Whose Water Is It?

Hilary A. B. Lambert

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 2016, vol. 75, issue 3, 681-720

Abstract: Legal protection of the USA's water resources was reduced during the Bush-Cheney Administration (2000–2008), facilitating coal, oil, and gas development at the expense of clean water. The “Halliburton Loophole” in the 2005 Energy Act exempted all oil and gas development activities, including fracking (hydraulic fracturing), from the Clean Water Act, Clean Drinking Water Act, and other federal statutes. Two U.S. Supreme Court rulings weakened the Clean Water Act's protections of headwaters, streams, wetlands, and other water bodies. In New York State, communities faced with the imminent prospect of fracking by energy companies organized. From 2008–2014, they prevented fracking in New York. Water protection played a major role in energizing community response, In 2015, a fragile, but resilient, ban was declared statewide. In Kentucky, 150 years of coal mining resulted in pollution of many waterways, with hundreds of stream miles buried beneath mountaintop removal debris. Kentuckians have been pushing back since the 1930s to protect communities, farms, and water quality. They remain hopeful in the face of great odds. Urban populations making daily use of cheap, clean water and fossil-fuel-powered energy sources have little knowledge of these struggles. In rural America, the fight to protect communities, lands, and waters from energy exploitation is lifelong.

Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ajes.12153 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:75:y:2016:i:3:p:681-720

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0002-9246

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Economics and Sociology is currently edited by Laurence S. Moss

More articles in American Journal of Economics and Sociology from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().