Editor’s note: Stories sometimes raise eyebrows not just because of controversial subject matter but because some readers question their actual newsworthiness. Please keep letting us know what you think.—Ken McIntyre
Dear Daily Signal: The very contamination of water wells by hydraulic fracturing seemingly denied in the first part of Fred Lucas’ story was affirmed in the last couple of paragraphs (“Study Finds Fracking Doesn’t Harm Drinking Water in Texas”). Sure, the methane is natural, but not in wells until after fracking.
And if roads are garnering billions of dollars in damage, where are all these trucks taking the sludge waste from fracking? Is it being recycled? Are contents separated and made harmless?
Lucas’ story on the Texas fracking study seems like a shill for the industry. I am not opposed to new energy sources, but call a spade a spade. Don’t pretend it is clean energy with no ill effects if that is not true.—Georgia Fallaw
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Regarding Fred Lucas’ story on the Texas study of fracking, wells around the world have naturally occurring methane that leaks into the water.
From Lucas’ story, I quote: “The Texas academy study cited a 2011 Groundwater Protection Council study, which found that 10 of the 211 contamination incidents examined occurred because of drilling and none was related to fracking.”
All trucks and cars cause road damage; that is just a fact. If one has drilling equipment, employee movement, etc., there is going to be more wear and tear on the roadway. Such is the cost of doing business. Period.
However, when a region has a large gain in employment and revenue, those are reasons roads are built in the first place.—Chris Byers
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My niece lived in Boise, Idaho, nowhere near fracking. She had methane gas in her well water. I’m thinking: Maybe it was a result of years of farming?—Judi Ann Mohler
Methane is a naturally occurring gas, often the result of the breakdown of organic compounds. Oil drilling can release this gas, along with crude oil, and oil companies usually tap this resource. Methane can get into water tables as well—a phenomenon that has been occurring since the earliest days of oil exploration and use.
Because oil is in shale deposits, there isn’t too much likelihood that it also contains methane gas. The gas, being a free agent, simply will bleed out and find its own environment, such as water.
Fracking seems like such a scary process that people tend to frighten themselves and suspect foul deeds, when the process has been in use for many years—just not on such a scale as we see today. You heat the rocks and the oil flows out. It’s that simple. Imagine the environmental damage if we started removing the rocks to be processed, as is being done now with coal.—Bob Terrell
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Surely you don’t expect more from the liberals who post comments on The Daily Signal. Derision, confusion, and hate are all they have. Their self-appointed gurus continually say the sky is falling, yet they are the ones flying all over the world spreading more harmful pollutants into the air. Al Gore’s carbon footprint has done more damage to the environment than all the fracking in the oil industry.—Alan Brandenburg
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Those opposed to fracking are ignoring the New Madrid Fault Line—which quakes naturally in areas of Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, and the entire eastern seaboard—for political purposes.
In fact, the New Madrid is even more dangerous than the San Andreas Fault because of the large potential for liquefaction, and in some instances can replace the sand above completely with wet sand from below. Check out the information yourselves: Fracking has little to zero impact on this area.—Cynthia Gage
Yet another study has concluded that no, #fracking doesn’t harm drinking water. https://t.co/lD27Fif6av pic.twitter.com/ig3wcdeVdJ
— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) June 20, 2017
The New Madrid quake took place in 1811 and 1812. We are now more than 200 years past that, and many believe we are overdue for another major quake on the New Madrid fault.
That quake created Reel Foot Lake in western Tennessee, caused the Mississippi River to flow backward, and rerouted the river. The effects were felt as far away as New York City and Boston, where the vibration caused church bells to ring.
Should the New Madrid experience another such quake, it would seriously damage Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee. In 1811 the area was sparsely populated, so there was limited damage to structures and human life. Not so today.
But don’t forget, earthquakes are a natural phenomenon. We can’t predict them and we can’t stop them. All the Chicken Little people now can go worry about this and leave the fracking industry alone.—Susan Puryear
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The Environmental Protection Agency under the Obama administration said that in some circumstances, fracking can produce bad results. But the EPA never shared those instances. It seems typical of the left to make a statement with no factual support.—Dennis Moore
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The protests aren’t going to stop with any research findings or facts. Progressives are anti-progress, and their agenda is to thwart and ultimately defeat free markets and capitalism. That’s the bottom line. As syndicated talk-show host Mark Levin so aptly puts it: “The new green is the old red.”—Jane Blacksmith
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You report: “Hydraulic fracturing hasn’t contaminated groundwater in Texas, isn’t an earthquake hazard, and has been a boon for the state’s economy, according to a study released Monday.” The environmental wackos and tyrants (big government globalists) aren’t going to like this. They hate it when truth, reality, and facts slap them in the face.—Mark Simmons
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From what I have read on the subject, water contamination and earthquakes result from disposal wells for fracking wastewater. The solution is simple: Require all fracking wastewater is recycled for reuse.—Charles McManus
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Fracking doesn’t harm anything, except the feelings of greenie nitwits.—Gary Knowles
https://twitter.com/RobertBluey/status/876269563163357184
New Moves in Putin’s Chess Game With NATO?
Dear Daily Signal: The Russians have intercepted North Atlantic Treaty Organization training exercises as far back as I can remember, which is nothing new.
