Since George Washington crossed the Delaware in 1776, the river has become an iconic American image. Nearly 16 million people rely on the Delaware river for drinking water, and every year 5.4 million Americans swim, fish, camp, hike and explore its 330 miles of pristine, un-dammed water.

This Monday, the governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware and representatives of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers will meet and vote on whether to allow gas drilling and exploration in this sensitive area.

Josh Fox, director of GASLAND and Delaware River Basin property owner calls the situation a crisis, and we couldn't agree more.

Please take a moment and help save the Delaware:

Live in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Delaware?
Contact your governor and tell him you oppose any regulations that would allow gas drilling in the basin.

Want to learn more?

By Emily Ion, Dusty Horwitt, and Elaine Shannon

On a recent episode of Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show,"  Texas oil and gas executive T. Boone Pickens proudly declared, "I have fracked 3,000 wells in my life.  I have never seen anything damaged."  

Pickens, 82, was vigorously defending hydraulic fracturing (aka "fracking"), the high-pressure underground injection of chemical-laced water that releases deeply buried reserves of natural gas across the country. Stewart responded:

"I'm sure there are people who would say, 'I have, it's been on my land and I've seen the toxicity.' Is there a way to protect the health of the land and the people who are on top of these huge reserves?"

"There've been several hundred thousand wells fracked," Pickens said.  "Yes. Sure there is.  There's no question of that."

But then he changed the subject.  In other words -- Pickens ducked Stewart's question.

And no wonder.  Residents of heavily-fracked land say fracking is contaminating their drinking water.  Some say water flowing out of their kitchen taps is so polluted with natural gas that it catches fire.   For a stunning demonstration, check out the documentary Gasland, recently nominated for an Academy Award.  

In response to the growing controversy, officials of the Environmental Protection Agency have a plan for a thorough study of fracking.  They intend to test water as it goes into a gas well and as it comes out and to examine the infusion of chemicals before and after fracking.   

That's the smart approach.  Thanks in part to pressure from the oil and gas lobby, Congress has generally exempted fracking from federal environmental regulations.  Last year, we reported that many natural gas and oil drilling companies use diesel and petroleum distillates full of toxic chemicals in their fracking fluid, profiting from a convenient exemption in the 2005 energy bill and the Safe Drinking Water Act.  We found that at least some companies appeared to be injecting diesel without necessary permits - a conclusion confirmed recently by an investigation by Reps. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and Diana DeGette, D-Colo., of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.   

Can injections of diesel and related toxics contaminate water supplies? Pickens says no. EPA needs to find out.

A 2004 EPA investigation of hydraulic fracturing was cut short before the agency performed any field work or water testing.  EPA declared that in coal bed methane formations, fracking posed little or no risk to drinking water.  An EPA whistleblower contended the agency had failed to conduct a scientifically rigorous study.  This time around, with companies threatening to drill in more populated areas, including underneath New York City's drinking water supply, it's vital for EPA to do a comprehensive, credible investigation independent of political considerations.

Jon Stewart spoke for a lot of us who want to know, "Is it horribly unsafe, is that what this fracking is?  Is it that we can't do it without poisoning the country?"  Perfectly safe, T.Boone Pickens said.  Trust the gas industry to do the right thing.   

We say - not so fast.  We'd like a lot more information.  How about you? 

By Alex Formuzis, EWG V-P for Media Relations

Pro sports teams regularly use signing bonuses to lure the star athletes they want. Now some Texas school districts are taking the bait, too. But the money isn't coming from The Dallas Cowboys; it's being dangled by energy companies drilling for natural gas atop a large swath of North Texas called the Barnett Shale.

Last week (Oct. 24), the Denton Record Chronicle reported that:

In 2008, the Argyle school district signed leases with Hillwood and Williams Production allowing gas exploration on about 110 acres of district-owned property. To date, the district has received $680,681.25 in revenue from the leases, including royalty and bonus payments, according to district records obtained through an open records request.

But along with the substantial amount of money the school district hauled in from its arrangement came some side effects that the students are now feeling. As Lowell Brown and Britney Tabor wrote:

Since gas drilling began near Argyle High School in recent weeks, her (Kelly Gant) daughter has experienced severe symptoms of asthma, a condition she had controlled for years, Gant said. Twice in the last two weeks, Gant said, she had to pull her daughter out of high school marching band practices because of dense fumes on the field.

