Do you remember the big freak out over oil wells being flooded in Colorado? I just unlinked to the most egregious post on the subject because I didn't want to get distracted by specific posts or people.
I remember it because there were propaganda types posts and people who should know better were reccing them. By propaganda I mean framing an accusation as a question or accusations of a cover up because no one was reporting on the non event. Let me give you an example of how to put forth a totally unsourced bogus idea by framing it as a question.
Breaking! Has Elizabeth Warren chosen Sarah Pallin as her VP choice????? Just asking a question he he. or Did Warren Buffet father an illegitimate child with a space alien??? Why is the media silent on this????? Quality environmental writing.
I also remember the bogus story because the other day a Kossack was smack talking the people of my county about it.
During the flooding in September the water that sept downstream damaged a lot of tracking wells in Weld county, I'm not sure how that got cleaned up or if it did. Let's just say that folks in Weld are often low info humanoids.
You know it's true, we do have some low info folks here of the teahadist persuasion, but to be perfectly f*
**g honest we on the left have our fair share too.
Wiki Hippy
Recent water samples from flood-affected rivers and streams in Colorado show no evidence of oil and gas contamination, but several rivers do show high levels of E. coli, the Water Quality Control Division of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment announced Tuesday.
Huffpo
And who the heck are the "Water Quality Control Division of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment" (when they're at home) I hear you ask? Koch brothers front group? Bernie Sanders' right wing unkle that no one talks about? No, actually they are the people who test water in our state to see if it's polluted.
Altogether they figure about 43,000 gallons of oil and 18,000 gallons of fracking fluid got into the water, in other words too small an amount to be detectible. For comparison just under 300,000,000 gallons of raw and partially treated sewage was spilled into our water. Someone is obviously full of shit.
"Although much attention was focused on spills from oil and gas operations, it is reassuring the sampling shows no evidence of oil and gas pollutants," Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment chief medical officer Dr. Larry Wolk said.
Denver Post
I guess what is most galling is that in the immediate aftermath of the flood a lot of people donated and pulled together to help neighbors save the junk in their cellars or clear roads, find lost kittens, or whatever. At the same time some misguided jerks were attempting to make a media shitstorm over something that obviously didn't happen. What a bunch of losers. They could have been out with a shovel instead of taking photos of some farmers fuel tank afloat with a sheen.
The next time you read a title to a news story phrased as a question sprinkle on some healthy skepticism. If it's anything to do with fracking, plain out don't believe it. Wait until you hear from a reputable source and even then wait for the scientific community to weigh in.
Beyond the pain in the butt of dishonest stories, this type of lying does harm to all other aspects of environmentalism. What is John Q public to think the next time he is told there are issues to do with coal power generation or our use of gas guzzling cars to sit in traffic jams? He might well believe it is just more BS from environmentalists.
As sorry as these home grown fractivists are their big brothers and sisters in the donations community were similarly feeding at the poutrage trough. In Googling I came on similar articles from Grist, NRDC, Earthfirst, etc. Some of the more traditional dead tree media printed the follow up, others had moved on, story over.
This all leads me to question how damaging fracking is. For a place that is in the midst of massive fracking our town sure has suffered no ill effects. Tests at the local elementary showed increased air pollution at 9 and 3:30 when the drive up area to get kids is backed up with super sized SUVs. A derrick was set up less than 400 yards away, you could see people tripping pipe.
Biggest fracking pollution comes from the mouths of fractivists in the form of hot air.