Posted on by Daniel Klotz

Marcellus Shale drilling is harming Pennsylvania’s environment, New York Times reports

A New York Times expose today reveals a thoroughly corrupt system that is effectively allowing natural gas drilling to destroy Pennsylvania’s environment.

The in-depth report comes at a time when the number of Marcellus Shale wells in Pennsylvania are expected to increase from 6,400 today to no fewer than 50,000 in 2031.

Natural gas drilling wastewater
What the waste water looks like. Thumnail of the photo by Jessica Kourkounis.

The article, by Ian Urbina, reveals that, in a process that defies belief, radioactive waste water from the drilling process is being sold to municipalities in our state to use for de-icing roads, because the waste water is high in salts.

Natural gas is extracted from the Marcellus Shale formation in our state by injecting millions of gallons of water to break up rock and release the natural gas. The problem is that 10 to 40 percent of that water comes back to the surface within two weeks of its use. And at that point it is contaminated with salts and radioactive elements including barium and strontium.

One partial solution to this problem has been for drilling corporations to capture this waste water and reuse it at new drilling sites. This is a flawed solution, however, because it leads to waste water with even higher concentrations of contaminants, and the water is not reusable forever—it must eventually be disposed. Adding insult to injury, the New York Times reports that “the total amount of recycling in the state is nowhere near the 90 percent that the industry has been claiming over the past year.” It gets worse:

In the year and a half that ended in December 2010, well operators reported recycling at least 320 million gallons. But at least 260 million gallons of wastewater were sent to plants that discharge their treated waste into rivers, out of a total of more than 680 million gallons of wastewater produced, according to state data posted Tuesday. Those 260 million gallons would fill more than 28,800 tanker trucks, a line of which would stretch from about New York City to Richmond, Va.

On March 11, 2009, a meeting was held between natural gas drilling industry officials and “state regulators and officials from the governor’s office.” The subject of the meeting was a modest proposal requiring drilling corporations to track each load of waste water from the extraction site to the disposal point. Without that requirement, drillers could dump the waste water on the side of the road and no one would be the wiser. What happened during and after that meeting is horrifying:

After initially resisting, state officials agreed, adding that they would try to persuade the secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection to agree, according to the notes. In the end, the state’s proposed manifest system for tracking was not carried out.

Three of the top state officials in the meeting — K. Scott Roy, Barbara Sexton and J. Scott Roberts — have since left their posts for jobs in the natural-gas industry.

The article, “Wastewater Recycling No Cure-All in Gas Process,” is required reading for all Pennsylvanians.

Give it a read and leave your thoughts here.

(While I could not have anticipated the details of this ongoing disaster, I told you so.)

Posted on by Daniel Klotz

How many of America’s wealthiest people live in Lancaster County?

The greatest threat to democracy in the United States is the growing inequality of wealth. (The causes of that inequality, including the unchecked power of multinational mega-corporations, are important, too.) Thomas Jefferson recognized massively disproportionate distribution of wealth as a possibility. It is now reality.

The situation has gotten serious over the past fifty years, as Robert Lieberman points out in the current issue of Foreign Affairs:

The wealthiest Americans, among them presumably the very titans of global finance whose misadventures brought about the financial meltdown, got richer. And not just a little bit richer; a lot richer. In 2009, the average income of the top five percent of earners went up, while on average everyone else’s income went down. This was not an anomaly but rather a continuation of a 40-year trend of ballooning incomes at the very top and stagnant incomes in the middle and at the bottom. The share of total income going to the top one percent has increased from roughly eight percent in the 1960s to more than 20 percent today.

When we talk about the income of the top one percent, we’re talking about individuals making more than $1.2 million a year.

It’s hard to comprehend those kind of numbers. One percent of people getting twenty percent of the income? It’s worse when you realize that’s only income, not wealth. As of 2007, ten percent of the U.S. population held eighty percent of all financial assets.

I think most of us automatically think of the richest people in America as abstractions. We’ll only see their faces if we see their photos in Forbes. But what if these financial elite are our neighbors? How many of the “richest of the rich” live in Lancaster County?

In my research so far, it’s impossible to tell. There’s really only one definitive statistic: at least five thousand Lancaster County households are among the richest five percent of American households, in terms of income.

The latest research on actual wealth (as opposed to just income) to come from the U.S. Census Bureau is dated 2004, and even then the numbers are only broken down to the state level, not into counties. We know that in 2004, there were 86,000 individuals in Pennsylvania with more than $1.5 million in financial assets. If those individuals were evenly distributed throughout the state population, in 2004 there would have been 3,464 of them in Lancaster County. Further, if we want to consider only individuals worth more than $20 million, in 2004 there would have been seventy-six such individuals in Lancaster County.

