You'll Never Guess His Occupation
He now spends his days in church basements, government meeting rooms, street corners and scrubby city parks. He is involved in projects to build playgrounds, install urban gardens, reinvent schools, create neighbourhood associations and document the religious life of the city, among others.
A fascinating story of a fascinating project.
A project that might be adapted to blog habitats.
Interesting article, thanks!
There’s a mention in the comment section that Binghamton sits atop a large shale gas formation. Here’s an article about a recent moratorium on drilling that was passed: http://centralny.ynn.com/content/top_stories/546057/moratorium-bill-heats-up-fracking-debate/
An interesting case study that highlights the prosperity vs. precautionary principle debate that is often discussed here.
I admittedly know very little about “fracking” but I’m sure there are a ton of people who have watched ‘Gasland’ and made up their minds.
Menth:
Many states have an oil and gas division that are responsible for regulating exploration and production (E&P). Most states have an EPA that regulates ground and air pollution, but have no authority to encroach in the oil and gas arena.
This worked fine because most E&P was done in sandstone below the major shale confining rocks which serves as a buffer to prevent contamination of fresh groundwater aquifers. Fracking the shale is a different ballgame and should be regulated by the state EPA’s. It’s not rocket science to figure out how to monitor, prevent and remediate problems, but the new technology is currently exempt from appropriate regulation. The fix could be accomplished by removing these exemptions.
Most ground pollution regulation and environmental cleanup profession is currently focused on gasoline stations, refineries, mines, and general industry. Most of this is make-work because little or no environmental harm is caused by these sources except mines. Cleanup efforts fund the environmental agencies, so they mandate unnecessary action all the time.
This is good news because there is a highly trained and experienced science, engineering and contractor workforce that could be easily shifted off of the make-work sites (without harming the environment) and actually do some good working on the fraking problem.