Wheat-fielding the fracked gas problem

Anyone that reads this blog or pays attention to national headlines knows about the fracked gas glut and that producers are looking for any way to get this toxic product to market.

And Wheatfield is at the center of the problem right now. National Fuel needs to put two evaporators in Wheatfield and Niagara Mohawk has made known that they “don't have to play nice” to get those evaporators put in place. They can be good neighbours, but if push comes to shove, they will just “steam-roll” the project through.

Niagara Mohawk needs the evaporators in order to remove water from the fracked gas that is being piped up from Pennsylvania. Canada requires a drier gas (Anyone remember Canada Dry Ginger Ale?) than NY and in order to bring the fracked gas up to Canadian standards, the water needs to be removed.

A key sticking point is the evaporation process. In addition to the water being removed, toxic substances like benzene and tolulene. Read the Material Safety Data Sheets on those substances if you want to understand how dangerous they are.

Niagara Mohawk claims that they have a way to remove 99% of those toxins. The community that has to live around those evaporators want it raised to 100%. For a little more money (capitalists read that as a loss in profits) this could be achieved.

Let's face the facts: Fracked gas is dangerous no matter what is done to it. It is dangerous at production point. It is dangerous during transport. And it is dangerous during use. Is is not the same as natural gas because of all the chemicals used to produce it.

In Pendleton, the other major hot point, where Niagara Mohawk needs compressors to push the gas through to the next section of the pipeline, the community has hired environmental attorney Gary A Abraham to fight the project.

Both communities are comparing notes and collaborating to get the best possible situation for their constituencies.

It is time to face the facts: The best possible situation is for Niagara Mohawk to give up on this pipeline dream and cancel the project.

The fracked gas is too dangerous to work with safely and is getting to be hated all over the place because of all the problems associated with it.

The people of Pennsylvania hate it because of the damage to their water wells, the stench in the air around the wells, and the constant flaring of gas at the well sites. There was also a fire at a fracked gas site that lit up the area like daytime (or a very bright sunrise) from what I have been told.

The people in NY don't want the pipeline going through our neighbourhoods and communities. No gas or oil company has shown that they are capable of safely monitoring their pipelines.

And Canadians don't want it. Fracked gas burns poorly and damages whatever it is burned in. I recently had to have a gauge changed in my stove because of water condensation. The repairman claimed it was because of all the water in the propane, whose quality has gone down. I asked him if the propane could have been made from fracked gas and his eyes lit up -as if he received one of those infamous “A-Ha!” moments. If I didn't catch that leak I could have lost my house. Multiply that by how many people are using crappy fracked gas propane and what problems could we have?

Socialists and Environmentalists need to standby the people of Wheatfield and Pendleton in opposing this pipe dream that National Fuel has.

Niagara Mohawk needs to remember the central rule of business – The customer is ALWAYS right.

Well, these customers are saying “NO” to the pipeline.

It's time Niagara Mohawk listened.