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| A Stormy Day on The Beartooth Front (Click on photo to enlarge it) |
I'll repeat the message to you one more time: Most of the people of the Beartooth Front that know anything about hydraulic fracturing do not want fracking on the Front. We do not want your drilling activities shaking our homes. We do not want your large, ugly, noisy, drilling sites despoiling our land and our view. We do not want to see your flares around our countryside. We do not want the stinky air that comes with your business. We do not want the road damage that you'll cause to our current roads and highways and we do not want the massive building of new dirt roads over our countryside to your drilling sites. We do not want the huge increase in traffic that comes with your industry. We do not want the uncontrolled growth and increased crime that comes with your industry. We do not want the increased risk of earthquakes that comes with your industry. We do not want the increase in air, land and water pollution that your industry inevitably brings.
We do not appreciate the fact that your industry leaks large amounts of methane (a potent greenhouse gas) into the atmosphere. We do not appreciate the fact that your industry will be using massive amounts of our wonderful, clean water. We do not appreciate the disrespect for the land that your industry exhibits. We do not appreciate the way that you've rigged the Montana government completely in your favor. We do not appreciate the propaganda of your PR people while you simultaneously treat the Beartooth Front like a Third World country in the 1950's that you can come into and plunder as you please. This is America and millions of people are boiling mad about the way that your industry comes into areas and throws its weight around.
The people of the Beartooth Front are not the generally compliant citizens of the oil fields in Texas. The people of the Beartooth Front are not the overwhelmed people of the Bakken. The people of the Beartooth Front are independent, thoughtful Montanans and people from all over the country and the world who love the Front. Frackers, you're dealing with the same people that recently denied a permit for an ugly cell phone tower that would mar the view near Roscoe. Do you think that those people are going to calmly and idly stand by while you build hundreds, possibly thousands of your ugly, dirty, smelly drilling rigs on the Front?
If you persist in trying to establish your industry on the Beartooth Front, we have many eyes that will watch you like eagles and hawks from all angles, including from the air. We will monitor your every move and when you make mistakes we will officially record and report them to the media and the proper authorities. We will sue you any chance we get. We will work tirelessly to change the laws so that they are no longer rigged in your favor. We will do our very best to legally make it difficult and unpleasant for you to expand your industry on the Beartooth Front. We are willing to spend whatever time and money it takes to keep your industry from expanding onto the Front. We will use all legal means to keep large-scale fracking out of the Front.
We do not appreciate the fact that your industry quietly lobbies the USA government to allow you to sell your fossil fuel all over the world while meanwhile you tell us that you need to drill on our land to help bring about energy independence for the USA. Obviously your drilling on the Front is not critical to the energy security of our country.
The cost of renewable energy is decreasing rapidly and within the next few decades the marketplace will put the fracking industry into the dustbin of history. Yet in this brief period of time when fracking is economically viable you want to despoil the Beartooth Front so that you can get richer. The Front has a much greater intrinsic and long-term economic value as the relatively pristine area that it is, rather than as a fracking sacrifice zone. Why don't you save yourself a lot of hassle and stop the expansion of your industry onto the Beartooth Front? Why don't you show some basic human decency and leave us alone? You really are messing with the wrong people.
John Brainard
DEFEAT FRACKING ON THE BEARTOOTH FRONT!
NOTE: If anyone thinks that I'm just a windbag blowing hot air about the bad effects of fracking, check out this 30 minute movie about the changes fracking has brought to the Bakken area of North Dakota: This is Our Country: Living with the Wild West Oil Boom
