water 4F's
water is essential to life and we are reaching a new crisis around the country. Domestic water supplies are threatened in thousands of places all over the country by four F's:
Fracking has been the familiar poster child of all kinds of fear mongering. Most of it true, and understated and underestimated. Fracking only makes financial sense in a corporate board room and on Wall Street. It consumes and emits more methane than it produces. It's heyday will be short lived. Yet we owe our low gasoline prices to fracking - would you really be happy with $5.00+ gasoline and no fracking or the current price under $3 and fracking?
Besides causing untold earthquakes, fracking also injects unknown toxic (usually waste) chemicals underground where it lingers and drops into aquifers, sometimes miles and years away.
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A recent NYTimes article captured the dilemna being faced by countless private home owners who cannot use their well water anymore because of nitrate levels that far exceed
national standards. Turns out that decades of dairy farmers spreading cow manure on the ground which then seeped into deep aquifers have made surrounding private wells unusable. Imagine taking a shower and have a burning sensation for the water on your skin! The big question for me, is how long were people (especially babies & kids) drinking this water before people noticed the high nitrate levels.
Chlorine is commonly used to decontaminate well water from bacterias like e-coli,.... but to reduce nitrate levels, expensive filters are needed which most people can't afford.
Factories - what can one say about their contributions to water pollution that hasn't been said and documented already, starting with Love Canal. If you live close to an industrial factory - especially one that uses or produces chemicals, chances are your water and air are polluted with all kinds of toxins.
Failure of SO many entities, including ourselves - yes, even me and you. But everyone's favorite scapegoat is the government. Their most recent poster child is Flint, Michigan. But
there are far more Flints in the USA and with the current political atmosphere of haphaard deregulation, it's only going to get worse and more frequent.
Fracking, Farming , Factory and Failure
Fracking has been the familiar poster child of all kinds of fear mongering. Most of it true, and understated and underestimated. Fracking only makes financial sense in a corporate board room and on Wall Street. It consumes and emits more methane than it produces. It's heyday will be short lived. Yet we owe our low gasoline prices to fracking - would you really be happy with $5.00+ gasoline and no fracking or the current price under $3 and fracking?
Besides causing untold earthquakes, fracking also injects unknown toxic (usually waste) chemicals underground where it lingers and drops into aquifers, sometimes miles and years away.
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A recent NYTimes article captured the dilemna being faced by countless private home owners who cannot use their well water anymore because of nitrate levels that far exceed
Chlorine is commonly used to decontaminate well water from bacterias like e-coli,.... but to reduce nitrate levels, expensive filters are needed which most people can't afford.
Factories - what can one say about their contributions to water pollution that hasn't been said and documented already, starting with Love Canal. If you live close to an industrial factory - especially one that uses or produces chemicals, chances are your water and air are polluted with all kinds of toxins.
Failure of SO many entities, including ourselves - yes, even me and you. But everyone's favorite scapegoat is the government. Their most recent poster child is Flint, Michigan. But
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