Monsanto’s Monstrous History!

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How Monsanto Went From Selling Aspirin to Controlling Our Food Supply

Monsanto controls our food, poisons our land, and influences all three branches of government.

Forty percent of the crops grown in the United States contain their genes. They produce the world’s top selling herbicide. Several of their factories are now toxic Superfund sites. They spend millions lobbying the government each year. It’s time we take a closer look at who’s controlling our food, poisoning our land, and influencing all three branches of government. To do that, the watchdog group Food and Water Watch recently published a corporate profile of Monsanto.

Patty Lovera, Food and Water Watch assistant director, says they decided to focus on Monsanto because they felt a need to “put together a piece where people can see all of the aspects of this company.”

“It really strikes us when we talk about how clear it is that this is a chemical company that wanted to expand its reach,” she says. “A chemical company that started buying up seed companies.” She feels it’s important “for food activists to understand all of the ties between the seeds and the chemicals.”

Monsanto the Chemical Company

Monsanto was founded as a chemical company in 1901, named for the maiden name of its founder’s wife. Its first product was the artificial sweetener saccharin. The company’s own telling of its history emphasizes its agricultural products, skipping forward from its founding to 1945, when it began manufacturing agrochemicals like the herbicide 2,4-D.

Prior to its entry into the agricultural market, Monsanto produced some harmless – even beneficial! – products like aspirin. It also made plastics, synthetic rubber, caffeine, and vanillin, an artificial vanilla flavoring. On the not-so-harmless side, it began producing toxic PCBs in the 1930s.

According to the new report, a whopping 99 percent of all PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, used in the U.S. were produced at a single Monsanto plant in Sauget, IL. The plant churned out toxic PCBs from the 1930s until they were banned in 1976. Used as coolants and lubricants in electronics, PCBs are carcinogenic and harmful to the liver, endocrine system, immune system, reproductive system, developmental system, skin, eye, and brain.

Even after the initial 1982 cleanup of this plant, Sauget is still home to two Superfund sites. (A Superfund site is defined by the EPA as “an uncontrolled or abandoned place where hazardous waste is located, possibly affecting local ecosystems or people.”) This is just one of several Monsanto facilities that became Superfund sites.

Monsanto’s Shift to Agriculture

Despite its modern-day emphasis on agriculture, Monsanto did not even create an agricultural division within the company until 1960. It soon began churning out new pesticides, each colorfully named under a rugged Western theme: Lasso, Roundup, Warrant, Lariat, Bullet, Harness, etc.

Left out of Monsanto’s version of its historical highlights is an herbicide called Agent Orange. The defoliant, a mix of herbicides 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, was used extensively during the war in Vietnam. The nearly 19 million gallons sprayed in that country between 1962 and 1971 were contaminated with dioxin, a carcinogen so potent that it is measured and regulated at concentrations of parts per trillion. Dioxin was created as a byproduct of Agent Orange’s manufacturing process, and both American veterans and Vietnamese people suffered health problems from the herbicide’s use.

Monsanto’s fortunes changed forever in 1982, when it genetically engineered a plant cell. The team responsible, led by Ernest Jaworski, consisted of Robb Fraley, Stephen Rogers, and Robert Horsch. Today, Fraley is Monsanto’s executive vice president and chief technology officer. Horsch also rose to the level of vice president at Monsanto, but he left after 25 years to join the Gates Foundation. There, he works on increasing crop yields in Sub-Saharan Africa. Together, the team received the National Medal of Technology from President Clinton in 1998.

The company did not shift its focus from chemicals to genetically engineered seeds overnight. In fact, it was another 12 years before it commercialized the first genetically engineered product, recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH), a controversial hormone used to make dairy cows produce more milk. And it was not until 1996 that it first brought genetically engineered seeds, Roundup Ready soybeans, onto the market.

By 2000, the company had undergone such a sea change from its founding a century before that it claims it is almost a different company. In Monsanto’s telling of its own history, it emphasizes a split between the “original” Monsanto Company and the Monsanto Company of today. In 2000, the Monsanto Company entered a merger and changed its name to Pharmacia. The newly formed Pharmacia then spun off its agricultural division as an independent company named Monsanto Company.

Do the mergers and spinoffs excuse Monsanto for the sins of the past committed by the company bearing the same name? Lovera does not think so. “I’m sure there’s some liability issues they have to deal with – their various production plants that are now superfund sites,” she responds. “So I’m sure there was legal thinking about which balance sheet you put those liabilities on” when the company split. She adds that the notion that today’s Monsanto is not the same as the historical Monsanto that made PCBs is “a nice PR bullet for them.”

But, she adds, “even taking that at face value, that they are an agriculture company now, they are still producing seeds that are made to be used with chemicals they produce.” For example, Roundup herbicide alone made up more than a quarter of their sales in 2011. The proportion of their business devoted to chemicals is by no means insignificant.

Monsanto’s pesticide product line includes a number of chemicals named as Bad Actors by Pesticide Action Network. They include Alachlor (a carcinogen, water contaminant, developmental/reproductive toxin, and a suspected endocrine disruptor), Acetochlor (a carcinogen and suspected endocrine disruptor), Atrazine (a carcinogen and suspected endocrine disruptor), Clopyralid (high acute toxicity), Dicamba (developmental/reproductive toxin), and Thiodicarb (a carcinogen and cholinesterase inhibitor).

Roundup: The Benign Herbicide?

Defenders of Monsanto might reply to the charge that Roundup is no Agent Orange. In fact, the herbicide is viewed as so benign and yet effective that its inventor, John E. Franz, won the National Medal of Technology. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, kills everything green and growing, but according to Monsanto, it only affects a metabolic pathway in plants, so it does not harm animals. It’s also said to break down quickly in the soil, leaving few traces on the environment after its done its job.

Asked about the harmlessness of Roundup, Lovera replies, “That’s the PR behind Roundup – how benign it was and you can drink it and there’s nothing to worry about here. There are people who dispute that.” For example there is an accusation that Roundup causes birth defects. “We don’t buy the benign theory,” continues Lovera, “But what’s really interesting is that we aren’t going to be having this conversation pretty soon because Roundup isn’t working anymore.”

Lovera is referring to “Roundup-resistant weeds,” weeds that have evolved in the past decade and a half to survive being sprayed by Roundup. Nearly all soybeans grown in the United States is Monsanto’s genetically engineered Roundup Ready variety, as are 80 percent of cotton and 73 percent of corn. Farmers spray entire fields with Roundup, killing only the weeds while the Roundup Ready crops survive. With such heavy use of Roundup on America’s farmfields, any weed – maybe one in a million – with an ability to survive in that environment would survive and pass on its genes in its seeds.

By 1998, just two years after the introduction of Roundup Ready soybeans, scientists documented the first Roundup-resistant weed. A second was found in 2000, and three more popped up in 2004. To date, there are 24 different weedsthat have evolved resistance to Roundup worldwide. And once they invade a farmer’s field, it doesn’t matter if his crops are Roundup-resistant, because Roundup won’t work anymore. Either the weeds get to stay, or the farmer needs to find a new chemical, pull the weeds by hand, or find some other way to deal with the problem.

