Words turn to gold in the roaring furnace of heat that often accompanies street protests, and here is what Ban Fracking activists were saying last evening as they paced in front of City Hall:
Dr. Suzanne De Benedittis, an organizer: “At every single hearing I have participated in, I never have said ‘Stop oil.’ I always have said ‘oil field safety first. If you cannot do it, then do not do it on our lives.’
To the question of when the suddenly animated anti-fracking activists will be mollified, she said:
“Away back when Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas was a state senator and working with us, he said something pithy. ‘When you eat an elephant, one bite at a time.’”
Crystal Alexander: “Besides residents of Culver City, you will see friendly faces here from Orange County, Carson and Long Beach.”
Lee Welinsky, 84: “I am here because I am against fracking. I am not the only one. Right now in Ohio and New York state, people are on the streets yelling the same thing we are, ‘No fracking!’
“The oil drilling company has been fracking for years in Baldwin Hills, and we didn’t know about it. This is ridiculous. This is California,” said the native New Yorker who walks three miles every morning to warm up before breakfast. “We don’t let these things happen here. Unfortunately, we did. The people we will be speaking to tonight (the state commission DOGGR) are supposed to protect us. It doesn’t seem to me they have. I want to know when they first knew about fracking.”
Tom Camarella: “I have been aware of fracking for four years. Unfortunately, now it is becoming much more widespread. The Halliburton company, with that wonderful person Dick Cheney, got an exemption for water so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the water consequences. But you know something? We as people have to deal with that. We drink it. We shower in it every day…
“The fracking under way today is much more dangerous than the fracking they were doing in the 1940s. Not only is it high-pressure water, they put carcinogenic chemicals in the water to help promote that.
“Even if only one percent or a half-percent are carcinogenic chemicals, that can destroy our water tables. We don’t need or want that.
“We are hoping to get Gov. Brown’s attention, No. 1. No. 2, we want strict controls so that we don’t destroy the little water that we have in California. Since the 1880s, we always have had trouble getting water. If we destroy the little water we have, or contaminate it, which is the same as destroying it, then we will have to pay more money again for more water.”
If Mr. Camarella could address officers of Plains Exploration & Production Co., PXP, what would he say?
“I would ask them to be honest with us regarding well-casings. We know that when you put a well-casing down there, if you do a hundred of them, six percent, right off the bat, don’t work right. They already are cracked, leaking and have problems. Not only that, after 25 to 30 years, at least 50 percent also are broken. So when they say, ‘Oh, it’s safe. The gases won’t come out,’ this is really untrue. You will notice, they kind of lied about the Gulf of Mexico. But Cheney always tells the truth.”
Mr. Camarella indicated his expectations are low-flying for stiff fracking regulations from the state Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, DOGGR, since it is financed by oil and gas companies.
“When you go to these hearings DOGGR is doing, you will notice they are apologists for the oil companies. That is not the way it should be. DOGGR should be there for the people.”
Gary Gless, arch-activist: “I am not looking for regulatory concessions so much from the state as I am looking for them to ban fracking. That is my hope.
“We have seen in the past how well regulations work. We saw how well BP was regulated. When we looked at the industry for reaction, they go ‘Ooops. My bad.’”
(To be continued tomorrow)
