Wealthy Agendas Driving Natural Gas Discussion in Buffalo
Bob Reuther
Small business owner, White Oak Power, Chautauqua County, NY
The Buffalo News recently featured two opinion pieces opposing natural gas development, which one New Yorker, Bob Reuther, felt compelled to respond to. The pieces were written by members of organizations funded heavily by outside interest groups and lacked facts but were heavy in fear-mongering according to Reuther.
Saturday’s Buffalo News featured two opinion pieces (links below) opposing natural gas development. While I am all for the honest and factual discussion of this subject, I am getting more than a little annoyed by the specious arguments made against horizontal drilling. If one’s logic is compelling enough, false or distorted claims need not be part of the argument.
The local coordinator for Food and Water Watch offered up a very sloppy opinion on the dangers of natural gas production. However, readers should first be made aware that Food and Water Watch is an organization located in Washington DC. It is stridently opposed to the use of natural gas and is funded by the Park Foundation, which also gave hefty financial support to Gasland and other anti-natural gas initiatives. These are not unbiased groups.
Image from Park Foundation 990 reporting on their website. The total amount given to FWW from Park in 2012 was $290,000 and more than $520,000 in past years.
The first erroneous statement was that “the gas industry will not disclose the chemicals used in fracking” or what chemicals are brought back up. A list of common hydraulic fracturing chemicals are readily available on the Internet, all you have to do is look. As for what is brought back up, these are naturally occurring compounds. In any event, the regulations pertaining to these ingredients, as well as successful industry advancements in using “green” hydraulic fracturing solutions and waste water recycling make this point increasingly moot.
The writer then employs scare tactics, citing the ominous sounding compulsory integration and using the (purposely) familiar sounding but misleading name of Pavillion, Wyoming as an example of uncontrolled natural gas development. Compulsory integration assures affected landowners have a say in nearby development. As for the problems in Wyoming, public officials stated explicitly that the situation there was unique, that the wells drilled “aren’t separated by thousands of feet of rock” from the aquifers as they are here and that the “outcome does not apply to shale formations found” here in the Marcellus.
The final comment in this opinion piece questions the ability of water treatment plants here in Buffalo to handle natural gas waste water (flowback) and compares hydraulic drilling to the Love Canal. I find no reason to give these assertions any credence by commenting on them.
The second opinion piece was written by a member of the Sierra Club Niagara Group. The main claim to “scary” environmental degradation contained in this letter was that “new data from researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows that methane leaks from fracking occur at an alarming rate”. I would like to quote the conclusion of this report:
Great care should be taken to avoid drawing conclusions based on the partial data these studies provide.
Or as the Environmental Defense Fund put in a blog post recently:
In other words, anyone who wants to get this important story right will need to be patient and wait for more comprehensive results to come in later this year. Until then, no accurate conclusions can be drawn about the full scope of this critical issue. Please proceed with caution.
Proceeding with caution simply doesn’t allow for the ego-stoking that goes hand-in-hand with scare-mongering and the hijacking of important and complex issues associated with shale gas and oil development. We have the opportunity to control our energy needs, re-vitalize our local economies with non-taxpayer stimulation and, with stringent governmental and citizen oversight, continue to expand our use of a source of energy that is continually building on its inherently pollution reducing characteristics through innovative and industry accepted “green” extraction and production protocols.
If my Amish neighbors want to weigh in against natural gas, I’m inclined to give them a listen. But when local mouthpieces shill for wealthy individuals and out of state organizations who couldn’t care less about paying for home heating or worrying about their next paycheck, assuming there is one, it’s pretty much what comes out of the back ends of those Amish horses.
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Mr. Reuter
Enjoyed your article I’m from western Pa. we get the same tupe of people as well as local officals use these groups to prove their anti gas agenda so glad we have EID
[Bob Reuther Penned, Above]: ” These are not unbiased groups.”
[Bob Reuther Also Penned @ http://www.whiteoakpower.com/:
" We believe those businesses that see and use the inherent competitive advantages offered by CNG or LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) will be the businesses that succeed. We know that we want to be a part of your success and a long term partner in this growing, American-fueled enterprise.
thank you,
Bob Reuther
owner
White Oak Power"
--
And your opinion is not biased?...LOL!
Sure you're not a spokesperson for T Boone Pickens?