“We’ve wasted Roundup by overusing it,” says Lovera. She and other food activists worry about the harsher chemicals that farmers are switching to, and the genetically engineered crops companies like Monsanto are developing to use with them.

Currently, there are genetically engineered crops waiting for government approval that are made to tolerate the herbicides 2,4-D, Dicamba and Isoxaflutole. (These are not all from Monsanto – some are from their competitors.) None of these chemicals are as “benign” as Roundup. Isoxaflutole is, in fact, a carcinogen. Let’s spray that on our food!

Corporate Control of Seeds

No discussion of Monsanto is complete without a mention of the immense amount of control it exerts on the seed industry.

“What it boils down to is between them buying seed companies outright, their incredible aggressive legal maneuvering, their patenting of everything, and their enforcement of those patents, they really have locked up a huge part of the seed supply,” notes Lovera. “So they just exercise an unprecedented control over the entire seed sector. Monsanto products constitute 40 percent of all crop acres in the country.”

Monsanto began buying seed companies as far back as 1982. (One can see an infographic of seed industry consolidation here.) Some of Monsanto’s most significant purchases were Asgrow (soybeans), Delta and Pine Land (cotton), DeKalb (corn), and Seminis (vegetables). One that deserves special mention is their purchase of Holden’s Foundation Seeds in 1997.

George Naylor, an Iowa farmer who grows corn and soybeans, calls Holden’s “The independent source of germplasm for corn.” Small seed companies could buy inbred lines from Holden’s to cross them and produce their own hybrids. Large seed companies like Pioneer did their own breeding, but small operations relied on Holden’s or Iowa State University. But Iowa State got out of the game and Monsanto bought Holden’s.

Monsanto’s tactics for squashing its competition are perhaps unrivaled. They use their power to get seed dealers to not to stock many of their competitors products, for example. When licensing their patented genetically engineered traits to seed companies, they restrict the seed companies’ ability to combine Monsanto’s traits with those of their competitors. And, famously, farmers who plant Monsanto’s patented seeds sign contracts prohibiting them from saving and replanting their seeds. Yet, to date, U.S. antitrust laws have not clamped down on these practices.

With the concentrated control of the seed industry, farmers already complain of lack of options. For example, Naylor says he’s had a hard time finding non-genetically engineered soybean seeds. Most corn seeds are now pre-treated with pesticides, so farmers wishing to find untreated seeds will have a tough time finding any. Once a company or a handful of companies control an entire market, then they can choose what to sell and at what price to sell it.

Furthermore, if our crops are too genetically homogenous, then they are vulnerable to a single disease or pest that can wipe them out. When farmers grow genetically diverse crops, then there is a greater chance that one variety or another will have resistance to new diseases. In that way, growing genetically diverse crops is like having insurance, or like diversifying your risk within your stock portfolio.

Food and Water Watch Recommendations

At the end of its report, Food and Water Watch lists several recommendations. “There are a lot of ways that government policy could address the Monsanto hold on the food supply,” explains Lovera. “The most important thing is that it’s time to stop approval of genetically engineered crops to stop this arms race of the next crop and the next chemical.”

She also calls Monsanto “the poster child for the need for antitrust enforcement” – something that the Justice Department has yet to successfully deliver up. In fact, last November the government ended a three-year antitrust investigation of Monsanto.

A third recommendation Lovera hopes becomes a reality is mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods. “If we had that label and we put that information in consumers’ hands, they could do more to avoid this company in their day-to-day lives,” she says.

In the meantime, all consumers can do to avoid genetically engineered foods is to buy organic for the handful of crops that are genetically engineered: corn, soybeans, canola, cotton, papaya, sugar beets, and alfalfa.

Source:  http://www.alternet.org/food/how-monsanto-went-selling-aspirin-controlling-our-food-supply?paging=off

 

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A Tipping Point In The Financial System

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Business, Cyprus, Deposit account, derivatives, derivatives collapse, economic collapse, economic meltdown, European Union, global crisis, Gold as an investment, Precious metal, Shopping, silver, stock market, stock market crash, U.S, U.S. Government, United States

I have been warning about this since the fall of 2005! I urged buying gold and silver while it was still cheap. It’s not cheap anymore!

 

Our World’s ‘Dead Zones’ & Why They Are There!

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Atlantic Ocean, Dead Zone, Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, Marine biology, Mississippi, Mississippi River, Oil spill

From this

To this

Coral bleaching is on the rise thanks to warming waters throughout the world due to global warming and man-made chemicals dumped into our waters.  As the world heats up, our fresh water ice caps melt.  Devastating consequences due to global warming include fresh water entering our oceans’ natural currents from the Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.  This fresh water slows down the oceans’ natural salt water flow, and will eventually halt our oceans’ currents causing even bigger problems for humanity!

That is a whole different story, however it relates to increasing dead zones in saltwater and freshwater bodies thanks to man-made global warming due to the burning of finite fossil fuels.  Global warming and the dumping and runoff of man-made chemicals are destroying the Gulf of Mexico, oceans, seas and large freshwater sources like the Great Lakes.  Our world relies on these waters to help sustain our seafood supplies and shrinking sources of freshwater which are vital to help sustain a overpopulated earth.

Let’s take a look at one specific area, the Gulf of Mexico, which explains why we are experiencing massive coral reef bleaching, and the deaths and disappearances of fish and other sea creatures.

The most current map of dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico may not reflect BP’s massive oil spill on April 20, 2010.  It does not take into consideration that BP’s oil spill killed off a large, untold number of species of ocean dwellers like the 29 marine mammals that live in the gulf including dolphins and whales.  Why does the Gulf of Mexico have huge areas where the waters are devoid of most or all living organisms? There are two main reasons.

One factor is the shallow water depths in the Gulf of Mexico which is the world’s ninth largest body of water if technically separated from the Atlantic Ocean.  The average water temperature of the gulf during the summer months ranges from the upper 70’s to upper 80’s.  90 degree waters are not uncommon, and marine life cannot live in what is close to bath water temperatures for humans!  Why do you think hurricanes that enter the gulf during the warm months gain so much energy?  The weather systems have two forces that they need which are extremely warm water and hot temperatures to help them morph from a tropical storm into a enormously destructive hurricane.  Global warming has caused not just air temperatures to rise but water temperatures to increase as well.  Coral reefs are fragile, and they cannot live in such a warm, polluted environment.

The other synthetic reason why our oceans and the Gulf of Mexico are experiencing slow to rapid die-offs of coral reefs and the various forms of marine life that rely on them as a inter-connected life support system is man-made chemical waste.  Is it just coincidence that the ‘Dead Zone’ in the gulf is near where the Mississippi River flows into it?  Fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide run-off from farms flow into tributaries of the Mississippi River and directly into the river itself.  Industrial farms and factories have uncontrolled flows of pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorous that ultimately end up in the Gulf of Mexico where they create algae blooms and oxygen depletion.  No oxygen = no life.  Other major toxins enter our waters via illegal dumping of chemical waste that companies purposely do, because they do not want to deal with the expense of properly disposing of their garbage or toxic waste.  Any trash that enters the Mississippi River will end up in the Gulf of Mexico, and it will kill or scare off all marine life, thus creating ‘Dead Zones.’