Does anyone have any better data on these questions? If not, do my very rough guesses pass the “sniff test” for you? Are there thousands of multimillionaires among the half-million residents of Lancaster County?

Posted on by Daniel Klotz

Foodie-ism in Lancaster County

Have you ever rolled your eyes at Anthony Bourdain, or am I the only one?

Well, at least there’s me and B.R. Myers, a vegan and brilliant literary critic, who tears into foodie-ism with zeal in “The Moral Crusade Against Foodies” in this month’s Atlantic.

The essay is great fun. Omnivore blogger Cliff Bostock writes, “The essay is every bit as hyperbolic and sermonizing as the foodie movement he attacks, but it is nonetheless a great read.” New York Times food critic Glenn Collins highlights it as what he’s reading this week.

Myers has read the latest by Anthony Bourdain, Kim Severson, Gabrielle Hamilton, and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma), and he couldn’t be happier that that reading assignment is over.

He finds that all of today’s foodie writing flows from the spring of Pollan’s “moral logic,” which, in Myers’ reading, goes like this:

The refined palate rejects the taste of factory-farmed meat, of the corn-syrupy junk food that sickens the poor, of frozen fruits and vegetables transported wastefully across oceans—from which it follows that to serve one’s palate is to do right by small farmers, factory-abused cows, Earth itself.

It’s not the first time Myers has critiqued Pollan. He identified the danger in Pollan’s line of thinking in September 2007:

Pollan is free to present his appetite as a sort of moral-o-meter, the final authority for judging the rightness of all things culinary. He shoots a wild pig, for example, hugely enjoying the experience. We even get a spiel about how hunting makes people face the inevitability of their own death.

This is nonsense, says Myers. What has become socially acceptable as being a “foodie” is nothing more than elitism and gluttony. What’s new is that “for the first time in the history of their community,” these gluttonous elitists are left “feeling more moral, spiritual even, than the man on the street.” There’s no guilt about eating so much, so well, and at such cost. No one sees that there’s a problem with being so fixated on food, thinking about it all the time, or pursuing it as basely as Bourdain does:

Bourdain starts off his book by reveling in the illegality of a banquet at which he and some famous (unnamed) chefs dined on ortolan, endangered songbirds fattened up, as he unself-consciously tells us, in pitch-dark cages. After the meal, an “identical just-fucked look” graced each diner’s face. Eating equals sex, and in accordance with this self-flattery, gorging is presented in terms of athleticism and endurance. “You eat way past the point of hitting the wall. Or I do anyway.”

Francis Lam opens his rebuttal to Myers with an admission: “Look, I hate ‘foodies’ as much as the next guy.” Hannah Wallace, who writes about food for The Faster Times, is on board, too:

Myers has a point: many so-called foodies are elitist and would rather brag about their latest meal at Per Se (and eating ortolan, apparently) than work to make organic fruits and veggies affordable and accessible to low-income communities.

And Robert Sietsema, lashing back against Myers in the Village Voice, has to admit as well that there’s some truth in what Myers says:

Foodism is an unstoppable cultural phenomenon that has outgrown its metaphoric britches. Just like any other human endeavor, its manifestations must be submitted to sane judgment on a case-by-case basis. Good ideas and bad ideas abound, and it’s the job of the thinker, writer, and dining enthusiast to submit these ideas to analysis, and, yes, moral judgment.

Well, here I am, being a thinker and writer, wanting to submit these ideas to analysis and moral judgment. (I’d be more of a dining enthusiast if I could afford more frequent enthusiastic dining.) And what I want to ask is this: As the ranks of foodies grow in Lancaster County, how will our community change?

There is a growing focus in our community on food.

There are blogs: We have Keely Childers Heany’s Note to Self blog on Susquehanna Style. Kathlene Sullivan’s Food-Love-Lancaster blog on Fig. Carl Kosko’s Lancaster Culinary Journeys. Holly High is blogging her way through the Mennonite Community Cookbook on 7 Sweets and 7 Sours, in a Central PA version of Julie & Julia. Every so often we get a fresh post from Ten Pints.

There are institutions, beginning with the sporadically active Lancaster Buy Fresh Buy Local. There are local community-supported agriculture coops (CSAs). There’s Expressly Local on King Street. My friend Antonia Hinnenkamp has East King Culinary. Amy Crystle offers weekly bundles through Everyday Local Food (I’m a happy customer).

Apparently there are even local listservs about food.

