Crackers

Once upon a time, a cracker was a derogatory term for someone from the south. Maybe it is still, not sure. Now there are things called cracker plants, which break natural gas down into component parts (by cracking it). The resulting chemicals are used to manufacture various plastics. When we drove Rt. 50 yesterday to Morgantown, we passed two plants, one a cracker plant and one to process the water used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking). We also passed several sites where thousands of 48-inch pipes were stored. These pipes are used to connect wells all over the state to the cracker plants.

The photo above is taken off the internet. One of the plants we passed would have been nearly this size.
The drive along Rt. 50 takes you through many steep sided valleys and what are known as hollows, or hollers. Most of the route is forested, with streams and rivers traversing every so often. To see this land turned into a big plaid fracking field, criss crossed by pipelines, is very sad. Of course as you head east from Morgantown, you occasionally pass mountains whose tops have been sheared off to remove coal, with surrounding streams polluted by runoff. West Virginia has been sacrificed to fossil fuel barons throughout its history. Its people haven’t prospered--it’s one of the poorest states in the country. But they still clamour for fossil fuel jobs here. One of the big cracker plant jobs? Driving water tankers. Forcing gas out of the ground requires vast quantities of water pumped out of local rivers, treated with chemicals, then forced underground. When it is pumped out of the ground, it must then be cleaned, with some pretty nasty byproducts.
I know I’m naive but I am always surprised by humans' ability to spoil everything that is beautiful--forests, streams, coral reefs, endangered species. Rather than insist on another way of living on this one precious earth. For instance, anyone who knows anything about how chickens, cows, and pigs are treated should have no problem becoming a vegetarian. I guess we’re all just crackers--as in completely nuts.
Dec. 29