Vaccinated Farmed Fish Have Side Effects

Natural Blaze | Mar 5, 2015 | Catherine J. Frompovich

Be forewarned, please, that this will not be very pleasant reading, especially if readers eat farm-raised fish and, in particular, salmon, a highly-farm-raised fish. “Wild-caught” need not apply.

During my years of research, I’ve come across all sorts of information, studies, and papers relating to animal vaccines, but this one sort of “takes the cake,” in my opinion. Farmed fish are vaccinated because, according to the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science (NSVS),

Modern fish farming is highly industrialized and relies heavily upon effective vaccines to minimize losses caused by infectious diseases. [1]

Want to know how to vaccinate a fish?

Please see slide 4 of the 28-slide presentation, “Side-effects of vaccination: an example of the conflict between guidelines and real life.” 

It looks like a PowerPoint presentation made by Trygve T. Poppe and Gunvor Knudsen of the NSVS.

However, before I go any further about fish vaccinations, readers ought to know that there’s a 404-page book detailing the science of fish vaccinations titled—what else but—“Fish Vaccination,” May 2014 published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. The book obviously is a guide to sustainable bio-production, disease prevention to reduce losses by employing the use of antimicrobials and vaccinations, which are considered effective in stimulating the immune system of fish.

Did anyone ask the fish? That may sound like an unlikely and stupid question, but in the NSVS PowerPoint presentation, slide 10 states,

Over the years fish farmers in Norway (and strangly [sic] enough to a very limited extent in other countries) have experienced severe and unacceptable side-effects in vaccinated fish.

[Hmmm! I could have told them to expect that; it’s a no brainer!] [CJF emphasis added]

There’s a photograph of a fish carcass with some sort of black “diseased-like” flesh inside the abdominal cavity. Check it out for yourself here (No. 12) .

The two slides following No. 12 show other fish health problems such as generalized granulomatous peritonitis and abdominal lesions affecting internal organs that often have heavy melanization, meaning causing tissue to turn dark or black.

Something I find rather interesting, and bordering on empathetic, is the remark on slide 15 that vaccines save fish lives [sounds familiar] from acute death from bacterial infections, but some fish are sentenced to “life-long suffering due to severe pathological lesions in internal organs.” If that happens to fish from vaccines, what, if anything, happens to human vaccinees’ organs?

But, the real “kicker” is the remark on another slide about their having no consensus about pain perception in fish! Interestingly, though, there is a caveat that’s added, “…but anorexia and retarded growth are good indicators.” Anorexia in fish! Retarded growth too! Hmmm. Can autism occur in fish?

A fish liver granuloma [nodular inflammation in tissue] with multinucleated giant cell is featured on slide 16.

Slide 18 features the inside cavity of a fish that has to be seen – really – to believe, and people eat vaccinated farmed fish! Or, hopefully, diseased fish never make it to market. But, what if their diseased organs are removed—are those fish marketed? I wonder, “What will happen with vaccinated GMO fish?”

Candidly, the PP presentation reports that the magnitude and significance of fish disease cases are unknown and “certainly underreported” [probably just like human vaccine damage] “as most cases have been closed in agreement between the fish farmers and the vaccine manufacturer. This is confirmed by The Norwegian Medicines Agency (NMA).” Since the fish obviously don’t have legal rights, this sounds familiar and probably similar to what apparently goes on at the U.S. Vaccine Court, in my opinion.

Slide 20 has a chart of “Reported side-effects from fish veterinarians to Norwegian Medicines Agency, 1996 to 2004.” Not knowing how to interpret that chart correctly, I wouldn’t want to take a guess since I was not in the audience to hear the presenters’ interpretation. However, following that on the very next chart, we read two rather disconcerting statements, I think:

1. Is this an example of testing where results obtained in experiments are far from what happens in real life? [Again, human vaccine tests are fudged; we know that from some whistleblowers [6] and a federal court case [5].]
2. Possible problems are not addressed well enough prior to release of the products [vaccines]

Whereas, on another slide (22) this most pointed of questions appears:

How can this happen as long as these vaccines are approved by NMA following their testing protocols (since 2001)? [That seems like vaccine adverse event history just repeating itself when human vaccines are used, especially in the USA as the VAERS reports indicate.] [CJF emphasis added]

Apparently, a similar question can – and should be – asked regarding human vaccines and the testing/approval process.

At one point, slide 25, this blunt and self-searching question is asked about vaccines for fish:

Should we INCREASE the number of experimental fish for vaccine testing prior to release in order to reduce the number of side-effects? (or how should we REFINE present testing?)

It would seem that the NSVS scientists have more concern about fish than the U.S. FDA has about vaccines harming children. With all the complaints about the HPV vaccines causing harms, even deaths, to teenage girls, the FDA apparently is not asking any questions!

Now, we get down to what, for me, was the “nitty-gritty” of the fish’s health issues:

1. They were concerned about animal welfare and the “quality of life” for the fish prior to slaughter.
2. That the side-effects from vaccines in fish were still occurring after 12 years of extensive use of vaccines, and people were eating vaccinated fish!
3. They want to find ways to refine present testing to reduce side-effects! So, they realize that side effects still go on after 12 years, and continue to use vaccines. Duh!

I think I know how they can reduce all those vaccine side effects. Eliminate the vaccines; take the fish out of farms, tanks, and pens and let fish be fish! What’s happening with “farmed” fish confirms what happens when corporate-food-production ‘innovates’ on the way in which Nature intends for food production: free roaming; not-confined in close quarters thereby promoting infectious diseases from exposure to filth; and not being subjected to chemical intervention from feed or vaccines.

Vaccines for Other Animals

Other corporate-food-producers, e.g., egg production and chickens, are notorious for cramped quarters, even stacked cages for egg-laying hens, plus supplemented GMO feed ‘enhanced’ with antibiotics and other chemicals for faster growth, or for earlier harvesting than would be normal naturally. Merck & Company produces vaccines for chickens, turkeys, and ducks. (Source)

Feed lots for cattle are another example of stress on animals grown for food. Stress in any form enables or promotes animals from all genres to produce stress-related hormones. Humans produce certain hormones like cortisol and epinephrine. Furthermore, cortisol is also produced by cattle! [2] Some researchers contend that animals in fear, or under stress, produce excess adrenalin, cortisol-like excretions and steroid-like hormones, which are secreted into their tissues and have been found in their meat served to research lab animals. Here’s the “Beef cattle herd health vaccination schedule.”

In the above information about fish vaccine adverse effects, it is interesting to learn that two veterinary scientists seem concerned about “quality of life” for fish prior to slaughter.

