Injection wells: The poison beneath us
The hidden risks of pumping waste underground
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/21/injection_wells_the_poison_beneath_us_salpart/
This is a really amazing article and I really encourage you to read it. I had no idea this was going on and I follow the world of science pretty closely. To me this is an entire industry built on wishful thinking and ‘regulated’ by people who are determined not to find anything adverse. First, everything ‘science’ related is based on models (very simplistic models as far as I can tell) and, as anyone who has done modeling can tell you, models are best at showing your incomplete comprehension of the real world, not at actually representing anything real. Second, the ‘regulation’ consists of taking the operator’s word and even when complaints are made, deliberately not doing any testing or sampling. If I stick my fingers in my ears and sing “la la la” loud enough and long enough, perhaps people will get disgusted and walk away and I can pretend nothing bad happened.
Then, of course, there is the typical oligarchical criminal activity like this:
Ultimately, the energy industry won a critical change in the federal government’s legal definition of waste: Since 1988, all material resulting from the oil and gas drilling process is considered non-hazardous, regardless of its content or toxicity.
But hey, the oligarchy will have made its mint and the dumb taxpayers can deal with the consequences. And who cares about a few sick dying people anyway? They aren’t rich!
On second thought, reading the article might be counter productive. Ignorance is bliss (at least until your liver shuts down from the chemicals).
