Goldman award winner Helen Stottje is a lawyer in a mostly rural area of New York with small towns.She's against fracking, which involves deep drilling through shale rock and pumping down a pressurized mix of water and chemicals to release natural gas.Stottje volunteered to build a case against an industrial complex being constructed by a fracking company.While the company won the case, Stottje learned that local laws could stop fracking-and she used that as a weapon to help ban fracking in several towns.Today, more towns in New York state have passed local laws prohibiting fracking.Stottje's crusade began after attending a local meeting, where she saw photos of destruction caused by fracking in nearby Pennsylvania.The chemical pits, with the drill cuttings and the flowback water, cleared tree areas, swaths of forests that were just clear-cut for pipelines, for well pads.But Steve Everley, a spokesman for the education arm of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, says, although there are risks, they are manageable.Everything is safely managed through the multiple layers of steel casing and cement that goes into creating a well.You've got anywhere between five and seven layers that protect what's inside the pipe from what's outside of it. I chiefly mean groundwater supplies.But Stottje thinks fracking is harmful and says about 1/3 of the wells fail.
戈尔曼环境奖得主海伦・斯托杰是一位为纽约大部分偏远地区小城镇伸张正义的律师。她对于深孔钻探通过页岩用高压将水及化学物质打到地下以获取天然气的水力压裂技术表示反对。而斯托杰自愿立案调查一家水力压裂技术公司的工业园区。无奈这家公司赢了官司,但斯托杰获悉当地法律能阻止水力压裂,因此她用法律作为武器帮助几个城镇禁止使用水力压裂。现如今纽约州有越来越多的城镇通过了当地禁止水力压裂的法案。斯托杰是在参加当地的一场会议看到在附近宾夕法尼亚水力压裂造成破坏的照片后才决定发起这次改革运动。化学坑,钻井切口，还有回流水,大片的森林,满是树木的地区仅仅是因为管道和井垫而不复存在。但美国独立石油协会教育部门的一位发言人史蒂夫・艾夫利称尽管存在风险,但水力压裂也在可控范围内。通过多层钢套管和水泥钻井的一切都是经过安全管理。这5到7层不仅保护管道里面的东西还有外面的。我指的主要是地下水供应。但斯托杰仍然认为水力压裂有害,她表示约1/3的井有失败的可能性。
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