Oh Please!
Fracking Exposes Workers to High Levels of Silica and Other Health Hazards
Posted: 05/24/2012 in WaterIf you work in the hydraulic fracturing industry—better known as “fracking”—you may be exposed to high levels of crystalline silica, putting you at risk of developing silicosis, lung cancer and other debilitating diseases, according to a letter sent today from the AFL-CIO, Mine Workers (UMWA) and the United Steelworkers (USW)to the top federal safety agencies.
The letter highlights a recent two-year National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) assessment, which found that, among those exposed, 79 percent of samples for silica exceeded the NIOSH Recommended Exposure Limits.
Silica sand is a major component of the fracking process. The sand is mixed with large volumes of water and chemical additives and injected under high pressure by drilling into shale rock. Massive quantities of sand are used and workers are at risk of high levels of exposure during multiple points of the fracking process.
In addition to the health hazards, workers in the oil and gas extraction industries face high rates of fatal occupational injuries. Between 2003 and 2009, there were 27.5 deaths per 100,000 workers, a rate more than seven times higher than the fatality rate for all U.S. workers.
As the fracking industry continues to rapidly grow, and as more workers enter the field with little experience or knowledge about the potential hazards in this industry, it is vital the government, companies and unions work together to ensure workers have the work safety and health knowledge, training and protection they need.
The letter urges the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), NIOSH and the Mine Safety and Health Administration to take immediate action and issue a joint “hazard alert” that identifies the occupational safety and health hazards in the fracking industry, with a special focus on silica exposures. It also recommends OSHA to take immediate steps to initiate rule making on a new silica standard that includes requirements for exposure monitoring and medical surveillance and NIOSH to expand its field work in the fracking industry to include medical surveillance of workers.
Fracking, which allows drillers to get gas and oil from shale deep underground, triggered a revolution. Gas production in the US has been setting new highs, and as supply overwhelmed demand, prices have collapsed. Gas in storage is at a record high for this time of the year, and some doom-and-gloom prophets maintain that storage will reach capacity this fall, and that producers won’t be able to get rid of their gas and will have to flare it, pushing its price to zero.
However, natural gas for June delivery settled on Wednesday at $2.73 per million Btu on the New York Mercantile Exchange. A 44% jump from its April 19 low of $1.90 per million Btu, but still only half the five year average, and below the already low price at the beginning of the year. As this chart shows, the recent uptick isn’t much of a salvation for the beleaguered drillers.
CEO Aubrey McClendon. He lost his chairmanship after his conflicted entanglements and an in-house hedge fund seeped to the surface. The company announced it may run out of cash to fund its drilling operations next year. Fitch, in downgrading Chesapeake’s Issuer Default Rating and senior unsecured ratings to BB-, estimated that the shortfall this year alone would reach $10 billion—in the first quarter, the company bled $3 billion in cash—and that it would be forced to dump up to $20 billion in assets to get through this. But Chesapeake’s ability to get new money should not be underestimated during these crazy times when the Fed keeps iron-fisted control of the credit markets with its zero interest rate policy. Investors are dying for yield, at any risk. So Chesapeake got a loan of $4 billion from Goldman Sachs and Jefferies Group to bridge the current hole until some asset sales come through, hopefully. And all due to the low price of natural gas and the ugly economics of fracking.
Toxic chemicals in household productsWhat’s behind the “Tap”
The real story of Water.
