News-Tribune
Posted Jan 04, 2011 @ 02:13 PM
Keyser, W.Va. — Consider this for a moment: The citizens of Mineral County do indeed have a right to know the content of an agreement between themselves U.S. Wind Force over the serious matter of decommissioning industrial wind turbines. Nearby Garrett County, MD has nothing in place to adequately protect the folks from the ever-changing wind LLC’s.
The City of Cumberland is considering an offer to sell thousands of acres in its watershed.
Garrett County’s Backbone Mountain industrial wind turbine array is nearly complete, with no public safety or health protections, and a proposed mine under the Casselman River awaits local and state approvals. There is no decommissioning agreement at all and the previous commissioners refused to enact any taxpayer protections.
The City of Frostburg is providing city drinking water to Samson Resources to use for hydrofracking just outside of its watershed in an exploratory search for Marcellus Shale.
Hydrofracking is a drilling technique that, because it injects millions of gallons of water-hogging and toxic chemicals into the ground, should be done with a high level of due diligence, to include independent monitoring systems and regulations in place that secure groundwater and protect the public health and well-being.
Frostburg officials have also hired an engineering firm to see if the Piney Watershed Impoundment might also be a good place to consider hydrofracking the City’s freshwater aquifers and stream tributaries for shale gas exploration.
In all cases where it is employed, the work should be monitored by experts employed by the public, but paid for by the developer.
