SourceWatch is featuring new information on the dangers of drilling for methane gas in New York and other states. Please visit ourWater Portal to find out more about the toxic chemicals in hydraulic fracturing and the threat to clean drinking water. We need your help to support SourceWatch's work.
Learn more about the threat drilling for methane gas poses to fresh water.
SourceWatch is highlighting its clearinghouse, the Water Portal, which focuses on the threat to drinking water posed by expanded drilling for methane gas. As noted in our water clearinghouse, the process pioneered by Halliburton to fracture rocks to access methane gas poses grave threats to human health and safety.
Agitprop's New Video
The process, called "fracking" uses a cocktail of toxic chemicals and thousands of gallons of drinking water to open fractures in Marcellus Shale deposits to release methane, leaving behind thousands of gallons of spoiled water as well as documented contamination of aquafiers. Several new videos help highlight the severe problems created by these drilling operations on the mainland, especially as some companies attempt to use the BPDeepwater Horizon disaster to press for expanded drilling on land. Here is one of the recent videos attempting to highlight deep concerns about the proposed methane drilling from the St. Lawrence Seaway to coastal carolina. Check out our clearinghouse to find more videos on "ignitable water" and the threat to New York City's drinking water, plus other information such as news on Josh Fox's compelling documentary, Gasland, about the threats to human health and our nation's park lands across the country.
(RNC) Chairman Michael Steele's latest gaffe turned a lot of heads when, speaking at an RNC fundraiser, Steele stated that the war in Afghanistan is "a war of Obama's choosing" that the American public does not want. It is obviously ludicrous to assert that the war in Afghanistan, which began in October of 2001, when Barack Obama was a state senator, was somehow chosen by the sitting president. The statement caused conservative firebrand William Kristol to call for Steele's resignation. A dismayed Kristol stated that Steele's blunder put him "at odds with 100% of the Republican Party." Unfortunately, Kristol is totally wrong to say that all Republicans disagree with Steele. While Steele's statements may be extreme, they fall in line with a widespread pattern of conservative efforts to blame Obama for problems created by President Bush. Read the rest of this item here.
by Mary Bottari
After a classic David and Goliath showdown between Wall Street might and a small band of reformers, a 2,000 page Wall Street reform bill passed the U.S. Senate Thursday afternoon 60-39. The bill is now final and is headed to the President Obama’s desk for signature. “We were outmatched 300-1, but the bill became stronger as it worked its way through the process,” said Heather Booth, director of the national coalition Americans for Financial Reform (AFR). This shows that “with organized people and committed leadership, things can move in the right direction,” said Booth. Read the rest of this item here.
by Steve Horn
To be sure, at the very least, the Senate Appropriations Committee's hearing on the use of dispersants in BP oil was informative. It reconfirmed what PR Watch's Anne Landman wrote about earlier this week, namely, as her title says poignantly, the "Environmental & Health Effects of Oil Dispersants [are] a Mystery to BP and the Government." Shocking as it may sound, Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency really has no clue what the impacts are of shooting dispersants into the Gulf in an attempt to minimize the damage caused by BP's Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill. A very troublesome notion, indeed. What was most shocking, though, was Jackson's inability to answer even basic questions, which begs the question, "If she doesn't even know the answer to very basic questions, is she fit for the job?" Read the rest of this item http://www.prwatch.org/Beyond_Hope here.]
In the news from CMD
Brewer claims beheaded bodies have been found in the desert, but her claims can not be substantiated by authorities.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer told the public that immigration is fueling crime in Arizona. She said Phoenix is becoming the world's number-two kidnapping capital, that decapitated bodies are being found in the desert, that illegal immigrants are responsible for most police killings, and the majority of people crossing the border into the U.S. are drug mules. Brewer has also said 87 percent of people crossing the border illegally have prior criminal records. The problem (aside from the fact that her frightening discourse further discourages tourism) is that Brewer's statements have no basis in fact. Read the rest of this item here.
Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis admitted plagiarizing an essay that a Colorado foundation paid him to write. In 2004, the Hasan Family Foundation of Pueblo hired former Colorado Congressman McInnis for a two-year fellowship and asked him to write a series of essays about water policy. The Foundation paid McInnis $300,000. When Colorado journalists raised questions about McInnis' writings in early July, McInnis admitted plagiarizing an essay he wrote for the Foundation from a 20-year-old work created by Gregory Hobbs, who is now a Colorado state Supreme Court Justice. McInnis issued a statement calling the plagiarism a "mistake," and the Hasan Foundation demanded McInnis return the $300,000 they paid him. McInnis agreed to pay the money back, hoping this would help "put the matter behind us." Read the rest of this item here.
The Environmental Working Group's popular consumer guide, the "Shoppers Guide to Pesticides in Produce" (pdf), is under attack from the Alliance for Food and Farming (AFF), a front group for industrial produce growers and pesticide and fertilizer interests, which has started a new Web site, safefruitsandveggies.com, that claims EWG's "Dirty Dozen" -- a list of the twelve most pesticide-laden forms of produce -- impedes public health by discouraging consumption of fresh produce. Read the rest of this item here.
Projects for citizen editors
Help Us Keep SourceWatch's Article on BP Up to Date
Information about BP's PR and spin is gushing forth every day, almost as thick and fast as the oil is spewing into the Gulf. With all the information being discovered aboutBP and its corporate (mis)behaviors, we're having a hard time keeping the SourceWatch article about BP up to date with all the news. Have you heard or read something about BP's corporate spin, lobbying, flim-flamming, stonewalling, or other efforts to influence regulatory agencies, legislators or public perception? Record them in SourceWatch's article about the company.
A tourism task force appointed by Governor Jan Brewer suggested that Arizona try to change the focus of the debate over their tough new immigration law by talking about the effects that tourism boycotts have on vulnerable employees within the state. Changing the subject of the debate to a more sympathetic and winnable subject is a timeworn PR strategy used by embattled corporations -- and now, by Arizona. To read the rest of this item, click here.
Nobu Su, the wealthy owner of TNT shipping, spent $160 million right after the April 20th explosion of the Deepwater Horizon to convert a supertanker into the world's largest oil skimming vessel. The retrofitted ship sucks up oily sea water, siphons off the oil and puts the clean water back into the ocean. At 10-stories tall, the ship, dubbed "A Whale," can process 21 million gallons of oily water a day, close to the 28 million gallons processed over the last two and a half months by 500 smaller skimmers in the Gulf of Mexico. After its retrofit, Su dispatched the giant ship to the Gulf of Mexico to help with the BP oil disaster, hired the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani to negotiate federal contracts and launched a [http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/06/bracewell-gulf-oil.html media blitz to drum up public support for using the ship. The Coast Guard and Environmental Protection Agency agreed to test A Whale's effectiveness at cleaning Gulf sea water. Gulf coast residents had high hopes for the vessel's effectiveness, but the project was dumped after tests showed the ship was inefficient at sucking up oil from Gulf waters. BP's high-volume use of chemical dispersants, added at the point where oil exited the gusher, has rendered the oil in the water too dispersed for the Taiwanese supertanker to process it.
PBS's "Spillcam" helps people track what's going on in the Gulf:
Rep. Nadler on how BP is ignoring health concerns in the Gulf
One of the first things BP did after oil started gushing into the Gulf was to spray more than 1.1 million gallons of a dispersant with the optimistic name "Corexit" onto the oil. Then BP hired Louisiana fishermen and others to help with cleanup and containment operations. About two weeks later, over seventy workers fell sick, complaining of irritated throats, coughing, shortness of breath and nausea. Seven workers were hospitalized on May 26. BP officials speculated that their illnesses were due to food poisoning or other, unrelated reasons, but others pointed out how unlikely these other causes were, since the sick workers were assigned to different locations. Read more of this item here.