And then there’s the growing national attention on Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine—witness the August 2010 issue of Bon Appetit.

It’s easy for me—and, I expect, most readers of this blog—to imagine how much good could come of all this: Better, more nutritious food for all segments of our community, with a positive effect on the environment. More healthy options for dining out. Protection for the traditional agriculture that is such a part of our area’s heritage.

But Myers’ Atlantic article, cheerless as it is, causes me to pause for a moment. I think of John J. Jeffries, which is wonderful but, you cant deny, elite. I rewatch the Fox 43 segment on Susquehanna Style‘s Silver Spoon awards, which gives eating a red carpet treatment. I recall the Buy Fresh Buy Local $60/person dinners. And I wonder if Myers is right to bring up a concern. If we stopped thinking and conversing about this, couldn’t this all devolve into a circle of local elitists congratulating themselves for all the good they’re doing by eating delicious and expensive food?

I’m an American, and therefore an optimist, so I think we’ll see positive outcomes rather than the negative ones that are possible. Still, as foodie-ism continues to erupt in our community, it makes sense to me for us to recognize how precarious a position we’re in. Are we talking about food that’s better for people and the environment, or a convenient disguise for elitism and gluttony?

What about you? Do you share any of Myers’ concerns, or is this a whole lot of buzz about nothing?

Posted on by Daniel Klotz

Freedom spreading

I can’t embrace the mantra, “Think globally, act locally.” Once we start thinking globally, it’s hard to constrain ourselves to acting only locally.

Still, incredible things are happening in the Middle East, and here we are, most of us unable to leave Lancaster to hang out in Egypt for a while. It looks as if I may have to be content acting locally after all, even as my thoughts are elsewhere.

So where should our minds be at this historic moment? How should we be acting in response? Here are my initial thoughts.

This is something to get excited about, not to fear

25 BahmanThe popular uprisings in the Middle East are massively important and of lasting significance. In Egypt, the military (which is in control until elections are held, months from now) will be unable to wrest real power from the people. The people are too energized, informed, and coordinated. So far, the indications are that the military realizes this. They’ve already convened a panel to rewrite the constitution.

Across the entire region, the zeitgeist has changed radically. Tunisia inspired Egypt, which is inspiring Yemen and Bahrain. Iranian supporters of the popular opposition in Tunsia and Egypt gathered yesterday to celebrate those countries’ victories, but when as many as 350,000 people turned out, they couldn’t help but revive their aspirations for a free Iran.

We need to get on “the right side of history,” as many are saying. Here’s what we mean by that: People are meant to be free. Each of us is born with inherent worth and rights. Totalitarian rule, communism, and fascism ignore that worth and deny those rights. Self-governance is the only viable option for guarding those rights and making room for all individuals, families, and communities to reach their full potential. When the natural order of things is constantly steering history toward freedom and democracy, oppression is an uphill battle, always doomed to eventually fail.

Whatever Glenn Beck might say, the new societies we’re watching emerge aren’t some kind of Islamist caliphate. Instead, they’re secular democracies. As reported in the New York Times:

The Muslim Brotherhood, the outlawed Islamist movement that until 18 days ago was considered Egypt’s only viable opposition, said it was merely a supporting player in the revolt.

“We participated with everyone else and did not lead this or raise Islamic slogans so that it can be the revolution of everyone,” said Mohamed Saad el-Katatni, a spokesman for the Brotherhood. “This is a revolution for all Egyptians; there is no room for a single group’s slogans, not the Brotherhood’s or anybody else.”

The Brotherhood, which was slow to follow the lead of its own youth wing into the streets, has said it will not field a candidate for president or seek a parliamentary majority in the expected elections.

The Muslim Brotherhood will be a political party, not a ruling oligarchy.

I’m with Tom Friedman (who has been in Cairo throughout the events) in being convinced that Islamism is not the future, but rather something that has now been toppled in Egypt:

The message coming out of Cairo will be: We tried Nasserism; we tried Islamism; and now we’re trying democracy. But not democracy imported from Britain or delivered by America — democracy conceived, gestated and born in Tahrir Square.

Even the very conservative Weekly Standard declares, “Fears of a Muslim Brotherhood Takeover are Overblown”:

The chance that Islamists will capture the Arab uprisings is slim unless anti-democratic, oil rich Arab dynasties like the Saudi and other Gulf monarchs, or their Iranian rivals, are allowed to pour billions of dollars into the coffers of their respective proxies, as they did in Gaza, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The West can prevent this from happening, but even if it does happen, whoever seizes power in the countries in revolt will be forced to remember the fate of the ousted rulers they replaced.