[Bob Reuther Penned]: “The first erroneous statement was that “the gas industry will not disclose the chemicals used in fracking” or what chemicals are brought back up. A list of common hydraulic fracturing chemicals are readily available on the Internet, all_you_have_to_do_is_look. ” <–link to FracFocus.org
FracFocus.org only reports on wells by industry volunteered reports.
There is no requirement. What very little is disclosed voluntarily is of very little use and does nothing to alert the public about what really happens within the fracking industry.
Energy Independence?…
From the Office of Fossil Energy (FE) of the Department of Energy (DOE) this reg.gov page calls for shipping 225 MILLION metric tons of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) over a 25-year term via ocean-going carrier to other countries. Darn near a METRIC TON (2,200 lbs) of liquid natural gas for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. to be sent overseas!
If this doesn't say how we're being fracked for the profit of an elitist few, nothing will. http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=DOE-HQ-2011-0013-0001
Answer me this Mr. Fracker,
I wonder how many frack wells and how much water and land it takes to produce 225 MILLION metric tons of Liquid Natural Gas to ship overseas? What's the cost to our nation as a whole? Our waters, our farmlands, our forests, and most importantly, our health and that of our loved ones?
(-<-) -A-
Unpaid Fracktivist – Only because it's pure evil!
Talk about hyperbole!
Apparently you don’t like heat and power?
OK, we’ll see if it can cut off.
And what about the elitist Park Foundation, who hides behind most of the anti-drilling scare tactics? They don’t want the common man to have the right to develop what’s rightfully theirs under the US Constitution – they want to illegally and without compensation take those rights away. How is that not evil incarnate? Is this not a free country, with free enterprise at the heart of what has made us great? Would you want to take that right away from a company who has only APPLIED to export gas? Or would you rather have Russia continue to manipulate the geopolitics of Europe by threatening gas embargos against those who defy their wishes?
I read both pieces in The Buffalo News, too. Sheila Miller is a frequent writer and complainer and her arguments continue to be hackneyed on a good day. If you read the comments that follow each piece on The Buffalo News site, each continues to perpetuate the same warped set of urban myths. Unfortunately, this ilk does more talking than listening and it’s highly unlikely that these folks will ever listen to reason, let alone listen to facts. They are predisposed to have chips on their high-minded, aging hippie shoulders. Hap Klein and Sheila Miller in particular need to get over the ’60s and their post-collegiate angst. It’s tiresome and frustrating to keep seeing their pretzel logic pop up with such frequency.
It seems there are two groups of people raising objections to natural gas drilling. We have those people who, early on, realized that things taking place in the shale fields were not always in the best interests of our environment. Those folks stood up and made their voices heard, not only alerting us to the weaknesses and shortcomings involved with drilling but proving their points so that the shale industry and government regulators had to take notice and had to come up with better methods for shale resource extraction. Those folks weren’t anti-natural gas, they were, and remain, pro-environment.
These protesters today are not pro anything, except self-aggrandizement. They are anti-natural gas, anti-fracking, anti-common sense and reason. They cherry pick reports for those paragraphs that support their position and leave out conclusions that represent inconvenient truths. They shill for out of towners and demand that local residents give up their rights to develop their land and reap the benefits of that development. The cozy up to politicians who cozy up to the Yoko Oh-nos of the world and self-righteously declare that no drilling will occur on land that has no natural gas to drill, all the while smiling for the cameras.
Those who seek to protect our environment are fully capable of realizing that natural gas is not the perfect answer to our energy needs but it’s a better alternative than what we’ve been using and it’s a practical and every day solution to get us where we all want to be. I admire and respect those people. As for these people who jump up and down and shout out loud, “Look at me, look at me!” I don’t see that these folks bring anything worthwhile to the discussion of improving the utilization of the shale resources we are fortunate to have available to us.
All things being equal, would I rather drive a gasoline or diesel vehicle or an electric vehicle? I choose the latter. Would I rather drive a gasoline or diesel vehicle or a hybrid? I choose the hybrid. Would I rather drive a gasoline or diesel vehicle or one fueled by natural gas? Again, I would choose that vehicle which does the least amount of environmental harm while still being capable of meeting my transportation needs and that is the natural gas vehicle. Those people who can agree are the people who are environmentally aware. These other folks are more concerned with self-importance through self- promotion.