In other news, BP has purchased search terms relating to the Gulf oil spill disaster on Google, Yahoo and Bing, a move some say is designed to limit the public's exposure to news reporting about BP's oil catastrophe. BP confirmed that it has bought search terms like "oil spill," "gulf oil," "offshore oil," "Louisiana coast spill" and "oil cleanup," on the top three search engines, so that when people perform searches on these terms, a link to BP's corporate page about the spill (www.BP.com/OilSpillNews) appears up at the top of the page. The result appears with a line that says, "Info about the Gulf of Mexico Spill; Learn More about How BP is Helping." Read more of this item here.
Now that it is recovering some of the oil pouring out of the massive leak at the bottom of the Gulf's floor, BP has found another way to try to repair its reputation: the company announced that it has created a new wildlife fund that will benefit from any profits BP makes selling the recovered oil. "BP is committed to protecting the ecosystems and wildlife on the Gulf Coast," said BP CEO Tony Hayward, while making the announcement about the fund. A press release about the fund crows, "The creation of the wildlife fund is the latest example of BP's commitment to help the gulf coast states and their residents." How much money can we expect BP to spend on beleaguered animals? Like other estimates BP has made recently, the company admitted it cannot predict the amount. When asked the question, Hayward issued a statement that simply said, "We believe these funds will have a significant positive impact on the environment." BP collected 14,800 barrels of oil on June 7, and the current price of crude oil front month futures are $72 per barrel. Proceeds from oil recovered from skimming operations will also go into the fund. What Hayward failed to mention, though, is that under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, BP is required by law to fund clean up and restoration of wildlife in the Gulf damaged by its operations.
BP's spill plan lists walruses among wildlife to be protected in the Gulf, but no walruses live in the Gulf.Last year the federal government approved a 582-page, site-specific regional spill plan for the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. Sounds comprehensive, right? It turns out the plan was filled with glaring errors, blatant omissions and wildly false assumptions -- and won approval from the government anyway. BP's response plan included references to wildlife like walruses, sea lions and seals, none of which live in the Gulf, indicating parts of the plan may have been lifted from a site plan for Alaska. It contains spill scenarios in which beaches remain pristine, fish, marine mammals and birds are spared and water quality is just a passing concern -- and those are projections for a spill ten times worse than calculations for the the current disaster. The plan lists Professor Peter Lutz as a national wildlife expert to contact in the event of a spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but he died in 2005. It contains the names and telephone number of marine life specialists at Texas A&M University, but the names and numbers are wrong. It lists the numbers for offices of the marine mammal stranding network in Louisiana and Florida, but they are no longer in service. The plan underestimates the dangers posed by an uncontrolled underwater blowout, and overstates BP's ability to deal with one. Two senators -- Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat and Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat -- are seeking a criminal investigation into the company's claims of preparedness to deal with such a catastrophe. For more information click here: More on BP's Gulf Walrus "Plan"
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"A truly impressive project based on cutting edge web technology." David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.
"The troublemakers at the Center for Media and Democracy, for example, point to dozens of examples of "greenwashing," which they defined as the "unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue by a company, an industry, a government or even a non-government organization to sell a product, a policy" or rehabilitate an image. In the center's view, many enterprises labeled green don't deserve the name.—Jack Shafer, "Green Is the New Yellow: On the excesses of 'green' journalism", Slate, July 6, 2007.
"As a journalist frequently on the receiving end of various PR campaigns, some of them based on disinformation, others front groups for undisclosed interests, [CMD's SourceWatch] is an invaluable resource."—Michael Pollan author of The Botany of Desire
"Thanks for all your help. There's no way I could have done my piece on big PR and global warming without the CMD [Center for Media and Democracy] and your fabulous websites."—Zoe Cormier, journalist, Canada
"The dearth of information on the [U.S.] government [lobbying] disclosure forms about the other business-backed coalitions comes in stark contrast to the data about them culled from media reports, websites, press releases and Internal Revenue Service documents and posted by SourceWatch, a website that tracks advocacy groups." Jeanne Cummings, 'New disclosure reports lack clarity", Politico, April 29, 2008.
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