Claims incorrect in fracking article
Regarding the comments of David Parker in the May 17 article, "Local activists skeptical of fracking poll." Mr. Parker, a Worcester town council member and a member of a landowners' coalition that backs drilling, is quoted saying: "You never see a report that indicates 10 wells were drilled without incident today."
If a recent report from Susquehanna County, Pa., is any indication, Mr. Parker, may never see a report that indicates 10 wells were drilled without incident, but not because of media bias as he suggests.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has data on the 525 drilled to date in Susquehanna County, indicating 258 Health and Safety Violations, in that single county alone.
The violations included failure to properly store, transport, process or dispose of residual waste; failure to prevent pollution of the waters of the commonwealth, discharge of pollution material to the waters; failure to adopt pollution prevention measures required or prescribed by DEP; failure to case and cement to prevent migrations into fresh groundwater, and several others. DEP also cited an additional 448 Administrative Violations involved with these 525 wells.
"Ten wells drilled without incident?" Not likely, Mr. Parker.
This data indicates a rate of health and safety violations of one for every two wells drilled and an overall violation rate of 1.3 for every well drilled.
Stephen Dungan
Walton
KFC needs to stop destroying rainforests
I recently learned KFC is destroying the habitat of the last remaining Sumatran tigers for throw-away packaging like chicken buckets. KFC gets the paper for its packaging from Asia Pulp & Paper (APP).
According to its own public statements, APP continues to use trees from the rainforests of Indonesia to make paper products.
There is no excuse, or need, to destroy rainforests, including forests critical to endangered tigers for chicken buckets.
KFC and Yum! have no sustainability policies to exclude products connected to rainforest destruction, and the company does not respond to questions about its sourcing of products such as palm oil, soy and paper.
KFC should clean up its supply chain and stop pushing endangered wildlife like the Sumatran tigers to the brink of extinction for throw-away fast-food packaging.
Dennis Higgins
Otego
