No Service Project: news

Do you live in the Northeast portion of the U.S.? How are you enjoying your tap water? Well, if it's not up to your standards, no worries! The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) will be voting on November 21st to approve a plan that is going to add plastics, carcinogens, neurotoxins, and endocrine disrupting chemicals into our watersheds. If that doesn't impress you, just wait until you are able to light your water on fire directly out of your faucet! 

Believe it or not, this is actually happening. Here in Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Corbett is one of many who have been pushing to start natural gas drilling (20,000 GAS WELLS!) all throughout the Delaware River Basin which will potentially contaminate clean water which is used in Trenton, Philadelphia, South Jersey and part of NYC's watershed system. In total the Delaware River provides water to FIFTEEN MILLION (15,000,000) PEOPLE. 

In order to extract the natural gases from the river basin, natural gas companies inject millions of gallons of water laced with toxic chemicals at high pressures to break apart rock and release gas from underground formations. They've already leased over 200,000 acres that border the Delaware River and it's tributaries. In addition to the inherent water contamination, this method -- called "hydraulic fracturing"-- will also pollute the air, cause land-scarring, demand miles of pipeline to be built, depend on massive amounts of truck traffic, and have a high risk of blowouts and spills all throughout the region. Oh, and don't forget, YOUR WATER WILL BE FLAMMABLE. Though, to be fair, that should help with any constipation you may have been experiencing. 

What to do? Ok, well as of right now there are two important steps to put pressure on the DRBC to make them stop this industrial destruction of our homeland and water supplies.

Number one: CALL PEOPLE. Not just your friends and family to inform them, but call public officials.

The Army Corps of Engineers can be reached at 703-697-4672. Tell Jo Ellen Darcy (Obama's rep on the DRBC) that you will hold President Obama accountable for the vote. 

Delaware Governor Jack Markell hasn't made any definite stance on hydraulic fracturing as of yet, so call his ass encourage him to VOTE NO. He can be reached at 518-474-8390. 

Even though Governor Tom Corbett has made up his douchey mind already, and has expressed immense support to poison our water, I would also advise calling him at 717-787-2500 and let him know that he's a horrible governor for his stance on hydraulic fracturing. (You can also remind him that he is generally a douche bag multiple times throughout your phone call.) You can also email him: Governor@pa.gov

The second action you can take is to protest. I know... most of you have jobs, school, and hectic schedules. I also know you'd rather spend your free time comfortably doing things you enjoy, because I'm the same way. However, there has to be a point where we start to stand up for ourselves publicly and join together to stop rich assholes from perpetuating the awfulness of our lives. If you don't think your life is awful, just wait until your insides bleed out of your ass from contaminated water. 

I did my best to summarize this really huge and extremely important issue. If you want a much more in depth look at the potential threats of natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"), check out savethedelawareriver.com. I would also highly recommend watching the award-winning documentary called Gasland. It goes above and beyond to show you the dangers of this pending ecological catastrophe and damnation of public health. 

One last note that I'd like to add is that of course as free-market Republicans, they are going to defend themselves by saying that there will be agencies that will monitor the entire process and that this will create countless jobs. Remember BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? They too had agencies monitoring their process. There were tons of spills worldwide before that, that STILL have yet to be corrected and have destroyed the ecosystem in numerous areas. All of which had agencies monitoring the processes. The problem is that, often times the agencies are private companies created and/or selected by the gas and oil companies themselves. There's a high probability or corruption and a low chance at accountability when fuck-ups DO occur. 

As for creating jobs, why not create jobs by constructing a better public transportation infrastructure in our country? It's a lot better for the environment and much more sustainable for the employees and local residents that are directly effected. The U.S. is FAR behind in public transportation. I wonder if it has anything to do with private investments in oil companies?

Watch this:

Spread the word,

Adam

Hopefully all of you are at least following the Occupy movement that has been growing exponentially since September. Joe and I have been down to City Hall here in Philly to lend our support in numbers, music, and supplies as much as possible over the last few weeks and I must tell you that until you are actually there experiencing it first hand, you cannot truly grasp the spirit of this incredible movement. Mainstream media has been behaving typically, and by that I mean shamefully, ever since the first few days of protest on Wall Street in New York. 

As expected, several Occupy camps have been raided by police under the guise of public safety risks. In almost every single invasion, the police have been putting the safety of the peaceful protesters and sometimes uninvolved bystanders at extreme risk. In the past few days, the Oakland Police Department was ordered by the police chief and Mayor Jean Quan to remove protesters from their camp in center city Oakland by use of tear gas canisters, rubber bullets and bean bag projectiles after they refused to leave voluntarily. 

For more up to date and honest coverage of the Occupy movement please use Democracy Now! You can also get more information about Occupy Wall Street and the Occupy Movement at occupywallst.org and occupytogether.org.

No matter what your political beliefs are, there is absolutely no excuse for the excessive force being used by certain police officers in many different cities around the world. It is important that we spread this information exposing these corrupt service men and women who are blatantly abusing their power. "Just doing my job" and "just following orders" are not valid defenses anymore. You are a human being. Stop using violence against peaceful protesters. 

Here is just one of many videos that literally had me at a loss for words this morning:

In Solidarity,

Adam

Date: April 2, 2011
Time: 9PM - 10PM

Kaitlin Falatovich will be interviewing No Service Project for WRKC.

Tune in at 88.5 FM in the NEPA area or stream it worldwide at wrkc.kings.edu!