When we protect our water, we protect ourselves and our future...

Trailer & Deleted scenes

• 1. Trailer

  2. Global Blue Alternative

  3. Mexican Caravans

  4. Michigan Trial

  5. Water Quotes

  6. More Water Wars

  7. Vandana Shiva vs. Coca Cola

Full Film

Wars of the future will be fought over water as they are over oil today, as the source of human survival enters the global marketplace and political arena. Corporate giants, private investors, and corrupt governments vie for control of our dwindling supply, prompting protests, lawsuits, and revolutions from citizens fighting for the right to survive. Past civilizations have collapsed from poor water management. Can the human race survive?

Please paypal donate to the film maker as he spent over $100,000 for filming and fully producing this movie on the professional level.

His website : http://www.bluegold-worldwaterwars.com/

Fracking in a Floodplain

September 9, 2011  

Jessie Thomas-Blate

Coordinator, Most Endangered Rivers

When American Rivers named 2011 The Year of the River, we never envisioned that the rivers would be showing themselves in such force across the country this summer. Who needs a parade when you can see cars floating down Main Street?

Our recent encounters with Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee along the East Coast have really highlighted the costs that come with building in a floodplain.

Today I read a story on MSNBC.com about the raging Susquehanna River. Apparently, the river was so worked up about being named America's Most Endangered RiverT of 2011, that it is trying to bring more attention to itself! Which leads to my next thought and the real point of this blog. The Susquehanna was listed as the #1 river this year because we are concerned about the rush to develop natural gas in the watershed. Originally we noted the potential for contamination of the water supply through spills, explosions, accidents, etc. But this recent flooding raises a whole different issue.

It is one thing for a truck to spill chemicals into a river. It is another thing for a river to flood hundreds of well sites, collect toxic chemicals, and then spread them across a broader area. Is that happening? I don't know. Certainly the potential is there with the river rising up to 30 feet in some places, and some gas wells built within a hundred yards or less of the river.

Of course, we are always talking about the need to use smarter, 21st century floodplain management strategies. But honestly, there is not anything smart about building natural gas wells in a floodplain, That seems pretty straightforward.

In fact, Pennsylvania State Representative Phyllis Mundy (D-Kingston) introduced legislation last year to prohibit building natural gas wells and drilling in floodplains in Pennsylvania. So far, that legislation has not passed.

Hundreds of other folks who are concerned about what is happening with natural gas had a massive protest in Philadelphia this week. They called it "Shale Gas Outrage." Many of them live and work in Pennsylvania. Will their houses be flooded with fracking fluid? I really hope not. It's just one more thing to worry about when you are living in Gasland.

DEC to look at fracking in flood areas

(09/09/11) New York's Department of Environmental Conservation says it may now reconsider which areas in the Marcellus shale are deemed flood plains, in the light of recent catastrophic flooding. But the department says it will not delay the environmental review of fracking over the issue. (see related story)

The response comes after Assembly Energy Committee Chair Kevin Cahill pointed out that what's known as 100 year flood plain maps may be out of date, in light of extreme flooding over the past two weeks, and other record flooding in recent years. The DEC wants to prohibit fracking in areas susceptible to flooding, for fear of water contamination from fracking wastewater.

"The definition of flood plains, as we know them from our maps are antiquated," said Cahill. "We need to re- map our flood plains."

DEC Spokeswoman Emily DeSantis responded in a non-committal manner to Cahill's request, saying, "The recent extreme weather and flooding bring a host of issues to the forefront. Commissioner Martens is participating in the Storm and Flood Recovery Task Force that will look at how to address these issues including flood plains.". She says the DEC will not be delaying the environmental review process, though, over the issue of remapping flood plains.

Dimock, Pennsylvania Residents Will Stop Receiving Water From Fracking Company

MICHAEL RUBINKAM 10/19/11 06

ALLENTOWN, Pa. - Pennsylvania environmental regulators said Wednesday they have given permission to a natural-gas driller to stop delivering replacement water to residents whose drinking water wells were tainted with methane.

Residents expressed outrage and threatened to take the matter to court.

Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. has been delivering water to homes in the northeast village of Dimock since January of 2009. The Houston-based energy company asked the Department of Environmental Protection for approval to stop the water deliveries by the end of November, saying Dimock's water is safe to drink.

DEP granted Cabot's request late Tuesday, notifying the company in a letter released Wednesday morning. Scott Perry, the agency's acting deputy secretary for oil and gas management, wrote that since Cabot has satisfied the terms of a December settlement agreement requiring the company to remove methane from the residents' water, DEP "therefore grants Cabot's request to discontinue providing temporary potable water."

Residents who are suing Cabot in federal court say their water is still tainted with unsafe levels of methane and possibly other contaminants from the drilling process. They say DEP had no right to allow Cabot to stop paying for replacement water.

Bill Ely, 60, said the water coming out of his well looks like milk.

"You put your hand down a couple of inches and you can't see your hand, that's how much gas there is in it. And they're telling me it was that way all my life," said Ely, who has lived in the family homestead for nearly 50 years and said his well water was crystal clear until Cabot's arrival three years ago.

If Cabot stops refilling his 550-gallon plastic "water buffalo" that supplies water for bathing and washing clothes, Ely said it will cost him $250 per week to maintain it and another $20,000 to $30,000 to install a permanent system to pipe water from an untainted spring on his land.

Ely and another resident, Victoria Switzer, said their attorneys had promised to seek an injunction in the event that DEP gave Cabot permission to halt deliveries. The attorneys did not immediately return an email and phone call seeking comment.

Regulators previously found that Cabot drilled faulty gas wells that allowed methane to escape into Dimock's aquifer. The company denied responsibility, but has been banned from drilling in a 9-square-mile area of Dimock since April of 2010.

Along with its request to stop paying for deliveries of water, Cabot has asked the department for permission to resume drilling in Dimock, a rural community about 20 miles south of the New York state line where 18 residential water wells were found to be polluted with methane. DEP has yet to rule on that request.

Philip Stalnaker, a Cabot vice president, asserted in a Monday letter to DEP that tests show the residents' water to be safe to drink and use for cooking, bathing, washing dishes and doing laundry. He said any methane that remains in the water is naturally occurring but that Cabot is willing to install mitigation systems at residents' request.

Months' worth of sampling data provided by DEP to The Times-Tribune of Scranton show that methane has spiked repeatedly this year in the water wells of several homes, reaching potentially explosive levels in five, the newspaper reported Wednesday.

Cabot cited data from 2,000 water samples taken before the commencement of drilling in Susquehanna County that show that 80 percent of them already had methane.

"The amount of methane in a water supply is neither fixed nor predictable," and depends on a variety of factors unrelated to drilling, Cabot spokesman George Stark said in an email Wednesday.

Methane is an odorless, colorless, tasteless gas commonly found in Pennsylvania groundwater. Sources include swamps, landfills, coal mines and gas wells. Methane is not known to be harmful to ingest, but at high concentrations it's flammable and can lead to asphyxiation.

The December 2010 agreement between DEP and Cabot required the company to offer residential treatment systems that remove methane from the residents' water, and to pay them twice the assessed tax value of their homes. A half-dozen treatment systems have been installed, and Cabot said they are effective at removing the gas.

But residents who filed a federal lawsuit against Cabot are appealing the December settlement. They favor an earlier, scuttled DEP plan that would have forced Cabot to pay nearly $12 million to connect their homes to a municipal water line.

Switzer said it's inappropriate for the state to allow Cabot to stop the water deliveries while the appeal is pending - and while there still are problems with residents' water.

"They keep changing the rules to accommodate this gas company. It's so blatantly corrupt," she said.

DEP spokeswoman Katherine Gresh said the December settlement gave Cabot the right to halt the deliveries once the company funded escrow accounts for the homeowners and is "independent of the water quality results."

Cabot plans to inform each homeowner by Nov. 1 that it will discontinue deliveries of bulk and bottled water by Nov. 30. The company also offered to pay for a plumber to reconnect residents' water wells. Cabot said it will stop delivering replacement water "at its earliest opportunity" to homeowners who refuse to allow testing of their well water.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/19/dimock-pennsylvania-replacement-water_n_1019743.html

Frackers and cattle ranchers:

who should win the battle for water?