Animal vaccines for pets have been responsible for tumor growths at injection sites, especially in cats. [3, 4] That’s why veterinarians recommend vaccinating on cats’ limbs, so the limbs can be amputated, if need be.

Vaccines are BIG business for both humans and animals, too. Here are just a few animal vaccination schedules:

The Chicken Vet – Vaccination
http://www.chickenvet.co.uk/health-and-common-diseases/vaccination/index.aspx

Cattle Vaccines and Their Use
http://www.iowabeefcenter.org/Beef%20Cattle%20Handbook/Vaccines_Cattle.pdf

Vaccination Schedule for Goats and Sheep
http://www.valleyvet.com/library/sheep_vaccine.html

Vaccination Schedule for Pigs
http://animals.pawnation.com/vaccination-schedule-pigs-2248.html

Caring for Rabbits, Guinea Pigs and Ferrets
http://www.vetwest.com.au/pet-library/caring-for-rabbits-guinea-pigs-and-ferrets

Vaccinations for Adult Horses
http://www.aaep.org/custdocs/adultvaccinationchart.pdf

Overview of Vaccination for Exotic Mammals
http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/exotic_and_laboratory_animals/vaccination_of_exotic_mammals/overview_of_vaccination_of_exotic_mammals.html

Preventive Medicine for Zoo Animals

http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/exotic_and_laboratory_animals/zoo_animals/preventive_medicine_for_zoo_animals.html

So, what’s in your meat or fish?

References:

[1] http://oslovet.norecopa.no/gardermoen/2405poppe.pdf
[2] http://www.dairyco.org.uk/technical-information/animal-health-welfare/mastitis/symptoms-of-mastitis/stress-health-and-productivity/#.VPhd8hQ5D9I
[3] http://www.petmd.com/cat/conditions/cancer/c_ct_vaccine_sarcoma
[4] https://www.avma.org/KB/Resources/Reference/Pages/rbbroch.aspx
[5] http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/06/27/47851.htm
[6] http://healthimpactnews.com/2015/obama-grants-immunity-to-cdc-whistleblower-on-measles-vaccine-link-to-autism/

Resources:

Vaccines for fish in acquaculture

http://www.aqualifeservices.com/services/fish-vaccination/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15757476
http://www.thefishsite.com/articles/150/vaccines-for-fish-in-aquaculture/

Vaccine Associated Fibrosarcoma

http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?A=526
http://www.fws.gov/fisheries/aadap/INAD%20Workshop%20Files/Workshop%202011%20Bozeman
/Presentations/Wednesday/Wed%20PM/Mitchell_Fish%20vaccine%20status%20AADAP%20August%202011.pdf

Image source

Catherine retired from researching and writing, but felt compelled to write this article. 

Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.

Catherine’s latest book, published October 4, 2013, is Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, available on Amazon.com.

Her 2012 book A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.

Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008)

Oil & gas execs ‘pressured’ Oklahoma geologists not to reveal fracking-quakes link

Reuters / Jim Urquhart

RT | Mar 5, 2015

Newly-obtained emails reveal that Oklahoma geologists were pressured by oil industry big-shots not to push on with their assessments of possible links between earthquakes in the state and hydraulic fracturing industry, most often referred to as fracking.

More than a year since a sharp spike in earthquakes in the region, which coincided with fracking for oil and gas, the Oklahoma Geological Survey say there might be a possible link. The rise resulted in magnitude 3 earthquakes almost twice daily on average – three times as many as in disaster-prone California.

But after the body issued a joint statement with the USGS in October 2013, saying that "activities such as wastewater disposal" could be a “contributing factor to the increase in earthquakes,” oil execs started to panic, according to newly-obtained emails by EnergyWire.

This allegedly led to the OGS avoiding mentioning that the lion’s share of earthquakes in the region was man-made. The silence has lasted since 2010 and was apparently due to pressure not to disclose the findings.

OGS geologist at the University of Oklahoma, Austin Holland, was one of the scientists aware of the link, but earlier did not wish to discuss it for lack of direct scientific proof.

It now turns out he was later being influenced by oil executives with a vested interest in the continuation of fracking in the area, according to the obtained emails.

“Researchers in Oklahoma, notably Austin Holland… have repeatedly said the increase in seismic activity cannot be fully explained by man-made causes,” Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association (OIPA) President Mike Terry said in a 2013 statement, pointing to Holland’s earlier scientific skepticism.

That statement coincided with Holland’s research, which found disturbing data from the southern town of Marietta, but stopped short of wholeheartedly acknowledging the fracking and earthquake link.

But when the OGS cautiously joined the USGS assessment in admitting that there was a relationship between fracking and growing seismic risks, Austin Holland was called into meetings with his boss at the university, President David Boren, and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC). He spoke with Jack Stark of the OCC, then also vice president of exploration at Continental Resources.

The OCC is the main regulatory body for oil and gas in the state.

Reuters / Gareth Fuller

Continental Resources Chairman Harold Hamm – the University of Oklahoma’s leading financial donor – started getting really interested in the findings around that time. Hamm, who was Mitt Romney’s energy adviser, is not a believer in the relationship between seismic activity and the oil and gas industry.

The joint statement by OGS/USGS aroused fear in the oil execs, as Holland recounted in one of the emails from 2013.

He was trying to explain to Continental and the OCC that his input only benefited the USGS assessment, but that "Continental does not feel induced seismicity is an issue and they are nervous about any dialog about the subject," as he wrote to his superiors at the university.

"They are in the denial phase that this is a possibility,” he wrote of the execs.

One of the people also dissatisfied with the Oklahoma geologists partnering up with the USGS was Patrice Doubles, the OCC commissioner. At the time, she was running for Congress and got more campaign funds from Continental than almost any other senator. That included money from Hamm.

As Holland explained in the email, Douglas said that she wished to “of course, protect the safety of Oklahomans, but also balance that with industry in the state.”

Earlier this year, in the Washington Post, Holland did admit that higher-ups were trying to influence his work – specifically, Hamm. In fact, according to a piece by fellow geologist Bob Jackman, Holland told him at the time: “you don’t understand – Harold Hamm and others will not allow me to say certain things.”

Holland later tried to downplay Jackman’s quote to EnergyWire, but Jackman later said he had written down Holland’s confession word for word immediately after the conversation.

A few other geologists have spoken out about the relationship between Hunton dewatering operations and a rise in earthquakes in the vicinity of Oklahoma City. They have also been warning that a surge in smaller quakes could increase the likelihood of greater ones.

Unlike other states where fracking is also commonplace, Oklahoma did little in the way of caps or regulations or shutdowns. Instead, reports emerged that state authorities limited such powers to information-gathering missions.

According to EnergeyWire, the view on Oklahoma having fracking-related earthquakes is shared by many academic and federal seismologists.

