Remember, if YOU try to set your tap water on fire to see whether fracking chemicals have invaded your water supply, and it not only catches on fire but a tiny disembodied head of Curt Pringle appears and glares at you, run! Don’t try to be a hero — JUST RUN!
The redoubtable Adam E. over at our county’s emerging “newspaper of record” Voice of OC has a story out today that ties together two persistent concerns here at OJB — “fracking” and “pringling.”
“Fracking,” of course, is the high pressure insertion of toxic fluid deep into the bowels of the earth in the hope of causing a wealth of hydrocarbons to bubble to the surface for one’s personal profit, which has the unfortunate effect of polluting the environment, particularly the drinking water.
“Pringling” is similar: the high pressure insertion of toxic influence deep into the bowels of county and city government in the hope of causing a wealth of special considerations to bubble to the surface for one’s personal (and one’s clients’) profit, which has the unfortunate effect of polluting the political environment, particularly … well, particularly pretty much everything.
The Voice notes that a Signal Hill Petroleum, an oil company, has obtained drilling permits from the county and is also in the process of obtaining them from Santa Ana, Anaheim, Westminster, Garden Grove, Stanton, Cypress and Buena Park. But, recognizing that people have concerns (see the movie Gasland for examples), the company tells the Voice that:
“We’re not trying to pull permits. We’re trying to build relationships with each of these communities” and emphasizes that is it” conducting extensive outreach to the political leadership in these cities as the company seeks permits.”
In other words, the company has already begun engaging in the extremely dangerous process of pringling here in Orange County.
[A] source familiar with the situation [says that] the company has engaged in the type of maneuvering familiar to Orange County politics: hiring former Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle to help. Pringle’s lobbying firm, Curt Pringle & Associates, has worked behind the scenes with city bureaucracies to obtain the permits, according to the source.
Telltale signs of damage to the political environment from pringling have already begun to emerge.
Yet some city council members didn’t know about the testing permits until contacted by Voice of OC. And in cities where city councils were given public presentations on the study, the meeting minutes don’t indicate that the purpose of the geophysical survey is to look for oil.
One Buena Park City Councilman Steve Berry is quoted: “We didn’t get much background or information.” (You’ll have to read the Voice article to see which one. OJB knows that you’re curious.) Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait also expressed befuddlement over the purpose of the permit that his city has already passed — a sure sign of the toxic neuro-informational effects of pringling.
OJB will continue to follow both the fracking and the pringling stories in the months ahead.
Years ago, our Anaheim City Council (who lived in Anaheim Hills) approved the “Toilet to Tap” program for the flatlands of Anaheim. The program produced extra federal funds for the city that can be used to benefit the Disney Corporation. (Unneeded ARTIC train station with $300 million worth of street cars.)
Since we who live in the flatlands are drinking sewer water anyway, oil and natural gas mixed in might improve the taste.
The “Newspaper of record”??? yeah if you are a left leaning and public employee union lover (which I am the former, not so much the latter). I am finding the VOC’s stances becoming more and more one sided. I’d like to see a little bit more parity and less bias.
But, on point, UNOCAL (Now Cheveron has been operating a form of “FRACKING” in North Orange county for years, that’s how the whole “Albertsons, let’s move the golf course and move it again fights began” It’s funny because when they squeeze every drop of fuel out of the ground, they build high density/”Low income” housing for even BIGGER PROFITS.
Imagine that, an oil company looking for oil. That would be like a information company (google) selling ad’s! Sorry, I’ve been away fro a while and couldn’t resist.
Hmmm. Well, fracking was linked to earthquakes in other states. States that have a fairly stable history and geology. Wonder what’s going to happen if fracking is increased. Considering the state of California is crisscrossed with fault lines, it should be interesting.
If you look at maps showing recent local earthquake swarms and fracking well locations, you will plainly see what many geologists are already aware of, that the evidence is showing that fracking is causing earthquakes. I checked both recent activity near La Habra and recent activity in Oklahoma and found the same thing. Interesting to note all of the fracking activity going on around La Habra Heights right on the Whittier Fault which was the location of the recent earthquake activity a couple months ago. Check these websites when local earthquakes occur and pay special attention to swarms and shallow events :
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
http://maps.fractracker.org/latest/?webmap=99ae030fd5844eadb3d14398cbcdafbd
There is tons of money being made with this technology over the short-term, but the residual effects will certainly prove to be devastating.