Don't Let Fracking Destroy My Home

In the 1970s, John Lennon and Yoko Ono bought a beautiful farm in an idyllic spot in Delaware County, NY. Now some gas companies intend to "tear through our wilderness" to make room for a hydraulic fracking pipeline, their son Sean writes in the New York Times. "Natural gas has been sold as clean energy. But when the gas comes from fracturing bedrock with about 5 million gallons of toxic water per well, the word 'clean' takes on a disturbingly Orwellian tone."

The pipes eventually break down, releasing scads of toxic chemicals, and methane routinely escapes from the wells, contributing to climate change. Moderates like Michael Bloomberg say they just want gas "extracted carefully and in the right places," but Lennon scoffs that that's like "a smoker telling you, 'Smoking lighter cigarettes in the right place at the right time makes it safe to smoke.'" Which is an apt comparison, because America's Natural Gas Alliance has hired the same PR firm that spent decades assuring Americans that smoking didn't cause cancer. And lest one think it's just a rural part of Upstate New York at risk, Lennon warns: "The well water on my family’s farm comes from the same watersheds that supply all the reservoirs in New York State. That means if our tap water gets dirty, so does New York City’s." Click for Lennon's full piece. (More Sean Lennon stories.)