Gasland – Fracking & Health Concerns
www.blueplanetproject.net/RightToWater
www.unwater.org/flashindex.html
Hydraulic fracturing (called „frac jobs“or „frac’ing“ in the industry and recently, „fracking“ by the media) is a process that results in the creation of fractures in rocks, the goal of which is to increase the output of a well. The most important industrial use is in stimulating oil and gas wells, where hydraulic fracturing has been used for over 60 years in more than one million wells. On the other hand, high-volume horizontal slickwater fracturing is a recent phenomenon. The fracturing is done from a wellbore drilled into reservoir rock formations to enhance oil and natural gas recovery. Hydraulic fractures may be natural or man-made and are extended by internal fluid pressure which opens the fracture and causes it to grow into the rock. Man-made fluid-driven fractures are formed at depth in a borehole and extend into targeted rock formations. The fracture width is typically maintained after the injection by introducing a proppant into the injected fluid. Proppant is a material, such as grains of sand, ceramic, or other particulates, that prevent the fractures from closing when the injection is stopped. Natural hydraulic fractures include volcanic dikes, sills and fracturing by ice as in frost weathering. Considerable controversy surrounds the current implementation of hydraulic fracturing technology in the United States. Environmental safety and health concerns have emerged and are being debated at the state and national levels. Read More: > HERE <
„The largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history has swept across the United States. The Halliburton-developed drilling technology of „fracking“ or hydraulic fracturing has unlocked a „Saudia Arabia of natural gas“ just beneath us. But is fracking safe?
When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. A recently drilled nearby Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire. This is just one of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND. Part verite travelogue, part expose, part mystery, part bluegrass banjo meltdown, part showdown.“
GASLAND will be broadcast on HBO through 2012. To host a public screening in your community please click here. The DVD will be on sale in December 2010.
UN: Water is a Human Right – The UN General Assembly passed a resolution today on the human right to water and sanitation. The official tabulation: 122 states voted yes, 41 states abstained—including the U.S.—and no state voted against. First things first: Hooray! This is a fantastic victory that finally establishes the critical recognition that all human beings have a right to water—a vital and natural resource upon which all of us depend.
The passing of this resolution, which was introduced by the Bolivian government, should affirm that we are finally—and collectively—advancing the conversation about the human right to water. This is especially rewarding for our water activists and our network of allies who have been working on this issue for the past 10 years.
While the United States’ abstention is disappointing, we still have reason to be enthusiastic. U.S. municipalities and states are increasingly recognizing water as a human right. As this trend gains momentum, so will our ability to pressure the federal government to affirm the right to water in global forums
This resolution is not legally binding, but we are grateful for the opportunity to take one big step in the right direction. To all the water activists everywhere who have worked tirelessly to promote water as a human right—and to all the nation states who voted in support of the resolution today—congratulations!
We eventually hope to make the human right to water an internationally recognized law. Until then, we must continue to educate and inform on behalf of our mission. www.foodandwaterwatch.org
BHOPAL – SOS Water Poisoning, Health Care & Wells: The story beggars belief. In the 1970s, international agencies headed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) began pumping millions of dollars of aid money into Bangladesh for tubewells to provide “clean” drinking water. According to the World Health Organization, the direct result has been the biggest outbreak of mass poisoning in history. Up to half the country’s tubewells, now estimated to number 10 million, are poisoned. Tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands will die.
Why? Because nobody tested for the natural poison, arsenic, widely found in underground water. And when a doctor did find traces of the metal, and when Bangladeshi villagers did start turning up at doctors’ surgeries with the tumours and telltale signs of arsenic poisoning, the results were swiftly buried so that nobody made the connection.
Like Hydroelectric Dam Projects or Oil & Gas Drilling, and the Desaster of Mexican Gulf Oil Spill showing that drilling without testing the underground seems to be dangerous and harmfull for enviroment & health.
Even now as the scale of the calamity emerges, nobody is admitting culpability. Not UNICEF, which initiated the tubewells programme and paid for the first 900,000 wells, nor the WORLD BANK, a fellow sponsor. Not the Bangladeshi government, or the foreign engineers and public health scientists who did not think to test the water for so long. Read more: > HERE <
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