Blowing at Windmills

By Patricia Zick @PCZick Even when I think I’m being reasonable and moderate, I still walk a fine line with some folks. “What do you want us to do, blow on windmills until we have enough power to fuel all our energy needs?” my brother asked me recently. The question came after I tried to

Fracking Dilemma – It’s Not the Promised Land

By Patricia Zick @PCZick I recently went to see the new movie Promised Land starring Matt Damon, as rising star salesman Steve Butler. What does Steve sell? The promised glory to landowners if only they’ll sell off the rights to their land so the power companies can drill for natural gas on their property. Steve

EPA Coal Mine Water Rules Struck Down By Federal Judge

As I was perusing articles about the massive ice melt in Greenland, I came across this article. Are we really going to go backwards at this time? I just wrote a piece about the “recovery” of a creek near us that sits in the middle of abandoned mines. Without the new standards on pollution from

A View from the Creek

Raccoon Creek May 2011 By Patricia Zick @PCZick Raccoon Creek winds for nearly thirty miles through the foothills of the Alleghenies in western Pennsylvania. During its course through valleys and woodlands, it picks up several tributaries flowing down the hillsides before it dumps into the Ohio River thirty miles northwest of Pittsburgh. We recently kayaked

Fracking Power

Sierra magazine published an article in its July/August 2012 issue called the “Fracking Nightmare.” I read the article with interest since I live atop the Marcellus shale region of western Pennsylvania. Washington County considered the “honeypot” for the “wet gas” resources underground. Those resources include propane, butane, ethane and other profitable chemicals. Interestingly, until 2010,

Justice for Deepwater Horizon and Massey Mine Disasters – Charge the Real Culprits

By P.C. Zick – @PCZick Criminal charges filed against Kurt Mix, a former BP engineer, for destroying records detailing the amount of oil spewing during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill  in 2010 are encouraging. But it’s not enough. It’s the same thing as arresting petty drug dealer on the streets. Those guys are easy to

Power – Cheap, Easy, and Hidden

By P.C. Zick – @PCZick We all want power. Today, our lives depend heavily on power. Try going a day without using it. We want it cheap and easy, but we’d rather not know its dirty little secrets. For many decades, coal ruled as the energy source of choice for powering up the power plants