It's Earth Day - and almost a year to the date of the BP oil spill. Are we going to let the same thing happen here?

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Drilling fluid gushes from northern Pa. gas well

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, Associated Press – Wed Apr 20, 7:22 pm ET

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A blowout at a natural gas well in rural northern Pennsylvania spilled thousands of gallons of chemical-laced water Wednesday, contaminating a stream and leading officials to ask seven families who live nearby to evacuate as crews struggled to stop the gusher.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. lost control of the well site near Canton, in Bradford County, around 11:45 p.m. Tuesday, officials said. Tainted water flowed from the site all day Wednesday, though by the mid-afternoon, workers had managed to divert the extremely salty water away from the stream.

No injuries were reported, and there was no explosion or fire.

Crossposted at several national blogs

This Earth Day, while an oil rig was burning and sinking and spilling out into the Gulf of Mexico, I joined a small band of protesters during my lunch break to tell the government to stop a similar crime against nature, one that is taking place in my home state of Pennsylvania. There are no offshore oil rigs here, of course, but the new and dangerous method of extracting natural gas through fracking is becoming a larger and larger threat to our water, our land, and our climate. And Pennsylvania is ground zero.

So I took to the streets at a Green Party-organized protest. We stood outside the regional Department of Environmental Protection and made our voices heard.

YPP--

This community has been an important way for me to get the lay of the political land here in Philadelphia. I only got here in 2005, and this site has really helped me to get grounded. Readers, writers and those of you who just show up to Dan's parties have all been important to me.

So, I'd like to express my appreciation by adding you guys to my Earth Day mailing list. Other people do Christmas Cards. I do Earth Day cards. I make a comic every (or most) years for Earth Day and I send it out to friends, family and progressive fellow travellers around the country as a fun way to spread some eco-consciousness.