Remembering Earth Day....

Many years ago - back in the last century millennium we gathered in great number and pushed our government to protect our air and water. The first Earth Day was April 22, 1970.

Later that year, on December 31, 1970, President Richard M. Nixon (R) signed the Clean Air Act and at the same created the Environmental Protection Agency to create and enforce regulations to protect people from air pollution hazardous to our health - specifically sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulates, ozone and lead.


Two years later Congress passed the Clean Water Act, overriding Nixon's veto, and in 1974 the Safe Drinking Water Act was signed.

from Marcellus Protest

In the past couple weeks, three years after BP's blow-out (rom which the Gulf is still recovering), we have seen pipeline ruptures, gas storage explosions and more. We continue burning fossil fuels as greenhouse gasses accumulate in our atmosphere, wondering what sort of world we are leaving our children.

Now, at the beginning of 13 years into the new century, we are back to where we started. This is what the world looks like to a child living in the Pennsylvania drill zone.

We could use some of those Clean Air and Clean Water regulations! What are we waiting for - a world when our children will have to fight over drinking water? Air so dirty they'll have to wear face masks?

Earth Day is about making sure the next generation - and the one after that - enjoy the same benefits we have: clean air, drinkable water, healthy food. In 1970 we talked about wind and solar energy. It's long past time for talking - it's time to get on the bus. Or off the pot. Or whatever will stir you to action.

Pipeline Spills Can Make You Sick

Turns out that having a pipeline rupture and flood your neighborhood with bituminous tar sands oil isn't healthy for kids - or anyone, for that matter. People living a mile away from the evacuation zone in Mayflower, Arkansas are experiencing health impacts: sore throats, headaches, stomach aches and respiratory problems.

According to a recent article in Huffpo, school kids are being sent home because they're feeling ill from breathing the oil-laden, full-of-volatile-organic-chemicals air in and around the school grounds. Though, you've got to wonder just what the air quality is like at home...

Chemicals that have been measured in the local air include benzene, toluene, hydrogen sulfide - stuff people shouldn't be breathing even at low levels. Unfortunately, most regulatory standards are set for healthy people in the workplace - not infants and children or elderly people who might be breathing polluted air 24/7 for as long as it takes to mop up the spill.

And these are just the current problems. Some of the chemicals will remain in the soil and waterways, only to be dredged up later, or end up in a kid's backyard sandcastle. I can see a new service industry emerging in this country: cleaning up pipeline spills, storm impacts, fire damage.... and fat pockets for the health insurance providers.

17 Ways to Look at Pipeline Spills (with apologies to Wallace Stevens)

photo by resident, Mayflower, Arkansas Mar. 29, 2013

1. From your neighbor's back porch.
Maybe there was a swimming pool, or maybe it was just the swingset... but now it's thousands of gallons of heavy, stinky crude bitumen from Canadian Tar Sands, courtesy of EXXON. "Share this widely," said an email. "Local authorities have denied the media access so few have seen the extent of this spill."
March 29, 2013 - Mayflower, Arkansas

2. Through the eyes of a family of beavers who have sacrificed their home - and their store of spring twigs for noshing - to halt the flow of diesel into Willard Bay. Third spill in three years! March 27, 2013 - Ogden, Utah

3. From small town America - July 27, 2012, Grand Marsh, Wisconsin

4. From the banks of the Yellowstone River three days before celebrating our nation's independence. July 1, 2011 Billings, Montana

5. From a leak along the Keystone... don't worry! It's just a transnational flesh wound.
May 7, 2011 Brampton, North Dakota

6. As the reason for five funerals. February 10, 2011 Allentown, Pennsylvania

7.  A loud and noisy explosion in the middle of the neighborhood. January 18, 2011 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

8. In what used to be a furniture store.  December 29, 2010  Wayne, Michigan

9. From the point of view of a utility worker wondering if he's the next victim. September 28, 2010  Cairo, Georgia

10. As numbers: eight lives lost, 55 homes damaged, and unmeasurable sorrow. Sept 9, 2010 San Bruno, California

11. As yet another call to responders to clean up yet another Enbridge spill... September 9, 2010 Romeoville, Illinois

12. Through the oily mist of an orange and brown geyser. July 27, 2010 Barataria Bay, Louisiana

13. Beneath the surface of one of the largest spills since BP's Earth Day disaster in the Gulf of Mexico just a few short months ago...  July 26, 2010  Kalamazoo River, Michigan

14. As an oil slick on the city's drinking water. July 6, 2010  Justiceberg, Texas

15. While riding a bicycle around the Liberty Park loop. June 11, 2010 Salt Lake City, Utah

16. ooops! And other, less printable comments...  May 25, 2010 Trans-Alaska pipeline

17. As data reported to government statisticians at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration where data are pie-charted and analyzed over three-year and five-year increments.

This very short list does not include:
The March 27, 2013 Minnesota train derailment that leaked tens of thousands of gallons of tar sand oils, the January 2013 barge spills on the Mississippi River, the leaks from storage facilities due to Hurricane Sandy (October 2012) nor the ironic Earth Day blowout of Deepwater Horizon (April 20, 2010). Nor does it include spills, ruptures, explosions, etc in Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia or Africa.

Last year, in the US alone, there were 364 spills from pipelines. This year, as of February 28, there have been 41 reports of spills - 70% of which were caused by failure of materials, welding, or equipment - racking up damage costs of more than $3 million.