After a trip up the South River and into Jackson Lake. I was astonished to see the amount of Bottled Water single serves floating on both sides of the river. My friend actually apologized to me. He said it used to be nice. Well, I was intrigued enough to check out how many water bottles are actually produced in the U.S. each year. It was amazing. Americans use 89 billion bottles a year. So I decided to see what the problem is. Bottled water is one of the main contributors of water pollution. Pharmaceutical’s, steroids, and of course the elephant in the room BPA. This chemical is from the plastic. Leached out into the bottled water. I started to become interested after seeing a Documentary called “Tapped”. Here is the problem, in order to have you drink their water they disrespect your local water source for “City Water” implying that tap water is not safe to drink. So I have begun to really look around. So much plastic! Recycling that many bottles would overload your recycling area. They end up in the ground or in the water. Eventually, making it to the sea. So, I wondered how safe is the tap water here in Griffin. Well, I emailed Mr. Beasley and asked could I come and see the water works took on this monumental task of supplying you water. Well, I was very pleased with what I saw and tasted. The water here had a clean bill of health, except my pet peeve about fluoride. Keep in mind fluoride is in your toothpaste, your water, your mouthwash. When the raw water is received back at the water works it still has fluoride in it and then it is boosted even higher and sent back out. It is just overkill at this point. Bpa well it’s not coming out. Dealing with that much water necessary for us to live, is a big responsibility. They have to deal with problems in the water that weren’t there even a few years ago. The water is from the Flint River, the pumping station is 8 miles from the filter plant. It has 4 electric motors whose capacities are 2.5, 3.5, 4, and 7.8. Millions of Gallons per Day. There is a backup generator. The water goes through 2 – 20” cast iron lines to the filter station. It begins a very complicated process because conditions in the Flint River vary. Contamination, turbidity coloring, leaf and vegetation, taste, plastic. The filter plants primary objective is to remove pathogens and filter that water coming in. When it gets there it goes a mixing chamber where Alum is added and a polymer to get it to floc, or clump together, and those larger particles are separated out. After the flocculation, it goes to settling basins and then begins a very complicated system of adding and removing chemicals to ensure that the water is as safe as they can. Are all the chemicals removed? No. It is as safe as they can make it. Now, here comes the bottled water industry, they take water from municipal water, put it in a bottle. Then sell your own water back to you at a 1900% increase. The Griffin water is tested daily. The bottled water industry is regulated by themselves. A single person is in charge of bottled water and other duties at the E.P.A. So where did your Fiji water come from? Even the Vice-president of the company did not know. It is not coming from some beautiful crystal spring. It is being stolen from under our feet literally by a process called water mining. They come into a rural area get a business license set up shop quietly and begin to pump the water. Once they are in they can do whatever they want. In some states like Maine they have what is called “Absolute Dominion”. An old law that basically says: “Whoever has the biggest pump, and the deepest shaft gets it”. So they begin to haul your water off. The lakes begin to lower, even as we are in a drought situation, Coca- Cola continues to pump water every day that is basically Chattahoochee Water from Atlanta. Nestle’ owns more water rights than any of their competitors Coke, Pepsi, Miller, and Budweiser. 90% of all Americans have a level of BPA in their systems. We have become “Water Fat”. We use and waste water on a bunch of different levels every day. From putting your washer on large load when it’s not full, Turf Grass, excessive car washing, and on and on. You do not see watering of Turf grass very much anymore because we are in a terminal stage of drought. If we do though, it will use 30% more water that is drinkable to pour on a plant that you CAN NOT EAT! Now, 75% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. Of that water 97% is Salt Water, only 1 to 2 % is fresh water that is drinkable. We are like spoiled children in this country, wasting water, plastic single serves of everything. The problem is not going to go away, it gets worse every year. Huge swirling masses of “Plastic Soup” in the Pacific. It is called the “North Pacific Gyre”. It is not the only “Gyre” though they are in the Gulf, the Atlantic, Indian Ocean, and South Pacific. Anywhere there is a large body of water that has a part in the different “Current Systems” Some islands are covered by over ten feet of plastic. We have to wake up and look around. Look at the water “Isle” at Wal-Mart, not to pick on them in particular. The massive amount of space dedicated to poisoning you with their Water. Pick up the bottles if there is a number one it is made of P.E.T. or P.E.T.E. and therefore contains Bpa. What can you do as Joe Citizen, don’t use bottled water. Get a nice $5 cool BPA Free container. Fill it from your Tap. There is a lot of good filtration and decontaminations systems, such as Multi-pure and others can be found online. What I like about it is the fact that it doesn’t need power. Buy a filter bottle! There a lot of cool ones out there. Now this idea is against what we all were taught. Turf Grass! Where did we get this idea of Turf Grass? The British! Yea that’s right the British! We broke the yoke of taxation without representation! but they got us on the Lawns! Now a lawn may make sense in the U.K. where it rains all the time! (However you never get to see the Sun!) We do not have the water to pour our drinking water on the ground on a “crop” that you cannot eat! Gardens in the front yard can be beautiful and are able to be consumed. Use rain barrels for non consumption tasks, like gardens. A garden does not need the water of grass. Just some T.L.C.! Everyone is having a rough time; you do not need to buy bottled water. Here is a figure from the water dept. Really made me think about the expense.
