Fracking the Commons: Why Your Public Lands Are Under Assault by Oil and Gas Drilling

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http://www.alternet.org/fracking/public-lands-are-under-assault-fracking



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Public lands, private profit

In recent years, fracking has spread from the rugged and remote public lands in the American West to the well-populated, bucolic landscapes of Pennsylvania. After decades of the oil and gas industry quietly cracking apart the crust of the earth (well, “quietly” if you aren’t in the vicinity) people are finally sitting up and taking notice. Communities across the US are attempting to ban fracking to protect their citizens, and so far over 250 have succeeded. Vermont has a ban, and Maryland and New York have moratoriums in place. The fight is far from over: Pennsylvania, for example, has passed a draconian piece of legislation [1] that strips communities of the ability to regulate, where, when and how fracking should occur.

But local and state-level lawmaking, while important, addresses only part of the picture. A significant amount of fracked wells are currently drilled on federal lands—that is, public land, our national commons. Ostensibly we’re the owners, and federal and state land management agencies are supposed to listen to us and to speak for citizens unborn, the future owners.

Groundwater chemical injections are indeed regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act…but in 2005 Congress exempted fracking fluids from that law. Fracking is also exempt from the Clean Air Act. And the Clean Water Act. If it’s so safe, why does it need to be exempt from some of the most important laws protecting our health and our collective commons? Even new regulations promulgated in May 2013 are watered down [2] and do little to curb or cure the myriad problems associated with fracking.

You wouldn’t pour unknown chemicals in your backyard, dump toxic wastewater into your community’s water supply, or tear up the forests and fields around town; and you’d sue the hell out of any neighbor who tried the same. And yet we allow—we subsidize— these practices on our public lands. Our leaders aren’t protecting us and our commons from this tragedy, so it’s fallen to us—the public—to stop the juggernaut of the fossil fuel industry.