This page was last updated on September 17, 2018.
Cracker plant exploits region for profits; Terrie Baumgardner (TB) - Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community; Beaver County Times; August 15, 2018.
A previous letter said TB was a member of the “Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community,” but isn’t mentioned at all in this letter. The “Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Committee” (BCMAC) has something like an “interlocking directorate” relationship with “Progressive Democrats of America – PA 12th Congressional District Chapter” (BCR).
TB used to be an “instructor in communications, arts and sciences at Penn State Beaver.”
Previous TB letters are here, here, “Shell repeatedly failed to be a ‘good neighbor,’” and “Gas-drilling boom mocks promised prosperity.”
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“Nora Johnson’s Aug. 3 letter honestly and courageously voiced my thoughts and those of hundreds of other Beaver Countians before even getting to how Shell Chemicals’ ethane cracker will impact the region.”
[RWC] What courage is required to write a letter-to-the-editor?
“Air and water contamination cross borders and, with 1,000 frack wells per year needed for its feedstock, so will the cracker plant’s impact on health as well pads, compressor stations, pipelines, etc., proliferate across the region.
“Fracking is linked by over 1,000 studies to increased risk for asthma, cancer, cardiovascular disease, birth defects and endocrine disruption; yet, even as Ohio rejects our fracking wastewater, four more cracker plants are planned to turn the Ohio River valley into a vast petrochemical/plastics-manufacturing hub that will resemble the sweeping expanse in Louisiana known as ‘cancer alley.’
“This is happening because an industry clinging to fossil fuels in the face of climate change has convinced Wall Street that it can reap huge profits from ethane as a waste product of fracking — regardless of how our region is exploited to the detriment of our health. We may need plastic bumpers for cars, but we do not need — as China rejects our plastic trash and scientists find microplastics in our blood — more single-use plastics.”
[RWC] “ethane [is] a waste product of fracking?” Ethane is a valuable product.
“Four hundred permanent jobs may fall to locals in exchange for the $1.6 billion in tax breaks lavished on the world’s fourth-richest corporation, but New York is promising 40,000 jobs for a $1.5 billion investment in renewables. Four hundred for $1.6 billion or 40,000 for $1.5 billion? We can do better.”
[RWC] I don’t like so-called tax breaks. As I wrote in a previous review, “The problem is everyone likes to tax businesses until the cows come home, then those same people wonder why new businesses don’t view PA favorably. Get rid of so-called ‘business taxes’ and tax breaks go away.”
TB wants “propaganda-free” answers? You have to appreciate TB’s chutzpah.
If after at least two years TB still has “two pages of unanswered questions,” she’s not doing a very good job.
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