant technologies— contribute to groundwater contamination, including at least 161 cases in Pennsylvania alone. thetimes-tribune/news/sunday-times-review-of-dep-drilling-records-reveals-water-damage-murky-testing-methods-1.1491547 turn massive amounts of fresh, drinkable water into massive amounts of briny, poisonous flowback fluid for which there is no failsafe disposal solution. endocrinedisruption/files/GasManuscriptPreprintforweb12-5-11.pdf; propublica.org/article/injection-wells-the-poison-beneath-us vent hazardous air pollutants that are associated with cancer, asthma, heart attack, stroke, and preterm birth. tedx.org/chemicals.air.php release radioactive substances—including radon, which is the number two cause of lung cancer—and benzene, which is a proven cause of leukemia, from deep geological strata. rwma/Marcellus Shale Report 5-18-2010.pdf fragment forests in ways that decimate birds and wildlife, sabotage natural flood control systems, and pour sediment into rivers and streams. stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/tag/allegheny-national-forest/ industrialize communities in ways that vastly increase truck traffic, noise pollution, light pollution, stress, crime, and the need for emergency services. stcplanning.org/usr/Program_Areas/Energy/Naturalgas_Resources/STC_RumbachMarcellusTourismFinal.pdf offer jobs that are dangerous, toxic, and temporary with a fatality rate seven times that of other industries. osha.gov/dts/hazardalerts/hydraulic_frac_hazard_alert.html leak prodigious amounts of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas. eeb.cornell.edu/howarth/Howarth et al 2011.pdf We know these problems cannot be prevented by any set of rules or government office, let alone state agencies like those in Illinois, which have been cut to the bone by budget cuts and cannot be counted on for regulatory enforcement. We have heard the warnings of our brothers and sisters living in the gasfields of Pennsylvania and Ohio, whose children, pets, and livestock are sick, whose property values are ruined, whose water is undrinkable. We have heard the pleas of our neighbors in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, where stripmining for frac sand has devastated communities, destroyed landscapes, and filled the air with carcinogenic silica dust. We are aware that our own beloved Starved Rock State Park is already threatened by industrial mining of silica sand used for fracking operations and that the pressure to stripmine Illinois for sand will only increase with every well that is drilled and fracked. We assert that fracking is a moral crisis. In a time of climate emergency, it is wrong to further deepen our dependency on fossil fuels. In a state such as Illinois, where chronic drought and water shortages are already forecast for our children’s future, it is wrong to destroy fresh water resources in order to bring new sources of climate-killing gas and oil out of the ground. We reject the legitimacy of Illinois’ fracking regulatory bill, which was the result of closed-door negotiations between industry representatives and compromise-oriented environmental organizations. Responsible only to their funders and their members, these environmental groups do not represent us nor are they empowered to negotiate on our behalf. We consider the fracking regulatory bill to be a subversion of both science and democracy. Throughout its creation, no comprehensive health study or environmental impact study was ever commissioned. No public hearings or public comment periods ever took place. And yet it is the public that is being compelled to live with the risks sanctioned by this bill. It is an unjust law. Knowing that our own government has abdicated its responsibility to protect the safety and wellbeing of the citizenry, knowing that no one is coming to save us, we declare our intent to save ourselves from the ravages of shale gas and oil extraction via HVHF. We declare our intent to join together in a fracking abolitionist movement. As such, no longer shall national environmental organizations based far from impacted realities make decisions that will have life-changing impacts on the people living in impacted zones. We will call out organizations that betray core values and integrity. We will openly inform their membership and their funders and reveal the truth of where they stand and at whose expense. We call for a mobilization that brings fracking realities to the rest of the nation. If our elected officials refuse to visit the fracking fields, then we will bring the fracking fields to them—in the form of science, stories, photographs, film, lectures, hearings, and journalism. If elected officials refuse to defend our land, water, air, and health against those who would despoil them for their own profit, then we will do it ourselves, using peaceful, non-violent methods. We hereby commit ourselves to building a powerful movement that will protect Illinois’ children—and safeguard the living ecosystem on which their lives depend—for generations to come. In short, we declare our intent to take the future into our hands. And that future is unfractured.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 22:16:35 +0000
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