ICTMN: ‘Unspeakable Poverty of Loss': Intergenerational Trauma and the Bakken Oil Fields

[Algernon Moncrieff]

By Winona LaDuke

Fracking oil is a new technology. Despite industry claims, it is a big experiment, made possible because of a perfect storm: an entire lack of federal, state or tribal regulation, and unlimited access to water and air, into which everything is dumped.

The 2005 Energy Policy Act had something in it called the Halliburton Amendment. That amendment exempted the oil and gas industry from most major environmental laws. This includes special exemptions from: the Superfund Act (CERCLA); the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA, which manages hazardous waste); the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act, which maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation's waters; the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Clean Air Act. For the Clean Air Act, the exemptions involve emissions from any oil or gas exploration or production well (with its associated equipment) and emissions from any pipeline compressor or pump. The exemptions have worked out pretty well for industry and, one might argue, for the short-term leaseholder and for royalties. Not so for those trying to protect the environment.

Fort Berthold Reservation Environmental Director Edmund Baker has been a bit challenged in his regulation of the fracking industry. On July 8, what was known as the Crestwood spill was discovered. About a million gallons of radioactive and highly saline water was found leaking from a pipe and headed to a stream and Lake Sakakawea. Industry officials, joined by Hall, talked about how, fortuitously, all had been saved by three beaver dams. Let’s just say that Leave it to Beaver may be a bit of a simplistic environmental protection plan.

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/10/08/unspeakable-poverty-loss-intergenerational-trauma-and-bakken-oil-fields-157243?page=0%2C2

[hunter]

1. What are we doing to our world?

This is so sad.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

3. We are doing bad things

And I realize everything involves trade-offs. Clean energy often involves mining harder-to-find metals -- that sort of thing. Right now, we're simply destroying the environment and mortgaging the future in the interest of "cheap" energy.

[Octafish]

2. Sneering Dick Cheney fracked America.

"Scientific advisory panels at the Department of Energy and the EPA have enumerated ways the industry could improve and have called for modest steps, such as establishing maximum contaminant levels allowed in water for all the chemicals used in fracking. Unfortunately, these recommendations do not address the biggest loophole of all. In 2005 Congress—at the behest of then Vice President Dick Cheney, a former CEO of gas driller Halliburton—exempted fracking from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Congress needs to close this so-called Halliburton loophole, as a bill co-sponsored by New York State Representative Maurice Hinchey would do. The FRAC Act would also mandate public disclosure of all chemicals used in fracking across the nation."

-- Scientific American, Nov. 2011, "Safety First, Fracking Second"