This page was last updated on June 2, 2011.
Look long term on drllling [sic]; Dotty Loebig; Beaver County Times; June 2, 2011.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“Area residents must wake up to vital warnings as explained in Roger Cooling’s great letter to the editor ‘Stop drilling now’ (May 22).”
[RWC] My critique of Mr. Cooling’s “great letter” is here.
“Many uninformed people may think they will get rich agreeing to drilling, as have politicians and Gov. Tom Corbett, whom drillers support.”
[RWC] Ms. Loebig appears to imply you are “uninformed” if you disagree with her position. Further, unless it’s just a poorly-written sentence, Ms. Loebig appears to claim “politicians and Gov. Tom Corbett” got “rich agreeing to drilling.”
“But money doesn’t buy happiness.
“Unknown environmental dangers lurk in the use of toxic chemicals that may pollute wells and city water. Escaping gases poison the air.
“Our soil and existing wildlife can all be destroyed by fracking methods companies will tell us they have under control.
“But who truly knows the long-range problems?”
[RWC] 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. In the very, very unlikely case we can’t do this while providing a commercially-viable energy source, there should be no drilling until we can.
“Cannot we leave alone what few sanctuaries we have left?”
[RWC] Knowing the manmade global warming myth increasingly falls on deaf ears, followers of this faith try to use safety, water quality, etc. as backdoors to stop drilling and production of Marcellus natural gas. You can find examples here, here, here, here, and here. I don’t know if that is the case for Ms. Loebig.
“The song tells it all: ‘Paved paradise to put up a parking lot.’”
[RWC] I too look to Joni Mitchell for guidance when it comes to natural gas production. <g>
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