This website is dedicated to and for the use of workers in oil and gas, both current and past, their families, communities and friends.
“And though the boom has helped produce fortunes for some and comfortable lives for many, for others it exists within a rural landscape of unpaved streets without garbage pickup, where few dare to drink the tap water because it tastes and smells like chlorine.” (Read the entire article….)
In its majority opinion, the Court stated, “We are asked in these two appeals whether towns may ban oil and gas production activities, including hydrofracking, within municipal boundaries through the adoption of local zoning laws,” Associate Judge Victoria Graffeo wrote in the majority opinion. “We conclude that they may because the supersession clause in the statewide Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Law (OGSML) does not preempt the home rule authority vested in municipalities to regulate land use.”
(Poster’s note: New York’s municipalities have been awaiting an appellate level decision for three years. During that time, municipalities around the State have been banning “oil and gas production activities” or they have been reluctant to do so in the face of threatened lawsuits. Although this decision is open to appeal, all New Yorkers, no matter their stance on fracking, should celebrate this affirmation of local control. Read the Court’s opinion here.)
“Does a community’s right to self-governance trump the rights of corporations? The county ordinance’s basic aim is to protect the water supply in a parched region of a drought-stricken state, but it also contains a bill of rights for the environment, which argues that natural ecosystems ‘possess inalienable and fundamental rights to exist.’” (Read more….)
In a decision issued June 6, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, ruled that the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, the NJ Sierra Club and New Jersey Highlands Coalition were correct in their legal challenge to the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company’s Northeast Upgrade Project and ordered additional analysis and review. The Court stated: “On the record before us, we hold that in conducting its environmental review of the Northeast Project without considering the other connected, closely related, and interdependent projects on the Eastern Leg, FERC impermissibly segmented the environmental review in violation of NEPA. We also find that FERC’s EA is deficient in its failure to include any meaningful analysis of the cumulative impacts of the upgrade projects. We therefore grant the petition for review and remand the case to the Commission for further consideration of segmentation and cumulative impacts.” – (Read more….)
“While the suit centers on fracking, it seeks to protect the citizens’ right to self-governance under the Community Bill of Rights. The residents allege that the Colorado Oil and Gas Act and the industry’s enforcement of it violate that right to local self-government under the U.S. Constitution…. ‘This class action lawsuit is merely the first of many by people across the United States whose constitutional rights to govern their own communities are routinely violated by state governments working in concert with the corporations that they ostensibly regulate,’ said Thomas Linzey, Esq., executive director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which helped craft Lafayette’s Community Bill of Rights.” (Read more….)
I’m probably the last person in the fracking world to find this but in case anyone else is interested, here’s a terrific link to daily air quality maps. You can look at your specific zip code, at an entire region, etc. (Follow link….)
Obviously, these maps are excellent resources for natural gas industry workers and folks living near natural gas industrial activities, especially in light of recent jury awards.
“…they came for the [workers] and I didn’t stand up…” Please defend the world’s workforce. They are we and we are they. Join us at our Gas Vets Facebook page and on Twitter.
Excellent video about the impacts of fracking and related activities on worker health. This is particularly interesting in light of silicosis and all of what NIOSH and OSHA have known for years. Please review our timeline of federal regulations, including what the Feds knew in 1988-89.
Per Dr. Sandra Steingraber: “Yesterday, [May 29, 2014] a broad-based coalition of more than 250 medical organizations, health experts and researchers – mostly from NYS but some luminaries and fracking researchers from elsewhere as well – sent a letter to NY’s Governor Cuomo and our new acting Department of Health commissioner, Dr. Zucker.
The letter lays out recent science and trends in the data and calls for a 3-5 year concrete moratorium. The national Physicians for Social Responsibility is among the signatories, as are the American Academy of Pediatrics District II, American Lung Association in NY, Physicians Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy, numerous breast cancer networks, many doctors and even some county health departments.”
