Fracking Up the Delaware

It is a symbol of the American Revolution. Now the Delaware is the nation's most endangered river

Around 17 million people get their water from the Upper Delaware River, which snakes through the boundaries between New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania.

But it is being threatened by energy companies who believe that the Marcellus Shale -- 95,000 square miles of dense, 400-million-year-old marine sedimentary rock that lies beneath New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio -- contains enough natural gas to power the entire East coast region for the next 50 years.

The method used to extract all this gas is called hydraulic fracturing (or simply, "fracking"), which creates fractures in the rock to get to the sweet stuff. In 2005, Congress deemed that it was not necessary for the government to regulate this process, which environmentalists say is extremely dangerous, citing potential air quality degradation, groundwater contamination, unintended gas migration and even seismic events.

On June 3, a well in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, experienced a blowout, sending 35,000 gallons of fracking fluids into the air and the surrounding forested landscape. Some of the ingredients in this fluid can be toxic and include gels, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and in some cases, radioactive material. These fluids can also enter the groundwater, turning it into untreatable toxic wastewater.

Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) secretary John Hanger declared the June 3 blowout a "serious incident," saying, "The event at the well site could have been a catastrophic incident that endangered life and property."

In their 2010 report on America's endangered rivers, the non-profit river conservation group American Rivers declared that the Upper Delaware River was the nation's most endangered, citing the threat from natural gas extraction.

"Until a thorough study of these critical impacts is completed, the Delaware River Basin Commission must not issue permits that will allow gas drilling in this watershed," the group urges on their website.

"In addition, Congress must pass the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2009 to help protect all rivers within the Marcellus Shale region."

The EPA recently announced a $1.9 million study to re-examine hydraulic fracturing. But the oil and gas industry has been vigorously defending the safety of the process. Studies have "consistently shown that the risks are managed, it's safe, it's a technology that's essential ... it's also a technology that's well-regulated," said Lee Fuller, director of the industry coalition Energy In Depth, in an AP story.

But since the BP oil spill in the Gulf, the drilling companies have lost quite a bit of credibility with the public. "People no longer trust the oil and gas industry to say, 'Trust us, we're not cutting corners,'" said Cathy Carlson, a policy adviser for Earthworks, which supports federal regulation and a moratorium on fracking in the Marcellus Shale, in the AP article.

On the evening of Christmas Day in 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, George Washington famously led his troops across the Delaware River from Pennsylvania to New Jersey in a planned surprise attack against the Hessian forces in Trenton.

As regulators and environmentalists consider the future of both fracking and the Delaware River, they would do well to note the password to get past the sentry that Washington's troops set up along the New Jersey landing line: "Victory or Death."

And as the members of Congress consider the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act -- in the face of intense pressure from the energy industry lobbying groups -- they should remember something else Washington said: "Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."

image: "Washington Crossing the Delaware" by Emanuel Leutze, 1851, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Crossing the River Jordan

Symbolically, it flows powerfully through Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But today, the Lower Jordan River is a mess

According to the Canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke and the apocryphal Gospel of the Hebrews, Jesus Christ was baptized in the Jordan River.

Elijah crossed it and rode a chariot of fire into Heaven. Elisha used the river's water to cure lepers. Joshua crossed it into Canaan. It was a prominent part of the Prophet Muhammad's nighttime journey from Mecca to al-Quds (Jerusalem). The Qur’an says that God blessed the land of the Jordan River Valley "for all beings."

"The Lower Jordan River is arguably the most famous river in the world, of international significance to more than half of humanity due to its rich natural and cultural heritage and its symbolic value and importance to the three monotheistic religions," Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) said in a statement from Tel Aviv.

In a May 2010 trilateral FoEME report entitled "Towards a Living Jordan River: An Environmental Flows Report on the Rehabilitation of the Lower Jordan River," researchers from Israel's Ruppin Academic Center, Palestine's Al Quds University and Jordan's University of Science and Technology found that:

• The Lower Jordan River (LJR) today is a highly degraded system due to severe flow reduction and water quality decline.
• Over 98% of the historic flow of the LJR is diverted by Israel, Syria and Jordan for domestic and agricultural uses and are discharging untreated sewage, agricultural run-off, saline water and fish pond effluent into it.
  