So Nolan Peterson’s piece is wrong to exclaim about a Russian fighter jet merging alongside a pair of B-1B bombers and cutting across the tail of a B-52 bomber as an extraordinary new normal of NATO-Russian military encounters (“Watch as Russian Fighter Jet Intercepts U.S. Bombers Over Baltic Sea During NATO Exercise”). It is not a new normal.
Yet we must be on guard against our current and past enemy, whatever its current name, while Russian President Vladimir Putin inserts himself via hacking into U.S. and European affairs, including NATO exercises.—Bill Lemoine
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NATO’s heavy bombers and supersonic fighters and bombers are over the Baltic Sea? Heck, yeah. The Russians intercepted (duh) and you can bet that U.S. and Russian military intelligence were carefully monitoring everything that happened, such as response times and various tactics.
However, this has been going on for decades. It’s not new. It’s still a cool video, if you like military aircraft.—Andrew Haraldson
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It’s a joke that the Russian military says this “action by NATO hardly de-escalates the tensions” while they fly their nuclear-capable, tin-can bombers with fighter escorts near Alaska and the West Coast, or buzz our ships.
Russian propagandists always act like they are the victims of Western aggression, while they stomp on border countries and threaten Europe. It’s the ultimate chess game.—Bruce Atkinson
https://twitter.com/RobertBluey/status/875459979280490496
Trey Gowdy’s Pros and Cons
Dear Daily Signal: All I can say about Rachel del Guidice’s narrative in “Why Conservatives Put Trust in Trey Gowdy as House’s Corruption Fighter” is … geez.
Gowdy certainly will be a busy man holding our executive branch accountable. To even suggest he needs to go back to the future with Fast and Furious, Benghazi, and the IRS is pure political ignorance. Why would taxpayers want to continue spending tens of millions more beating dead horses from the past eight years?
Frankly, Gowdy came off as a very frustrated man in the public hearings I watched. I guess he felt he was not getting his way with the law. He was mostly in show-and-tell mode.—John Kominitsky
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Trey Gowdy has a razor-sharp mind.—Mary De Voe
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Trey Gowdy is the right man to fully disclose and ultimately rein in dangerous executive overreach, Republican as well as Democrat.—Dale McConnaughay
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I’ve always liked Trey Gowdy. The only problem is that he talks a good game, but he’s accomplished nothing.—James A. Bussell
Wonder Woman is a feminist movie conservatives can embrace. https://t.co/c81FyCtvSr pic.twitter.com/NQghmGnIW8
— The Daily Signal (@DailySignal) June 16, 2017
Faith, Hope, and ‘Wonder Woman’
Dear Daily Signal: Excellent article by Katrina Trinko. I saw the movie “Wonder Woman” and liked it a lot (“The Hopeful Feminism of ‘Wonder Woman’”). I went into the theater expecting the usual comic-book live action nonsense, made mostly in a computer.
I found a very human tale with a great plot and high production values with a little bit of computer-generated imagery thrown in where live action couldn’t do the job. Such movies are rare in today’s movie world.—Ken Marx
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The only religion explicitly mentioned as far as I could tell in “Wonder Woman” was ancient Greek; we are “told” that Zeus gave his life for his creation, man, and Zeus’ final act was to breathe life into a human savior whose purpose it is to do battle with their version of the devil.
Yes, the movie celebrates the values of friendship, sacrifice, and love, which are important Judeo-Christian values, but they’re ascribed to ancient Greek religion. My takeaway from this is that these shared values are important across multiple religions.—Edward Buatois
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Great mythology! More sensible than most of the world’s major religions.—John Levin
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If women were that “hopefully” virtuous, there would be no such thing as the “cat fight,” Tonya Harding would still be a USFS figure skater, and John Bobbitt would still be a man with parts. Original sin isn’t a “male” affliction.—Alex Bendyna
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A female superhero who fights for the weak. That’s bound to tick off the abortion lobby.—Steve Ross
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Far too many people want to judge other sinners and exact vengeance for themselves or others. Wouldn’t it be better to let God judge and keep our minds on the work he has called us to do, rescuing people (i.e., sinners, like we were) from the snares of the adversary? After all, God reconciled us to himself when we were his enemies (Romans 5:10; Colossians 1:21-22).—Jeffrey Moore
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Powerful commentary.—Ruth Rasmussen
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I think we’ve got to see this movie.—Richard Zolnosky
How Are We Doing?
Dear Daily Signal: Thank God for organizations like yours that support honesty, freedom of speech, and freedom to live according to one’s spiritual convictions. I am not able to keep up with all the good organizations in need of donations, but I am thankful for those that can help our country get back to being a God-fearing country.—Dot Theis-Witter
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Better. This is the first time in a while I’ve seen the majority of articles from The Daily Signal don’t have a heavy evangelical slant. There are those of us who don’t fit in a pretty box. Some of us lean Republican because we believe in smaller government and are fiscally conservative, but don’t buy into this merging of capitalism and evangelism. The mixing of these platforms is driving many of us away. —Amber Pollastrini
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The information I read on The Daily Signal is precisely what the left-oriented media would not consider reporting, because doing so is contrary to their modus operandi.—Jay Bloom
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I really look forward to The Daily Signal and I’m very pleased when I see it on my computer.—Barbara Dragin
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We love your articles. What a great thing that it is to have a trusted media source. Thanks.—Alicia Hart