California: Paradise Burning – The New Yorker
October 21, 2014
Waters of the U.S. | US EPA
March 25, 2014
Waters of the U.S. | US EPA.
From: David Masur, PennEnvironment Director <action@pennenvironment.org>
To: jlacreevy <jlacreevy@aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Mar 25, 2014 12:34 pm
Subject: Biggest clean water news of the decade
Dear Jean,Brandywine Creek. The Wissahickon. Neshaminy. Nine Mile Run.What do all these streams have in common? Every single one of them is unprotected under the Clean Water Act.Today, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a rule to restore Clean Water Act protections to hundreds of Pennsylvania waterways and wetlands and the 8 million Pennsylvanians who get their drinking water from these sources.Thank the EPA for taking this historic step forward and ask them to see it through to the finish line.As big as this is, we haven’t won yet. In fact, the most important piece of the fight has just begun. The EPA is asking for public input on their plan in the next few months, and the nation’s biggest polluters are already lining up to stop it in its tracks.Polluters who have benefited from these loopholes for years are fighting back. Big Ag is saying this rulemaking is cause for “battle,”[1] and last time the EPA took a step half this big, ExxonMobil threatened “legal warfare.”[2]That’s why I’m contacting you now — to make sure we can send 30,000 messages from Pennsylvanians to the EPA so they hear loud and clear that we are serious about clean water.Nobody should be allowed to treat our waterways like their personal sewer.Will you ask the EPA to finish the job?For more than a decade, PennEnvironment has worked to close loopholes in the Clean Water Act that have left nearly half of Pennsylvania’s’ streams and many acres of wetlands at risk of unchecked pollution. These waterways are critical–they feed and filter our drinking water sources and are some of our favorite places to swim, boat and fish.Today’s announcement comes on the heels of hundreds of thousands of messages sent from people like you asking the Obama administration to act. Over the past three years, along with our sister organizations across the country, we’ve had more than 1 million conversations with everyday people about protecting our waterways, and we’ve built a coalition of more than 400 local elected officials, 300 small farmers, and 300 small business owners to stand with us and call on the EPA to act.Let’s finish the job.Tell the EPA: It’s gone on long enough. Restore Clean Water Act protections to the waterways we love and depend on.Thanks for all you do,David Masur
PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center Director P.S. A decade of work comes down to this. The EPA’s announcement today brings us closer than we’ve ever been to getting our waterways the protection they deserve. But it’s you who will help see it through to the end. Send your public comment in today to close Clean Water Act loopholes once and for all.
[1] “Leaked Draft of Water Jurisdiction Rule May Not Be Final EPA Position, Vilsack Says,” Amena H. Saiyid, Bloomberg BNA. 17 January 2014 |
Monroe County farm family wins fight vs. big utility and state – The Daily News Online: Lifestyles
August 21, 2013
Monroe County farm family wins fight vs. big utility and state – The Daily News Online: Lifestyles.
eminent domain “has got to be the most un-American phrase in the English language.”
China’s toxic harvest: A “cancer village” rises in protest | Marketplace.org
April 18, 2013
China’s toxic harvest: A “cancer village” rises in protest | Marketplace.org.
A hill of phosphogypsum rises above the village of Liuchong, in Hubei province. Dasheng chemical dumps the substance, a byproduct of phosphate fertilizer that contains cancer-causing chemicals like arsenic, chromium-6, and cadmium, above the river that feeds the village.
Film Screening “Drill Baby Drill” by Lech Kowalski
March 23, 2013
Film Screening “Drill Baby Drill” by Lech Kowalski | shaleshock.org.
Comment by Mary Menapace:
My (amateur) review and impressions.Attended the American premiere of Drill Baby Drill in Utica this afternoon. Shaleshock blurb on it here. http://shaleshock.org/2013/03/film-screening-drill-baby-drill-by-lech-kowalski/
The director Lech Kowalski.ski was there to answer questions afterwards.
almost three hundred people, theater was near full.The film beautifully lays out the ugly issues, mainly the way they operate as if exempt from any oversight or laws. As they are. Voice over narration by Lech. Polish farmers live simply on beautiful land, produce their own food, milk and eggs each even. Subtitled, their language direct, simple, logic irrefutable. The gathering and swift direct action respectful, effective, inspiring. Interesting that the leader was a woman (familiar?) she spokesperson but the room and fields were filled with mostly men on film anyway. Lech was asked, on film, many times to stop filming, by gov. and Chevron. As he commented afterwards, he coulda made an entire movie of being told not to be filming. To see the same issues laid out across the sea opens up the perspective.
Pennsylvania portion has familiar faces, Carol French piece opens the film. Was good to see her farm, heartbreaking to see her cows. Very powerful was a truck driver, Ray, who quit, his testimony on the status quo of how it all works and home water situation straight up bad. He was present at the screening. So was a psychologist who on film talks about the sand importing facility next door to a day care center in wyalusing. She was to speak afterwards about her work with Fracking victims but disappointingly there was not time.
Afterwards, there was good discussion about the larger picture of corporate power being the enemy, not Fracking. Local county legislator spoke, another truck driver who quit spoke, his story confirming Rachel’s testimony of woodchips being added to liquid for import to Seneca landfill and other NY landfills. He hauled the waste to NY working thirteen hour days and other lawbreaking policies he ultimately could not abide, echoing the driver in the film.
So the film bore good discussion. The distribution will be film festivals and will be available on VOD which I am assuming is video on demand, and Lech is looking to have a tour of dozens of locales across the northeast. He will be figuring out dates sometime shortly.
GDACC 
