Survey

Here's my survey, I've had 19 responses.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/K2N7DW5

Survey

My survey is about deforestation. It asks what deforestation is, and the feeling for deforestation. The survey also asks if people have ever participated in a protest for or against deforestation, and if they have been affected by deforestation. In general the results that I have collected so far show that people know what deforestation is, and believe it to be a negative thing. As soon as I get the rest of the results of the surveys after putting them on facebook I will integrate the information into my essay.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/K2N7DW5

Indigenous Resistance and Racist Schooling on the Borders of Empires: Coast Salish Cultural Survival

            There have been differences along the border between the Coast Salish people of British Columbia and Washington State.  Both the British Columbian’s and the American’s tried to restrain the aboriginal people, or the Indigenous people. The main way in which they tried to rid of the Indigenous people were through schools. The schools were designed to eliminate the memories of language and meanings that were associated with the Indigenous people. The goal of the schools was to remove the Aboriginal people from the land. The Coast Salish people have tried resisting this movement and retaining their beliefs and identities. They did this by reclaiming some of the schools, so to escape the racism of the public schools. The main goal was to keep their cultural differences and not mold into a single culture.

            It would be very difficult to analyze research across the borders for many different reasons.  For one with different policies and cultures, it would result in many different responses that would be hard to measure. It would be hard to get an accurate measurement of racism comparatively among the borders. “At one moment conditions appear very different in Canada than they are in the United States, and you begin to think in contrasts (Marker 111). The Coast Salish people that are across the Canda-Washingotn State border are aware of the conditions on the other side of it. According to Marker, a parent told him what some young boys told him that after fostering boys, they told her that there were physical fights in the US, and that in British Columbia, the children were trying to make themselves invincible so no one will notice them. 

Carter's Mountain

Carter's mountain is a vineyard, an apple orchard, a pumpkin patch and a peach orchard. This mountain has been used to not only attract tourists but to provide the city of Charlottesville, Virginia with grapes, apples, peaches, and pumpkins. However, over the years the once flourishing orchard has been deprived of space due to the constant upbringing of construction. The apple trees are greatly decreasing in their numbers as well as the grapes, pumpkins and peaches. In an attempt to bring more tourists there have been numerous projects sent underway. There are now numerous roads throughout the entire park, to not only make the mountain more accessible to the public but to allow hay rides for the visitors. There has been the construction of a large stage and seating area in which there are concerts held. These constant industrializations and developments are not only destroying the produces land, it is turning Carter's Mountain into a development. It is no longer the escape into the orchards in which one can pick the fruit and enjoy them directly off the tree. There has been the added pesticides that have made the fruit inedible until washed. Overall, Carter's Mountain is slowly being taken over. Eventually I think the orchard will be completely destroyed and it will be nothing other than a development.

Polar Bears

This is the artifact that I chose to bring in to portray an environmental issue. This picture portrays the damaging effects of global warming. As the temperatures continue to rise, the ice in the arctics continue to melt. The polar bears are slowly loosing their homes and having to struggle for survival.

EPA Claims

In this article the EPA claims that it will release whether or not hydraulic fracking is polluting drinking water or not by the end of 2012. Even though it seems they would already have more than enough proof to say that it is indeed polluting drinking water. Abraham Lustgarten and Nicholas Kushnetz expressed an area in central Wyoming in which people complained of foul water after fracking began. The waters were tested and it was concluded that there were chemicals that are known to be used in the fracking process in the water. The EPA says the final report will not be released until 2014. The process of hydraulic tracking involves the rapid high-pressure injection of millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals underground. This will release and extract any natural gas that is within shale rock. The EPA will focus on fracking sites in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Louisiana, Texas and Colorado. For a long time the gas and oil industries have claimed that fracking is a very safe process. However, as Lustgarten and Kushnetz said in their article, the findings of the EPA in Pavillion, Wyoming, did not support this. It found fracking to be a harmful process that is indeed polluting sources of drinking water. The oil and gas industries also concluded that fracking is regulated enough and properly by the states. Environmental activists do not agree with this, they believe that fracking should have a joint regulation between the federal and state agencies. Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey said that the EPA study will provide information to the public and policy makers of the effects of fracking on the water. After the reality has been spread, I predict that the regulations on hydraulic fracking will become stronger. 

EPA: Natural Gas Fracking Linked to Water Contamination

            Federal officers of the EPA found that water contamination in central Wyoming is due to a gas drilling process. The EPA found this by doing a study to determine whether or not fracking harmed the water resources in the first place. EPA officials said that the contamination close to the town of Pavillion contained at least ten compounds that are known to be used in frack fluids.  A draft report that was released says that “the presence of synthetic compounds such as glycol ethers… and the assortment of other organic compounds is explained as the result of direct mixing of hydraulic fracturing fluids with ground water in the Pavillion gas field.”

            Due to these findings, there could be a significant turning point in the debate over whether or not there I contamination from fracking. This will also likely influence the how the country will regulate natural gas resources throughout the Eastern Appalachian states. These findings also contradict many of the arguments about why fracking is a safe process, which the drilling industry has been using for many years. For example “hydrologic pressure would naturally force fluids down, not up; that deep geologic layers provide a watertight barrier preventing the movement of chemicals towards the surface; and that the problems with the cement and steel barriers around gas wells aren’t connected to fracking.” Environmental advocates seized this opportunity to argue for tougher regulations of fracking.

            A policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council says that there is always a risk when it comes to fracking. There are many things that can go wrong and this is why we need strong regulations on fracking, so we can lessen the threat on drinking water. At first EnCana, the gas station that owns the Pavillion wells, did not respond to the invite for remark. When there finally was a remark, the spokesman Doug Hock said that nothing has changed since last August, and that there remains inclusive data.

            The EPA’s findings instantly caused an intense political dispute over the regulations of fracking. Senator James Inofe’s office challenged the EPA’s investigation in Wyoming previously as biased. In the mid-1990’s civilians around the Pavillion area began to complain of foul water, and things only got worse in 2004. They complained that there water turned brown, and for a time gas stations provided drinking water to the citizens. In 2008 water samples were taken from the drinking water and hydrocarbons and other contaminants that could be related to fracking were found. Then in 2010 the EPA drilled two water-monitoring wells that confirmed high levels of carcinogenic chemicals (such as benzene and 2 Butoxyethanol) which are known to be used in fracking. The EPA still did not draw conclusions from the tests, because agriculture, drilling, and old pollution from waste pits left by the oil and gas industry are all possible causes of the contamination.

            In the report released it was concluded that pollution from 33 abandoned oil and gas waste pits are responsible for some pollution in the shallow ground water. But they could not be responsible for the pollution found in the monitoring wells 1,000 feet underground. The agency finally concluded that the contamination had to be caused by fracking. These findings are specific to Wyoming due to the fact that the gas wells are being fracked at shallower depths. The EPA also concluded that sporadic bonding occurred in the cement in areas which led to the barrier that kept the chemicals in their intended zone had been weakened. Finally, hydrolic pressure was found in the Pavillion area that pushed fluids from deep geologic layers towards the surface. These barriers were not a proper barrier to the contaminents that were moving up.