• The remaining flow consists primarily of sewage, fish pond waters, agricultural run-off, and saline water diverted from the LJR from salt springs around the Sea of Galilee.
• The river has lost over 50% of its biodiversity primarily due to a total loss of fast flow habitats and floods and the high salinity of the water.
• Long stretches of the LJR are expected to be completely dry unless urgent action is taken by the parties to return fresh water to the river.

The water of the LJR poses a health risk to the tourists and pilgrims bathing at the river's holy baptism site, FoEME says. The group has urged Israel to close the site to the public until the water quality is improved. Approximately 100,000 tourists visit every year.

FoEME recommends that Israel undertake an experimental flood of the LJR developed by Yale University, citing that "floods are essential to healthy river ecology." They also recommend the development of a master plan for the LJR, the establishment of an international commission to manage the basin and that Palestine receive a fair share of the river's water resources "as part of the Middle East peace negotiations."

The Gospel of Mark notes that the people of Judea and Jerusalem were all baptized by John the Baptist "in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins." The governments of Israel, Syria and Jordan should remember this Biblical story, confess the sins they have committed on this critical water source and make plans to rehabilitate it.

image: Christophe Unterberger, "Crossing the Jordan River," 1780s (Hermitage Museum)

Nothing Sunny About Sunny-side Up

Concealing price-fixing and animal cruelty with an "animal welfare program"? Just another day of duplicity at the egg factory

PLUS: Governor Schwarzenegger signs landmark California egg bill, affecting nation's egg producers

Land O'Lakes has agreed pay $25 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that the multi-billion dollar agricultural cooperative conspired with farmers to fix egg prices, according to Reuters, covering a period of egg industry abuse that dates back to at least 2000.

According to United Egg Producers (UEP), the nation's biggest egg trade association, every year about 80 billion eggs are produced in the United States, with the average American consuming 246 of them.

Ninety-seven percent of America's hens spend their entire, miserable lives in 7"x7" wired battery cages. And those that aren't in cages aren't faring much better. Unfortunately, the term "cage-free" has no legal meaning. It's merely a euphemism for "high-density floor confinement."

The term "free-range," on the other hand, is regulated by the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA). But the term is almost meaningless. All farmers have to do to put that label on their eggs is to abide by one simple, open-ended and non-descript USDA rule: "Producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside."

The USDA doesn't stipulate anything more. No minimum size for the outside space. No minimum time spent outside. No actual time outside is necessary -- just "access." No specification for the kind of surface that the birds can access in this vague "outside" area.

In 2008, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) filed a petition with the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission (FTP) alleging that the member corporations of the UEP created an animal welfare program to cover up "what strongly appears to be a national price-fixing scheme that drove the price of eggs to historic highs, inflating agribusiness company profits to never-before-seen levels. In the state of Ohio alone, egg prices shot up 77 percent in 2007."

Animal welfare program? Apparently the UEP members are nothing if not ironic.

Following the HSUS filing, egg buyers filed 21 class action lawsuits alleging federal antitrust law violations against UEP and its members, including 13 of America’s largest egg factory farmers: Rose Acre Farms, Cal-Maine, Ohio Fresh Eggs, Michael Foods, Land O’Lakes, NuCal and Moark.

According to an HSUS statement, "egg industry leaders squeeze birds into small cages, and then squeeze American consumers through anti-competitive practices, while falsely and brazenly representing themselves as defenders of American consumers against the modest reform efforts of animal advocates. That’s the very definition of duplicity."

On July 6, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a landmark egg bill (A.B 1437) that affects egg producers across the country. The new law stipulates that all eggs sold in California must come from "hens able to stand up, fully extend their limbs, lie down and fully extend their wings without touching each other or the sides of cages," according to the Los Angeles Times.

