MDEQ HOLDING PUBLIC HEARINGS ON NEW DRAFT FRACKING RULES

If you are concerned about Fracking in Michigan - then we need you to speak out now!  

The MDEQ is now accepting comments on their new draft rules for hydraulic fracturing.  The comment period ends on Thursday July 31.  There are two public hearings - one in Gaylord on Tuesday July 15, and one in Lansing on July 16.  Both are from 6:30-9:30PM.  Details are in the official Public Notice here:  http://www.michigan.gov/documents/deq/deq-oogm-Part615-Revision-NOH2014_460477_7.pdf  

We need as many people as possible to attend these two hearings, and tell the DEQ:  

"These new rules don't make fracking any safer for Michigan; our air, water and communities are still at risk, and MDEQ needs to go much much further to protect us, or just stop allowing fracking."  

Would you be willing to go to one of the hearings, and help us to share that message?  

Won't you please join us?  Our attendance at these two hearings are one of the most direct ways we'll ever have of winning any positive changes in Michigan having to do with extracting fossil fuels.  If you live in an area of Michigan that has been subjected to new extreme hydraulic fracturing for natural gas or oil, then you have important input for the DEQ on their proposed rules.  Who better than you to tell them what it's like to live near one of these places?  

If you have any questions at all, let me know at rita.chapman@sierraclub.org.  

Thank you, I hope to hear from you!    

Rita Chapman

Sierra Club Michigan Chapter

BP-Canadian Tar Sands and The Environmental Expense to Lake Michigan

The Michigan Voice

Saturday, March 25

Developing story – BP oil spill, the BP oil disaster, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and now The Great Lakes of Michigan began on 25 March 2014 at the Whiting refinery (a new unit to process Canadian tar sands) more evidence of industrial pollution discharged into Lake Michigan. A less than massive response ensued to protect a sandy cove on BP’s property. Hear what U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Mark Kirk of Illinois had to say! And what else should Michiganders know about The Whiting plant?

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Oil companies frack in coastal waters off Calif.

JASON DEAREN, Associated Press, By JASON DEAREN and ALICIA CHANG, Associated Press

Updated 1:25 pm, Saturday, August 3, 2013

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Companies prospecting for oil off California's coast have used hydraulic fracturing on at least a dozen occasions to force open cracks beneath the seabed, and now regulators are investigating whether the practice should require a separate permit and be subject to stricter environmental review.

While debate has raged over fracking on land, prompting efforts to ban or severely restrict it, offshore fracking has occurred with little attention in sensitive coastal waters where for decades new oil leases have been prohibited.

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