If you haven't had the pleasure of seeing a new You Tube Video thats got the anti-fracking world in a frenzy, I suggest you do so you can laugh as hard as I did when I saw it. I'd have added a link here, but Goggle says its illegal for me to do so. Its called "fracking_fluid_dumping_in_pa_video.
For those of you not familiar with the Route 19 corridor of Washington County, PA, please let me explain before you watch. It'll make you appreciate it all the more.
In this "man-on-the-street" (literally) video, a Johnny do-gooder driving down Route 19 on the way to his son's hockey game stops to video tape a truck "dumping frack water" on the side of the road. He walks down to the truck -- actually thinks the truck is pulling out of the area beacuse of him and his camera phone, shows us the entire area, fails to read the sign that explains what's happening before his eyes, and then, to top it all off, takes a "sample" of said frack water using a dirty Deer Parkbottle he finds sitting in the middle of the puddle created by the so called dumper.
The place this poor confused man has stopped at is the site of Al's Water Hauling -- a company that has been operating there for sometime (years). Al hauls fresh water -- mostly for things like filling swimming pools. Perhaps now adays, he's making a few extra bucks hauling some fresh water to drillers, but probably not so much -- most of them permit withdrawl points from waterways or purchase from local water treatment plants. In the video, Al's truck driver overfilled his truck and couldn't close the valve, so he let a little out. Fresh water that is. One of my favorite parts of the video is when this guys looks at Al's sign and says, "Huh, water hauling."
However, beacuse there is a truck on the side of the road, releasing water, it MUST be one of those awful frack truck drivers releasing frack water on the side of a major roadway at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Hysterical. Even if one was going to do something this dumb, why would they do it on the side of a major highway in broad daylight when every one in Washington County without a drilling lease is looking for their chance to cash in on the drillers? Right -- they wouldn't.
But it gets better. The "house" he points out across the street is in fact an old farm house that has been converted into a funerial facility because that beautiful green field he shows you is actually a gigantic cemetary -- for people and animals. Nobody lives there.
The one thing he fails to show as he pans all around Route 19 chattering to himself about why drillers just can't seem to understand why people don't trust them is the monstrous junkyard on the hill behind where he tapes the truck. Its probably been there longer than Al's, and has likely caused more groundwater pollution in that area from leaking gasoline and oil than every natural gas well already drilled in PA. But no one seems to care about those -- junk yards are often impossible to shut down even though they are one of the biggest environmental nusiances in existence.
But I digress.
My absolute favorite part of the video is when this guy picks up a plastic water bottle in the middle of the puddle of this so called "frack water" he's so frightened of, with his bare hands no less, and proceeds to take a sample of the "pollution." He had to have failed every science class he ever took. First, he's using an already contaminated bottle to collect a sample -- major no-no. Then he uses his bare hands -- sorry on that one too. Sample anyone's hands sometime -- you'll get a return on fecal coliform -- if you don't know what that is, look it up. So even if he had used a nice clean sample jar, its already cross contaminated. Later, he actually sticks his finger in the bottle!!! Lets forget about the fact that this is winter, and 19 has already been salted to death by PennDOT. (Streams and aquatic life, by the way, are more likely to suffer from road salt than any frack fluid spill). So to recap -- we have a sample taken in a dirty bottle, from a muddy puddle on the side of a recently salted major roadway, that is now cross contaminated with fecal coliform. When he says its not a great sample, he has no idea how right he is.
This kind of "citizen journalism" is just pathetic. Environmental groups opposed to drilling everywhere are picking it up to show everyone who doesn't understand the intracacies of environmental science how evil those drillers really are. And, judging by its over 400,000 hits on You Tube, people are buying this garbage.
To the man on the video, so untrusting of drillers -- maybe you better start second guessing your environmental group and anti-fracking friends. Its their nasty rhetoric condenming a legitimate business practice that has made you show the entire world how gullible you truly are. Amazing the Internet, isn't it?
Let's just pray Al's Water Hauling doesn't find you and sue you for all you've got for the business he could lose from this kind of stupidity.
Next time you want to post a You Tube video, do your homework.