"Californians have made it clear that they don't want unsafe eggs from hens crammed into cages, and we applaud the Legislature and governor for heeding this call," Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle said in a statement.

Between the settlements and the new legislation, positive changes in the lives of hens -- albeit modest -- reveal that more and more Americans aren't content to go easy on just how that over-easy got to their plates.

image: industrial chicken coop with battery cages (ITamar K.)

Highway to the Endangered Zone

Tanzania is planning to build a road through the Serengeti. That would be a colossal mistake

"Roads are catastrophic for wildlife," writes Olivia Judson, an evolutionary biologist and research fellow at Imperial College London, in the New York Times.

"Roads allow the easy spread of invasive plant species, as car tires often carry their seeds. Roads also allow the rapid spread of animal diseases, and lead to an increase in poaching, building and other human activities. But by far the biggest problem is that roads fragment habitats and disrupt animal movements. Many animals are reluctant to cross roads, even those with little traffic."

Tanzania is planning to build a road that will do irrevocable damage to one of the world's most celebrated ecosystems -- the Serengeti. This plan is not just ill-conceived, but also baffling, considering the nation's excellent record on conservation. Together with its northern neighbor Kenya, Tanzania has safeguarded over 80% of the Serengeti through protected parks and reserves.

The proposed road from Arusha to Musoma (the red line in the image), scheduled for construction in 2012, would traverse the Serengeti and bisect the Earth's last Great Migration, an annual 500-kilometer (310-mile) migration of over 2.2 million herbivores (about 200,000 zebra, 500,000 Thompson's gazelle and 1.5 million wildebeest). To get a sense of the scale of this spectacular endeavor, try to imagine the population of Houston running to New Orleans.

The Serengeti Migration, which takes place in October, is the longest and largest active overland migration on the planet. Unsurprisingly, it is also one of the ten natural travel wonders of the world.

According to Judson, the fence that will likely be used to protect the cars on the road from all the wildlife "would likely end the migration, cause the collapse of the wildebeest population -- and destroy the Serengeti as we know it."

The East African reports that, according to Arusha Regional Commissioner Isidori Shirima, "the government deemed the proposed 480km Arusha-Musoma tarmac road to be of great socioeconomic significance for Tanapa," the Tanzania Parks Authority.

The Frankfurt Zoological Society has offered an alternative proposal: a different east-west road in the southern part of Tanzania that would avoid the Serengeti altogether. "This alternative road system has been surveyed by the government already and would serve five times as many people as the planned Northern road and fulfill the same needs for linking major regional centers," argues the society.

Ranging over 30,000 square kilometers (12,000 square miles), the Serengeti is about the size of Belgium. It is an extremely biodiverse ecosystem that is home to about 70 large mammal species and 500 avifauna species. It is also the location of the "Cradle of Mankind" -- the Olduvai Gorge, where some of the oldest hominid fossils have been found.

"It defines Africa in a unique way, perhaps, as some scientists argue, because it's the landscape where we became human," writes Duke University conservation ecologist Stuart L. Pimm in National Geographic. "If a planned road cuts it in half, it may be a landscape our children will watch only as history."

Judson notes that Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete, who has expressed a deep interest in nature, sometimes quotes his country’s first president, Julius Nyerere: "The survival of our wildlife is a matter of grave concern to all of us in Africa. These wild creatures amid the wild places they inhabit are not only important as a resource of wonder and inspiration but are an integral part of our natural resources and our future livelihood and well-being. In accepting the trusteeship of our wildlife we solemnly declare that we will do everything in our power to make sure that our children’s grandchildren will be able to enjoy this rich and precious heritage."

The name "Serengeti" comes from the Massai word serengit, which means "endless plains." If Tanzania's plan goes through, Mr. Kikwete should consider renaming the Serengeti, because its plains will end where the road begins.

And he should probably stop quoting President Nyerere, too.

image: the proposed road (in red) would cross a substantial part of the Serengeti and associated ecosystems (credit: Frankfurt Zoological Society)