Original grassroots anti-fracking event

Abram Loeb's son singing at the park west of the state capitol building in Albany, NY.


His grandmother, Rema, looks at him with pride below
while his younger brother sits on the step beside a friend
who appears to find the sound of his singing too loud for
her.  American Indian singing can be loud to the

unaccustomed ear. Retired police captain from Philadelphia who got connected with the Occupy movement, gives a speech shortly before Abram's son sings for us again.

Frack sand truck

Some might call this truck

a "sow belly" or more descriptively, a "sand hog" but I refuse to anthropomorphize onto an instrument of destruction. Such framing seeks to diminish and naturalize the unnatural. This is a truck that's used to transport a particular type of sand used in high volume hydraulic fracturing for unnatural gas, the mining of which sand in Wisconsin has been causing major health problems, currently being ignored by the powers that be.

This truck has been parked at the dead end side of the entrance to Old Owego Rd. in the Town of Owego. Sometimes the cab is attached. At other times, such as when I parked and got near to take these photos, the cab is gone.

I have no idea why it's parked there nor whether it's the same truck or a different one each time.

The truck comes and goes and comes. There's a frack sand transfer facility in the village of Owego about 15 minutes to the west by auto.

I took this photo August 16, 2011 in the village of Owego at the Ward & Van Scoy business on Erie St near Rte 96 at about10:00 a.m. The sand was being blown from the silo to the truck via a pipe in a box flimsily covered with blue tarp that was blowing about. I did not see the worker wearing any protective face gear. The noise was loud. The sand is transported by freight train into the village, along a rail that runs on the north side of the Susquehanna River. This river runs parallel to Rte. 17/I86, which itself runs parallel to Rte 434, which the parked frack sand truck drove on in order to get to this parking spot.

Fracking

Walter sent out a letter today expressing concern that it's likely that Cuomo, Libous and the NRDC have struck a deal to treat the residents of the Southern Tier of New York at lab rats or guinea pigs (take your pick) by allowing the invasion and deployment of 300 wells (why that number? was it just snatched from the air?) as an initial experiment in the Southern Tier. Every well could be drilled through our drinking water aquifer just perfectly (which they won't) but that still does not address the unanswered and unacceptable issues of increased truck traffic spewing diesel exhaust, increasing noise, shortening response times for emergency vehicles, increase in ozone from said truck traffic, from increased numbers of compressor stations, the flaring of gas from each well, degradation of quality of life in terms of increase in crime, drug use, etc. that comes with an influx of an uncontrolled young male un-rooted population. There's still the unsolved problem of what to do with the frack waste. There's still the theft of millions of gallons of the animals' water, nature's water, the people's water from the hydrologic cycle. There's also the cultural change from an influx of men from the Southwest U.S. working 12 hrs. on/ 12 off in physically exhausting work handling toxic chemicals. There's already a shortage of low income rental housing in the area. As is the case in the NEPA counties being fracked, landlords have jacked up rental rates and residents now find themselves homeless and/or families split up and children put into foster care as a result. And that's just to start.

SOPA/PIPA

Unless and until Congress or Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc. come up with a proper bill to protect people from online piracy and theft, I support SOPA/PIPA. I have been and am a victim of online theft of my words and credentials. I spent hours researching to figure out what had really happened. I got no help from the person whose acts triggered the theft. I snail-mailed a thick letter with copies of the many screen shots I took, to prove my case. No response. I contacted the FEC and got a "we got your form" reply. DMCA charges $199 to take down an infringing website. I did nothing immoral or illegal. The current system requires that I pay to get redress. I support SOPA/PIPA and will contact my representatives to that effect.

True Freedom - Guest Opinion - the original

True Freedom

Every time you hear your furnace kick on that's money and energy being wasted. With efficiencies and retrofits, we would not "need" anywhere near the amount of energy projected by those who come up with every reason why renewables will not satisfy our needs.

Renewables absolutely will meet our needs when we stop wasting it. NYSERDA has a Deep Retrofit program that can lower energy costs by at least 70% but it can cost around $70,000 per house, depending on age. A lot of people can't afford that. Deep Retrofit is not just blowing in insulation into walls and attics but also layering additional panels on external walls, plus moving out old boilers, furnaces and water heaters, replacing with instant-on heaters or solar hot water heaters. You could end up with not having the need for any heat/cool appliances in the basement and close to zero heating/cooling bills. That's real freedom.

Deep Retrofits can reduce costs and thus improve the bottom line, can improve the economy with more jobs, reduce carbon emissions, and create energy security.

We must move federal, state and local subsidies and tax breaks from oil, gas, coal and nuclear now and transfer those taxpayer dollars to Deep Retrofit incentives and grants as well as solar on every single and multifamily residence and on all public buildings, thus lowering our taxes. New York could meet 15% of its power needs and 100% of its electricity needs with rooftop solar.

Every new high rise must first dig a geothermal trench before they start building. They have to dig a deep hole anyway. Both geothermal and solar installation companies are in New York State and growing, including in Broome county. Check out the New York State solar Industries Association. The state and the Southern Tier should be open to business to these companies and others like them, not to giving tax breaks for polluting gas pipelines, noisy compressor stations, puzzled about what to do with fracking waste fluid, taking the chance of illegal dumps of radioactive waste into fields and streams in the middle of the night, etc., etc.

Hydraulic fracturing's sole purpose is to burn fossil fuel, the greenhouse gas emissions of which have brought us global warming. Methane, i.e. natural gas, is worse than CO2 for heating up the planet. Formerly rare downpours, floods and heat waves are now common across the U.S. and will come to dominate our climate in our grand-children's lifetime.


Let’s stop hiding our heads in the sand and get to work on this. Call and write your legislator and demand a change. If he or she refuses to budge or fudges, vote him or her out of office in 2012. Get together with community members and start your own community energy initiative like in Maryland and Washington State. States that have more insulated buildings and solar have lower electricity bills, including cold mid-western states. New York State is not one of those states. Let's change that.