Between The Lines - Emily Wurth: States Attempt to Halt or Slow Down Natural Gas 'Fracking' (Week Ending Sept. 9, 2011)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 2 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

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Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

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Energy Industry Political Allies Resist Legislative and Grassroots Efforts to End Natural Gas Hydraulic Fracturing

RealAudio MP3

Posted Aug. 31, 2011

Interview with Emily Wurth, water program director of Food & Water Watch, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

$fracking$

Shale gas development has been touted as the biggest breakthrough in U.S. fossil fuel production in decades, allowing the natural gas industry to drill in areas that were previously inaccessible. Media ads claim that the process, known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the "clean, safe, domestic" power of the future. But fracking – in which millions of gallons of water, a secret mix of toxic chemicals and sand are injected into wells to break apart shale and release trapped gas – has been found to pollute ground water.

One of the biggest areas being developed is the Marcellus Shale, a formation that covers parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia. Another shale formation covers the northern tip of New Jersey, whose legislature recently voted overwhelmingly to ban shale gas drilling. But Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced on Aug. 24 that instead of signing the ban bill, he was declaring a one-year moratorium so the process could be further evaluated. Meanwhile, a moratorium in New York on what many consider the most disruptive form of shale gas development is about to end, as the state's Department of Environmental Conservation is releasing a revised environmental impact study of the issue at the end of August.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Emily Wurth, water program director at the Washington, D.C.-based group Food & Water Watch, which is pushing for a national ban on hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas. She discusses the legislative and grassroots citizen efforts to stop or slow down fracking and points to the need for the nation to start developing renewable energy alternatives.

EMILY WURTH: The New Jersey state legislature overwhelmingly voted for a ban on hydraulic fracturing earlier this year and we've been waiting to see what Gov. Christie would do on this. And instead of doing what was clearly in the best interests of the residents of New Jersey and what the legislature wanted, he passed a conditional veto that would only establish a one-year moratorium on fracking, saying that had to do with waiting for further study to see what the effects were. That timeline is not in line with the EPA's study – which is the most documented study – looking into the effects of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water primarily. They will be doing some examination of other effects as well. But that study's not due to have any preliminary findings until the end of next year, which, a lot of time these agency studies run over schedule, and then it's not due to be complete until 2014. So we have serious concerns, and at this point we're hoping the state legislature – who had the votes to override the veto – will put this to a vote and vote to override Gov. Christie's veto.

BETWEEN THE LINES: The vote was almost unanimous in the Senate. I'm wondering if that was because even if shale drilling were allowed, there's very little shale in the state that holds gas that could be drilled for.

EMILY WURTH: Yeah, well, there is some, and I think it sends an important message to elected officials of neighboring states for them to take this action. You know, the waterways cross state lines, and we know there's a hotly debated decision being made by the Delaware River Basin Commission about this, and that could come up for a vote at any time – it could be as soon as the Sept. 21 meeting. But, you know, the Delaware River provides drinking water for three million residents of New Jersey, so I think this was an effort by the New Jersey legislature to weigh in on some of the larger regional decisions being made about this practice.

BETWEEN THE LINES: There was also a moratorium declared in New York State in 2010. Can you give us a little background?

EMILY WURTH: What the New York state legislature voted for was a moratorium on both types of hydraulic fracturing – vertical and horizontal. This gets into the slightly more technical side of this issue. There were lots of concerns because vertical drilling is already taking place in New York state, in western New York in particular, so what (Gov.) Patterson did was also a veto – he vetoed the state legislature's moratorium and made it only on the horizontal drilling, which is the kind of more invasive form, although there's problems with all of them, really.

BETWEEN THE LINES: So the moratorium was to stay in place until the revised Environmental Impact Statement is released, slated for Aug. 31, and then the public comment period begins.

EMILY WURTH: That essentially ends the moratorium in New York, although permits won't be issued until they go through an official public comment period and then take the time to insert the public comment into a final draft.

BETWEEN THE LINES: So, Emily Wurth, things seem to be moving fast toward opening the state to drilling, and I know the Department of Environmental Conservation's initial environmental impact statement in July said it could be allowed on most private property, but not in public parks or watersheds. It seems like a ban is pretty much out of the question.

EMILY WURTH: I don't. I think the next few months are critical. We've seen movement. We've seen elected officials in New York who are not naturally prone to be strong on this issue come out really strongly. Republican Greg Ball comes to mind from the Hudson Valley area. He was recently touring through counties like Bradford County and Susquehanna County where the intensive drilling has taken place, and he came back with a really strong statement saying he doesn't want to see this happen in New York. And so, you know, I think the next few months will be very important for the movement, but we're hoping that kind of gives people the opportunity to take a strong stance on this issue, including the state legislature in New York.

BETWEEN THE LINES: You know, it's interesting that this is happening now, at the same time that people are in D.C. trying to stop the importation from Canada of incredibly polluting tar sands for fuel. Maybe it would be better to develop domestic natural gas and forget about the tar sands.

EMILY WURTH: I think there's a lot of other opportunities in renewables and more sustainable and less dangerous and less polluting forms of energy. There's gotta be more investment in research and the start-up of those. And I also think the oil and gas industry is tremendously powerful, and at Food and Water Watch, we think the visionary route is to move away from the mature fossil fuel industries. Particularly, we shouldn't be subsidizing and granting exemptions to a profitable, mature industry, but instead we should be investing in the technologies needed to fully develop safe and renewable sources of energy.

Learn more about Food & Water Watch efforts to stop natural gas hydraulic fracturing on our website at www.foodandwaterwatch.org.