What about what is already in the Gulf of Mexico?  That limited source of energy that we spend more energy to get at than what it actually produces:  Oil!  Take a look at the number of oil platforms in the gulf along with their locations, and think about the tainting of water and the life in it due to drilling for oil!

Then acknowledge that drilling for oil results in oil spills which have a profound and lasting effect on the environment in general including the Gulf of Mexico:

This is a U.S. problem, but it is not limited to just America!  Take a look at the dead zones throughout the world as we heat up, melt away, and pollute like there is no tomorrow!

Notice that even the Great Lakes, the world’s largest source of freshwater, is in trouble directly due to pollution including plastics!  There are vast areas in the oceans too that are nothing more than giant, floating garbage dump sites!  This is the way we treat our planet, and the dying of our oceans’ and other waterways’ is akin to the ‘Canary in the Coalmine’ scenario.  Unless we drastically alter the course of society’s sails, then we are in for some rough waters ahead!

by John E Loeffler – Fountain City, Wisconsin

Sources:  http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/index.html

http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/bp-gulf-oil-spill-cheat-sheet-a-timeline-of-unfortunate-events.html

http://marinelife.about.com/od/habitatprofiles/tp/GulfofMexicoMarineLife.htm

http://www.ehow.com/list_6330428_ten-largest-bodies-water.html

http://weather.weatherbug.com/beach-and-boating/coastal-water-temperatures.html?bb_regionid=4&zcode=z6286

http://weather.weatherbug.com/beach-and-boating/coastal-water-temperatures.html?bb_regionid=5&zcode=z6286

http://deepseanews.com/2010/06/oil-platforms-in-the-gulf-how-many-and-who-owns-them/

The Chart That Proves That The Mainstream Media Is Lying To You About Unemployment

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American, Americans, Capital Economics, Employment-to-population ratio, Federal Reserve, Federal Reserve System, Obama Administration, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paul Ashworth, United States

March 10th, 2013  by The Economic Collapse

The mainstream media is absolutely giddy that the U.S. unemployment rate has hit a “four-year low” of 7.7 percent.  But is unemployment in the United States actually going down?  After all, you would think that it should be.  The Obama administration has “borrowed” more than 6 trillion dollars from future generations of Americans, interest rates have been pushed to all-time lows, and the Federal Reserve has been wildly printing more money in a desperate attempt to “stimulate” the economy.  So have those efforts been successful?  Well, according to the mainstream media, the U.S. unemployment rate is falling steadily.  Headlines all over the nation boldly declared that “236,000 jobs” were added to the economy in February, but what they didn’t tell you was that the number of Americans “not in the labor force” rose by 296,000.  And that is how they are getting the unemployment rate to go down – by pretending that huge numbers of unemployed Americans don’t want jobs.  Sadly, as you will see below, the truth is that the percentage of working age Americans that have a job is just 0.1% higher than it was exactly three years ago.  And we have not even come close to getting back to where we were before the last economic crisis.  For example, more than 146 million Americans were employed back in 2007.  But today, only 142.2 million Americans have a job even though our population has grown steadily since then.  So where in the world is this “economic recovery” that they keep talking about?

At this point, the “unemployment rate” has become so meaningless that it really isn’t even worth paying much attention to.  If you really want to know what the employment picture looks like in the United States, you need to look at the employment-population ratio.

As Wikipedia tells us, many economists consider the employment-population ratio to be far superior to other measurements of employment…

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development defines the employment rateas the employment-to-population ratio. The employment-population ratio is many American economist’s favorite gauge of the American jobs picture. According to Paul Ashworth, chief North American economist for Capital Economics, “The employment population ratio is the best measure of labor market conditions.” This is a statistical ratiothat measures the proportion of the country’s working-age population (ages 15 to 64 in most OECD countries) that is employed. This includes people that have stopped looking for work.

A chart of the employment-population ratio in the United States over the past several years is posted below…

As you can see, the percentage of Americans with a job fell from about 63 percent to below 59 percent during the last economic crisis.  Since that time, it has not risen back above 59 percent.  This is the first time in the post-World War II era that we have not seen the employment rate bounce back following a recession.  At this point, the employment-population ratio has been below 59 percent for 42 months in a row.

Yes, we should be thankful that things have stabilized, but as you can see there has been no recovery.  The percentage of Americans with a job is essentially exactly where it was three years ago.  Despite the trillions of dollars that the U.S. government has borrowed, and despite the reckless money printing that the Federal Reserve has been doing, the employment situation in the U.S. has not turned around.

Data for the employment-population ratio from the beginning of 2008is posted below…

2008-01-01 62.9
2008-02-01 62.8
2008-03-01 62.7
2008-04-01 62.7
2008-05-01 62.5
2008-06-01 62.4
2008-07-01 62.2
2008-08-01 62.0
2008-09-01 61.9
2008-10-01 61.7
2008-11-01 61.4
2008-12-01 61.0
2009-01-01 60.6
2009-02-01 60.3
2009-03-01 59.9
2009-04-01 59.8
2009-05-01 59.6
2009-06-01 59.4
2009-07-01 59.3
2009-08-01 59.1
2009-09-01 58.7
2009-10-01 58.5
2009-11-01 58.6
2009-12-01 58.3
2010-01-01 58.5
2010-02-01 58.5
2010-03-01 58.5
2010-04-01 58.7
2010-05-01 58.6
2010-06-01 58.5
2010-07-01 58.5
2010-08-01 58.5
2010-09-01 58.5
2010-10-01 58.3
2010-11-01 58.2
2010-12-01 58.3
2011-01-01 58.3
2011-02-01 58.4
2011-03-01 58.4
2011-04-01 58.4
2011-05-01 58.4
2011-06-01 58.2
2011-07-01 58.2
2011-08-01 58.3
2011-09-01 58.4
2011-10-01 58.4
2011-11-01 58.5
2011-12-01 58.6
2012-01-01 58.5
2012-02-01 58.6
2012-03-01 58.5
2012-04-01 58.5
2012-05-01 58.6
2012-06-01 58.6
2012-07-01 58.5
2012-08-01 58.4
2012-09-01 58.7
2012-10-01 58.7
2012-11-01 58.7
2012-12-01 58.6
2013-01-01 58.6
2013-02-01 58.6

So is there anyone out there that still wants to insist that the employment picture in the United States is getting significantly better?

Anyone that wants to claim that “unemployment is going down” should at least wait until the unemployment-population ratio gets back up to 59 percent.  Otherwise they just look foolish.

Yes, the Dow is at an all-time high right now.  But a bubble is always the biggest right before it bursts.

Most Americans understand that the Dow has been pumped up with all of the funny money that the Fed has been printing.  Most Americans understand that the stock market really does not accurately reflect the health of the U.S. economy as a whole.

Just consider these numbers…

-The number of homeless people sleeping in homeless shelters in New York City has increased by 19 percent over the past year.

-The number of Americans on food stamps has risen from 32 million to 47 million while Barack Obama has been in the White House.

-According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either “poor” or “low income” at this point.

-Median household income in the United States has fallen for four consecutive years.

No, the truth is that everything is most definitely not fine.

If everything is fine, then why did the Federal Reserve inject another 100 billion dollars into foreign banks during the last full week of February?

