EPA report concludes that natural gas ‘fracking’ causes groundwater contamination
by Jonathan Benson
Natural News
December 23, 2011
(NaturalNews) For the first time, a federal report has verified that chemicals used in natural gas hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking,” can, and do, cause groundwater contamination. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently issued a 121-page draft report on the issue that contain evidence linking water contamination in Pavillion, Wyo., to fracking chemicals from nearby gas wells.
For years, the natural gas industry has denied that fracking contaminates groundwater, insisting that hydraulic pressure forces fracking fluids so far down into the ground that they cannot travel back up into water supplies. The industry also claims that layers in the earth’s crust prevent chemicals from moving towards the surface by acting as a watertight barrier.
But none of this is panning out to be true, as the EPA report has exposed ten different compounds found in the Pavillion water supply, all of which are known to be used in fracking fluid. The report explains that “glycol ethers and the assortment of other organic components (found in the water) is explained as the result of direct mixing of hydraulic fracturing fluids with ground water in the Pavillion gas field.”
Back in 2008, the EPA took water samples from around Pavillion after residents complained about water contamination. The agency found hydrocarbons and other contaminants that appeared to have come from nearby gas wells, but that could not be definitively linked. But in 2010, the EPA took more water samples which, in that case, confirmed that the chemicals found were linked to the drilling.
In order to release oil and gas from reserves in shale rock, fracturing equipment forces a fluid mixture of water, sand, and proprietary chemicals into the ground at incredible force, which breaks up the rock and releases the fuel. But in the process, all those tons of chemicals, the names of which have mostly been kept hidden from the public to allegedly protect trade secrets, have to disperse somewhere — and this somewhere appears to be both groundwater and the environment at large.
The biggest problem in linking contamination to fracking is the proprietary nature of fracking chemicals — as NaturalNews has reported previously, federal law does not require natural gas drillers to disclose the chemical contents of their fracking formulas. However some individual states, including Texas (http://www.kansascity.com/2011/12/1…), and Colorado (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4565808…), are now requiring their full disclosure.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.businessinsider.com/fede…
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• Your help needed to pass FRAC Act and hold drilling companies accountable for water pollution
Is This Humble Plant Capable of Alleviating Most Human Suffering?
by Sayer Ji
Activist Post
December 22, 2011
Ancient Indians believed that turmeric contained the energy of the Divine Mother. Modern science now confirms that it has therapeutic properties relevant to well over 500 health conditions and may bestow on those who take it protection from many common causes of suffering.
The author has personally reviewed the majority of 4,000+ biomedical citations on turmeric and its primary polyphenol curcumin, available to view on the National Library of Medicine’s bibliographic reference database known as MEDLINE (and searchable through engines like Pubmed.gov), and has been awed by how diverse, powerful and seemingly ideally suited this spice is for addressing the broad range of diseases and/or disease symptoms that commonly afflict our species.
key video located below
One of the novel findings that emerged in the author’s comprehensive review of turmeric is that it expresses over 150 distinct beneficial actions, describable in terms of traditional pharmacological pathways, e.g. interleukin-6 down-regulator, apoptotic, cyclooxygenase inhibitor, etc. During the indexing process the image emerged of a many-armed Goddess, due to how diverse, intelligent and simultaneous are this spice’s healing gifts.
In fact, from the perspective of monochemical-oriented pharmacology, a drug with more than 10 simultaneously therapeutic actions, and without the vast array of adverse, unintended side effects commonly associated with novel, patentable chemicals, turmeric would represent an impossible, miraculous entity, which if patentable, would generate more revenue than all the blockbuster drugs on the market put together.
After some reflection on the mass of data that accumulated on turmeric’s ability to alleviate suffering, the question emerged: are these many “evidence-based,” scientific studies really just exoteric descriptions of “compassion” and “intelligence”?
