Sherry Allen – 9/3/10

This page was last updated on September 3, 2010.

Don’t take shortcuts on drilling for gas; Sherry Allen; Beaver County Times; September 3, 2010.

Ms. Allen wrote three previous letters I didn’t critique. One (“Conserving water for future,” 1/13/08) asked us to conserve water (primarily by not eating meat) and another (“Say ‘no’ to push polling,” 2/10/08) complained about alleged telephone “push polls” by Republicans, and the third was (“Plant a garden to offset oil usage,” 8/1/08). In one letter I did critique, Ms. Allen gushed about a book she found “that has hundreds of ideas on how to save our planet.” In a partisan letter, Ms. Allen concluded with “Let’s endeavor to walk together peacefully.” In one letter, Ms. Allen related a story of disaffected Republicans voting for Mr. Obama. In another letter, Ms. Allen tried to compare abortion and war in an effort to promote Barack Obama over John McCain. Other letters from Ms. Allen were entitled “Let’s be proactive on the environment,” “Arena a valuable community asset,” “Time to get behind health-care reform,” “A state budget we can all live with,” “Keep pushing for a public option,” “Election ruling terrible for nation,” “Practicing small acts of kindness,” “It’s how we act after events that matters,” “Use freedom of speech wisely,” “Let’s reduce our carbon footprints,” and “Natural gas drilling impacts our water.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“I was horrified last month when I learned that our Beaver Area School Board is considering natural gas drilling two miles from my home.”

[RWC] Since her letter entitled “Natural gas drilling impacts our water,” Ms. Allen is ratcheting up her assertions.

“In Colorado a woman and her neighbor who lived two miles from a drilling site developed brain lesions and now suffer with Parkinson’s-like symptoms. Birth defects in farm animals were also occurring.”

[RWC] I encourage you to check Ms. Allen’s “facts” for yourself. When I tried to verify Ms. Allen’s Colorado claims my Google searches came up empty with respect to credible sources. All I could find were claims made by lefties referencing each other’s assertions. As a result, I didn’t try to confirm any other claims in this letter.

As I’ve written previously, companies harvesting our natural resources must do so in a responsible manner and must have the financial and technological wherewithal to handle worst-case scenarios. It is government’s responsibility to enforce these rules and to make sure everyone involved [businesses and government (local, state, federal)] is prepared (via drills, for example) to execute disaster plans. As I discuss at the end, however, that’s not what this letter is really about.

“Are my neighbors and I going to lose our properties’ value and need to relocate?

“Where? Out west people have abandoned their homes leaving ghost towns.

“How is it possible Pennsylvania only has a $2,500 bond for damages to our communities? And why are we the only state who doesn’t have an extraction tax on these drilling companies to cover the road damage or air and water pollution?

“I was equally sickened learning my state representative, Jim Christiana, has encouraged and supports this unsafe drilling.

“As we struggle to become less dependent on oil energy, let’s avoid costly shortcuts, and with our votes and peaceful actions let’s demand safety and accountability.

“Let’s love our neighbors as ourselves because we’re all connected and soon this may be in your backyard, too.”

[RWC] If you believe the position this letter espouses is based on a genuine concern for our well being, I have a bridge to sell you. It’s a red herring and all about the religion of manmade global warming. Let’s say recovering natural gas (NG) required only that we capture NG as it escaped naturally existing openings in the Earth. Does anyone doubt we’d get a letter from Ms. Allen telling us we should plug the holes because burning NG generates the so-called greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and water vapor? If that didn’t work, I’d almost be willing to bet we’d get a claim that consuming the NG would result in the Earth’s crust collapsing like a deflated balloon. Yeah, that last one was a bit over the top, but I’ve learned never to underestimate the absurdity to which lefties will sink to sell a position.