Last week, Joe Blundo, a columnist for The Columbus Dispatch, wrote a humorous column that took direct aim at the way Ohio's legislators wrote legislation to allow natural-gas drillers to keep secret from the public potentially hazardous chemicals they pump into rock formations to release natural gas -- a process known as hydraulic fracturing.
Blundo's column takes the nature of a long joke. It begins: "A 'fracking' executive, a state legislator and an oil-and-gas executive walk into a bar." He likens the "secret-keeping" to not disclosing if peanuts are an ingredient in the highly allergic legislator's meatloaf, for example. There's more. Blundo's column can be read by clicking here. An explanation of the bill under discussion is here.
Blundo's column takes the nature of a long joke. It begins: "A 'fracking' executive, a state legislator and an oil-and-gas executive walk into a bar." He likens the "secret-keeping" to not disclosing if peanuts are an ingredient in the highly allergic legislator's meatloaf, for example. There's more. Blundo's column can be read by clicking here. An explanation of the bill under discussion is here.
One chemical we do know is included is ethylene glycol (anti-freeze.) I'm sure there is plenty that's worse, but anti-freeze in your water supply is already concerning.
ReplyDeleteFortunately I live in Arizona, where fracking has not been an issue yet, but it's also true that our legislature has never met any kind of mineral resource extraction it doesn't like (more particularly I live in northern Arizona and right now we are having a big fight about mining near the Grand Canyon.)