Are we now rediscovering through the optic of modern science — albeit through the reductionist and inherently animal sacrifice-based methodology of empirical science — the “spirit” of herbs like turmeric, whose very existence represent a kind of surplus of benevolent, regenerative energy that permeates the universe, bestowing its grace upon its inhabitants/creations? Is this not what the ancients meant, or saw, when they described the spice in Sanskrit as “Gauri” (“The One Whose Face is Light and Shining”) and “Kanchani” (“Golden Goddess”)?
Our turmeric database on GreenMedInfo.com (and by “our” I mean yours, as well, as this is an open source project) now contains the world’s largest archive of biomedical data on the subject of turmeric’s medical value, and includes voluminous research on turmeric’s potential to prevent and/or treat multi-drug resistant cancers, chronic degenerative conditions, neurological problems, depression, serious infections, as well as hundreds of other diseases.
Please share this information with others, especially those who need an “evidence-bridge” connecting ancient healing wisdom with the modern scientific approach.
Please visit GreenMedInfo to access their vast database of articles and the latest information in natural health.
Experts Suspect Military Testing Behind Mass Bird and Fish Deaths
by Terrence Aym
Salem-News.com
January 8, 2011
The birds suffered from acute physical trauma leading to internal hemorrhage and death” –Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
- Two species in two days have died off by the thousands in Arkansas. A local fish and wildlife official jokingly told a reporter, “We’re waiting on the locusts next.”
(CHICAGO) – It’s been said that Mankind will destroy itself. Unfortunately, during the past 100 years the human race has worked hard to make this prediction come true. Nuclear arsenals can destroy Mankind many times over. Alien biological weapons exist that can annihilate all humanity. Toxins are available that are so deadly a few drops in a city’s water supply can kill millions.
Yet another weapons technology has been under development for some decades. Scalar technology—invented by the genius Nikola Tesla early in the 20th Century—has the potential to turn the environment itself into a weapon and tune its deadly properties into a merciless, near instantaneous killer.
That advanced technology may have just been tested in Arkansas and Louisiana.
Ominous evidence is steadily growing that the bizarre red wing blackbird deaths—now being reported across three states—are not natural.
Although some scientists have proposed that the initial bird death—numbered at 5,000—might have been caused by fireworks, ornithologists scoff at that suggestion.
Other theories floating about include speculation that severe updrafts or a local micro-burst killed all the birds, yet that is highly improbable and does not jive with eyewitness testimony of local residents who watched the birds literally drop from the sky.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE…
Mass bird deaths bookend 2011
Nearly 12 months after a rash of bird bloodbaths made international news, another big avian ‘Aflockalypse’ has struck in southern Utah.
by Russel McLendon
Mother Nature Network
December 15, 2011
2011 began with a series of high-profile bird disasters, and now a new one has struck as the year comes to an end. Nearly 12 months after thousands of crows and blackbirds mysteriously died from Arkansas to Sweden, an estimated 1,500 eared grebes — a duck-like aquatic bird — have fallen to their deaths in southern Utah.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE…
[Potent News Editor’s note: Click HERE to hear a discussion (from Jan. 3rd, 2011) of whether or not secret government testing plays a role in mysterious mass bird deaths being reported.]
Boston Dynamics Contracted To Make First ‘Terminator-like’ Hunter-Seeker (video)
Photo: Boston Dynamics
by Shepard Ambellas
The Intel Hub
November 26, 2011
The Department of Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been extremely interested in robotic and cyber technology over the past few years and has now contracted Boston Dynamics to make the first Terminator-like robot fully functional.
When will we reach a point where robots become self-aware?
The Answer is — We already have, as reported in the article “Army Achieves ‘Skynet’ —Self-Aware Decision Making Network“
Boston Dynamics (the makers of the FEMA ‘Big Dog’) are contracted to design a few items for DARPA. A robotic chetah that can outrun the fastest man, zig-zag, turn, maneuver, and stop on a dime is in the works as we speak.
Boston Dynamis said;
“It will be able to zig-zag and take tight turns in order to chase and evade…. it will also be able to make sudden stops and could end up with a tail.”
