PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION AT http://bit.ly/1pkc8oC to urge EARTHBOUND FARM to Support Measure J! Don’t Frack My Salad!
Little San Benito County, California, is engaged in a David and Goliath struggle with the Oil Industry over fracking. San Benito is a scenic and historically significant county, with priceless agricultural and ranch lands. It supports a growing organic and sustainable agricultural industry, renewable energy projects, and tourism. It’s home to Pinnacles National Park, the endangered California Condor, the historic Mission at San Juan Bautista, and the San Benito County Wine Trail. San Benito depends on its excellent quality of soil and water to sustain its economy and the very life of the community. But the oil industry has plans to expand risky oil extraction processes – fracking, cyclic steam injection and acidizing – endangering the community’s water, health and future.
Fracking and associated fossil fuel extraction processes generate toxic waste that contaminate drinking water and farmland. Fracking also requires millions of gallons of water, an egregious misuse of a priceless resource during a period of extreme drought. Fracking is associated with increased risk of earthquakes – not a good technology to apply in a highly seismically active state. The hazardous chemicals used in fracking have been linked to cancer, birth defects, miscarriages, and infertility. Well-documented open ponds of fracking wastewater kill domestic stock and wildlife. Children and the elderly are especially at risk from the fracking pollutants that cause asthma and other respiratory ailments.
A local grassroots group of concerned citizens – farmers, ranchers, vintners, doctors, nurses, teachers, students, Native Americans – have formed an organization to defend the health of the people and the land, and to create a brighter environmental, economical, and socially sustainable future for many generations to come. The goal of San Benito Rising is to to educate about the dangers of “enhanced” drilling technologies to water supply and safety, property values, public health and the vibrant agriculture and tourism industries of San Benito. But they are much more than a county campaign. San Benito Rising is part of a larger movement for community self-determination and sustainable alternatives. With your help their historic ballot initiative will be the first major blow in the battle for a frack-free California and beyond! Following the model of New York State, California is rising, county by county to protect their water, land, air, health and future. Marin, Butte and Santa Barbara counties, have similar ballot measures in the works. In November, 2014 help pass San Benito’s Measure J to ban fracking, and then watch California Rising with the national tide to say NO! Don’t Frack my Salad!
P.S.
Why hasn’t San Benito-based organic produce distributor Earthbound Farm come out publicly in support of Measure J? Please urge Earthbound Farm owners Drew and Myra Goodman and their partner White Wave Foods to stand up for the values they purportedly represent. PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION AT http://bit.ly/1pkc8oC to urge EARTHBOUND FARM to Support Measure J!
The Oil Industry is pouring millions into the battle to defeat Measure J. The people need Earthbound Farm’s support! Please Don’t Frack my Salad!
Thanks Mary for your great blog post and for supporting San Benito County’s effort to move toward sustainable economic development. We don’t want to be colonized by the Oil Industry who are spending over $1 million to persuade our voters that Big Oil should be allowed to take over our county and frack, cyclic steam or acidize as much as they want.
I signed the petition.