Last fall, five delegates from Slow Food Triangle attended the Terra Madre Conference in Turin, Italy. Slow Food is a global, grassroots movement, started in Turin, which celebrates local food, from farm to plate, as a way of preserving the tradition and culture of a region. The conference unites 5,000 chefs, growers, wine makers, food artisans and gastronomes from over 150 countries for a food summit of epic proportions.
In North Carolina, Slow Food Triangle works with Eastern Carolina Organics (ECO) to further promote the Slow Food doctrine. ECO, started in 2004, is a cooperative of small family-owned organic farms that facilitates distribution to local retailers and restaurants. Since their formation, membership has gone from 13 to over 40 growers. In 2011, ECO was named Business of the Year by the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association, touting them for their “commitment to helping sustainable family farms thrive in North Carolina.” In addition, Slow Food Triangle partners with non-profits to help educate children on eating healthy. Together they host workshops on how to grow, prepare, and cook food that makes up a balanced diet.
Unfortunately, all these grassroots efforts to promote economic stability, environmental sustainability, cultural preservation, and public health are being threatened by big business. And the consequences are dire.
Hydraulic Fracturing is the process of procuring natural gas from shale by drilling thousands of feet in to the earth’s crust, pressurizing the well with fluid, and extracting the energy rich gases. This fluid is believed to contain over 500 chemicals. In the shale itself, there is ethane, propane, butane, arsenic, cobalt, lead, mercury, chromium, uranium, radium, and radon. It also requires millions of gallons of water from an already stressed water supply. During the process, 60-80% of the water used remains under ground. 20-40% of that is returned to the water table.
In 2005, Pennsylvania started natural gas production with hydraulic fracturing and is now home to over 1500 wells. Five years later in Tioga County, water from an impoundment pit, used to store fracking flowback, leaked in to a nearby pasture killing all the vegetation in the area. The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture then quarantined 28 beef cattle that drank from the contaminated water. They were released from quarantine in May 2011 and, shortly after, the herd gave birth to eleven calves. Eight were still born or died at birth.
In April 2009 in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, 17 beef cattle drank flowback water that washed from a well site platform after a spring rain and pooled in an area accessible to the cows. Residents reported the cows began bellowing, bleeding from the tongue, and foaming from the mouth. They were all dead by days end.
The North Carolina General Assembly has recently passed legislation funding the research of Hydraulic Fracturing in NC. Due to the extremely toxic nature of the shale in which the natural gas resides, the exploratory drilling uses a Geiger counter to determine when they have reached resource rich levels. Thus far, reports show a majority of this shale exist in the Falls Lake watershed.
At a time when organic certifications are being standardized for the US, Canada, and Europe, which will double markets for smaller, sustainable organic farms in our local economy, it is a misappropriation of funds to research, or even consider, a source of energy so antiquated, destructive and irresponsible. Science and technology is at a point where it is necessary for sensible legislation to direct monies in to research and industries that foster and build a progressive infrastructure that makes the public good a priority. We can only hope that our elected officials will fight for intellectual fortitude so that sustainability and pubic health wins out over big business and the bottom line.
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