Natural Gas and Hot Air

The March 8, 2012 issue of NYT Book Review has a review by Bill McKibben on fracking and western Pennsylvania gas drilling. It is remarkably disappointing as it is filled with the usual canards about the influence of Cheney and Halliburton, Imhofe and the global warming cat-fights and now Gasland and its misrepresentations. The problem is that these innuendos and lies are never unmasked, never corrected but blindly stumble on, somehow ingrained in reporting if not the national mind. It is perhaps more significant that there is an upsurge in movies and shows about zombies.

The problem starts with the sources. He relies upon Gasland and the NYT Drilling Down Series that the NYT Public Editor twice rebuked as misleading and inaccurate. He repeats the Drilling Down claim that Pennsylvania's waters were contaminated with radionuclides, this in spite of the studies by the Pa. Dept. of Environmental Protection and almost a score of private bottlers that showed there was no, zero, radionuclide contamination in Pa. streams and drinking water. The Pittsburgh Water and Sewage Authority monthly publishes the same thing.

Then there is the Dunkard Creek fish kill of 2009. According to McKibben, from Gasland, this is attributed to gas drilling discharges despite the conclusion by the EPA, Pa. Fish and Boat Commission and the Pa. Dept. of Environmental Protection that the fish kill was caused by a coal mine discharge which resulted in algae growth that killed the fish. There was even a consent agreement with the coal company, to the tune of $70 million, to build a plant to treat the discharges upstream to prevent future such events.

It is only a matter of time before people start wondering if such inaccuracy is accidental.