Mr. Morrison
I am the Director of Public Works and Utilities
We would be happy to give you a tour of our facility
If statistics are right average water consumed in bottle in US is 28.3 gallons
This Equates to
16.9oz/bottle
Convenience Store average 1.19 =$4310.00
Bulk buy average .35 = $1267.00
City of Griffin .017 = 62.00
If your rent was $750 month you could pay 5.75 months of rent
Or if you house payment is $1200 month you could pay 3.6 months of payment. One could reduce length of note by 6 years over a 30 year period
JUST some food for thought
Remember water suppliers in public systems have to jump through a lot more hoops than in the unregulated industry of bottled water
Brant D. Keller PhD
City of Griffin
Director Public Works & Utilities
Folks, I can get a cup!
I usually get the single serve tubes of powder and flavor the water if I feel like it. Except, no bottle. Now the collapses of a lot of things are taking place right now. Glaciers I mean an actual glacier that used to be a 700 foot cliff has fallen off of Greenland. Now it has “calved” or split in 2. They are the size of Manhattan. The magnitude which the ice is disappearing is incredible. Without the ice there is no current convection for the whole earth. Antarctica same problem different Pole. That is another part of this complicated dance we do with the earth. The bottom line is Griffin’s Tap Water is just fine. For now. You will see that in this puzzle is a lot of toxic stuff out there. Read the bottled water ingredients, and just because it has a green leaf on the bottle does not make it green. Same BPA different bottle. Even the storage of bottled water shouldn’t be done. Once in the bottle leaching begins. As long as we keep buying it until there is no water. Then it will be a matter of survival. You must have water. As far as my business with the water treatment plant it is concluded to my satisfaction. Do we need fluoride in water? No. We get it in many other sources. Do we stop water mining and seek out solutions to build up the infrastructure? Yes. Do we need more education in our school’s that promote water responsibility? Adults need to wake up. I saw one woman complaining about the water was shut off and now had to pay extra and all this, and she didn’t have it. So she storms out. 15 min later I see the same woman buying cases and cases of bottled water at Wal-Mart! The money she said she didn’t have got wasted on something you already own. The water is all of ours, the city charges you for the processing of water to give you a good product and pay for pipelines and infrastructure. Then there is Hydraulic Fracturing (otherwise known as “Fracking” for Natural Gas. Trillions of gallons of water just to push into the ground never to return as drinkable or even touchable. Thank God we are not in the way of the “Marcellus Oil Shale” We are at the tail end of the Appalachians or they would it here too. The entire Delaware Basin is poisoned at this point, supplying water to Delaware, Philly, N.Y., Baltimore, and almost every major city along the Eastern Seaboard. The Lobbyists for these companies pay a pittance for the land and rake Trillions of dollars in profit. This is all caused by what is known as the “Halliburton Loophole”. Former Vice president Dick Cheney is the C.E.O of the largest of these polluters, Halliburton. His first official act was to make it the only industry exempt from the “Clean Water Act” What!? Then the rush was on and now more water is wasted than ever.
What can you do? Think about it a little when you buy water, turn it over, if there is a 1 in the recycle emblem, your being poisoned. Now some are using different plastics to shut people like me up, but I am not confused. I look up all the changes to the bottles and the water methods of “Purifying”. An industry that large cannot be allowed to regulate themselves. What if BP was exempt from the “Clean Water Act”? They get in their ships and go back home to England and don’t pay a dime to clean up anything. When I asked our representative who I should, but will not name (unless you ask me) he said the energy self reliance of America was more important to act against polluters in Big Industry. Point Blank! Money over Wellness! There is enough Water for “Need not for Greed” (Gandhi) Open your new eyes and look around1 There are better ways to make your water convenient. Chef Tom Morrison C.E.C. – Griffin, Ga.
Thanks To the many people who contributed to my learning experience!
Theresa Morrison – (My wife) for putting up with my non-stop ranting!
Daniel Morrison – ( My 11 year old son, who sees things through a kids eyes and asks questions I have to go find out about! )
Brant Keller – City of Griffin Water Dept.
City of Griffin Waterworks
Tapped – The Movie
L.T. Atkinson – “Fracking Activist”
Gasland – The Movie (Did you ever see water catch on fire out of the tap?)
Flow – The Movie
Laura Newton – Multi-pure Corp. – Water conservationist
Katrina Oakley – Multi-pure Corp. – Water conservationist
.
enraged911 