This Is What I Mean by too Big

Steven Lipsky who owns some land in Texas made a video of his garden hose spewing forth fire. He said it come from a gas extraction nearby. He gave the video to blogger Sharon Wilson who hired an environmental consultant Alisa Rich to test the water and send the result to the EPA.

The natural gas company Range Resources Corp in turn is suing Steven Lipsky for $3 million in damages for damaging their reputation, conspiracy charges no less.

Range has won round one of this silly episode.

When state regulators failed to respond Lipsky with Rich asked the EPA to take a look. After their tests they found alarming levels of methane that posed a “imminent and substantial risk of explosion or fire.” They ordered Range to take action.

Talk about your David vs Goliath story

See for yourself   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amqXocVjpJA&feature=player_embedded#!

Now that’s a frackin story!

In a related story Talisman Energy is distributing a free children’s coloring book with the 24 pages of adventures of a “Friendly Fracosarurus” named Talisman Terry.

Frackers are also claiming that like Coco-Cola their formula is secret therefore their formula for fracking should be secret as well and exempt from the Clean Waters Act standards. Do you think coke has thousands of gallons of diesel-based chemicals in it?

And guess who’s into the debate? Good old Halliburton. They are the ones who in 2005 successfully lobbied to keep fracking fluids exempted from the Safe Drinking Water act. A report last month by the Environmental Working Group found that single wells have enough benzene and other toxins to contaminate the amount of water New York State uses in a day.