The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve are desperately trying to prop up the entire global economy.  Unfortunately, the global financial system has been built on a foundation of sand and the tide is coming in.

Back in 2008, a derivatives crisis was one of the primary causes of the worst financial panic since the Great Depression.

So did we learn our lesson?

No, the boys on Wall Street are back at it again as a recent article by Jim Armitage described…

Historically, stock markets, being driven by humans, have tended to have a similar length memory of catastrophes, before making the same dumb mistakes again.

But it hasn’t even been five years since derivatives (on that occasion based on daft mortgages) blew up the world, and yet these exotic creatures have already returned. With a vengeance.

Research from Thomson Reuters declared that banks were creating more derivatives known as asset-backed securities than at any time since before the Lehman Brothers crash. Of those, 22 percent were made up of – and forgive me the alphabet soup here – CDOs and CLOs. The very type of derivatives that exploded last time. At this stage last year, only 6 percent fell into those categories.

In other words, banks are creating more of the riskiest types of the riskiest products.

At some point, we will have another derivatives crisis even worse than the last one.

When that happens, financial markets all over the globe will crash, economic activity will grind to a standstill and unemployment will go skyrocketing once again.

But as you saw above, we have never even come close to recovering from the last crisis.

So you can believe the mind-numbing propaganda that the mainstream media is trying to feed you if you want.  Unfortunately, the reality of the matter is that we have not recovered from the last major economic crisis, and another one is rapidly approaching.

I hope that you are getting ready.

Source:  http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-chart-that-proves-that-the-mainstream-media-is-lying-to-you-about-unemployment

 

Americans Still Confused, Uneducated About GMOs!

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Adults, America, Americans, Canada, Confusion, crop, Education, environment, Genetic engineering, Genetically modified food, Genetically modified organism, Genetically Modified Organisms, Genetics, GMO Ban, GMO restrictions, GMOs, Huffington Post, Interviews, Monsanto, North America, Poll, Polls, surveys, U.S., Uneducated, United States, United States of America

Omnibus Poll – Huffington Post
Sample 1000 Adult Interviews
Conducted February 28 – March 1, 2013
Margin of Error 3.6%

1. How much have you heard about companies developing genetically modified crops to make
them grow faster or bigger, or to resist bugs, weeds, disease, herbicides or pesticides?
Heard a lot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22%
Heard a little . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48%
Heard nothing at all . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25%
Not sure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6%

2. Should companies that develop genetically modified crops be allowed to patent the crops
that they develop?
Yes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28%
No . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33%
Not sure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39%

3. Based on what you’ve heard, do you think that foods containing genetically modified
ingredients are generally safe to eat or dangerous to eat?
Safe to eat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21%
Dangerous to eat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35%
Not sure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44%

4. Based on what you’ve heard, do you think growing genetically modified crops is generally
good for the environment or bad for the environment, or does it have no impact?
Good for the environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8%
Bad for the environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35%
No impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18%
Not sure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39%

5. Do you think foods that contain genetically modified ingredients should be labeled indicating
that, or do you think that’s not necessary?
They should be labeled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82%
It’s not necessary to label them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9%
Not sure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8%

Source:  http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/toplinesbgmo304.pdf

 

Welcome to Sand Fracking Country & Glacier Sands LLC!

Tags

breaking, Brian Iverson, cancer, cancer-causing, Cancerous, carcinogen, Carcinogenic, Clean Air Act, Clean Energy Act, Clean Water Act, criminal, Crystalline Silica, environmental, environmental disaster, Frack Sand, fracking, fraud, fraudulent, Glacier Sands LLC, greed, greedy, Horizontal Fracking, Hydraulic Fracking, hydraulic fracturing, Ike Thomas, known carcinogens, law, Minnesota, Mississippi River, money, Monopolies, monopoly, poison, poisonous, power, power-hungry, Ryan Thomas, Sand, Sand Fracking, Seven Sands LLC, Silica, Silica or Sand Fracking, Silicosis, Snake, snakes, Texas, Toxic, Toxic Chemicals, violations, Wisconsin

Is that not a pretty picture?  It is what happens to our land when we rely on finite sources of dirty fossil fuel energy.  Say goodbye to the trees, the animals, and a clean environment!  The picture is not of a Hydraulic Fracturing or Fracking site.  It is a picture of the lesser known Sand Fracking that goes on to supply the needed Silica sand for the extremely toxic Hydraulic Fracking process of which there are now 65,000 wells and counting throughout the U.S.

The premium sand that is ideal for Hydraulic Fracturing or Horizontal Fracturing has been found by businessmen, mainly from Texas, and the high quality sand is in Wisconsin and Minnesota!  A little-known company called Glacier Sands LLC a.k.a. Seven Sands LLC is responsible for this “gold rush” in the Sand Fracking industry. Their webpage looks innocent, but looks can be deceiving!

Speaking of deception, welcome to Glacier Sands LLC’s Leadership:  http://glaciersands.com/about-glacier-sands/leadership/

Let’s break down three key people in their leadership:  Brian Iverson, Ryan Thomas and Ike Thomas.  Brian Iverson drew the attention of Texas businessmen Ike and Ryan Thomas, and he formally set up Glacier Sands LLC a.k.a. Seven Sands LLC in 2011 using a Wisconsin address although he lived in Minnesota.  Brian Iverson has not only been accused of investment fraud related to a group of mining investors from Montana, but he also filed bankruptcy a little over two years ago to cover over $21 million of debt he accrued related to former business deals “and personal guaranties he gave as security for business loans.”  Source: http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2012/07/09/frac-sand-or-farmland-wisconsin-farmers-face-showdown-rescheduled-august-9

Boy, this Brian Iverson guy sounds like bad news!  He’s shady at best, and he has hooked up with two Texas businessmen since 2011 to completely destroy (see picture above) Wisconsin and Minnesota’s pristine environment by slithering in like a snake to slowly poison innocent citizens who have lived here for generations.  What for? GREED, of course!  Brian Iverson needed help to become financially successful, because he has a dirty past of screwing people over, then filing bankruptcy for his losses!  Iverson is the epitome of selfishness!  He obviously does not care about people in general or his workers, since I am sure he is aware of the dangers of Silicosis and cancer.

Sand Fracking for Crystalline Silica is known to cause Silicosis and cancer.  Source:  OSHA:  http://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_General_Facts/crystalline-factsheet.pdf  The Silica sand from Sand Fracking can blow for miles if not continually watered down according to lame government standards.  At best, the Crystalline Silica produced from Sand Fracking to use in Hydraulic Fracking will only affect nearby areas to include the Mississippi River.  That is bad enough if you live in a state where Sand Fracking sites are popping up faster than they can be properly studied for health risks before approval!  Without proper studies on the harmful effects and affects of fracking, county boards like Buffalo County, WI just delay the permit for Sand Fracking until all of the ‘angry citizen’ dust has settled.  Then, they go in and vote 3-0 in favor of what nobody wants except for the dirty fossil fuel industry and big business like Glacier Sands LLC!  I wonder how many board members and other officials get paid to pass legislation for mining that is NOT wanted by a vast majority of U.S. citizens in general?  Probably more than one can possibly imagine!  Brian Iverson had help from Ike and Ryan Thomas though.  Anything coming out of the most polluted state (Texas) in the U.S. for over a decade and running cannot be good!

