Smokey and I would like to offer Kudos to our local newspaper, the CDT. Once again they have put two stories together on the front page that were made perfectly for each other. The first is entitled: Ridge: Firms need better image, discusses what former governor Tom Ridge—now a consultant to the natural gas industry—feels is lacking in the natural gas bunch—a better image. And just under Ridge’s picture, the CDT has placed the article, “DEP probes water wells leaking gas,” which talks about the annoying habit of methane gas bubbling up through water wells and streams near the new gas wells and how the industry response is that it was like this in Pennsylvania before the gas wells. Need a better image—well yeah.
Smokey Diamond, our intrepid reporter, went to Williamsport to interview Ridge’s spokesperson, Miss Orange Green. Ridge, as the article makes clear, is no expert on natural gas extraction and we wondered what he brought the industry as a consultant. Miss Green was clear, stating, “Tom Ridge is perhaps best known for the color coding system of terror threats as the first secretary of homeland security. He hopes to do the same thing for the gas extraction industry.”
“You mean he will color code the environmental threat state so the public can be aware if something dangerous is happening?” asked Diamond. “No,” replied Green, “Mr. Ridge works for the gas industry, not for the public.” He will color code the environmental threat to the industry.” “When the environmental terrorists are threatening to expose this or that, Tom will alert the industry through a color code—orange for high, for example, so that the industry can respond with placating noises.” “The Wizard of Oz figure behind the curtain will assure you that everything is okay—whether or not it is—just as we did with homeland security.”
Feel better now?
On a lighter note, Smokey and I are beginning to believe there is some intelligence at the CDT that is placing articles together like they did today and in the recent past. Neither of us is a believer in coincidence, like for example, when your water well starts producing methane gas just after they sink a gas well a few thousand feet away.