Skip to main content

Natural Awakenings Lehigh Valley

Welcome to Our April Issue

Reid Boyer

In a different lifetime, some 20 years ago, I was talking to my friend and co-worker Brian, who like myself at the time was recently married. We were talking about married life and issue of household chores came up and Brian commented that his wife was expecting him to help with them; one that he particularly despised was doing the laundry. He confided to me that he would purposely mess it up in hopes that his wife would take back the chore so it was done right. We all had a good laugh and I have to admit, that strategy crossed my mind many times when it comes to household chores.

The health of our environment, however, is no laughing matter. The process of hydraulic fracking is about the most offensive thing I can imagine. The will of a few companies and their bottom lines is making a mess for the many. To purposely pump up to 500 chemicals (see page 19), some which are known carcinogens and some that will still be radioactive more than 10,000 years from now, underground to extract natural gas is a shortsighted energy grab and environmental catastrophe, with no respect for future generations or the other creatures we rely upon in our ecosystem. Legislators in Pennsylvania went all-in with fracking in the Susquehanna River basin with promises of cheap natural gas and job creation.

It is no surprise to me that a mutated small-mouth bass with cancerous tumors was caught in a popular fishing area on the Susquehanna River (see page 27). It’s even less of a surprise that the Pennsylvania Environmental Protection Agency has underreported landowners’ contaminated well water complaints by nearly fourfold (see page 47). The fracking industry continues to claim that fracking can be done safely, but the reality is that it’s not being done safely at all. We are seeing the proof now. How long until those chemicals overload the Chesapeake Bay and threaten fishing, crabbing and tourism industries?

How long until those chemicals get into our bodies or our fresh water supplies are threatened? I can say confidently say that once the pipelines from the Wilkes Barre area are completed, the price of natural gas will rise and Delaware River basin will be elevated to the fracker’s radar screens.

Native American wisdom holds that instead of inheriting our world from our ancestors, the opposite is really true. We only borrow our world from future generations. That is wisdom we need to take to heart now. I think any true conservative would agree.

Reid Boyer, Publishr