How to Frack a Grouse

“Z A G A T A” is evidently Spanish for “shill.” Mike Zagata wrote a bit of fracking propaganda as an Op Ed and, his summary bio is given as “a former state Department of Environmental Conservation commissioner, Ruffed Grouse Society president and oil company executive.”

If those three titles strike you as a bit incongruous - game bird preservationist, state environmental agency executive and energy executive - you have not been reading this blog very closely.

“Ruffed Grouse Soceity” ? Really ? Not the “Unruffled Grouse Society” ? Guess what - the “Ruffed Grouse Society” has been effectively bought by Chesapeake - as a fracking front group. Is nothing sacred ? Not even ruffed fracking grouse ?

http://www.nofrackingway.us/2012/09/11/chesapeake-energy-hiding-in-the-bushes/

And what the frack is a former New York “environmental commissioner” doing shilling for frackers ? Need you ask ? The DEC has got nothing to do with environmental protection when it comes to fracking. It’s simply a revolving door to the industry - for whom it transcribes rules and regulations. It says so on Page 1 of the proposed regulations:

http://www.nofrackingway.us/2012/12/23/fracking-the-law/

Rather than actually protect the environment (of which the ruffed grouse is an integral part), the DEC tasks its minerals management group (who are not environmentalists) with overseeing fracking.

http://www.nofrackingway.us/2012/12/01/fox-named-as-hen-house-guard/

But everyone knew that, right ? Even members of the Ruffed Grouse Society.

But, alas, not the hapless grouse themselves, whose habitat is destroyed, poisoned and otherwise made insufferable. Even before the Society members take to the field in dayglo orange . . .