16 Cattle Drop Dead Near Mysterious Fluid at Gas Drilling Site
When projects endanger species, feds must again consult experts
| Is there an economic solution to environmental problems? We trim, blend, and append two 2009 articles, (1) the bad news from ProPublica, Apr 30, on killed cattle by Abrahm Lustgarten, and (2) the good news from MSNBC, Apr 28, on endangered species. |
by Abrahm Lustgarten and by MSNBC
- 16 Cattle Drop Dead Near Mysterious Fluid at Gas Drilling Site
Sixteen cattle dropped dead in a northwestern Louisiana field this week after apparently drinking from a mysterious fluid adjacent to a natural gas drilling rig, according to Louisiana's Department of Environmental Quality.
The company, Chesapeake Energy, has not identified exactly what chemicals are in those fluids and is insisting to state regulators that no spill occurred. Both Chesapeake and its contractor doing the work Schlumberger, say that a lot of these fluids are proprietary. The energy service companies, including Halliburton and Schlumberger, say that disclosing that information would put them at a competitive disadvantage, and they insist the fluids are safe.
Hydraulic fracturing -- a process in which water, sand and chemicals are pumped deep underground at high pressure to break rock and release natural gas -- is controversial because of the secrecy surrounding the fluids and because the process is exempted from protections of the Safe Drinking Water Act and thus from regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency.
JJS: Should the burden of proof be on the people who alter the environment for profit -- profit is a good thing, but not a justification for anything goes -- or on the victims of the alteration of the environment, in this case cows and cow owners?
Our rulers decided centuries ago -- at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution -- that the businesses who alter the environment should not have to pay for a certain amount of contamination and created for them limited liability. Which is the way of the world. Technological power translates into political power. Always has, ever since the domestication of fire.
Yet if government had chosen instead to uphold people’s right to a healthy environment, technology would have evolved much differently. It’d be cleaner, more efficient -- since pollutants are byproducts and those represent waste. It’d be cheaper, too, since greater efficiency means lower costs and lower prices.
The classic modern example may be the ozone hole. When government moved to protect the atmosphere, industry quickly found a safe alternative (essentially, lemon juice).
More safe inputs and methods are out there. For them to become standard-operating-procedure, all that’s needed is the political will to insist that our right to a safe environment be upheld. Just get rid of limited liability or severely restructure it and to lower their insurance costs, industry will take care of the rest.
While we have every right to insist upon non-polluting industry, we should also be politically savvy and somewhat considerate and at the same time take taxes off producers. They won’t be able to make a good argument against bearing the cost of full liability. Plus, they’ll have the wherewithal to afford extra insurance and converting to cleaner methods.
De-taxing production is part of geonomics. On the tax side, the idea is to not charge people for the values they create but for the ones they take. On the spending side, don’t pay corporate welfare and other special interests but pay the citizenry in general a dividend from the worth of Earth.
This shift would spur owners to use land more efficiently, which would leave habitat for other species. Ultimately, for humans to shrink their footprint is the only way to quit endangering other species. And geonomics is how to get everyone’s economic choices pulling for Earth’s integrity.
Meanwhile, one of the backward steps has been reversed.
- When projects endanger species, feds must again consult experts
The Obama administration revoked a rule enacted toward the end of the Bush administration that it said undermined protections under the Endangered Species Act. Federal agencies must "once again consult with federal wildlife experts at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- the two agencies that administer the ESA -- before taking any action that may affect threatened or endangered species," the Interior and Commerce departments said in a statement.
The 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act had given the Interior and Commerce secretaries the authorization to revoke the Bush-era rule as well as a separate one that bars regulation of any activities outside the Arctic that threaten the polar bear.
"The polar bear’s Arctic sea ice habitat is melting away," said Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity. "If the special rule is not struck down, the polar bear is likely to be the first large mammal to go extinct due to global warming in the United States."
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Jeffery J. Smith runs the Forum on Geonomics.
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Also see: Maine Town Stands Up to Corporations
Artificial light traps animals, PFCs distort hormones
Toxic Gov't Report Uncovered |
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