These new revelations come on the heels of fresh data from Oklahoma that has the US Geological Survey pointing to a clear scientific link between quakes and fracking. 

Shock: Fracking Used to Inject Nuclear Waste Underground for Decades

TruthStream Media | Mar 4, 2015 | Aaron Dykes and Melissa Melton

Unearthed articles from the 1960s detail how nuclear waste was buried beneath the Earth’s surface by Halliburton & Co. for decades as a means of disposing the by-products of post-World War II atomic energy production.

Fracking is already a controversial practice on its face; allowing U.S. industries to inject slurries of toxic, potentially carcinogenic compounds deep beneath the planet’s surface — as a means of “see no evil” waste disposal — already sounds ridiculous, dangerous, and stupid anyway without even going into further detail.

Alleged fracking links to the contamination of the public water supply and critical aquifers, as well as ties to earthquake upticks near drilling locations that are otherwise not prone to seismic activity have created uproar in the years since the 2005 “Cheney loophole,” which allowed the industry to circumvent the Safe Drinking Water Act by exempting fracking fluids, thus fast tracking shale fracking as a source of cheap natural gas.

Now, it is apparent that the fracking industry is also privvy to many secrets of the nuclear energy industry, and specifically, where the bodies are buried, err… dangerous nuclear waste is buried, rather — waste that atomic researchers have otherwise found so difficult to eliminate.

Truthstream uncovered several published newspaper accounts from the Spring of 1964 concerning a then-newly disclosed plan to dump nuclear waste produced by the atomic energy industry into hydraulic fracturing (fracking) wells using a cement slurry technique developed by Halliburton & Co. The top two fracking companies in the nation at the time were Halliburton and Dowell, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical.

And here we thought fracking was a relatively new industrial phenomenon growing in popularity over just the last couple of decades. Boy were we wrong. Revealed within these articles is Halliburton’s long-standing relationship with the secret government and deep ties between the oil and nuclear industries.

Teaming up with the U.S. Government and Union Carbide Corp., who operate nuclear materials divisions at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee, Halliburton was then credited with “solving” the radioactive waste problem faced by America’s secretive nuclear industry. Dumping waste via fracking had apparently been going on since 1960, according to the reports, but was only made public here in 1964.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Each of the articles Truthstream found carry the same account under different headlines, with four of them using identical copy, and the fifth, published in the San Antonio Express, slightly rewritten based upon the same source information. The photo captions of each story also add some useful tidbits:

These ran in the:

April 19, 1964 edition of the Great Bend Tribune,
the April 22, 1964 edition of the Warren Times-Mirror,
the April 26, 1964 edition of the Lubbock Avalanche Journal,
the May 3, 1964 edition of the San Antonio Express News (original)
and the June 15, 1964 edition of the Denton Record Chronicle.

The story read, in part:

“Two techniques originated by the petroleum industry for its own uses are expected to solve a major problem in the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The problem is the disposal of dangerous, sometimes deadly, radioactive waste by-products.”

“Researchers at Halliburton Co’s. Technical Center here working with Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists, have combined the oil well cementing technique with the hydraulic fracturing production stimulation technique to entomb radioactive wastes in an impermeable shale formation a thousand feet underground.”

“The method used at Oak Ridge begins by mixing the waste with a cement slurry, pumping the mixture down a hole drilled into the Conasuaga shale and then fracturing the shale to create a horizontal crack. The crack fills with the mixture to form a thin, horizontal sheet several hundred feet across. The mix sets to permanently hold the radioactive waste in the formation.”

“Union Carbide Corp., which operates facilities at Oak Ridge for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, and Halliburton, which provides specialized oil field services such as cementing fracturing worldwide, have collaborated on the project since 1960.”

The mix remained liquid for 48 hours before it was supposed to permanently set and remain there, entombed, forever.

The articles make clear that the Atomic Energy Commission was preparing to use fracking as a means of disposing of nuclear wastes at additional facilities, with Oak Ridge being simply one of the largest, and the first to publicly disclose these out-of-sight disposal procedures:

“Oak Ridge has a radioactive waste disposal problem typical of the nation’s nuclear sites. Each year about four million gallons of waste, including such fission products as strontium 90, cesium 137 and ruthenium 103, are generated at Oak Ridge.”

“Among the disposal methods already tried have been dumping concrete-encased barrels of waste in the ocean or burying the waste in lead-lined containers. These are considered either too dangerous or too expensive or both.”

Unfortunately, the ocean has been used as a giant trashcan not only by the nuclear industry, but municipal garbage and landfill companies and many other entities as well, without any real concern about its significant effects on the food supply and larger ecosystem of the planet.

“If this process is successful for disposal of Oak Ridge National Laboratory intermediate-level wastes, it has potential application at other atomic energy sites where suitable geological conditions exist,” the Atomic Energy Commission says.”

The slightly different version in the San Antonio Express News added these details:

“A couple of techniques used by oilmen when they have hopes of production may soon be used by the Atomic Energy Commission for – of all things – radioactive garbage disposal.”

“Final tests are now under way at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, in trying a combination of oil well cementing plus hydraulic fracturing to entomb radioactive wastes in an impermeable shale formation a thousand feet underground.”

Meanwhile, the Great Bend Tribune added information about the Halliburton executives involved in the plan in their caption for a photo which shows businessmen looking at a diagram explaining how nuclear waste like strontium 90 is mixed with cement and injected into shale formations:

“Halliburton engineer Mack Stogner, left, reviews the project with Harry P. Conroy, senior vice president and general manager of the oil field service firm, and W.D. Owsley, senior vice president.”

The process includes remote controlled operation of the hydraulic fracturing drill in order to shield workers from the “medium level” radioactive substances being dumped into the earth’s crust, as the Warren Times Mirror in Pennsylvania notes in the caption:

“Disposing of Waste – Working behind shielding and wearing film badges, Halliburton Company personnel use demounted oil field service units to dispose of radioactive waste generated at the Oak Ridge, Tenn. nuclear site.”

How often this procedure has been used at other facilities since then is not entirely clear, though we know from reports discussed below that the practice continued and there is no indication that it ever stopped.

Five years later, the October 22, 1969 edition of the San Bernardino County Sun carried a report titled, “3 Ways to Manage Radioactive Waste.”

It discussed the ongoing and growing problems with nuclear waste, naming three principle strategies for managing the toxic stuff, summed up as “(1) delay and decay, (2) concentrate and confine and (3) dilute and disperse,” discussing how materials with lower half lives can supposedly be safely sequestered and later dumped, while other materials can be simply diluted and poured into existing groundwater supplies and systems.

