Whitewashing a pipeline lie

National Fuel is slowly working (buying?) its way to approval for its proposed Northern Access Pipeline. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a 487 page finding that found “no significant environmental impact” for the pipeline project.

While no the final approval that National Fuel needs, it is is bad step forward for the project.

The pipeline starts in Pennsylvania with fracked gas. There are enough reports and research out in the professional and public literature that openly states that fracking is an environmentally dangerous way to produce gas. From the water, air, and land pollution to the fires which require specially trained crews to extinguish because of all the hazardous chemicals involved in fracking – that alone should say “No” to this pipeline.

But it doesn't.

Then there is the four counties that it must cross in NY – Cattaraugus, Wyoming, Erie, and Niagara. Now if the idea that producing gas by fracking is a fantasy, the idea that a pipeline is a safe way to send gas across four counties, across farmlands and watersheds is somewhere out of dreamland. Oil and gas companies have a horrendous history of pipeline accidents. We can look at the Alaska Pipeline, the mess that was made in Michigan with the Kalamazoo spill, the Arkansas mess where fracked oil flowed like water flooding down community streets.

This pipeline would be going through farmlands that produce the food that we buy from our local grocery stores. And National Fuel expects us to believe that they can successfully monitor and mitigate any gas spill? If I were the DEA I would not be in inner city Buffalo or Rochester looking for drugs – I'd be the the offices of fuel companies looking for what drugs they are taking to come up with these disastrous plans that they can never manage to handle and always stick us with the bill for.

Then comes Pendleton and Wheatfield, where National Fuel needs to put evaporators and two compressors to remove the water from the fracked gas and then push it along its way to Canada. (You mean the tar sands of Alberta can't provide them with the fuel they need? Oh, that's right – that is for export to other countries. They still need to meet their own energy needs by importing fuel from someplace else.)

The evaporators in Wheatfield are needed to remove the chemically contaminated water from the fracked gas because Canada has a lower tolerance for water in their gas. No what is National Fuel going to do with this water? It has benzene and other toxic chemicals as well as radioactive substances in it. The Niagara Falls waste treatment plant can't clean it. Neither can any other waste water treatment facility in the US. So, it going where exactly for storage? I say in the CEO's backyard. (That and Wall Street.)

And then the running 24 hours a day compressors. Near a protected wetland area. And if one of them breaks down and spills, who is going to stop the fracked gas from flowing and clean up the mess? Again, the local fire departments are not trained to handle these types of messes. And, according to a relative of mine that works in an OSHA type capacity and is familiar with cleanup procedures of toxic spills, National Fuel lacks the crews as well – last they knew.

FERC says that the safety plans submitted by National Fuel will be enough to mitigate any problems that arise. Can we get FERC drug tested and show them the news and history of oil and gas spills in recent history? The oil and gas companies have a terrible record of handling environmental disasters and are completely incapable of handling any problems that come up.

National Fuel still has to go through air quality reviews and get approval from the US Army Corps of Engineers. Environmentalists and activists need to step up and be loud and clear that this pipeline is a pipe dream (cause that is what they are smoking) and that there is no safe way to move fracked gas across four counties in NY (And PA), plus across the Niagara River (which, if the pipeline broke would contaminate Lake Ontario and ruin some pretty nice fishing and recreational outings).

Socialists say NO to the Northern Access Pipeline.

We need to keep the oil in the soil and stop fracking with Mother Earth.

100% Renewable Energy NOW!