Hydraulic Fracturing for oil and gas is growing across the nation along with protests where the sand is mined and protests - often many miles away - where the fracturing actually occurs. Besides using large volumes of water on both ends of the process, a toxic cocktail is injected into Mother Earth to fracture rock formations and release the gas and oil. The chemical soup threatens aquifers and ground water reserves.
Now, fracking is heading for the national parks and other pristine sites. The Bureau of Land Management in Colorado has a plan to put about 12,000 acres of public lands that are within 10 miles of Mesa Verde on the auction block for gas and oil drilling. Rocky Mountain National Park already has fracking on adjoining public lands that has impaired air-quality there. A loophole in Wisconsin Law intended to allow local governments to operate small sandpits for road maintenance is being used by an Iowa company to justify a frac sand mine along a restored and protected natural area established as the Lower Wisconsin State Riverway.
Political action at both the local and national level is necessary to keep that greed-over-planet factor in check. There’s an online petition site about hydraulic fracturing and other issues:
http://bit.ly/17pohBs
See also InClimate 215, 203, 202, 120, 105, 84 (Indigenous Fracking Protest) Aug. 4 (Frac Sand Mines WI/MN) July 23 (Hydraulic Fracturing Sand Out Ships Coal) July 22 (35 Arrested in Winona Frac Sand Protest) May 1 (Mother Earth Quakes With Injections) April 16 (No Free Lunch; Fracking Dirties Natural Gas) Mar 26