The UPI story originating out of Oak Ridge states, in part,

“Since the start of the atomic era in the 1940s, nuclear reactors around the nation have produced 75 million gallons of hazardous high level radioactive waste materials.”

“And scientists here and elsewhere around the nation still are wrestling with the problems of what to do with this material, which promises to become even more plentiful as more and more commercial nuclear reactors go into power production.”

Oak Ridge proclaims that it found a solution to dealing with high level nuclear wastes, which has thus far been to keep it,

“…buried a few feet underground in storage tanks – tanks which must be periodically replaced because of the natural deterioration of the steel and other materials of which they are fabricated.”

“It is in this area of confining the high level wastes, whose radioactive half life ranges up to 30 to 50 years, that the Atomic Energy Commission is pushing dramatic new concepts.”

“One disposal system, involving materials in the medium range of radioactivity, is the hydraulic fracturing procedures. This system is now being used at Oak Ridge and involves mixing the liquid radioactive waste with concrete to form a grout which is pumped into shale formations 500 to 800 feet underground.”

Note, this article cites a shallower depth, at levels as shallow as 500 feet, after the 1964 articles claimed a further removed depth of 1,000 feet to 5,000. The even “higher level wastes” were disposed of in abandoned salt mines, according to Oak Ridge.

Nuclear Waste ‘Safely Flushed Away’ into the Water Supply

The 1969 article states that “low level waste” is “material which can safely be flushed away into rivers and lakes or released into the atmosphere because the level of radioactivity is so low that is presents no hazard when diluted and flushed into man’s natural environment. The more difficult problem is involved in the high level, liquid and solid wastes which are produced in the reprocessing of used fuel elements from nuclear reactor cores.”

The idea that the waste dumped into water supplies was so “low level” as to be completely harmless is likely dubious and hopeful at best. Fluoride, a by-product of the nuclear power industry, was one of those constituents, and was transformed from being known as a rat poison to being known as a dental benefit by the original spin doctor and propagandist, Edward Bernays.

In his book “The Fluoride Deception,” author Christopher Bryson revealed how the nuclear industry also used fluoridation of the public water supply as a means of secretly dumping industrial waste after fluoride was a major by-product in the uranium enrichment process for building the atomic bomb. Bryson told Democracy Now:

The Manhattan Project needed fluoride to enrich uranium. That’s how they did it. The biggest industrial building in the world, for a time, was the fluoride gaseous diffusion plant in Tennessee the Manhattan Project and Dr. Hodge as the senior toxicologist for the Manhattan Project, were scared stiff less that workers would realize that the fluoride they were going to be breathing inside these plants was going to injury them and that the Manhattan Project, the key — the key of U.S. Strategic power in the Cold War Era, would be jeopardized because the Manhattan Project and the industrial contractors making the atomic bomb would be facing all these lawsuits from workers, all these lawsuits from farmers living around these industrial plants and so Harold Hodge assures us that fluoride is safe and good for children.

More recently, an Associated Press investigation found in 2011 that 48 of 65 nuclear sites in the United States were leaking tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, into groundwater supplies via corroded pipes and tunnels. AP found at least 37 locations were in direct violation of federal drinking water standards for tritium, in some cases hundreds of times over.

Fracking Nuclear Waste ‘Safe for Millions of Years’… Unless It Leaks

Some 30 trillion gallons of toxic waste has been kept out of sight, out of mind by U.S. industries that have injected it hundreds and thousands of feet underground into wells since the 1960s.

Scientists who work for these corporations have used computer modeling to assure the Environmental Protection Agency that this waste poses no threat to our aquifers and that layers of rock deep within the Earth would safely store this stuff like Tupperware for millenia.

Already, several incidents have proven that scientific computer models are no match for reality.

It is clear from a December 21, 1973 article that disposal of nuclear waste via fracking continued, along with promises that it would be safe for millions of years to come.

The Dixon Evening Telegraph wrote in “Geologists look at energy crunch”:

“The U.S. Government is disposing of approximately 250,000 gallons of intermediate-level wastes each year using a technique called hydraulic fracturing. Liquids are pumped into impervious shales 1,000 to 5,000 feet below the surface. High pressure is applied causing the rocks to fracture and the liquid moves out laterally. Because the rock and radioactive wastes it contains will not be exposed to the biosphere for millions of years, this method should be safe unless leakage into an overlying aquifer occurs.”

That is, as the article points out, unless there are leaks.

As we found in research, leakage is exactly what has happened time and again throughout the years, including at disposal sites for Oak Ridge National Laboratories, according to reports in the following cases.

Via ProPublica:

In April, 1967 pesticide waste injected by a chemical plant at Denver’s Rocky Mountain Arsenal destabilized a seismic fault, causing a magnitude 5.0 earthquake — strong enough to shatter windows and close schools — and jolting scientists with newfound risks of injection, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

A year later, a corroded hazardous waste well for pulping liquor at the Hammermill Paper Co., in Erie, Pa., ruptured. Five miles away, according to an EPA report, “a noxious black liquid seeped from an abandoned gas well” in Presque Isle State Park.

In 1975 in Beaumont, Texas, dioxin and a highly acidic herbicide injected underground by the Velsicol Chemical Corp. burned a hole through its well casing, sending as much as five million gallons of the waste into a nearby drinking water aquifer.

And these are hardly the only examples… in fact, it is just scratching the surface of an issue that is almost as incomprehensible as it is unfathomable.

Then in August 1984 in Oak Ridge, Tenn., radioactive waste was turned up by water monitoring near a deep injection well at a government nuclear facility.

Bingo…

There it is. The infallible, permanent, and “impermeable” deep injection wells that Halliburton and the Atomic Energy Commission considered as a solution to nuclear waste for eons to come were found turning up radioactive nuclear waste at the very Oak Ridge site where these 1960s disposal projects were taking place.

Subterranean Waste Disposal a ‘Cornerstone of the Nation’s Economy’

Those cemented wells, filled with injected disposal substances may be safely secured for a few years or even decades, but that is no guarantee for the years down the road and its certainly not the millenia as promised by Halliburton and others in the industry. In fact, many of the wells have been forgotten, abandoned, and are lost to the record books.
As ProPublica reports:

There are upwards of 2 million abandoned and plugged oil and gas wells in the U.S., more than 100,000 of which may not appear in regulators’ records. Sometimes they are just broken off tubes of steel, buried or sticking out of the ground. Many are supposed to be sealed shut with cement, but studies show that cement breaks down over time, allowing seepage up the well structure.

And many of these are injection wells, where all kinds of unwanted, toxic substances are dumped in order to be forgotten… though not necessarily gone.

Not only are these practices taking place, they are widespread… and widely defended, even with the known failures and safety issues.

