Battleing West Nile and Staying Green

Due to an outbreak of West Nile virus in Dallas County that has had nearly 200 cases of human infection and 10 deaths, the city is conducting the first aerial spraying of a pesticide in the city since 1966. There are people who are all for the spraying, just kill all the mosquetos with little concern for what else will be killed.

Mariana Green, who writes regularly for The Dallas Morning News (DMN) about gardening and backyard chickens, expressed considerable concern about the spraying and outlined in Thursday's column what she is doing to try to protect her chickens and the beneficial insects such as bees. At a time when the bee population has been on a drastic decrease, do we really want to kill thousands more?

Photo courtesy of http://www.freenaturepictures.com/

 The biggest concern for Mariana, beyond the safety of her chickens is the fact that the healthy ecosystem she has created over the past 28 years will become toxic overnight. In addition to covering her chicken coop with tarps, she is covering as many shrubs and plants as she can, hoping to keep the toxins from the spray off. She is also trying to figure out a way to protect two feral cats that she has been feeding. The main pesticide in the spray is permethrin, which is toxic to cats, so the wild cats have to find shelter. Domestic cats should be kept indoors until the spraying is over.

People like Howard Garrett, an organic gardener and also a DMN columnist, asked  the Dallas City Council not to approve the spraying, encouraging alternative ways for people to be safe.

• Avoid going out at dawn and dusk when mosquitoes are most active
• Wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants
• Rubbing exposed skin with a fabric softener sheet repels mosquitoes
• Eliminate standing water on your property

That last suggestion is hard to comply with for folks who are using rain barrels for irrigation to save water.  I have several around my property and have only had to water with a hose a few times this summer, so I do not want to dump all those containers of rain water. A solution is to use Mosquito Dunks. They can be used in all types of standing water sites where mosquito larvae grow before becoming adults and have no poisonous chemicals and are harmless to other living things.

Proponents of the spraying put forth the argument that human life is more important than insect or animal life, and that is true. However, they forget that killing the bees is endangering human life. If we lose bees, we lose the natural pollinators that help produce the food that feeds the humans. A scientific study, written about in the New York Times by Carl Zimmer, indicates that the use of pesticides has paid a major role in the decline of the bee population over the last twenty years since the new pesticide,  neonicotinoids, was introduced.

It's time to stop these sort-sighted responses to issues and problems and think about the long-term effects. It is also time for people to think about ways of taking care of themselves instead of insisting that some government entity jump up to protect them.

Now for some fun from my favorite comic strip, Pickles. Earl is on a recliner and his grandson, Nelson comes up asking, "Can you take me to the park, Grandpa?"

Earl: "I'm kind of busy right now."

Nelson: "What are you doing?"

Earl: "Contemplating the meaning of life."

Nelson: "Have you tried Googling it?"

Friday's Odds and Ends

I started to do my usual odds and ends, then got into some research about this method of drilling for natural gas, and decided to just write about this issue today.  Wouldn't it be good to protect this beauty?

A town destroyed by Fracking - Dimock, Pennsylvania - “Fracking,” as it’s colloquially known, involves injecting millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals, many of them toxic, into the earth at high pressures to break up rock formations and release natural gas trapped inside. Not only has Dimock been affected on the surface with large areas of land cleared for drilling, the chemicals have gotten into the aquifer and seriously affected the water supply. People and animals are getting sick, dying, and wells are spontaneously combusting.

Yet the companies behind the drilling process claim that it is perfectly safe.

Hydraulic Fracturing - from the site Hydraulic Fracturing/Energy Tomorrow. Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is a proven and well-regulated technology. First used in the 1940s, hydraulic fracturing has unlocked massive new supplies of oil and clean-burning natural gas from dense deposits of shale — supplies that increase our country’s energy security and improve our ability to generate electricity, heat homes and power vehicles for generations to come. Fracking has been used in more than one million U.S. wells, and has safely produced more than seven billion barrels of oil and 600 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

More Dangers - from the website, Earth Times - The dangers of fracking are not limited to the effect on water supplies. Fracking has been tied to earthquakes, and a recent study by a Cornell University professor shows that fracking has a higher greenhouse gas footprint than coal and oil because of the methane that is released during the drilling process. That gas is highly toxic, and one woman in East Texas who was exposed to that gas, now has a lung disease that is incurable.

Just like those favoring the XL Pipeline bringing tar sands oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast, proponents of natural gas say it is all safe and we nay-sayers need to stop with the negative propaganda.  Of course they want us to stop. They want to be able to continue drilling and making profits without taking into consideration the long-term effects.

More Facts about Fracking

STOP the XL Pipeline

I've posted about this issue before, and I only raise it again because apparently government approval of the XL Pipeline that will bring tarsands oil from Canada to refineries in Houston is close. Robert Bryce, in a recent column said that President Obama will probably give that approval because not doing so will hurt his chances of re-election.

So, the president is considering something that could prove to be an environmental disaster because of politics? Or is that just Bryce's opinion? Either way, we should let the president know that we don't want the XL Pipeline.

Bryce points out all the ways that the pipeline will benefit the U.S., while downplaying the environmental issues, which are huge.

First of all, this is not regular crude oil that will be coming through these pipes. It is a thick substance that needs chemicals to thin it out and keep it flowing.Those chemicals are highly toxic and could ruin water systems for generations.

The Sierra Club has been following this issue for some time and recently posted a report released by the University of Nebraska that details the disastrous results of a worst-case scenario spill from Keystone XL. According to the report, a tar sands oil spill from the Keystone XL "into the Platte River in Nebraska would form a plume of oil that could extend more than 450 miles, contaminating drinking water for people as far away as Kansas City, Mo., and threatening wildlife habitat….a worst-case spill in the Sandhills region of Nebraska could pollute 4.9 billion gallons of groundwater with a plume of contaminants 40 feet thick, 500 feet wide and 15 miles long."

Read the full article HERE

Unlike crude oil spills, the contamination would last for generations, not just a few months until some cleanup is complete. We are looking at the possibility of destroying a water source completely, and that is true for every state that the pipeline crosses.

An organization, STOP Tarsands Oil Pipeline, that was started right here in East Texas has a website with a lot of facts that the oil companies and politicians fail to mention when talking about this pipeline, including the significant threat to the water supply in Texas should there ever be a leak.

Maybe I shouldn't say "should there ever be a leak." We are all painfully aware of how prevalent oil leaks are.

The other significant environmental issue is the increase of carbon emissions at the refineries. Tarsands production creates three times the greenhouse gases than crude oil. The bay area of Texas is already a hot bed of cancer and other illnesses directly related to pollutants, so we are just going to dump more on them?

Shame on us.

Shame on our government.

And shame on the oil companies who are pushing for this, despite the dangers. All in the name of profit.

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On another note, I have just found this great site that features the top e-books for Kindle. It is a great place to find quality books, as they only take books that have ranked high enough among readers that they have been "vetted" so to speak. I am thrilled that they considered One Small Victory one of those books. If you have a Kindle and are looking for some good recommendations. I suggest to bookmark the site and visit when you can. http://digitalbooktoday.com/