Michael J. Fitzgerald has been a journalist for five decades, working as a writer and editor for newspapers, magazines and web publications. In 2014 he published his first novel, "The Fracking War," followed in 2015 with "Fracking Justice." In 2018, he published "The Devil's Pipeline." He has written a weekly column, "Write On" for the daily 'Finger Lakes Times' newspaper in Geneva, NY for 14 years, He contributes stories to the Contra Costa Pulse newspaper in Richmond, CA. He also writes essays on Substack under the title Write On and On.
VALOIS, New York, USA - Seamus McGraw's 2011 book The End of Country takes a very literary look at what has happened - and is happening - to Pennsylvania's rural countryside and towns as natural gas companies have taken over and begun their destructive 'hydrofracking' process.
I say literary, because in many parts, this tome reads as smoothly as a novel, even though like any novel dealing with uncomfortable material, it is hard read in spots.
What McGraw is able to do effectively in this book isn't just to show what greedy bastards (and liars, oh the lies) the people representing these environmental destruction teams are. He also shows how the many thousands of dollars dangled in front of very poor people changed the people themselves, pitting neighbor against neighbor.
And in the end, it's obvious that though some people are richer in dollars, the entire communities are much poorer for allowing this earth-destroying technology on their land.
McGraw's book is an important one, well worth reading. And if Hollywood has any cojones, it would make the basis for an excellent movie script. It's a real life thriller with all the elements of a good film: danger, big money, greed, tragedy and a small dose of triumph.
There's even the death of beloved dog - at the hands of the gas company doing drilling on the land of one of the main characters.
On the cover of the book, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wrote: "Deeply personal, sometimes moving, sometimes funny, The End of Country lays out the promise and the perils faced not just by the people of one small Pennsylvania town but by our whole nation."
WATKINS GLEN, New York, USA - The book Consulting the Genius of the Place came to me right off the Watkins Glen Public Library shelves a couple of weeks ago.
The writing is excellent, the topic compelling. I couldn't put it down.
The book is all about agriculture, sustainability and ecology and how by adopting an agricultural model for civilization - a model that eventually led to the industrial revolution and the petrochemical-industrial nightmare we live in now - the game was up before it started.
Agriculture is about 10,000 years old. The Earth (and the environment we live in), oh about 3 billion years give or take.
And look what we have done to the Earth in a blink of time's eye.
I didn't realize until I was well into the book that the author - Wes Jackson of the Land Institute - is the rock star of soil conservation and the leader of a movement to get us to stop continually #$^&#&ing up the planet.
He writes so smoothly and convincingly that you almost believe him when he says the planet can be saved as a habitat for humans. The book is peppered with data, good quotes and enough personal anecdotes to make it as good a read as many novels.
Wes Jackson
No, make that better than many novels.
One of his key themes is that agriculture, particularly as practiced in the western world with chemical fertilizers and machinery (all reliant on oil pulled from the ground), is destructive and not sustainable. In a way, he says, we have been spending our environmental bank account for 10,000 years, each generation faster and faster as we have more people, more demand more resources and more ways to pillage the environment.
(Can anyone spell hydrofracking?)
But the bill for all of this profligacy is coming due.
His solution - one the Land Institute is working on with others - is to create and/or find a perennial grain that can be harvested to replace the grains now seeded every year. It is that endless seeding, fertilizing, harvesting cycle in a mostly monoculture of plants that is so destructive, he says. And today's agriculture is way too tied in with oil and oil-related industries.
"By starting out where our split with nature began, we can build an agriculture more like the ecosystems that shaped us, thereby preserving ecological capital..." he wrote.
Amen to that.
Consulting the Genius of the Place is recommended reading, even if the closest you usually get to agriculture is the produce aisle at the grocery store.
WATKINS GLEN, New York, USA - The crowd at the tiny Glen Theater to watch the film Living Downstream and to hear Sandra Steingraber (on whose book the film is based) was mostly true believers who think our environment is being polluted by uncaring (and greedy) corporations, poisoning us in the process.
And sometimes that poisoning results in cancer from contact with weed killers, pesticides and whatever-the-hell the chemicals are in that toxic cocktail used in hydro-fracking for natural gas.
But any people on the edge about this heard a very compelling case that most people are looking in the wrong direction.
Wrong direction?
Most efforts when it comes to cancer are aimed at curing people who already are symptomatic. But Living Downstream says we need to look at how people are contracting cancers and try to stop things at that juncture, particularly when it comes to environmentally caused cancers.
The 55-minute film lays out the case using Dr. Steingraber's story of cancer as a template. And it contains some great punchlines.
My favorite comes from Steingraber's mother, who at one point says, "Don't let them bury you until you are dead."
Sandra Steingraber
Steingraber talks about how many in her family suffer - and have suffered - with cancers. She talks about how many doctors focus on genetic predispositions to cancer. If your mom died of cancer (mine did), well, the likelihood of you getting cancer is greatly increased.
In her case, when bladder cancer was diagnosed, she pointed out to her doctors that she was adopted.
Whoops. Nurse! Pass me a new theory, please.
