Environmentalists to stage rally against fracking in California

Environmentalists to stage rally against fracking in California

12 March 2014 voiceofrussia.com

Environmentalists are going to hold a rally in protest against the fracking of offshore oil wells in the city of Long Beach, California, on Wednesday. The rally is planned to start at 10 a.m. The session of the Coastal Commission is due to take place on Wednesday and Tuesday.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a way to extract oil and gas from underground by injecting a highly pressurized mixture of water, sand and other chemicals into oil wells to break up the Earth’s crust. Although the Western States Petroleum Association and some other oil companies are saying that fracking is safe, quite a few environment protection activists have serious doubts about that. They believe that fracking increases the risks of groundwater contamination and earthquakes.

The Center for Biological Diversity, a group of environmentalists with offices in California and several other states, announced on Monday that it is planning to protest at the Coastal Commission’s next meeting site in Long Beach.

Although the Coastal Commission’s two-day agenda does not appear to have much room for a discussion of California fracking rules outside of the possibility of the issue being brought up during a briefing on offshore oil and gas activities, a spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity, Patrick Sullivan, says that speakers from the public will seek a response when the panel holds its public comment session.

“The Coastal Commission has been talking about fracking at recent meetings,” he says. “We’re not sure whether the commission itself will address the topic this month.”

California Democrats to ban fracking

California Democrats voted on Sunday to approve a statewide ban on fracking, breaking with Governor Jerry Brown on the issue. The three-day California Democrats State Convention in Los Angeles, attended by about 3,000 delegates and guests, called for an "immediate moratorium on fracking, acidizing and other forms of oil/gas well stimulation." The move came in response to mass anti-fracking protests amid rising public awareness of the health and environmental impacts of fracking.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, a controversial technology for extracting oil and natural gas from deep underground, tops the list of the hottest-debated local topics with environmentalists, politicians and celebrities alike raising their voices together for a fracking-free California.

In September, Governor Brown, who argues that fracking could offer economic opportunities, issued the state’s first fracking regulations, which went into effect on January 1. They require any companies intent on fracking to acquire permits and oblige them to disclose the chemicals used in the process and monitor the quality of water and environmental effects.

What worries people the most is the risk of drinking water pollution as a result of fracking.

"Fracking destroys the groundwater period! We can stop driving, but we can’t stop drinking water," one blogger wrote in his comment. "Unless the owners of these fracking wells are mandated to make their own children drink the water the well's neighbors have no choice but to drink."

Thousands of Californians are expected to come to Capitol Lawn in Sacramento to demand an end to fracking at the Don’t Frack California rally, scheduled for March 15.

"Our plan so far is to get as many voices as we can to Sacramento to make it loud and clear to Governor Brown and his administration that Californians want an end to fracking in our state," the rally’s organizers said.