Ike Thomas’s Linked in profile suggests a man with deep roots in dirty energy and big business: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=135550272&authType=name&authToken=3tMX&locale=en_US&goback=%2Enpv_135550272_*1_*1_name_3tMX_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1  He has a company called JusRyn (President since 1980) that is not only hard to find (a red flag), but when you do find Ike’s company it’s listed in the white or yellow pages!  This seems a bit fishy to me, but what do you expect from a Texas businessman?  What about Ryan Thomas?  His Linked in profile says it all including bragging about being a Frack Sand supplier!  He has similar business roots like Ike Thomas with dirty mining and dirty energy leading the way:  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ryan-thomas/18/592/664.

Is this what our country wants?  A monkey barrel of bullies overrunning our local governments to feed their lust for money and power?  Apparently so, because I do not see anyone standing up en masse to protest fraudulent businessmen.  Businessmen who sucker farmers or anyone else with many acres of land via a greed-laden but small payout for ruining not only the farmer’s or individual’s land, but the land, water, complete infrastructure to include roads and buildings of towns and cities, and health of humans and animals!

Do you think that Glacier Sands or any other “Fracking” business is going to pay for human health problems which show up years or decades later, or the contamination of our land and water in general?  They will be long gone by the time we catch up to the mess they have left behind!  Taxpayers, as usual, will be stuck cleaning up dirty mining’s mess due to lack of current concern or ability to do much of anything to stop the Sand Fracking nightmare that consumes Wisconsin and Minnesota!  It’s such a shame too, because if you can stop the Sand Fracking from happening then you can halt the even more dangerous Hydraulic Fracturing or Fracking that uses Crystalline Silica in large quantities.  Fracking, like Glacier Sands is doing, has already turned America’s landscape from this

To This:

By John Loeffler – Fountain City, Wisconsin

Sources:

Glacier Sands:  http://glaciersands.com/about-glacier-sands/leadership/

Twin Cities Daily Planet:  Frac Sand or Farmland: Wisconsin farmers face showdown  http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/news/2012/07/09/frac-sand-or-farmland-wisconsin-farmers-face-showdown-rescheduled-august-9

OSHA Fact Sheet:  http://www.osha.gov/OshDoc/data_General_Facts/crystalline-factsheet.pdf

Jusryn Inc.:   http://www.directorycentral.com/business/tx/granbury/jusryn-inc-2814118.html

Loopholes Shield Fracking Industry While Families Pay the Price!

Tags

Hagy family, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania

02-27-2013 Ecowatch

Laurel Peltier

In 1989, Dusty and Tamera Hagy bought 81 rural acres in Jackson County, West Virginia. Twenty-one years later, the Hagys sued four natural gas drilling firms alleging the natural gas wells drilled on their property in 2008 contaminated their drinking water and caused physical harm.

The Hagys’ water contamination lawsuit demonstrates how the natural gas industry has built a near-perfect “federal legal exemption’s framework” that when combined with lax or absent state regulations and the legal system’s high costs, inherently approves of citizen collateral damage with no restitution.

The consequence of this framework is that the burden of proof is placed on plaintiffs who, at best, are forced to settle with natural gas companies, thereby sealing the case from public scrutiny, scientific examination and legal precedence. Because the Hagys didn’t sign a non-disclosure agreement with the natural gas companies involved, their legal case gives the public a rare window into how fracking lawsuits play out in reality.

Natural gas is a critical resource. Fifty percent of American residences use natural gas. Natural gas is seen by some as a bridge fuel essential to the U.S.’s strategy to gain energy independence from foreign oil imports. Yet we must ask ourselves: Is the current fracking system one we should support? Are changes needed to level the playing field for all parties involved in fracking? Can fracking be done safely?

The land man cometh

Dusty and Tamera Hagy unwittingly fell into the fracking trap the day they bought their land in 1989. “We loved our 81-acre property, it was our life. We had paid off the mortgage and spent a lot of money fixing the place up. We raised our two boys there, buried our animals there and were  planning to give our boys some property,” said Dusty Hagy.

Mineral rights, fracking chemicals and natural gas federal environmental laws were all Greek to the Hagy family before a pleasant Equitable Production Company representative visited the couple in October 2007.

Equitable Production Company’s representative informed the Hagys that four natural gas wells were soon to be drilled on their property about 1,000 feet up the hill from their home.

In West Virginia, surface land ownership is separate from mineral rights. Mineral rights are the portion of the profits received from minerals extracted from land. Another party owns the Hagy property’s mineral rights which were granted hundreds of years ago. The Hagy family receives no gas royalties and didn’t sign a formal gas leasing contract, though, they did sign plenty of “papers” believing they did not have a choice.

Fracking starts – trucks, noise, explosions, and chemicals

On Nov. 11, 2007, trucks, back hoes, tree cutters and workers converged on the Hagy property uphill and upstream from their home. Equitable outsourced the drilling to BJ Services and for the next six months the holler, or enclosed valley, was flattened for a six-acre natural gas well pad.

Tamera Hagy describes life during the drilling and fracking: “It was nothing like what I had expected. This was a huge operation that lasted day and night for eight months. Trucks went up and down the road 24/7. The smell of fumes would make you sick. One night we heard something like a giant drill bit drilling and vibrating under our house.”

Dusty visited the well pad often and learned from the job crew that this fracking job wasn’t going smoothly. One worker mentioned that they had hit a lake of water and were moving the rig. Another worker shared in this audio tape #3 how the cement casing “went bad” and was re-cemented. Of the four open and lined fracking wastewater ponds, one overflowed and later broke, spilling the fracking wastewater into the nearby creek that flows from the well pad past the Hagy family’s home. In March 2008, Dusty noticed that another fracking pond’s wastewater was emptied by hose into the woods. After finding foam and oil slicks in the creek next to their well, and then when their large pond turned green, the Hagys knew something wasn’t right.

Dusty lodged a formal complaint with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on Nov. 17, 2008. DEP records reveal a gas inspector visited the site at the well’s completion and issued no violations. DEP records also reveal the three natural gas wells began producing gas in July 2008 and the wells today continue to produce about 3,000 m.c.f. of gas per month.

Be careful what you sign

As Dusty describes the Equitable representative, “We liked him, and he was a nice enough guy in the beginning and we believed everything he told us at face value.” Equitable said the natural gas drilling was simple and would cause minimal damage on 1.5 acres. When Dusty asked if fracking used anything dangerous, they were told that only water and sand were used, no chemicals were ever mentioned. A water test prior to drilling supported the Hagy’s belief that their water well was clean and safe.

On Oct. 22, 2007, Equitable paid the Hagys $19,000 to cover surface damages to their land and trees because building a well pad trashes the landscape. “I believed the Equitable guy when he said the check was just for surface damages. My property was valued at nearly $200,000. It was stupid to sign that paper, I should have gotten a lawyer,” explained Dusty. Because the well pads used more than the original 1.5 acres, Equitable paid the couple another $10,000 for damage on an additional four acres.

