We need to IMPEACH and/or INDICT the SRBC / Susquehanna River Basin Commission

Link to this :

• http://williamahuston.blogspot.com/2011/09/we-need-to-impeach-andor-indict-srbc.
  

When I spoke before the SRBC in Binghamton,
I cried.
I cried thinking about what it would be like
to go three years, without being able to drink your local water.

Take a bath, make lemonade with your kids,
wash your clothes, take a drink.

And to be dependent upon the same company for the water.
The same company which destroyed it.
The people who killed your well,
now bring you water on a truck.



And they tell you
"Hey! If you complain,
we just might QUIT bringing you water!""

It's called a non-disclosure agreement,
and it's very ordinary and common and normal.

You can't sell your house,
your property is worthless.

If your well is dead,
then basically,
YOU are dead.

They promised to replace their water.
but they can't.
They were ordered to replace the water by the DEP.
But the Gas Companies are bigger than the DEP.

And if they can't replace the water of
15 families in Dimock
just imagine what would happen
if they polluted the water for a place
the size of Binghamton...

There is no way to replace the water.

This is potentially mass-death,
the genocide of a people and a place.

The Precautionary Principle demands we
examine worst-case scenarios. We must
face the fact that:

This heavy industrial incursion
called hydrofracking
might be a DOOMSDAY scenario.

This is what I said in my oral testimony.

I remembered the story of the Cedars of Lebanon.
One of the Great Wonders of the Ancient World.
But if you go there now, what do you find?

You all know the answer.

And it is widely recognized
by the people who study such things
that the Desertification of the Lebanon Cedar Forest
was man made.

A Human-caused Desert

And this was thousands of years before Caterpillar D9s
and Bandit Whole-Tree Chippers.





This was 4,000 years before the development of technology
to entomb 10 Trillion Gallons of Water into deep geological strata,
removing it from the hydrological cycle for 10,000 years
(forever).

It is well understood the mechanisms.
How to Turn a Forest Into a Desert 101:

1: Kill Trees and Vegetation
(chop trees, poison plants, with brine or other toxins, etc.)
2: Remove Water from the Basin.

Hydrofracking does both in massive quantities.

Read more about Desertification
caused by human activity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertification

I remember from physics: Statics and Dynamics.
These are two ways to model systems.

The SRBC uses a dynamic model to justify these massive
water withdrawals, which assumes essentially an
infinite supply of fresh water. The only potential
harm would be in taking too much water on
low flow days.

But what if this assumption was incorrect?

What if the amount of fresh water on the planet
was essentially finite?

What if the amount of fresh water in a river basin
is essentially finite?

Whoopsie. Aw, we accidentally killed the Earth.
Sorry. It was a math error.
We didn't know.

There is evidence for this theory
that the hydrological cycle of river basins
contain a FINITE amount of water
in a delicate balance with the natural surroundings.

A forest has trees and plants and water.
A desert is devoid of trees and plants and water.

A desert is a river basin
which has had all the water removed, destroyed, or
diverted out of the basin.

Q: Why else would a desert remain a desert?

A: Because a desert is a river basin
which had its finite amount of water drained or diverted,
and this basin does not communicate with other basins.

YES IT'S TRUE!


Fracking can turn a Forest into a Desert.
This is what I told the SRBC.

Hydrofracking poisons many plants at the surface.
By several vectors.

Unmeasurable impacts will be to the massive destruction of trees.
For well pads, pipelines, access roads, compressor stations.

Only some of it is ever replanted,
as if that would be the same.

You can't replant a forest.
It is not the same.

There is a loss of diversity and life
which never recovers.

Fracking introduces massive amounts of toxins
into the environment.

300B gallons of lost/destroyed water
in NY alone.

100B of waste at the surface quickly,
all of it over time.

Where does it go?
It all will end up in the river, eventually.

This is madness!

It went down highly toxic,
with a toxic brew of hundreds of chemicals,
the worst shit, strong carcinogens, mutagens,
endocrine disruptors...

ARE WE FRACKING NUTS?

And it comes back up WORSE!
With Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
and Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORMs),
and Heavy Metals...

And where does it go?

They can't store it
without it getting into the Blessed River eventually

They can't clean it,
or if they do the poisons all go into the air instead.

and if they shoot it deep into the earth
it causes earthquakes
deep in the body of Our Mother

If someone shot poisons into your body,
Wouldn't your body rumble too?
Think about it!

Hydrofracking threatens perhaps
10 Trillion Gallons of water worldwide.

People say
"WE MUST TRUST THE SCIENCE!"

But I know about science.
Let me tell you how science works:

• Science makes theories about phenomena.
• It builds models based on experimental or empirical data.
• Science then applies reason, and finally
  
• Makes predictions.

But since we humans
have never destroyed 10 Ten Trillion Gallons of Water Before,
there is no data, there are no models.

The science is useless here.
It's 100% guesswork.

All we have left in such a case
is the precautionary principle.

Since water is necessary for all life,
might the destruction of 10 Trillion Gallons of Water
worldwide cause a catastrophe?

YES. It might cause a catastrophe.

This is what I told the SRBC.

I believe in the political process.
This is why I am here.

But if the political process fails us,
I am ready to put my body on the line
and block trucks and bulldozers.