But the townspeople where she grew up in Illinois have an astoundingly high rate of cancer. Coincidence? Hmm.. Perhaps it might have something to do with the factories spewing chemicals into the air and the vast stretches of farmland where a toxic stew of unpronounceable things are sprayed on crops, find their way into the water table and/or are served right with family meals. Or, I suppose, at a supermarket right where you shop.
(I'll be rolling up my car windows when I see anyone spraying fields, or one of those damn crop dusters comes swooping over.Oh, and probably hitting the organic food section more now, too.)
Steingraber is shown in the movie speaking to several groups - as she did last night following the film. And in most of the speeches, she says what we need to do is launch and environmental human rights movement.
With high-quality films like this one - and her two books, Living Downstream and Raising Elijah - it's a movement that is already well underway.
PINE CREEK VALLEY, PA, USA - All of the reports about the gas company-imposed disaster that is known as hydrofracking talk about traffic, but most seem more worried about potential water pollution.
And we should be worried about water pollution. If we don't have clean water, well, it's game over amigos.
The video below shows the impact of traffic in a small town. And, as noted by the narrator, this is just the beginning of a huge gas company push to put in thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of gas wells.
Fracking is going to create an industrial nightmare that made the Mad Max movies look like Disney productions.
WATKINS GLEN, New York, USA - A proposal to use salt caverns on the shores of Seneca Lake to store propane and natural gas is drawing a lot of attention - most of it negative.
The proposal is by a mega-corporation called Inergy (LINK:Inergy website) to use the caverns owned by its subsidary, U.S. Salt, to keep propane and natural gas - and become the transportation and distribution hub for gas for the entire Northeastern United States.
U.S. Salt (Photo by Observer-Review)
The proposal currently under discussion seems relatively modest and the company has been pedaling it hard with local government officials.
But many local residents believe that if Inergy gets the approval to do this, it will be a case of the camel getting its nose into the tent.
Increases in heavy truck traffic, noise, water and air pollution are all cited as reasons to oppose the project.
And those factors are especially important to local residents who have watched the area bloom in the past 10 years as a major tourist destination for central New York.
Watkins Glen has a gorgeous downtown area, a world-class race track, natural attactions like the Watkins Glen waterway and Seneca Lake. Added to that are more than 50 wineries around the lake that draw thousands of people ever weekend, nearly year round.
A gas-based industrial project - one that would send heavy trucks rumbling down the only highway through the center of Watkins Glen - would seem at odds with that.
Complicating the issue is the ongoing proposal to extract natural gas in the area using the 'hydrofracking' method that has been an environmental disaster in nearby Northwestern Pennsylvania.
Many local residents fear that if hydrofracking is allowed in New York (it is currently being studied), that the gas will end up being storde by Inergy on the shores of the lake.
Some believe that Inergy's project is actually counting on hydrofracking being approved as part of its business strategy for doing the project in the first place.
William Moler
An interview with Inergy's point man on the Seneca Lake project, William Moler, would seem to give pretty strong evidence that Inergy is banking on the gas from hydrofracking become part of its storage.
"The development of the Marcellus Shale has steadily increased the interest and value in its storage and transportation assets in a region that critically needs energy infrastructure to efficiently allow the Marcellus to proliferate," Moler told the Pipeline and Gas Journal last July in an interview.
The full interview and more comments about the connection between Inergy and the possibilities for hydrfracking in New York can be read here: LINK: Marcellus Shale and Inergy
VALOIS, New York, USA - When I arrived in Central New York two weeks ago, I saw signs all over the place that say 'No Fracking.'
Being relatively attuned to the language, I thought, 'What the frack is that all about?'
Fracking indeed.
It turns out that fracking is shortfor hydrofracking, a method to extract gas from the ground by cracking shale deposits in a fairly complicated process that also produces huge volumes of toxic waste water. And it also seems to be polluting ground water, driving some people out of their homes and, in Pennsylvia, caused at least one well 'explosion.'
What the frack?
Anti-fracking demonstration
If my reading of various reports about this procedure are accurate, fracking might be the best argument for nuclear power. Nuclear power seems less problematic.
Just the amount of water it takes - water that is injected into the shale to basically make it explode to let the gas loose - is incredible, even here in water-rich New York.
The companies involved say that being allowed to use this procedure could provide lots of gas for home heating, industry, etc... And it would create lots of jobs. Unfortunately, many of those jobs will be in the toxic waste cleanup industry.
Here's a quote from the director of a clean-water program:
"Hydrofracking injects large volumes of water (up to six million gallons of water per gas well) mixed with sand and toxic chemical additives at high pressures to release the gas. Most of the water is then returned to the surface as polluted wastewater – that must be treated by wastewater treatment plants already overburdened and not necessarily designed to remove these chemicals. Industry analysts predict it will cost $3 billion to treat the industrial wastewater associated with Marcellus shale development."
Later today, I will be heading out to a local pond, to do some fishing. I hope that I don't get overcome by the smell of methane gas, or have to worry that the fish in the pond (should I actually catch one) have been sucking in toxic waste.
And in the end, it's obvious that though some people are richer in dollars, the entire communities are much poorer for allowing this earth-destroying technology on their land.