Later in 2008, Dusty learned the papers they had signed to receive the payments were actually damage release contracts attempting to exempt Equitable, and all drilling providers, from any and all damages associated with the drilling. “Other than shooting the family dog, this ‘contract’ covered near everything,” said Dusty Hagy.

Family gets sick—headaches, rashes and vomiting

The family drank, bathed and cooked with their well water from November 2007 to November 2008 during the gas well drilling and fracking. Ironically, the Hagy family had boasted about their pristine well water and even after their adult sons moved out, the boys brought jugs of well water back to their homes.

The Hagys began to notice changes to their water in early 2008. Their water volume was dropping and the water’s color changed from clear to brown. Often black particles were floating in water drawn from their well. Despite overwhelming evidence otherwise, Equitable never reported any issues that would impact the Hagys’ well water.

Adding to the changing water quality, both Dusty and Tamera said they were oddly tired, and woke up with “bad headaches, like a hangover.” Both smelled an “acid” odor in the house and their eyes would burn in certain rooms.

The Hagys didn’t put “two plus two together” until their youngest son went to his family doctor in Columbus, Ohio in October 2008. Their son had complained of nausea and was spitting up blood. His doctor treated him for acid reflux, a disorder he’d never experienced before, and suggested he stop drinking his parent’s well water. The son’s symptoms disappeared soon after he discontinued drinking his parent’s well water.

Tamera Hagy developed a rash that her primary care physician diagnosed as contact dermatitis, a skin inflammation caused by a foreign source. Expert medical testimony in court documents reveal the Hagys’ health symptoms mirrored chemical exposure.

Water tests reveal drinking water was bad and Hagys vacate property

Based on their complaints, Equitable re-tested the Hagy water well on Nov. 8, 2008 and their water had clearly changed. The turbidity, or murkiness, was six times greater post drilling (0.5 to 3.2) and iron, manganese and calcium levels increased significantly (Dusty replaced one hot water heater during this time due to calcium build-up).

Water tests conducted later also revealed arsenic, lead, barium and Bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate, an organic compound linked to fracking wastewater. The radon levels of the Hagy well were 1,233 pCi/l with the maximum contaminant level set at 300. When those radon levels were compared to area wells, the Hagy’s radon in their drinking water was markedly higher than eight local U.S. Geologic Survey wells in the area.

However, the water tests conducted before and after drilling were limited and included no tests for known fracking chemicals or volatile organic compounds.

In November 2008, Equitable told the couple, “the water was bad” and to stop drinking the well water and the company began supplying bottled drinking water.

On Jan. 13, 2009, Dusty and Tamera vacated their home and have never moved back. “We thought we were going to die,” said Dusty Hagy.

Relations with Equitable were getting tense; Dusty even began recording phone conversations. Repeated requests for a list of the chemicals used in fracking went unanswered.

Equitable admits “your water’s been affected because of our drilling process.”

Dusty Hagy assumed Equitable would fix the water issue based on phone conversations (audio tape #1) with his Equitable representative who stated on the phone:

“ … for whatever reason the water’s been affected because of our drilling process. But the horizontal portion of it I don’t think had anything to do with it. Something we did had something to do with it. We have done something to the water, and no one was doubting that, but it wasn’t the horizontal part. I’m not doubtin’ that fact and I don’t think anybody’s doubtin’ that, the horizontal portion wouldn’t affect it.”

Equitable offered to drill a new water well which the family declined because they believed the aquifer itself was contaminated. This belief stemmed from a neighbor’s claim that 30 of his animals had died in 2008 during the gas drilling. Plus, Equitable tied any restitution to the couple signing an non-disclosure agreement, or gag order, meant to silence the Hagys and negate any future claims.

Hagy family sues drilling firms

As this phone conversation (audio tape #3) with Equitable reveals, once the family sought legal representation in March 2009, all contact with Equitable stopped. Bottled water deliveries and hotel payments stopped. While the couple searched for a rental home, they lived in their un-heated camper. On a positive note, once they vacated their home, their negative health symptoms dissipated.

The Hagys sued Equitable Production Company, BJ Well, Halliburton and Warren Drilling in October 2009. In short, even with the taped calls, drilling records, photos, videos and water tests, the Hagys’ lawsuit was “dismissed” in August 2012. Judge Goodwin’s opinion stated, “The case presents no genuine issue of materials fact for a jury to determine.” The lawsuit is in the appeals process and the litigation costs to date are $175,000.

How does this happen?

Though the Hagys’ lawsuit appears to provide evidence of water contamination, their dismissed lawsuit supports the claim, “There are no known cases of drinking water contamination from fracking,” often touted by pro-fracking groups.

This claim isn’t true, at least 4 confirmed cases of water contamination exist:

• 1987 Parson’s Family, W. Virginia — Outcome: settled.

• 2011 Paradise Road, Bradford County, PA — Outcome: settled.

• 2012 Fiorentino vs. Cabot Oil, Dimock, PA — Outcome: settled.
• 2012 PA. DEP, Bradford County, PA — Outcome: settled.

Why so few confirmed cases and no case tried before a jury?

More than 40,000 shale gas wells have been drilled since 1996 and at least 825 serious fracking complaints have been lodged, yet only 40 fracking lawsuits have been filed. To date, a jury has never heard a fracking lawsuit.

The answer:

• The natural gas industry is regulated on a state-by-state basis because of the federal legal exemptions granted to the industry.
• Predatory, private contracts signed between firms and individuals favor gas companies.
• The U.S. legal system’s high litigation costs dissuade lawsuits.

How the “the Big 7” exemptions play out in reality

The natural gas industry is exempted from seven major federal environmental laws. These laws in their simplest forms are intended to protect people, places, water and air.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is tasked with enforcing these laws. Because the natural gas industry isn’t regulated by the U.S. EPA at the federal level because of the legal exemptions, natural gas drilling is regulated on a state-by-state basis.

The chart below outlines the seven federal environmental laws exemptions, with many exemptions dating back decades.

http://ecowatch.org/2013/loopholes-shield-fracking-industry/

The latest three exemptions were strategically written into the 1,500 page Energy Policy Act of 2005 and are now infamously named the “Halliburton loophole.” These three short paragraphs focused on eliminating water pollution oversight and also eliminated the strict environmental reviews that federal projects must undertake.

When these exemptions are combined, the benefits to natural gas industry are: no federal EPA oversight therefore pushing fracking regulation to the state level, no scientific testing, no environmental studies, no health and geologic studies and no liabilities for drillers of chemical releases into waterways and air.

The 2005 Energy Policy Act’s strategy was to provide the U.S. with “an abundant, domestic and affordable sources of fuel.” Since 2005, the gas industry has been unhampered by federal regulations and the newer shale gas drilling has grown quickly; U.S. natural gas from shale reserves has grown from one percent to 35 percent of the U.S. supply. This new supply of 8.5 trillion cubic feet of gas has forced natural gas prices down by 50 percent, even spurring coal-based electrical plants to convert to natural gas.

The coffin nail: Toxic Release Inventory exemption

The least known exemption though, the 1986 Toxic Release Inventory of Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, may offer the natural gas industry the biggest shield from liabilities and the greatest obstacle for parties alleging fracking water contamination.