On the question of whether we’re looking at lasting change, my favorite insight so far comes in the form of a letter to the editor of the New York Times:

To the Editor:

Judging by the images of Egyptians cleaning up after their uprising, I think it’s fair to conclude that they are ready for democracy.

Glenn Alan Cheney
Hanover, Conn., Feb. 13, 2011

Technology is a huge piece of what’s going on

My belief that we’re looking at permanent change in the Middle East is due in large part to my understanding of technology.

To understand modern life, it’s requisite to grasp the concept that technology is not morally neutral. Different technologies are predisposed to certain uses. Broadcast television is predisposed to addressing the least common denominator—on TV, success is easier and greater if you’re dumbing things down than if you’re trying to raise the level of intelligent discourse. Automobiles are predisposed to increasing individualism and isolation—with a car, you’re far more independent and can live further from the people who know you.

In this way, technology in the form of television and automobiles is not neutral. It’s not just “what we make of it,” because different technologies lend themselves to certain uses.

In the same way, the Internet and mobile networks, along with the social technologies that are built on them, are not simply “whatever people make of them.” Saying that it’s up to people to decide whether or not they’ll use Facebook and Twitter to  organize revolutions is like saying it’s up to people to decide whether or not they’ll use a hammer to drive in nails. Facilitating discourse is what social techologies want to do, in the same way that driving nails is what hammers want to do.

Facebook, Twitter, e-mail groups, and text messaging systems want to be used to facilitate discourse among empowered citizens. The people of Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and Iran have a lot to talk about—specifically, decades of frustrations and aspirations they’ve been unable to express or pursue.

I dare you: arm an entire nation with hammers and try to keep them from hammering stuff. Arm an entire nation with social technologies and try to keep them from talking about freedom, organizing protests, and establishing self-governance. Just try.

The imperiled despots in the Middle East are rushing to block these networks and communication platforms. That tactic won’t work—people will be infuriated, and a complete shutoff is impossible.

The U.S. may the greatest threat to the success of these democratic revolutions

Again, Tom Friedman:

In some ways, President Barack Obama did the Egyptian revolution a great favor by never fully endorsing it and never even getting his act together for how to deal with it. This meant in the end that Egyptians know they did this for themselves by themselves – with nothing but their own willpower, unity and creativity.

The United States’ Middle East policy has, for generations, been preoccupied with “stability” in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen, etc. In The American Prospect, Matthew Yglesias writes:

The first problem with the U.S.’ foreign-policy approach with these states is that you can’t just count on unpopular regimes staying in power forever. And the second problem is that the longer the U.S. government stays in bed with kleptocrats, the more severe popular discontent against the United States becomes. It’s an untenable and counterproductive posture, and obviously so.

So what should our foreign policy be? I think there’s only one real option right now: Our role is to stay out of these countries’ business except when it comes to helping citizens establish democratic governments that we will acknowledge as legitimate and sovereign.

That’s crudely put, I know. We’ll never completely stay out of anyone’s business, because the business of all Middle East nations is intimately tied to our business. But still, it’s the essence that’s important. Egypt doesn’t need our help toppling an oppressive regime. They need our help with matters of diplomacy. We can help facilitate the process by which they will form their own government. We have the muscle to keep would-be despots at bay—telling Egypt’s military to back off, if it comes to that. We also have the expertise and third-party standpoint necessary to aid diverse groups as they create a new government, whatever help they may need. And then, at the end, we can lead the world in recognizing the new Egypt and other new democracies as sovereign nation-states.

The other thing we can do? Help to spread unhindered access to the Internet and to mobile networks in these countries. The only agenda we would be pursuing is empowering people to gather information and share it freely.

So what we can do in Lancaster?

I’m not entirely sure, but here’s what’s on my list right now:

  • Get inspired to fight for our own democracy, which is in peril (see Bob Herbert’s column on this subject)
  • Encourage elected officials to pursue a sensible policy that favors the people of the Middle East above all else
  • Follow the evolving story intelligently, and let the people of the Middle East know they have the support of the American people
  • Learn Arabic

How do you think we should be reacting to the news from the Middle East? What’s the appropriate response from our community here in the U.S.?

Posted on by Daniel Klotz

Fire on 300 block of N Queen destroys Zap & Co (PHOTOS)

I know a lot of you are concerned about last night’s massive fire that hit the 300 block of North Queen Street, the epicenter of Lancaster’s indie arts scene. So I grabbed a camera and walked over this morning.

I don’t have any new facts, just photos. For the full story, see the LancasterOnline article.

Everyone is free to use these photos for any purpose, and no need to ask me for permission or give me credit.