Biggest Fracking NIMBY Of Them All

It turns out the biggest person right now against part of a fracking operation in Texas could be the CEO of ExxonMobile (the biggest natural gas producer in the USA). The CEO is suing to block a water tower near his Texas home that would store uncontaminated water which would then be hauled to a drilling site and be used for fracking. The lawyers claim this isn't about being against fracking. It's about lowering property values with trucks going in and out.

Does it really matter? The guy doesn't want part of the fracking operation near his home. That's sort of the whole point isn't it? When it comes to fracking it's not just about the wells. It's where to get the 10,000's gallons of water from? Where to store the contaminated water? The trucks and pipes go for miles around these drilling sites. Indeed gas is very clean burning, but it's far from being clean energy. All fossil fuels are dirty. Which brings me to..

If this world were sane we wouldn't be even close to talking about the Keystone XL Pipeline. Not when California farmers' are facing the worse drought in our life time. One which means there will be a fraction of the produce come this spring. If there was any rational sanity left we'd be stringing pipes to supply water as fast as humanly possible.

Ole King Midas may get rich if we complete a oil pipeline but fat lot of good it will do him without food. Not the kind of food that will cost twice as much to bring in from another country. Not the kind of food that is grown with chemical pesticides and fertilizers that would never be allowed into this country otherwise.

Friday, February 21, 2014


One Step Forward Two Steps Back
Speaking about economic impact-- The oil pipeline will bring in a few thousand temporary jobs while it's being built. Several hundred more after it's completion. That's all fine and dandy to add these jobs, but not considering building a water pipeline to California farmers is nuts. In 2012 there were 80,500 farms in California producing $44.7 billion worth of sales. A good number of those that could be now in jeopardy. Construction of the XL pipeline boasts it could generate $521 billion by 2035.

Do the math over 21 years. California farmers would generate $938.7 billion (w/o accounting for inflation). That's almost twice as much !



Hence if we do nothing to help these farmers get water, but built a oil pipeline instead we've taken one step forward.. two back. The worse sin of all is we may trade off oil for the very food all of us need to survive on each day. Not just this year, but after year. We can live with less oil and gas, but not food and water.

Plentiful clean water is increasingly becoming harder to come by. Much more so when we pollute our rivers with spills like we've seen where whole cities' water systems were forced to shut down. How much more foolish even more so to waste this vital resource inefficiently on gas extraction. If we had any sense we'd be diverting where water is plentiful to other parts of the country where it's not.

Would not these water pipelines supply the same number of jobs while also saving our food supplies from disaster? I question the sanity in our reasoning in doing otherwise.

Yes King Midas was part of Greek mythology. I wonder if it's even being taught anymore in our schools? It should be. When it comes to the U.S. domestic policy priorities over a oil pipeline and not even talk of supplying much needed water one could assume King Midas were running the show.

The CEO may hate that water tower, but farmers would beg for dozens of them. The sensible thing to do is make both their wishes comes true.

Unfortunately farmers stand a better chance by appealing to Zeus for rain, then wishing for a solution to come out of Washington D.C.. As we all should know by now when it comes to Washington, D.C., "If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride."