Ft McMurray, NY

I will not elaborate much on the Fort McMurray tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes on TV and the Internet. It is a distinctly human made tragedy.

The only way it could get worse is if it hits the tar sands &refineries and they go up in a blaze of idiocy.

That's how I view tar sands mining.

Let's bring this home to Western New York.

I have a friend that lives in Delevan – a small community in Cattaraugus County, In his words, he's on the south side of the Arcade & Attica Railroad. A nice museum trip if you decide to take it. Pay for the ticket to ride inside the coach because, depending upon how the winds blow, it can get real smoky real fast.

In April, in a community “a country mile” away from him there was a field fire. No big deal, right? Except, because of the extremely dry winter, there is a “burn ban” in effect. Basically, no burning fires outside because of the fire risk. Just like in a very hot and dry summer with next to no rain. (If I remember correctly, that is the forecast for this summer. What Alberta has now. Hopefully minus the fires.)

Near the community will be the pipeline that National Fuel wants to use to pump fracked gas from Pennsylvania to Canada.

What if that pipeline breaks and a fire starts?

Burn ban in effect because of dryness and we have a fire problem. The pipeline safety protocols never work as advertised. Look at any of the disasters. Safety protocols failed in every case. It is rare that they actually do work.

Or if a fire gets out of control in Pennsylvania's part of the Allegheny Park system. It's not going to say “I started in PA so I'd better stay here.” It's going to go where there's fuel. And there is plenty of fuel to burn in that state park. Which is pretty dry right now. Unless we get a ton of rain this weekend. (He says he'd like that. It's dry and the farmers need rain for crops. Seriously – how do you think we get the food we eat?) So we could get a PA fracking gas fire going up to the NY Southern tier.

And I seriously doubt that fighting house fires is anything like fighting a massive field fire or a gas fire. On top of that, most of the fire departments in Cattaraugus and Chatauqua Counties are mostly volunteer departments. This isn't Erie County or Niagara where they have professionally staffed departments on call all the time. They have a few professionals and the rest (more likely all) are volunteers.

And they are going to be able to take time off from work to fight a fire the size of the McMurray fire? Or the size of Allegheny State Park?

Time to step into reality.

Josh Fox was recently in Pendleton to help in the fight against the Northern Access Pipeline. I'm sure he showed Gasland. I believe he is up to volume 2. He spoke of the dangers of fracking. Now we need to look at the worst case scenarios because we are seeing one in Alberta.

And prevention is the best cure.

The best way to prevent Fort McMurray in WNY is to stop the Northern Access Pipeline and shipping of fracked gas through Western New York. Period.

And we need to recognize that the fight against fracking knows no boundaries.

So PA's fight against fracking is ours.

Socialists Demand:

1. A ban on fracking in NY, PA, and across the USA.

2. A firm “NO” to the Northern Access Pipeline Project.

3. An end to fossil fuel dependency and subsidies.

4. More support from NY and DC into renewable energy.

We only have one planet.

Let's take care of it for our children's sake.