The fracking battle – being fought with growing ferocity in communities across the country – has arrived in my home state of Louisiana. According to the Associated Press, Devon Energy, a natural gas drilling company based in Oklahoma City, has taken aim at northern Louisiana's Tuscaloosa Marine Shale near Ethel in East Feliciana Parish. Devon has submitted a proposal to state officials that "marks the start of what is expected to be intensive fracking in the shale." Hydraulic fracturing – a highly controversial natural gas extraction process – has been at the heart of the energy debate for months with concerned citizens and enviros facing off against drilling companies determined to speed product to market at any cost. And the cost, according to the growing number of fracking opponents, is severe air and water contamination, including radioactive pollutants and other known human carcinogens. Fracking occurs when drillers pump a mixture of water and chemicals – many of which, as mentioned, are carcinogenic – into the earth under extremely high pressure to break up the shale and release natural gas. Now the fracking fight has come to Ethel, about 25 miles due north of Baton Rouge. From the AP article: Madhurendu Kumar, director of the ...
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