Many scientists and regulators say the alternatives to the injection process — burning waste, treating wastewater, recycling, or disposing of waste on the surface — are far more expensive or bring additional environmental risks.

Subterranean waste disposal, they point out, is a cornerstone of the nation’s economy, relied on by the pharmaceutical, agricultural and chemical industries. It’s also critical to a future less dependent on foreign oil: Hydraulic fracturing, “clean coal” technologies, nuclear fuel production and carbon storage (the keystone of the strategy to address climate change) all count on pushing waste into rock formations below the earth’s surface. (source)

Sure, maybe it’s better than dumping it directly into the waterways, but still. This isn’t just playing with fire, this is playing with the lives of everyone in the nation for generations to come.

Please read ProPublica’s full series of reports on this, starting here. Things have to change.

These people should not have started messing with something they did not know how to fully and safely manage.

How long can this madness continue until it winds up tainting every drinking glass in America?

Engineer Mario Salazar, who worked as a technical expert for 25 years with the EPA’s underground injection program in Washington, told ProPublica’s Abrahm Lustgarten something that should give us all pause about how radioactive nuclear waste and industrial pollutants in general are being handled, and where they may ultimately end up:

“In 10 to 100 years we are going to find out that most of our groundwater is polluted. A lot of people are going to get sick, and a lot of people may die.”

Emergency Action To Stop GE Trees

Popular Resistance | Mar 1, 2015 |

On THURSDAY 5 March 2015, CTNBio, the agency that regulates GMOs in Brazil, will decide on an industry request to legalize the commercial development of genetically engineered eucalyptus trees.
CTNBio may approve this commercial release of genetically engineered (GE) eucalyptus.

That is, UNLESS there’s enough pressure, both nationally and globally, to change their mind.
If this request is approved, it will be an unprecedented decision, with devastating social and environmental impacts not only for Brazil but around the world.

In the US, a similar request to the USDA from GE tree company ArborGen to legalize their GE eucalyptus trees is currently pending, and doubtless the US will be paying close attention to this decision in Brazil.

We need you to help stop this disaster!

We are mobilizing an Emergency Day of Action to STOP GE Trees NEXT TUESDAY, March 3^rd and we need your help to make it a success!
 
Here’s how you can take part on Tuesday:  

Go to the Brazilian Embassy or Consulate nearest to you (see list of locations at the bottom of this post).

Bring signs, banners and some friends. Use these simple slogans (please use both English and Portuguese):

Brazil: No GMO Trees! / Brasil: Não às árvores transgênicas!

Brazil: STOP GMO Trees! / Brasil: Parem as árvores transgênicas!

Take some photos of you and your group with signs and banners in front of the Embassy or Consulate and send them to us by 2 PM EST (19:00 GMT) on Tuesday. This is crucial! We’ll include what we get in our press release on the action and any other media we produce.

Send those photos to our media coordinator, Kip, at either kip@stopgetrees.org OR media@stopgetrees.org by Tuesday, March 3rd at 2 PM EST (19:00GMT).

Please print this protest letter, adding your or your group’s name, and hand it to the receptionist at the Embassy or Consulate where you are.

And Tweet your photos and updates from your awesome action using the hashtag #stopgetrees.
(Please let us know if you will take part by emailing globalecology@gmavt.net)

Click here for the full list of Brazilian Embassies and Consulates

Brazilian Embassies and Consulates in the US and Canada:

USA

Brazilian Embassy in Washington
3006 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
(+1) 202 238 2700
(+1) 202 238 2827
http://washington.itamaraty.gov.br/en-us/

Brazilian Consulate General in Atlanta
3500 Lenox Road, Suite 800
One Alliance Center
Atlanta, Georgia 30326
(+1) (404) 949-2400
info@atlantaconsulatebrazil.org
atlanta.itamaraty.gov.br

Brazilian Consulate General in Chicago
401 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 1850
Chicago, Illinois 60611
(+1) (312) 464 0244
central.chicago@itamaraty.gov.br
chicago.itamaraty.gov.br

Brazilian Consulate General in Hartford
One Constitution Plaza, ground floor
Hartford, Connecticut 06103
(+1) (860) 760 3100
(+1) (860) 760 3139
hartford.itamaraty.gov.br

Brazilian Consulate General in Houston
Park Tower North
1233 West Loop South, Suite 1150
Houston, Texas 77027
(+1) (281) 384 4966
cg.houston@itamaraty.gov.br

Brazilian Consulate General in Los Angeles
8484 Wilshire Boulevard, suite 300
Beverly Hills
Los Angeles, California 90211
(+1) (323) 651 2664
(+1) (323) 651 1274
losangeles.itamaraty.gov.br

Brazilian Consulate General in Miami
80 SW 8th Street, 26th floor
Miami, Florida 33130-3004
(+1) (305) 285 6200
miami.itamaraty.gov.br
  
Brazilian Consulate General in New York
1185 Avenue of the Americas, 21st floor
New York, New York 10036
(+1) (917) 777 7777
novayork.itamaraty.gov.br

Brazilian Consulate General in San Francisco
300 Montgomery Street, suite 300
San Francisco, California 94104
(+1) (415) 981 8170
(+1) (415) 986 4625
saofrancisco.itamaraty.gov.br

HONORARIES:

Honorary Consulate of Brazil in Fort Lauderdale
2385 N.W. Executive Center Drive, Suite 100
Boca Raton, Florida 33431 , United States
(+1) (561) 210-7192

Honarary Consulate in Seattle
World Trade Center West Building
2200 Alaskan Way, Suite 450
Seattle, WA 98121

Brazilian Consulate in Philadelphia
5415 N. Lawrence Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19120
Mr Paul Thomas Johnson, Consul
(+1) (215) 275-6890

Brazil Honorary Consulate in Salt Lake City
180 S 300 West, Suite 130
Salt Lake City, UT  84101
Gary Neeleman
Honorary Consul of Brazil
801.363.4936

Brazilian Consulate in San Diego
8047 Caminito Mallorca
La Jolla, California 92037
(+1) (858) 453-8383

Brazilian Consulate General in Phoenix
1322 E. Louis Way
Tempe, Arizona 85284
(+1) 480.656.0206
Caio Pagano, Consul General

Consulate General of Brazil in Norfolk
500 E Plume Street
Norfolk, VA 23510
(757) 627-6286
  
Brazilian Consulate in New Orleans
365 Canal Street, Suite 1600
New Orleans, Louisiana 70130
Mr David Paul Schulingkamp
(504) 561-6206

Brazilian Consulate in Memphis
1256 N. McLean Blvd.
Memphis, Tennessee 38108
Mr Edson P. Peredo, Consul
(+1) (901) 272-6505

