Until reading this a few minutes ago, frack-sand mining was a topic I knew
nothing about. Now it's ruined my day.--Tom (Mathews)
In a message dated 5/20/2012 4:46:07 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
(http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=de0238573b&e=ea9f1a290c) May 20, 2012
_Tomgram: Ellen Cantarow, The New Eco-Devastation in Rural America_
(http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=
0416ccd506&e=ea9f1a290c)
When workers drilling tunnels at Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, began to
die, Union Carbide had an answer. It hadn’t been taking adequate precautions
against the inhalation of silica dust, a known danger to workers since the
days of ancient Greece. Instead, in many cases, a company doctor would
simply tell the families of the workers that they had died of “tunnelitis,”
and a local undertaker would be paid $50 to dispose of each corpse. A few
years later, in 1935, a congressional subcommittee discovered that
approximately 700 workers had perished while drilling through Hawk’s Nest
Mountain, many of them buried in unmarked graves at the side of the road just
outside the tunnel. The subcommittee _concluded_
(http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=57281475c6&e=ea9f1a290c)
that Union Carbide’s project had been accomplished through a “grave and
inhuman disregard of all considerations for the health, lives and future
of the employees."
Despite the “_Hawk’s Nest Incident_
(http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=a93c904f3f&e=ea9f1a290c) ” and
thousands of Depression-era lawsuits against foundries, mines, and
construction companies, silicosis never disappeared. In the decades since, as
_TomDispatch authors_
(http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=ee54e6d401&e=ea9f1a290c) David Rosner and Jerry
Markowitz have repeatedly demonstrated, industry worked tirelessly to label
silicosis a “disease of the past,” even while ensuring that it would
continue to be a disease of the present. By the late 1990s, the Columbia
University researchers _found_
(http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=b14f691a6e&e=ea9f1a290c) that from New
York to California, from Texas all the way back to West Virginia, millions
of workers in foundries, shipyards, mines, and oil refineries, among other
industries, were endangered by silica dust.
Today, there’s a new silicosis scare on the horizon and a new
eco-nightmare brewing in the far corners of rural America. Like the Hawk's Nest
disaster it has flown under the radar -- until now.
Once upon a time, mining companies tore open hills or bored through or
chopped off mountain tops to get at vital resources inside. They were intent
on creating quicker paths through nature’s obstacles, or (as at Gauley
Bridge) diverting the flow of mighty rivers. Today, they’re doing it merely to
find the raw materials -- so-called frac sand -- to use in an assault on
land several states away. Multinational corporations are razing ancient
hills of sandstone in the Midwest and shipping that silica off to other
pastoral settings around the United States. There, America’s prehistoric
patrimony is being used to _devastating effect_
(http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=fb19d46650&e=ea9f1a290c)
to fracture shale deposits deep within the earth -- they call it “hydraulic
fracturing” -- and causing all manner of environmental havoc. Not
everyone, however, is keen on this “sand rush” and coalitions of small-town
farmers, environmentalists, and public health advocates are now beginning to
stand firm against the big energy corporations running sand-mining operations
in their communities.
Ground zero in this frac-fight is the rural Wisconsin towns to which
TomDispatch’s roving _environmental reporter_
(http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=85644200dc&e=ea9f1a290c)
Ellen Cantarow traveled this spring to get the biggest domestic
environmental story that nobody knows about. Walking the fields of family farms under
siege and talking to the men and women resisting the corporations, Cantarow
offers up a shocking report of vital interest. There’s a battle raging
for America’s geological past and ecological future -- our fresh food and
clean water supplies may hinge on who wins it. Nick Turse
How Rural America Got Fracked
The Environmental Nightmare You Know Nothing About
By _Ellen Cantarow_
(http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=1c8be27247&e=ea9f1a290c)
If the world can be seen in a grain of sand, watch out. As Wisconsinites
are learning, there’s money (and misery) in sand -- and if you’ve got the
right kind, an oil company may soon be at your doorstep.
_Click here to read more of this dispatch._
(http://tomdispatch.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=6cb39ff0b1f670c349f828c73&id=83750e8e46&e=ea9f1a290c)
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3 days ago...
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Recent Highlights
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Planet_
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