"Fracking Democracy"

"The EPA's Hydraulic Fracturing Public Informational Meeting was probably the strangest exhibition of performance art ever to grace the stage of the Broome County Forum Theater in Binghamton, New York.

Over the course of two days, a panel of EPA officials heard four hundred two-minute presentations by members of the public who had come to advise the agency, at its own invitation, on how it should design a scientific study. As ordered by Congress, this study will investigate the risks to drinking water posed by the Johnny-come-lately technology known as high-volume slick water horizontal hydrofracturing, which does to shale bedrock what mountaintop removal does to an Appalachian mountaintop: blows it up to get at a carbon-rich fossil fuel trapped inside."

Sandra Steingraber reports for Orion magazine in the January/February 2011 issue.

SEE ALSO:

"Strong Debate Rages on  Gas Drilling in Delaware River Basin" (Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin)

"Hundreds Attend Hearing on  Gas Drilling Along Delaware River" (Pottstown Mercury)

"Drillers Set Sights on  Shale Reserve Deeper Than the Marcellus" (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

"Pa. Gov Scales Back Drilling Policy on  Public Land" (AP)