Because there is nothing more important than this.
Everything is on the line.

We're betting the farm.
We're gambling life itself
for a couple of bucks now.

It could be 10,000 years for the earth to
heal from this wound.
This could be the extinction of the Human Race.

This is what I told the SRBC.

I think if you asked an evil scientist
how to destroy all life in NY,
he might consider 70,000 injection wells
and the destruction of water
and the killing of plants, etc.
like what is projected for NY if hydrofracking is allowed.

I told the SRBC the elders are gathering.
Powerful medicine is being invoked now.

One does not want to get on the wrong side of powerful medicine!
This is just generally good advice.
Because there will be unfortunate consequences.

So it is good that we all
align ourselves with forces of LIFE.
May we do this quickly,
for the benefit of All Beings!

This is what I told the SRBC in Binghamton.

Last week, I witnessed the SRBC meeting in Cooperstown.

I've been to a lot of governmental meetings,
but I must say I have NEVER seen a greater disconnect
between the public they supposedly serve
and their blatant actions to serve industry.

We need to find a way to get these people impeached.
I think we need to write a letter to our state governors
and complain about their despicable actions.

I have video that I will post soon.

Here's who were present that day:
http://www.srbc.net/about/commissioners/commiss.htm

Kenneth P. Lynch - New York, Alternate Commissioner	Kelly J. Heffner -- Pennsylvania, 2nd Alternate	Herbert M. Sachs-- Maryland, Alternate Commissioner	Col. David E. Anderson -- US Army Corps. of Engineers, Federal Rep, Commissioner
Paul Swartz, Executive Director	Thomas W. Beauduy Deputy Executive Director & Chief Legal Counsel	James Richenderfer Director of Technical Programs	Marcia E. Rynearson Director of Administration & Finance

Speaker after speaker spoke eloquently against water withdrawals for hydrofracking.
It was perhaps 15 or 20.

Not one speaker spoke in favor of the withdrawals,
despite the fact that industry reps were present.

Why would the industry reps not speak?
Maybe they didn't need to?
Maybe the deal was already brokered?

At the end, this Commission, the three State Reps,
the Federal Rep, and the Executive Director
without discussion, unanimously voted to approve
all 22 water withdrawals from the Mighty Susquehanna
for hyrdrofracking.

I just stood there, stunned....

After the vote, Herb Sachs, the Maryland Commissioner
looked right into my camera and said something like "Hah! Good!"
or "There you go!" or something like that. I have to review the tape.
It reminded me of a victory dance in the end-zone after a touchdown.

I was so stunned, but kept recording.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to run and cry.
I just could not believe what I was witnessing.

I thought, are these people
a) completely unconscious and blind, ignorant about what they are doing?
b) devoid of human souls, acting as agents of a machine?
c) owned utterly by industry for a few dollars and a nice car? or
d) lacking in any real power, afraid, and just following orders?

To his merit, Col. David Anderson, the rep from the US Army, spoke
once about imposing sanctions against a company which was
caught tampering with flow gauges.

As I was packing up at the end, I caught a glimpse of a couple of them,
I think it was Ken Lynch, the NY acting Commissioner give a "high-5"
to Marcia E. Rynearson, the Director of Administration & Finance.

Unbelievable.

I just caught a glimpse.
If I had a camera out I would have tried to snatch it quick.

But my camera was in the bag,
it happened in an instant,
and I was so disgusted,
I didn't even want to look at them.
I really wished I hadn't seen that.

The Declaration of Independence states
that any JUST POWERS of Government
derive from the CONSENT of the GOVERNED.

This quasi-federal & quasi-state body
lacks the authority to allow this
TAKING & DESTRUCTION of OUR WATER.

We need to get these people impeached,
fired from their "public service" jobs
and maybe jailed for RACKETEERING
or CRIMES AGAINST NATURE (*).

(* Although the Buddhist in me realizes that jail is no answer.
Perhaps we can conscript these people into picking up trash
along the Susquehanna, or cleaning up industrial messes.)

But I don't know how to get these folks impeached.
Who wants to look this up?

I'd suggest starting with their By-Laws: http://www.srbc.net/about/meetings/ByLawsandProceduresFINAL031209.PDF

and the Susquehanna River Basin Compact
http://www.srbc.net/about/srbc_compact.pdf

Good luck.
Count on my support.


It is for all of the above reasons that I met with others like me in Montrose Pa
to carry water to Dimock for the brave people there who DO speak out
against this crime against nature.

(photo gallery: TinyURL.com/CarryWaterToDimock )

BH

This is a slightly expanded version
of a previous post, with a couple of factual corrections.
inc. that I incorrectly identified the federal rep. as Peter Delucia.

--
William Huston WilliamAHuston@gmail.com
Binghamton NY Phone: 607-321-7846

SocialNet: http://facebook.com/billhuston
Videos: http://youtube.com/billhuston http://vimeo.com/billhuston
Bio/blog: http://binghamtonpmc.org/bio.html http://WilliamAHuston.blogspot.com
Binghamton-area discussion; spirituality topics: http://tinyurl.com/STNYlightworkers
Binghamton Public Access TV is Open-To-Everyone! http://www.O2ETV.org