Brazilian Consulate in Las Vegas
7205 Madonna Drive
Las Vegas, Nevada 89156
(+1) (702) 350 2999
Mr Luis Antonio de Souza e Silva

Brazilian Consulate in Honolulu
3056 Kalakaua Ave #7W
Honolulu, Hawaii
(+1) (808) 235-0571
Eric Guimaraes Crispin
CANADA

Brazilian Consulate General in Vancouver
2020-666 Burrard Street
Vancouver, British Columbia V6C 2X8
(+1) (604) 696 5311
(+1) (604) 696 5366
vancouver.itamaraty.gov.br

Brazilian Consulate General in Toronto
77 Bloor Street West, Suite 1109
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1M2
(+1) (416) 922 2503
(+1) (416) 922 1832
toronto.itamaraty.gov.br

Brazilian Embassy in Ottawa 
450 Wilbrod Street, Ottawa
Ontario K1N 6M8
(+1) 613 237 1090
ottawa.itamaraty.gov.br

Brazilian Consulate General in Montreal
1 Wood Ave
Westmount, Quebec
(+1) (514) 499 0968
montreal.itamaraty.gov.br

Click here for the full list of Brazilian Embassies and Consulates

Busted! Fukushima Operator Concealed Radioactive Leak for Nearly a Year

© AP Photo/ Toshiaki Shimizu

Sputnik | Feb 26, 2015

Tokyo Electric Power Co., TEPCO, has been slammed by fishermen, for knowingly allowing radioactive substances to flow freely into the sea for ten months.

Operators of the tsunami-stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant admitted that a drainage ditch allowed highly-contaminated water to flow into the sea, and that the leak was first detected back in May 2014.
Fishermen were shocked to hear such confession, voicing disappointment in the company that has been criticized for the cleanup of the Fukushima disaster that happened four years ago.

"I don't understand why you (TEPCO) kept silent about the leakage even though you knew about it. Fishery operators are absolutely shocked," Masakazu Yabuki, chief of the Iwaki fisheries cooperative said.

© AP Photo/ Tokyo Electric Power Co.

Underground water is being released into the ocean through a piping at Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture, northern Japan Wednesday, May 21, 2014. Japan’s crippled nuclear power plant has begun releasing groundwater from the least contaminated areas of the facility into the ocean so it does not run into contaminated areas and create more toxic water amid storage space limitations.

A TEPCO officials justified the cover-up saying the company found out during an investigation.

"This was part of an ongoing investigation in which we discovered a water puddle with high levels of radiation on top of the Reactor No. 2 building, and because this also happens to be one of the sources for this drainage system, we decided to report everything all at once."

A company spokesperson added that it did not disclosed the leak because samples from ocean water surrounding the area showed no substantial spikes of hazardous material.

TEPCO had to get permission from the fishermen to dispose of groundwater in the surrounding ocean.

In Sept. 2013, when Tokyo was announced to be the host country for 2020 Summer Olympics, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe promised the International Olympic Committee that all radiation leaks at the tsunami-ravaged plant were “under control.”

The Japanese government also announced that TEPCO would be the main sponsor of the 2020 Olympics.

Meanwhile, TEPCO maintains that the contaminated water that has been freely leaking into the Pacific Ocean does not violate regulations and the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) has not detected a spike in the level of toxins.

In March 2011, the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant in Japan was hit by a massive earthquake-triggered tsunami that led to meltdown of three of the plant’s six nuclear reactions. Four people were killed, 37 had physical injuries and two were taken to the hospital for radiation burns. The entire death toll from the earthquake and tsunami is estimated to be around 20,000.

GMOs Are Destroying Our Food Security (and Heirloom Seed Treasures)

TruthStream Media | Feb 24, 2015 | Aaron Dykes

A report from Baker Creek Heirloom Rare Seed's catalog explains how the genetic engineering of crops is having real life consequences for business, as well as food security.

Just from the perspective of a medium sized business, Baker Creek and its partners in the seed industry have lost literally hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result of GMO corn contamination.

Baker Creek began testing their Heirloom corn varieties for GMO contamination, and found that more than 50% of their more than a dozen varieties were contaminated. Those varieties, most of which were hand passed down through countless generations, have now been lost – forever, unless a clean source is found and recovered.

Meanwhile, Monsanto has been accused of suing farmers, often financially ruining small farmers, for infringing patent laws when non-GMO varieties become unintentionally cross-pollinated.

Baker Creek reports that Monsanto's lawyers downplayed the effects of contamination as 'hypothetical' and low level, as in the OSGATA et al. vs. Monsanto court case, while their real world experience is massive financial loss.

The proliferation of further GMO crop and vegetable stables will destroy diversity irrevocably and undermine food freedom and security to feed the world.

http://www.osgata.org/osgata-et-al-v-...
http://www.rareseeds.com/osgata-presi...
http://www.osgata.org/2011/a-band-of-...

‘Tiny houses’: California homelessness gets new $40 solution (PHOTOS)

Watch video

RT | Feb 21, 2015

An Oakland artist is ingeniously battling homelessness in Oakland, California: he builds small houses out of materials he can find in the streets, with each edifice costing around forty bucks.

The tiny homes are made of pallets, bed boards, washing machine doors, and other bizarre objects that catch Greg Kloehn’s attention. Mr Kloehn first noticed that homeless people built shelters from whatever they find in the street, and he wanted to make a house like this.

He jokes that he constructs "illegal homes out of illegal garbage." The cost of one house is “$30 to $40,” Kloehn told RT.

Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject

“The real cost is just in the wheels: I buy large casters for the bottom, so that they are mobile, and then nails, and screws, and paintbrushes. But everything else I get for free,” he said.

The houses are just comfortable enough to lie down in a warmer place than a cardboard box, and the homeless in Oakland are “so happy,” Kloehn told the Independent. "One cried and got on his knees to thank me. They think I should make them bigger and suggest improvements. They like to decorate them themselves.”

Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject

Currently, about 25 people use the homes. One couple’s home burned down, another one was stolen, and a third was sold.

“It is tough out there. So I keep making more," Kloehn said. It takes about a week to finish a house, depending on the style.

“There are some quick, easy homes in maybe two or three days. But some more elaborate ones, some more Victorian-style ones, some different dome shapes – it takes a little bit longer," he told RT.

Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject

Some people choose to change their homes, Kloehn said to RT. “One guy remodeled the house and made it twice as big!”

The creator chooses funny names for the homes: R2D2, The Settler, Romanian Farm House, Uni-bomber Shack, the Tank and The Chuck Wagon to name a few.

Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject

“They are not just homes but fast becoming a life style option. They are usually cheaper than regular homes, giving more people the opportunity of ownership,” he said.