In response to the Bopal, India disaster, when Union Carbide released a harmful gas into an urban area which killed more than 20,000 people, Congress required industries to list harmful chemicals on the Toxic Release Inventory to the EPA. The EPA collects and then disseminates that information to the public and local governments.

Yet, oil and gas companies were exempted from the Toxic Release Inventory, therefore chemical disclosure is different for each of the 29 fracking states. To boot, shale gas production, or fracking, is concentrated in relatively gas-friendly states: Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, West Virginia, Colorado and North Dakota, listed in order of gas production volume.

According to an in-depth National Resources Defense Council report which compares today’s hodgepodge of state-level fracking regulations, no state requires full chemical disclosure. Even new regulations in Texas, the largest shale gas producer, require chemical reporting but do not require “proprietary” chemicals to be listed which can account for 50 percent of the chemicals used in one fracking. The report also concludes that state reporting is inconsistent and significant portions of data are missing altogether.

Adding to the lack of chemical disclosure, only two states (West Virginia and Colorado) inform residents about new wells before drilling. This means that in 27 states, residents are not notified of new drilling, making it impossible to conduct comprehensive (and expensive) water testing before the drilling.

How exemptions play out in the law-can you prove what you drank?

In 2007, Equitable wasn’t legally required to disclose the chemicals used in the fracking, therefore no doctor, no person or group knew what chemicals to test for or what caused the foam in the creek, the color changes in the pond or the compromised water well.

Though water tests revealed the Hagy property drinking water had changed since the drilling had occurred, the tests were not apples-to-apples comparisons.  During the lawsuit’s evidence discovery process, the natural gas firms finally furnished the list of chemical used on the Hagy property which verified the fracking chemicals used weren’t “just water and sand,” as quoted by the Equitable contact.

The absence of verifiable chemical data is displayed in Judge Goodwin’s opinion and order to grant a motion for Summary Judgement, which in layman’s terms means the Hagy lawsuit was dismissed. The burden of chemical exposure proof was placed on the plaintiffs, “to demonstrate amount, duration, intensity and frequency of chemical exposure.” A catch-22.

Gas leases and contracts: The devil’s in the fine print

Adding to the chemical disclosure catch-22 is that most gas leases heavily favor natural gas drillers. In 2011, The New York Times analyzed more than 110,000 shale gas leases and concluded; over half of gas leases provide landowners no restitution in the event of harm, most exclude any explanation of potential harm and a majority of leases include automatic contract extensions that require no landowner approval. Natural gas wells can produce for decades and gas lease contracts can be automatically renewed in perpetuity. Many leases include clauses mandating that damage disputes be heard in arbitration outside of the legal system.

The door-to-door leasing agents who represent gas drillers, a.k.a. landmen, are tasked with getting natural gas leases signed by landowners. Feedback from many landowners is that landmen are very persuasive, personable and often mis-represent facts. These revealing talking points pages were reportedly found by a Ohio homeowner who had been visited by a West Bay Exploration’s leasing agent. The talking points, marked confidential, give sales agents advice to, “not talk about the anti-fracking documentary Gasland, to not discuss chemicals or fracking and to speed up the lease signing before people think about the drilling.”

Many natural gas leases border on predatory in nature as it appears the gas leasing process relies on the ignorance of rural, landowners to enter into binding, private contracts with natural gas drillers.

The Hagys claim they were absolutely unaware they had signed a damage release waiver, twice even. “The Equitable representative sat right on my porch and said the cash was a small payment for the trees and land damage. It wasn’t until November 2008 that I even found out I supposedly had signed away any rights,” said Dusty.

These two damage release forms inadvertently signed by the Hagys have reared their ugly heads during the lawsuit process as another reason Equitable and BJ Services claim they are not liable for any water, health or property damage; the companies claim the Hagys signed away any rights to liabilities and restitution.

Suing a gas company—expensive and grueling

“Fracking has been the tragedy of the commons—freedom to a common, brings ruin to all,” according to Maxwell Kennerly, a trial lawyer at The Beasley firm in Philadelphia. Legally it’s been impossible for plaintiffs to precisely pinpoint exactly what happened underground or link exact chemicals to a situation when those chemicals aren’t divulged and the drilling process isn’t accessible. Any lawyer taking these cases has to be prepared to put their own money and resources on the line to be a trailblazer.”

The first legal team hired by the Hagy family in 2009 dropped the Hagys’ case one year later. During that year the family lost valuable time in conducting water tests and gathering evidence. Their current lawyer, Kevin Thompson, of the Law Offices of Thompson Barney in Charleston, West Virginia, has taken the case on a contingency fee basis. The Hagy family has paid no out-of-pocket expenses. The lawsuit’s litigation costs to date top $175,000.

Lastly, there is an emotional toll for using our legal system to get restitution; it’s a grueling process according to Dusty Hagy. “It’s been hell. For over two years, we’ve been reliving this awful experience. In the back-of-our-minds we realize this may be all for nothing. My wife and I feel we had our most important asset stolen from us, the drinking water that makes our property a place to live, not just 81 acres for animals. It feels like the whole system is stacked against us.”

Where are the Hagys?

Interestingly, the Hagys and 70 of their neighbors who live on a 5-mile stretch of Sugar Creek Road have petitioned Southern Jackson County Public Services to extend public water service to their homes at cost of $2 million. The project is on an 5-year waiting list and there is no guarantee it will ever be completed. According to Karl Vielhaber, general manager for the Southern Jackson County Public Service, the property owners have petitioned for municipal water because most claim their water wells are contaminated from gas drilling. Most of the homeowners haul water to their homes from a coin operated water source.

Dusty and Tamera have moved to a new property with a mortgage, and they still own their vacated property. Equitable’s three natural gas wells still produce gas today and may for years on the Hagys’ vacant property.

The winners and losers

A clear winner in fracking so far is natural gas industry. Fracking cases settled out-of-court provide critical benefits for the gas industry because the settlements include “gag orders” so that injured parties can not discuss the case and its contents. Financially, settlements reduce liabilities for natural gas firms by eliminating unpredictable jury awards. More importantly, settlements help the industry maintain their public relation’s campaign to the media, elected officials, the financial industry and the American consumer that natural gas drilling is clean and safe.

American consumers are also winners in the fracking story. According to the Energy Information Administration, residential gas prices are about 50 percent less than the 2008 natural gas price peak.

Fracking’s losers are the private landowners who have been negatively impacted by fracking and may or may not have received proper restitution. Collectively, the public loses as closed settlements shut down any learning, studies or analysis needed to create uniform industry best practices and build legal precedence for future cases.

Based on evidence and public pressure, Congress finally approved the U.S. EPA to conduct scientific fracking studies. The final study will be available for peer and public review December 2014.

Fracking regulations are slowly developing. The Obama Administration announced federal regulations mandating methane capturing at well sites. State legislatures are slowly developing new rules with Pennsylvania creating some of the toughest legislation over wastewater recycling and charging per well fees to pay for damages. But, as the Center for Energy Economics and Policy’s website and National Resourced Defense Council report illustrate, fracking regulation is complicated and convoluted.

What can you do?

Stories like this can often leave readers with an uneasy question: “What can I do?” Hear are a few ideas.

