subjective-sky: Gas Well Drill, Pool, and Pipes for Hydraulic Fracking (Greene County, PA)

Monday, July 26, 2010

ELF said...: See Feb. 27 New York Times article, Regulation Lax as Gas Wells’ Tainted Water Hits Rivers, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/us/27gas.html?_r=1&hp.; Sunday, February 27, 2011 at 12:42:00 PM EST
jom said...: There's been much news in PA about fracking waste water contaminated with organic chemicals and dissolved salts, but according to the NY Times article, the waste water potentially has high radium levels that could be entering our rivers and drinking water. The worst part is that we don't know, because the treatment plants haven't been testing for radium since all the gas drilling started a few years ago. Yikes, this could be bad!; Sunday, February 27, 2011 at 1:32:00 PM EST

Don't throw it away. Instead compost it, reuse it, or recycle it. Construction Junction, www.constructionjunction.org/ (Pittsburgh) even takes junk mail and magazines.
Use a programmable thermostat, and put the temperature on a cool "hold" temperature when heat is not needed for long periods of time.
Only use as bright a bulb as you need, replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, or better yet, with LED bulbs. Note there is a small amount of mercury in the CF bulbs, so look for proper disposal. However, there is also mercury released from coal plants, so reducing your electric use reduces mercury.
Check the Energy Star rating of new appliances, particularly refrigerators, and buy the more efficient models.
Unplug appliances when not in use. Microwaves, electronic equipment, kitchen appliances draw energy even when off. If the transformer is warm or there are lights or displays on, then it is drawing energy. Plugging into a powerstrip and turning it off is another method to save.
Trade in your car for one that gets better mileage (regardless of the technology used), a hybrid (particularly for city driving), or an electric (particularly if you only go short distances). Go to www.zapworld.com for electric cars.
Change your utility provider source to renewable/nonpolluting sources (e.g. wind, solar, hydro, instead of coal, oil, gas). Go to www.cleanyourair.org.