"By skipping the traditional 30 years mortgage, perhaps the tiny home movement could even reshape the way we think about work and what we want to accomplish with our lives."

Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject

Image from seenimages.com/homelesshomesproject

 

Citizens worldwide mobilize against corporate water grabs

Water is Life! - Milwaukee in solidarity with
those fighting water shutoffs in Detroit.
Photo: OccupyRiverWest.com.

The Ecologist | Feb 15, 2015 | Victoria Collier

The US and other governments are pushing a failed model of water privatization, writes Victoria Collier - but water is a human right, not just a commodity to be traded for profit or monopolized by corporations, and citizens and communities worldwide are fighting back, from Detroit to Cochabamba, from Berlin to Malaysia, to reclaim their water commons. 

"The last 15 years have seen at least 180 cases of water 'remunicipalization' in 35 countries, according to the Transnational Institute, and the trend is growing."

Earlier this month on 5th February, New Jersey became the latest state to subvert democracy by authorizing the fast-track sale or lease of water utilities without public notice, comment, or approval.

The controversial decision highlights the intensifying struggle over who owns, controls, and profits from the most precious - and threatened - resource on Earth.

We tend to associate corrupt water privatization schemes with the developing world, where according to the World Health Organization, nearly 2.6 billion people still lack a latrine and 1.1 billion people have no access to any type of improved drinking source of water.

In this crisis environment, the World Bank and IMF have spent decades imposing water privatization as a condition of their exploitative loans, profiting a handful of transnational water corporations. But according to renowned food and water rights advocate Maude Barlow,

"The performance of these companies in Europe and the developing world has been well documented: huge profits, higher prices for water, cut-offs to customers who cannot pay, little transparency in their dealings, reduced water quality, bribery, and corruption."

Double diasaster for impacted communities

Water privatization has also followed on the heels of war and natural disaster in devastated regions where massive reconstruction projects are needed. These are the largely unregulated profit-centers of what journalist Naomi Klein coined the "disaster capitalism complex".

But now, disaster capitalism has come home to the United States. Private corporations are taking advantage of lucrative opportunities created by the intentionally crippled tax base of American states.

Decades of neo-liberal policies have bled the public sector to the point of collapse: deregulation, outsourcing, tax cuts for the one percent, and trillions lost annually to war spending, corporate welfare and off-shore tax-havens.

Cash-strapped governments can finally no longer repair crumbling infrastructure or meet future development needs. Offering to "fill the budget gap", the private sector is grabbing public assets and resources, particularly water, blinding public officials to the consequences of long-term contracts with substantial up-front payments.

The fast-growing 'public-private-partnership' or PPP model is a friendly marketing euphemism for privatization. PPPs facilitate the transfer of public utilities, like water, to profit-driven private corporations. This is proving a slippery slope as laws are constantly changing, always further acceding to corporate demands.

In June 2014, water investment advisors Bluefield Research praised the "revised regulatory landscape" and cheered a "major step forward for the market" when President Obama signed the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA) into federal law, which among many other provisions seeks to expand private financing for water projects.

Private sector groups like the American Water Works Company (AWWC), Water Environment Federation (WEF), and the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA) began lobbying to further weaken WRRDA's public protections and to force tax-free Private Activity Bonds (PABs) so private investors can pocket more money at the expense of public coffers.

Meanwhile, investment banks including JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, the Carlyle Group, Allianz and many others are aggressively buying up the world's declining fresh water supply and infrastructure in what is being called a "liquid gold rush".

The global water fightback

But water is not a commodity; it is a human right. As climate change, population growth, industry use and pollution threatens the world's dwindling fresh water supplies, the onslaught of privatization is being countered by a powerful backlash to reclaim that precious resource for the public sphere.

The last 15 years have seen at least 180 cases of water 'remunicipalization' in 35 countries, according to the Transnational Institute, and the trend is growing.

In France, which had the longest history of water privatization, numerous cities have recently reclaimed their water, including Paris in 2010. From Spain to Buenos Aires, Cochabamba to Kazakhstan, Berlin to Malaysia, water privatization is being aggressively rejected.

Yet, because water privatization is notoriously at odds with democracy, citizens often find they must take to the streets in nonviolent marches and civil disobedience in order to defend their rights and reclaim control of this vital resource.

In Bolivia, a historic public uprising literally drove Bechtel from Cochabamba in 2000. In Ireland, nearly 100,000 people took to the streets in December 2014, to protest the right-wing government's plans to privatize water services. India and Nigeria are also launching campaigns against dangerous and undemocratic privatization schemes.

In the Unites States, residents of Detroit, Michigan spent the summer of 2014 fighting mass water shut-offs to tens of thousands of low-income, mostly African American residents. More than 3,000 protesters marched and citizens - including the elderly and disabled - engaged in direct action to block the trucks sent to disconnect water without notice. Detroiters will now have to mobilize against the water privatization expected through their new regional authority.

In Portland, Oregon, residents are mobilizing now to oppose the costly and unnecessary water system to be built by CH2M Hill, the notoriously corrupt mega-developer and privatization pioneer. CH2M Hill has also planned a mass-privatization scheme for California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, called the West Coast Infrastructure Exchange.

Public-Public Partnerships (PUPs) are emerging frameworks for preventing corporate takeovers of natural resources and developing non-profit, public-driven solutions for water infrastructure needs.

PUPs are partnerships between "two or more public authorities or organizations based on solidarity, to improve the capacity and effectiveness of one partner in providing public water or sanitation services", according to the Public Services International Research Unit.

Such solidarity partnerships are underway in Japan, the Netherlands, India, Costa Rica, Brazil, and many other countries.

We must continue to organize in the United States around similar, pro-active democratic solutions, to prepare for a future increasingly defined by resource scarcity, and fundamentally threatened by the corporate imperative of profits over people and democracy.

---

Victoria Collier is the Education Director of the National Election Integrity Coalition, the co-founder of Girasol, a center for sustainable ecology and economy in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
This article was originally published on CounterPunch.

German govt under pressure to legalize fracking, critics call on people to protest

Reuters/Axel Schmidt

RT | Feb 15, 2015

Germany has proposed a draft law to allow commercial shale gas fracking, overturning a moratorium that has been in place for the last two years.

The proposal has drawn fire from environmentalists who have urged people to protest before the exploration begins.

The government has been under pressure from the energy industry lobby to allow fracking (drilling for gas using water, sand and chemicals under high pressure through drill holes to prop open shale rock) citing rising energy costs in Germany and cheaper gas in the US, due to fracking's popularity in North America.

Commercial fracking for shale gas and coal bed methane would be banned at levels below 3,000 meters, but allowed for exploration at shallower levels, subject to the assessment of the expert panel, according to the Guardian. The draft law would reportedly affect only hydraulic fracturing for shale oil and tight gas in water protection and spring healing zones.
 