• Contact your federal and state elected officials. Your state elected officials are key as fracking is exempt from federal regulation and it seems Washington is struggling to make any changes with pretty much anything. Sending a quick email to your state delegates and senator with a link to this post takes 30 seconds and alerts your elected officials that fracking is on your radar screen. Make your opinion on the current process known.
• Choose a fracking group from below that matches your point of view and sign-up for their newsletters. Add them to your twitter feed or friend on facebook to keep abreast of new regulations and issues. If you’re a Flipboarder, add fracking to your list.
• The groups below often include easy “call-to-actions” where your voice can be heard. Interestingly, all but a few people in these groups and grassroots organizations are volunteers.

Maryland: Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Choose Clean Water and Maryland’s Food & Water Watch

Pennsylvania: Protecting our Waters, Susquehanna Riverkeepers and Pennsylvania Alliance for Clean Water and Air

West Virginia: Frackcheck WV and West Virginia Surface Owner’s Rights Organization

New York: Damascus Citizens for Sustainability

Mid-Atlantic and National: Food & Water Watch, Sierra Club, National Resources Defense Council andEnvironmental Working Group

If you’re interested in reading the natural gas industry’s point of view, Energy in Depth is their policy and communications group.

All photos taken by Dusty Hagy except the photo and story below is from the West Virginia Surface owner’s Right’s Organization.

 

Source:  http://ecowatch.org/2013/loopholes-shield-fracking-industry/

The DOW Will Come Crashing Down!

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed closer to its recently set all-time high with a close on Friday, February 22, 2013 at 14,000.57

This facade will not last much longer!  The amount of “insider trading” going on is so big that Google’s own CEO sold off 42% of his total portfolio – all Google shares! Market analysts on the inside track are sounding alarm bells, so that certainly cannot be good!  Talks of ‘major’ “corrections,” otherwise known as “crashes,” are growing in intensity and numbers.  Europe is falling apart including our close ally England, and countries like Spain, Italy and France are bankrupt!  Last week, Spain begged for another bailout, but the EU, at Germany’s nudging, said “NO!”  “We don’t have the funds to prop you up” were supposedly uttered.  The U.S. economy is not any better!

Our GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, dropped last month.  The last time it dropped the market hemorrhaged.  It’s one leading indicator of where our economy is really at, and a helpful warning of a possible and substantial drop in the Dow and all other markets across the globe.  Unfortunately, what goes up so far (and the Dow will likely peak high one more time before it crashes and burns) must come down to equally sustain a balance.  Here’s the problem though.

The U.S. Government has been fudging its economic books for far too long.  “Cooking the books” as the old adage goes!  You can only make crap up for so long before it over-spills into the general public.  That process is just barely beginning, but it has begun.  Americans want to know the truth from their leaders, but the web of deception is so twisted and tangled that citizens are unlikely to hear the full truth of what is really going on?

We are mostly adults.  We can handle the lies, mass corruption, the raping of the middle class along with the poor class, again.  But, listening requires too much effort these days!  Americans are interesting.  We have been brainwashed into having the attention spans of gnats, so we forget about the really urgent issues our country faces thanks to the CEOs, big banks and mega-corporations running our U.S. Government and running the U.S. into a brick wall with reinforced steel and concrete! The U.S. economy will come to a complete standstill after it collapses and/or China and Russia flip the switch and completely stop buying up U.S. dollars and debt.  THEN, we will have no other choice to pay attention, because it will be a matter of life and death.  Our dependence on oil, our addiction to it, has made it very hard to stop our govt. from gobbling up the world’s natural resources like a cocaine addict following a white line!  After all, oil makes up most of what consumers buy these days, from a toothbrush to a car tire.  We passed the peak, finite fossil fuel oil’s maximum output for the rest of earth’s existence back in 2008.  Saudi Arabia is running low on oil now, because we consume such massive quantities of it.  They had 25% of the world’s oil. We could use a little oil or lube right now.

The historical collapse of the U.S. markets and the economy is going to happen.  It’s inevitable that the false economic security bubble that we are living in is going to burst which will cause a massively painful slide into a negative abyss.  Worst of all, we may not have the resources to just jump-start the burnt out motor of the U.S. economy. Buy seeds, and not Monsanto’s GMOs!  Buy organic.  You’ll be planting your own food in the near future!

By John Loeffler

02-23-2013

Bowman v. Monsanto (and Obama): An American Betrayal

Update 02-25-2013  Why is Obama working so closely with Monsanto?  Bill Gates owns 500,000 shares of Monsanto!  Bill Gates & Melinda Gates believe and have stated so numerous times that our world is over-populated and needs a “cleansing!”  Monsanto is a rogue GMO monopoly hell bent on making money at the expense of human health, species loss & extinction including human beings, environmental ruin to kill off the remaining poor folks left.  They are fat cats with fat, phat wallets intent on making humanity a prized possession for those who can afford it the most!   What happened to your promise Obama???

Obama‘s 2007 Promise to Label GMOs:  http://youtu.be/zqaaB6NE1TI

The Supreme Court granted Obama’s Solicitor General to argue in support of Monsanto‘s patents for 10 minutes!  Obama opposed GMOs in 2007, and he even stated that Americans had the right to know what is in their food and if it had been genetically modified!  He supported GMO labeling of consumers food products of which at least 80% contained GMOs!  President Obama has broken his promise to us, and now he appears to be backing Monsanto and their deadly, genetically engineered food crops such as corn and soybeans like Bill Gates has!  By the way, supposed humanitarian Bill Gates owns 500,000 shares of Monsanto!

The Court Case & Source:  http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/bowman-v-monsanto-co/

Tell Your Senator “No More Dirty Mining!”

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I live in the beautiful state of Wisconsin, with the exception of the bone-chilling cold during January and February!  One of my state’s senators sent me a letter informing me that, in short, mining here can be done safely with minimal environmental impact.

There is no such thing as “safe mining!”  The two words when put together are polar opposites of each other.  I like my idea better, so I emailed it off to him!  You can do the same with all of your state’s elected officials, including your governor, by sending them a clear, resounding message that it is (way past) time to divest from dirty, finite energy and invest in cheaper, clean, renewable energy starting today!  Our climate is screaming for help, and we can no longer let our legislators promote their hidden, greed-laden agendas!

Here is a copy of a brief letter that I just sent off to Senator Cullen:

Dear Senator Cullen:

There is no need for mining of any kind in the great state of Wisconsin where I was born and raised!  Mining for finite, dirty energy sources is dangerous, unhealthy to the workers, and unhealthy to the rest of Wisconsinites, since there is always pollution runoff or overflow.  This runoff or overflow is NOT properly regulated by the EPA or its WI branch!

We have a vested interest to divest from dirty energy and invest in clean, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, hydro-electric and geothermal power.  Our environment desperately needs this in order to avert catastrophic weather changes that are steadily increasing in numbers and intensity!  For the sake of humanity and its future generations, please take mining off of Wisconsin’s energy table!  We deserve better, cheaper energy alternatives, and most importantly, so do our children!

Thank you,

John Loeffler

Please email your representatives today!

U.S. Senate:  http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

U.S. House of Representatives:  http://www.house.gov/representatives/

State Governors:  http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Governors.shtml