Fracking: Health, Environmental Impact Greater Than Claimed, Part 2 by Walter Brasch

Detail of Tower for drilling horizontally into the Marcellus Shale Formation for natural gas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Walter Brasch
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.walterbrasch.com
March 20, 2012

The natural gas industry defends hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, as safe and efficient. Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, a pro-industry non-profit organization, claims fracking has been “a widely deployed as safe extraction technique,” dating back to 1949. What he doesn’t say is that until recently energy companies had used low-pressure methods to extract natural gas from fields closer to the surface than the current high-pressure technology that extracts more gas, but uses significantly more water, chemicals, and elements.

Fracking: Pennsylvania Gags Physicians, Part 1 by Walter Brasch

by Walter Brasch
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.walterbrasch.com
March 18, 2012

A new Pennsylvania law endangers public health by forbidding health care professionals from sharing information they learn about certain chemicals and procedures used in high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing. The procedure is commonly known as fracking.

Fracking is the controversial method of forcing water, gases, and chemicals at tremendous pressure of up to 15,000 pounds per square inch into a rock formation as much as 10,000 feet below the earth’s surface to open channels and force out natural gas and fossil fuels.

Pennsylvania Legislators Shoot Down Pigeons—Again by Walter Brasch

by Walter Brasch
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.walterbrasch.com
December 17, 2011

Image by Focx Photography via Flickr

If the first year gross anatomy class at the Penn State Hershey medical school needs spare body parts to study, they can visit the cloak room of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. That’s where most of the legislators left their spines.

The House voted 124–69, Dec. 13, to send an animal welfare bill back to committee, in this case the Gaming Oversight Committee. The bill, SB 71, would have banned simulcasting of greyhound races from other states.

Corporate America Sends a Labor Day Message by Walter Brasch

by Walter Brasch
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.walterbrasch.com
Sept. 4, 2011

Image by rstrawser via Flickr

For most Americans, the only significance of Labor Day is that it concludes a three day weekend.

For Kirk Artley, it means he has about six weeks left of employment.

On Aug. 24, RR Donnelley, a Chicago-based megacorporation that claims to be “the world’s premier full-service provider of print and related services,” told Artley and the other 283 workers at the Bloomsburg, Pa., plant that “economic conditions” forced the closing of the book printing facility. The workers said they would take significant pay cuts if that would save the plant. RR Donnelley rejected the offer.

Scratches on the Blackboard of Animal Cruelty by Walter Brasch

by Walter Brasch
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.walterbrasch.com
April 22, 2011

Image by Focx Photography via Flickr

Take a pigeon.

Now put that pigeon, along with thousands of others, into small coops that don’t give the bird much freedom to move.

Don’t worry about food or water. It won’t matter.

Fracking Hell: The Untold Story

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English: Marcellus Shale bank along Rt 174 just south of Slate Hill Road in Marcellus, NY (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

http://www.linktv.org/

linktv on Jan 11, 2011

An original investigative report by Earth Focus and UK’s Ecologist Film Unit looks at the risks of natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale. From toxic chemicals in drinking water to unregulated interstate dumping of potentially radioactive waste that experts fear can contaminate water supplies in major population centers including New York City, are the health consequences worth the economic gains?

Free Gas in Pennsylvania? Part 2

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

TheRealNews | November 10, 2010

Pennsylvania to Become ‘Gasland’? (Pt. 2): Trillions of dollars in revenues expected to be made, yet new Governor pledges not to tax the companies.

Produced by Jesse Freeston and Malak Behrouznami.

Pennsylvania to Become ‘Gasland’?

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

Image by wollombi via Flickr

TheRealNews | November 08, 2010

Standing on top of one of the world’s largest natural gas fields, some Pennsylvanians prepare to take on their new governor, the gas industry, the famous ‘Halliburton Loophole’, and Karl Rove in order to stop the drilling.

For more visit http://www.therealnews.com

Produced by Jesse Freeston and Malak Behrouznami.

Hunting for Courageous Legislators: Pennsylvania Continues to Lead Nation in Animal Cruelty

by Walter Brasch
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.walterbrasch.com
September 9, 2010

Image via Wikipedia

Twenty minutes South of Harrisburg, on a two hour drive to her home near Gaithersburg, Md., Heidi Prescott shed a tear. No one else saw it, only one other person could hear it in her voice. It was about 9 p.m., Tuesday, June 29.

Prescott, senior vice-president of campaigns for the 11-million member Humane Society of the United States, values her reputation as a compassionate but tough lobbyist, but more than two decades of grief and hope was in that tear. For five straight days, she had driven to the Capitol; this would be the week, she was led to believe by the House leadership, that the Legislature would finally bring forth a vote to ban live pigeon shoots. But, in a late night deal, the Legislature had come to a decision about the next year’s budget, and that meant it would recess before voting on the bill to ban pigeon shoots.

Twelve Angry White People: Jury Nullification in a Pennsylvania Coal Town by Walter Brasch

by Walter Brasch
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.walterbrasch.com
June 18, 2009

The Schuylkill County, Pa., justice system managed to do something that insurance actuaries do with mixed results—it has determined not only the penalty for threats to a human life, but also the value of a human life.

• Norman E. Nickle, 54, who lived in Pottsville, the county seat, was convicted of killing two teenagers, and sentenced in April to two life terms, without possibility of parole. Nickle’s only defense was that he was high on drugs and alcohol at the time of the murders.
• Jarrid Finneran, of Shenandoah, was sentenced to 2-1/2 to five years in prison after a jury convicted him in December 2007 of pushing his girlfriend in front of a car. Finneran said that the incident was the result of an accident, was not deliberate, and that he and the victim continued their relationship after the incident. The jury, however, convicted him of aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, and disorderly conduct.
• Kyle J. Bluge, 23, of Frackville, admitted he shook a baby in April 2008 to try to stop the boy from crying. A pediatrician testified that the physical abuse resulted in significant brain injuries. Bluge, who will be sentenced Aug. 5, could face 10 to 20 years in prison for aggravated assault.
• Mark P. Wilner, 40, of Mahanoy City, in June was found guilty of simple assault after a bar fight that led to injuries to the victim who, according to court testimony, had begun the fight by punching a woman. Wilner could be sentenced, June 29, to one to two years in state prison.

However, the life of Luis Eduardo Ramirez-Zavalo, 25, a Mexican who lived and worked in Shenandoah before dying, in June 2008 after a beating by a gang of about a half-dozen drunken Shenandoah High School football players, is worth no more than 23 months in a county jail.