Keep an eye out for Violet Palmer. (Mug shot above courtesy of the Denton Police.) She is armed with a rocking chair and considered dangerous by the State of Texas and the Denton police. She's charged with criminal tresspass and obstructing a highway passageway. She's also guilty of protesting against Texas' almighty oil and gas fracking industry. Texas is ruled by Republicans who do not like local control (although once upon a time Republicans did.) They like State and Corporate control. So much so that they overturned a vote by Denton citizens to ban fracking. Denton citizens, Violet Palmer and her son Theron were protesting fracking. Theron chained himself to a gate leading to a fracking operation. Dear Violet sat by her son in her ominous rocking chair. Read the story HERE and HERE.
The story reminds me of one of the greatest moments in El Paso's conservation/environmental movement: the 2008 arrest of Judy Ackerman who was blocking construction of the border wall at the Rio Bosque. (Photo above.) Breaking an unjust law has consequences. But is it unethical? Theron Palmer held up a sign while protesting fracking that quoted Martin Luther King, Jr.: "One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." His words echo St. Augustine of Hippo who said: "An unjust law is no law at all.”. And one more:
[Videos do not displayed when a post is emailed. Go to www.elpasonaturally.com to see the video.] On May 7, 2015 lightning ignited an oil and gas well in Denton, Texas. This was just days after the Texas legislature banned fracking bans and undermined the safety that comes with local control. On May 13, 2015 "a gas well in the heart of West Arlington blew out while being fracked, forcing the evacuation of the surrounding neighborhood." Read the entire Earthworks report. Still think fracking is safe? Visit, surf and bookmark Earthworks.
It's unusual for the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post to run the same news stories or even agree on the top story. However, this morning they both headline the same study and link to the same Los Angles Times story: Man-made earthquakes increasing in central and eastern U.S., study finds. What's the story about? The USGS has mapped earthquakes that apparently are caused by fracking for oil and gas and injecting millions of gallons of the spent water (and noxious chemicals) back into the earth. (Be sure to look at the map and the charts in the story.) In spite of the growing data that fracking (or, more probably, injection wells) cause earthquakes, cities such as Denton, Texas may be denied the right to protect themselves from this dangerous technology. As posted yesterday, HB 40 is racing through the legislature of Texas, the state sponsored by the oil and gas industry. HB 40 would ban banning and take the right of local communities to protect themselves away and give it to the Texas Railroad Commission - the cronies of the oil and gas industry. Texas prides itself as a state that enshrines the right of anyone to bear arms and to use those arms to protect life and property. Yet, the right of citizens to protect themselves against the greed of the oil and gas industry is disallowed. With fracturing trumping democracy and corporations slurping up water from local communities, one wonders how long it will be until those rifles come off the racks of pick-up trucks and den rooms.
It's Earth Day. It's good that there is a day to remind some that it is important to be kinder to Mother Earth. However that "some" are already in the choir singing about environmentalism and conservation. Hopefully more join the choir each Earth Day each year. The real work though happens the other 364 days of the year. That's especially critical now in the State of Texas which is sponsored by the oil and gas industry and whose legislators for the most part are bought and paid for by the oil and gas industry.
Forget the will of voters in local municipalities. In last November's election, the people of Denton, Texas voted to ban fracking in their town. Now House Bill 40 is racing through the legislature. That bill will ban bans. According to Nicholas Sakilaris: "The controversial bill gives the Texas Railroad Commission authority to preempt city laws when it comes to subsurface oil and gas operations, including hydraulic fracking." Read Bill that would ban fracking bans breezes through the Texas House.
A Louisiana Judge handed down a similar ruling in effect banning bans.
What you should also read is the public relations propaganda put out by the Texas Oil and Gas Association. (Let's call them "Lola" as in "whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.") Be sure that you watch the video. George Orwell could not have done better.
Despite the above bad news, the El Paso Commissioners Court seems poised to pass an anti-fracking resolution. Judge Veronica Escobar favors it and the matter will come to a vote at next week's meeting.
In previous posts specifically about Torchlight Energy's plan to frack on the Diablo Plateau/Otero Mesa ecosystem, I've discussed the fragile desert environment along with its diversity of flora and fauna. There's another concern: the health, safety and welfare of people. Torchlight Energy will poison a valuable aquifer with its cauldron of carcinogen chemicals used in fracking - an aquifer now valuable to farmers and ranchers but one day may be to El Pasoans. It is this baneful brew of benzene and other compounds, including methane, that has so many communities from Pennsylvania to California calling for a ban on fracking in their backyards. It's not just that fracking companies like Torchlight Energy can continue to keep their lengthy list of fracking chemicals a secret while asserting that their "recycled" water and drilling do no harm. Scientists now know how to determine if water contamination comes from fracking. They now see fracker's fingerprints all over contaminated water. Green groups for a long time have said that agencies such as the EPA have underestimated the amount of methane leaked into the water supply. The result is that city's are rising up and banning fracking. Last year Dallas did so. (Bet this is the first time that you have heard that.) Now with Frack Free Denton and Denton Drilling Awareness Group leading the way Denton is on the verge of saying NO to fracking in next Tuesday's election. Of course, both Dallas and Denton are banning fracking within their own city limits. The Diablo Plateau is not only outside of El Paso but it is in a different county as well. However, if fracking there would immediately compromise our water and people would be igniting water coming out of their taps, there would be an outcry especially if many people develop skin blisters as is happening in other active fracking areas around the country. (Read the list of harms caused by fracking in Pennsylvania and New York as examples.) Our problem is more long term - the aquifer but could be short term with the added air pollution. (The wind blows from east to west you know during certain times of the year and much of the batch of benzene and other skull and crossbones chemicals that will spill on the desert ground will be blown our way.) It is hard to convince the country club bunch that an ecosystem is worth preserving. It is a bit easier to talk about the health and safety of folks even if they must think long term or believe the results of air monitoring - independent since we really can't depend on the TCEQ. So what can we do? El Paso City and County might be able to place fees on companies which sell materials or provide labor or equipment to Torchlight or other frackers. I'm sure Torchlight will have to buy sand from El Paso and may have to lease other equipment from here. Put an onerous fee on those products and those services. Of course, some will say that Torchlight will go elsewhere and El Paso will lose the business. However, the cost of transporting sand and other products from too far will be huge. El Pasoans can also boycott companies that support Torchlight as well as sell to the public. I'm thinking out loud but that is what we must begin to do if there is any chance of deterring Torchlight or any other company from fracking just over the hill from our city and our county on privately owned land. It's worth the effort.
