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"We have not inherited the world from our Forefathers:
We have borrowed it from our Children"
Kashmiri Proverb
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Attacks on Environment - Various Topics
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"It's an Iranian bazaar, not an energy bill. It's a leave-no-lobbyist-behind bill,"
1 Those are Senator John McCain's words when interviewed about the new
energy bill. He has vowed to oppose the bill.
Last time, I said I would give you some numbing numbers, well Congress has
exceeded even Sierra Club's fears. The Sierra Club estimated that for the $
36.7 million lobbyist funneled into congressional campaigns, the "industries"
would probably get back between $12.4 Billion and $36.7 Billion, 2 in tax
breaks, subsidies etc. Instead they got back $20 Billion in tax breaks alone,
and the total package is expected to cost "well past $100 Billion".1
Fortunately the plans to drill in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge and the plans
for oil companies to test for oil and natural gas on the Atlantic and Pacific
coasts were both eliminated from the bill.
Well this is supposed to be about the environmental impact of Governmental
changes, so I will try to limit my self to that, but only after I say that this bill is
definitely intended to emphasize production and to hell with conservation. My
understanding is, very little is directed toward development of Solar, Wind,
and Geothermal industries (the nonpolluting renewable energy industries).
And now to the task at hand: The Clean Water Act was passed in 1972. At
that time only about 30 to 40% of our lakes and streams were safe for fishing
and swimming. Great strides have been made since that time. Today about
60% or our streams and 55% of our lakes are safe. 3 Though I have read
somewhere in a more recent article that over all about 66% of our waterway
are now safe. Yet still today 218 Million Americans live within 10 miles of a
polluted waterway.4
The EPA and the Corp of Engineers, have rewritten rules that will eliminate
Federal protection for as much as 20 million acres of our waters. The burden
of protection will then be dropped in the laps of the states. States who are
already in financial trouble trying to fund Home Land Security, the Patriot Act,
and No Child Left Behind, plus their own internal fiscal problems.
These new regulations will drop protection for any non-navigable, intrastate
body of water. This will include: Streams, Ponds, Lakes, and Wetlands
virtually any body of water that cannot be commercially navigated, or is
confined to one state. This means that industry will be turned loose with
pollute as they wish. The new regulations ignores plain old logic as it:
"ignores basic hydrology, since pollution in streams and wetlands eventually
flows into big rivers and causes more pollution downstream
would allow developers to fill creeks, ponds, ephemeral streams and wetlands
without federal permits, leading to flooding, property damage, and loss of fish
and wildlife habitat
would allow industries to dump any pollutant – oil, gasoline, industrial effluent,
sewage effluent, animal waste – into unprotected waters" 4.
I Believe the bill supporting these changes was passed by congress last
week.
In addition to the gutting the Clean Water Act there are a whole host of other
regulations changes and authorizations being implemented by the current
administration and congress as part of the new energy bill and other
legislative roll backs. That will serve to destroy our landscapes, poison our air
and water and add to the global warming problem. To mention a few:
Expanded drilling for coal bed methane, which not only tends to pollutes the
air, but pollutes the water and land around the drilling sights. The water
extracted with the methane has a high saline and sodium content and
depending upon how it is handled can turn the land (and streams) into waste
lands. In addition to that, drillers will be able to drill on public lands thus
destroying the natural beauty forever. Please go to this website and take a
peak at what is happening to the powder river basin in Wyoming, on private
land, without the private landowners consent! http://www.powderriverbasin.
org/ In addition to messing up the surface ecology, evaporating the water
that is extracted with the gas also depletes the underground water table that is
necessary for plant growth/ and or Irrigation.
In the Red Desert of Wyoming, home to some 50,000 Pronghorn Antelope,
amongst 350 other species of wildlife; home to some 2000 year old rock art
and Indian spiritual sites and home to the continents largest active sand
dune system and the nations largest undeveloped high elevation desert8, the
drilling has begun. Within 2 years 11,000 CBM wells have been place each on
80 acre plots. It is expected that there will be 80,000 wells by 2010 and
ultimately grow to 139,000 wells. The amount of the desert this will gobble up
will be equal to the size of Vermont and New Hampshire.
Arsenic in drinking water - EPA standards were in place to lower the allowable
levels of arsenic in drinking water from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per
billion (the same standards adopted by the WTO and the European Union).
But at the last minutes the Bush administration decided to rescind those
standards and allow the 50 ppb level to remain. 5 The administration has said
they will come up with new standards next year, but they are expected to follow
the industry's suggestions of at least 20ppb. This level will be enforceable no
earlier than 2006. This is the chemical responsible for 1 in 100 Americans
being diagnosed with arsenic related bladder, prostate, lung and skin
cancer. And they have dropped the Right to Know provisions on lead
content in water, which is the cause of brain damage lower, IQ's and learning
disabilities in children.6 Shameful isn't it!
In an effort to keep this blurb to a reasonable reading size; I feel I should quit,
though I could go on... and on!
In the good news column, I was happy to see, in our local KC Star, that there is
some consideration being given to the development of a wind farm at the
Kansas Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant. It could add 10,000 new jobs and
Kansas could become the #1 energy exporting state in the nation. (one of the
wind turbines can produce enough power to supply 1400 homes.) And It is
clean sustainable energy, no pollutants, no greenhouse gas.
With that happy note, please let me extend to all of you another happy note:
Happy Thanksgiving.... But don't forget:
"This," cried the Mayor, "is your town’s darkest hour!
The time for all whos who have blood that is red
To come to the aid of their country!" he said.
"We’ve GOT to make noises in greater amounts!
So, open you mouth lad! For every voice counts!"
"Horton Hears A Who" - Dr. Seuss
Take Care
Paul
November 24,2003