By Jim Mitchell/Editorial Writer jmitchell@dallasnews.com

9:06 AM on Wed., Dec. 7, 2011 

When we think of hydraulic fracturing, we think of the competition between cities and energy companies for the water, and of course whether there is a lasting environmental impact on groundwater sources as the result of fracking operations. Others worry about the massive amounts of water needed to release oil and natural gas from deep rock formations.

But the Wall Street Journal has a little discussed take on the fracking controversy --- the competition between farmers and energy companies, a showdown that the drought makes this a critical policy issue for Texas and the food supply. As the story notes, oil companies have long been exempt from most Texas state water rules and permitting requirements, but the state has begun to take a fresh look at the industry's ability to drill water wells wherever they have acquired rights to extract oil and gas.

"The No. 1 issue is water," says David Porter, a Republican member of the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil industry and is seen as generally pro-development. "Everyone is concerned about water." The task force expects to issue recommendations on water next year.

Some key paragraphs from the story:

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has revived prospects for oil-and-gas production in the U.S. and provided a welcome jolt to many local economies. Less than three years after its discovery, the Eagle Ford oil field here already accounts for 6% of South Texas's economic output and supports 12,000 full-time jobs, according to a study by the University of Texas at San Antonio earlier this year, which was funded by an industry-backed group.

But fracking also is forcing communities to grapple with how to balance the economic benefits with potential costs. To date, criticism of fracking has focused mainly on concerns that the chemicals energy companies are mixing with the water could contaminate underground aquifers. Oil industry officials regard that issue as manageable. The biggest challenge to future development, they say, is simply getting access to sufficient water.

The issue isn't just rearing its head in parched regions like South Texas. North Dakota, another big source of oil from fracked wells, is concerned about the industry depleting aquifers and has threatened to sue the federal government to free up water held by an Army Corps of Engineers dam. Oklahoma, too, is struggling to cope with the industry's thirst.

And the story goes on:

Compared with demands from cities, farmers and even power plants, the amount of water needed to develop oil and gas wells in Texas is small. In September, the Texas Water Development Board released a draft of the 2012 Texas water plan--a report prepared once every five years. It said 56% of water in Texas goes to commercial crops; 26.9% to cities and public-water systems; 9.6% to manufacturing, including refineries; 4.1% to power generation; 1.8% for livestock; and 1.6% to mining, which includes oil-and-gas drilling.

But the report noted that the rise of fracking has been so sudden and steep that it wasn't really integrated into the report. In addition, the oil-industry's water use is concentrated in select parts of the state, magnifying the impact in those places.

Fewer than 2,000 oil and gas wells have been drilled in the past couple of years in South Texas. The industry expects that number to climb to as many as 25,000 over the next couple of decades.

Fracking holds get promise, but all of us are beginning to realize that we know only a small portion of the challenges the new technology poses for communities large and small, urban and rural.  

Water reuse project agreement signed for

 Marcellus Shale ...

MARCELLUS, NY, Sept. 9, 2011 -- Wastewater from controversial hydraulic fracturing processes in the Marcellus Shale will soon be treated by an onsite semi-portable water treatment facility.

To be installed by GreenHunter Water the facility will receive and treat water to remove chemicals and impurities in a sufficient amount for reuse in new wells scheduled for fracture stimulation.

The order followed the delivery of above ground temporary water storage tanks from the firm to the site and the Frac-Cycle system will mean that "less than 20% of the water flowback per fracking operation to be disposed of as waste compared to 100%", according to the firm.

Jonathan D. Hoopes, president and COO of GreenHunter Energy, said the process will enable oilfield operators to improve efficiency, lower costs and reduce their water usage footprint.

http://www.waterworld.com/index/display/article-display/9667626183/articles/waterworld/industrial-water/2011/09/Water-reuse-project-agreement-signed-for-Marcellus-Shale.html

So now in addition to the well, we will have to deal with a toxic wastewater treatment facility.... are you kidding??????