“It is important to have a legal framework for hydraulic fracturing as until now there has been no legislation on the subject,” the president of Germany’s federal environment agency (UBA), Maria Krautzberger, told the Guardian.
 
“We have had a voluntary agreement with the big companies that there would be no fracking but if a company like Exxon wanted, they might do it anyway as there is no way to forbid it,” she said, adding that this is “a progressive step forward.”

Anti-fracking groups and environmentalists claim that the panel is not going to be independent, however, with a number of the government experts belonging to institutions that signed the Hanover Declaration promoting exploration of shale gas.
 
"You don’t need a panel to tell you that shale gas is dangerous. We can see the problems with water pollution, earthquakes and methane emissions. We need people to protest about it before the exploration begins,” José Bové, the French Green MEP, said.

Germany is estimated to have up to 2.3 trillion cubic meters of shale gas reserves. Under the current fracking ban, there has been a decline in domestic production. If fracking is allowed, domestic natural gas production could go up, with fuel and electricity prices going down in Germany, which has some of the highest electricity prices in the EU.

A vote on the proposed draft in the Bundestag will take place in May. If passed into law, fracking could resume in Germany in the near future.

Reversing Course, UK Opens National Parks to Fracking

A view of the South Downs National Park
from Devil's Dyke in southern England.
(Photo: Escowles/Wikimedia/cc)

Common Dreams | Feb 12, 2015 | Sarah Lazare

Environmental groups say lawmakers' backpedaling could pave way for fracking near drinking water sources

Fracking will now be permitted in national parks, "areas of outstanding natural beauty," and potentially near drinking water sources, members of the UK Parliament said Wednesday,  marking a reversal of course from the commitment it made just three weeks ago to pass a prohibition, and infuriating opponents of toxic drilling.

On January 26, the House of Commons agreed to an amendment banning toxic drilling in the aforementioned special areas. The prohibition—if implemented—would have halted drilling in 40 percent of England's shale areas, according to a study by the Guardian.  But the new change allows for drilling in these areas as long as the drilling rigs themselves sit just outside of the areas. 

The ban had already been criticized as falling short of an all-out halt to fracking from grassroots organizations, as well as parliament's own Environmental Audit Committee, which released a report in late January that warned the toxic drilling is not compatible with the country's "efforts to keep global temperature rise below two degrees."

But since committing to the prohibition, the government has backpedaled on this and other protections, prompting the accusation by Green Party MP Caroline Lucas that ministers are "doing the dirty work of fracking companies for them."

As the Campaign to Protect Rural England notes, "It was hoped that the Government, at the insistence of MPs from across the House, would reinstate strong protections."

However, statements made by energy and climate change minister Amber Rudd on Wednesday show that the Conservative government is not taking such a stand.

"In the case of areas of outstanding natural beauty and national parks, given their size and dispersion, it might not be practical to guarantee that fracking will not take place under them in all cases without unduly constraining the industry," Rudd told Parliament.

Moreover, Rudd indicated that the definition of "protected areas" will be reexamined down the line, raising the possibility that water sources will not be shielded from fracking.

According to Richard Casson of Greenpeace UK, "What this means is that national parks and water sources won’t be fully protected from fracking. So while Scotland and Wales have raised clear concerns about the health and environmental impact of fracking, in England it’s full steam ahead with the dash to drill for shale gas and oil."

However, Casson says there is still hope. "We know that David Cameron wants to go all out for shale gas, but the Labour Party is far from decided," he writes, urging opponents of fracking to escalate pressure on lawmakers.

Friends of the Earth agrees. "All eyes will now be on the Labour Party," the organization declared in a statement released Thursday. "It committed to oppose fracking altogether if the Government didn’t meet its conditions—including protecting all national parks and ground water source protection zones from fracking. 'All or nothing' were the words which Labour shadow minister Tom Greatrex used."

Senate approves Keystone XL pipeline despite veto threat

A depot used to store pipes for Transcanada Corp's
planned Keystone XL oil pipeline is seen in
Gascoyne, North Dakota November 14, 2014.
(Reuters/Andrew Cullen)

RT | Jan 29, 2015

The Republican-controlled Senate passed a bipartisan bill approving construction of the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline, prompting a showdown with President Barack Obama, who has promised to veto the legislation.

In a 62-36 vote, Republicans were able to peel away nine Democrats from President Obama’s position on the pipeline, ensuring easy passage for the bill once it cleared a filibuster. If Obama vetoes the bill as promised, however, supporters do not have the 67 votes needed to override his decision.

The pipeline was first proposed in 2008 and would carry oil 1,179 miles from Canada’s tar sands to Nebraska, where it would connect to an existing pipeline and continue traveling south.

“Constructing Keystone would pump billions into our economy,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said prior to voting. “It would support thousands of good American jobs and as the president’s own State Department has indicated, it would do this with minimal environmental impact.”

The bill now moves into the reconciliation process with the House of Representatives, which passed its own bill approving the pipeline earlier this month.

Previously, the White House resisted attempts by Congress to force the president to make a decision. In 2012, Obama vetoed a proposal supporting the pipeline, but the project’s developer, TransCanada Corp, then reapplied.

Now environmentalists are urging the president to reject it again, as they argue it will make it easier to drill for oil in Canada’s tar sands –a dirty process which burns a lot of energy in itself. The State Department is also seeking input on the project's potential environmental fallout from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department.

The project has also sparked opposition from Native American tribes, particularly those living on Nebraska land that the pipeline is expected to run through.




Supporters of the pipeline argue that its construction will create jobs and boost the United States' energy independence. Construction is estimated to create thousands of jobs and contribute a few billion dollars to America's GDP, but once it is completed some 50 people will be required to maintain its operation.

"The fact is, Keystone would create only 35 permanent jobs -- a drop in the bucket," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) to the Huffington Post. "A fried chicken franchise creates about as many jobs."

The Thursday vote ended weeks of vigorous debate, which had the Senate up until the small hours of the morning on one occasion. Dozens of amendments to the bill were also considered, but only a few made it in, including one that got the GOP-controlled Senate to say on the record that climate change is real and another two promoting energy efficiency.

Both the House and Senate are expected to reconcile any outstanding issues quickly, meaning that the bill could land on Obama’s desk within days. The White House insists it will veto construction proposals until an ongoing review process by the State Department is completed.

For its part, TransCanada CEO Russ Girling welcomed the vote.

“It’s time to approve Keystone XL so we can transport Canadian and American oil to fuel the everyday lives of the American people," he said. "We look forward to a decision by the U.S. Administration to approve the construction of Keystone XL."