Then there is the Atlas — made by Boston Dynamics, a robot that actually looks like the terminator with no head. The robot can walk heal-to-toe “like a person” over any terrain and stay upright if pushed.
Here is a clip from CNN:
Ladies and gentlemen — once these products become militarized for the battlefield (Battlefield: Now almost defined to be right outside your window) it will be game on — we officially have entered the hunter-seeker era.
Advanced Space Based Weapons: ‘Rods from God’
Image: EndWar Wiki
by Shepard Ambellas
The Intel Hub
December 17, 2011
Steaming from the Rand Corporation (Think Tank) document published in 2002 entitled “Space Weapons, Earth Wars” the spaced based weapons platform ”Rods from God” is now one of many in operation.
The fact that this type weapon can decimate it’s target by way of stealth with kinetic force is impressive but creepy.
In principle, 20 foot long tungsten core rods 2 feet in diameter will drop out of the gravity well from space, spearing toward earth with pinpoint precision at 10,000 feet per second, hitting with the kinetic force of a nuclear weapon (with no explosion).
An excerpt from EndWar Wiki reads;
The kinetic kill vehicle launch platform consists of a satellite armed with 12 telephone pole sized Tungsten rods loaded into 12 launch tubes mounted on one end of the satellite . The satellite employs high efficiency photo-voltaic panels or “wings” to generate electricity directly from sunlight. The satellites are then placed in orbit and must be reloaded after each use, or de-orbited and a replacement launched. The current US system consists of an unknown number of such satellites, though the number is assumed to be more than one.
A POPSCI article excerpt reads;
The concept of kinetic-energy weapons has been around ever since the RAND Corporation proposed placing rods on the tips of ICBMs in the 1950s; the satellite twist was popularized by sci-fi writer Jerry Pournelle. Though the Pentagon won’t say how far along the research is, or even confirm that any efforts are underway, the concept persists. The “U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan,” published by the Air Force in November 2003, references “hypervelocity rod bundles” in its outline of future space-based weapons, and in 2002, another report from RAND, “Space Weapons, Earth Wars,” dedicated entire sections to the technology’s usefulness.
A New York Times articles except reads;
In an age of rogue regimes and pre-emptive war, states developing clandestine nuclear programs know better than to leave them in plain sight. Anxious to ward off an American or Israeli attack, Iran, for example, appears to have buried its uranium-enrichment halls under 30 feet of earth and concrete. No doubt, canny proliferators will soon dig even deeper and better-armored holes.
As more, advanced space based weapons platforms are developed there will be new threats that the “powers that be” are now busy creating, pushing fear amongst the general populace (in a psychological warfare-style manner).
In the cold war era — kids in school were forced to participate in ’nuclear bomb drills’ and were instructed to duck and cover under their desks, traumatizing the students mentally in a PsyOp conditioning program.
This technology dovetails with the Boston Dynamics ground based FEMA/DARPA contracted “Big Dog” and a new breed of hunter seeker robots that could be used against civilians in times of disarray as 2012 (the year of truth) approaches.
Future Riot Shields Will Suffocate Protestors with Low Frequency Speakers
Gizmodo
December 20, 2011
It’s not the first crowd control tool to use sound waves, but Raytheon’s patent for a new type of riot shield that produces low frequency sound waves to disrupt the respiratory tract and hinder breathing, sounds a little scary.
Crowd control tools like the LRAD Sound Cannon emit bursts of loud and annoying sounds that can induce headaches and nausea. But Raytheon’s non-lethal pressure shield creates a pulsed pressure wave that resonates the upper respiratory tract of a human, hindering breathing and eventually incapacitating the target.
The patent points out that the sound waves being generated are actually not that powerful, so while protestors might collapse from a lack of oxygen reaching their brains, their eardrums won’t be damaged in the process. Phew!
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE…
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(hat tip: The Intel Hub)
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