Her daughter was dizzy, jittery. Her head ached and she couldn't concentrate. "She said, 'Mom, I just feel like pacing and I don't understand it,'" Gant said.

According to the article, reports of students suffering nose bleeds and complaining about feeling dizzy and disoriented started appearing in early October on a blog set up by the Argyle-Bartonville Communities Alliance - a group of concerned residents who are working to halt further natural gas drilling in the area.

Another new drilling rig near a school
On Sept. 27, the Forth Worth Star-Telegram's Robert Cadwallader reported that Carrizo Oil and Gas - another Texas-based company, had set up a rig near South Davis Elementary in nearby Arlington, Texas. In late September, the school board gave the go-ahead to the company to drill under the school to reach its "lease pool" of natural gas, which is located under another property in the area. The school district and Carrizo recently settled a lawsuit in which the district had argued the company owed it $3 million in bonuses.

It's not clear whether the companies plan to use a controversial natural gas extraction technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The school districts ought to do their homework and ask, because according to studies by the Environmental Working Group, the fracking process injects large volumes of several dozen chemicals listed or regulated as hazardous substances under six federal statutes, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Superfund, but are largely exempted from these laws when used in oil and gas drilling.

Benzene at school, anyone?
Last January tests conducted by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) found elevated levels of benzene near a number of drilling operations. Benzene is one of the toxic chemicals used in fracking. Chronic exposure to benzene is known to cause leukemia and other blood diseases. People are primarily exposed through breathing urban air, automobile exhaust and cigarette smoke.

Hillwood International Energy appears to be a privately held company. Carizzo is publicly traded, and its 2009 annual report describes the risks of its exploration and drilling operations in disquieting terms:

We are subject to various operating and other casualty risks that could result in liability exposure or the loss of production and revenues.

The natural gas and oil business involves operating hazards such as: well blowouts; mechanical failures; explosions; uncontrollable flows of oil, natural gas or well fluids; fires; geologic formations with abnormal pressures; pipeline ruptures or spills; releases of toxic gases; and other environmental hazards and risks. Any of these hazards and risks can result in the loss of hydrocarbons, environmental pollution, personal injury claims and other damage to our properties and the property of others.

"You can't put a price on keeping our kids healthy," said Susan Knoll, who is a member of the Argyle-Bartonville Communities Alliance fighting the drilling operations.

Agreed. Exposing school children to mix of toxic chemicals, or to the slightest possibility of any of these catastrophic events, seems like the height of irresponsibility.

[Thanks to cafemama for the playground pic]

EWG staffers put our heads together to come up with this list of bad news environmental stories of the last decade that people might have missed. But there were plenty of big stories that hardly anyone could have missed, such as climate change. What's on your list of the biggest environmental stories of the last 10 years?

1. Secret Gas Drilling Chemical Almost Kills Colorado Nurse
Doctors ran into a medical mystery -- and a stone wall from industry -- when they tried to find what was in a gas drilling chemical that nearly killed a Colorado nurse. Aren't you glad that Congress exempted these "fracking" chemicals from regulation under the Safe Water Drinking Act?

2. Intersex Fish Turn Up All Over
Are you a boy or are you a girl? That's the question that scientists are asking as they study the organs of supposedly male fish from coast to coast and find eggs in many of them. The chief suspects: endocrine-disrupting pollutants that even in tiny amounts can mimic hormones and affect sexual development.

3. Prescription Drugs in Your Drinking Water
Take a swallow and call me in the morning. Antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - they've all turned up in tests of drinking water around the country. Could there be health risks from decades of drinking water laced with combinations of potent drugs?

4. And Rocket Fuel, Too
Perchlorate -- the stuff is used in rocket fuel and explosives and turns up not just in water but also in milk, lettuce, other foods - and in our bodies. It's been linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women, newborns and infants. The EPA is reconsidering its earlier decision not to regulate it in water. Stand by.

5. Ethanol -- Not Just Bad Energy Policy
There are a lot of reasons to question the drive for biofuels, especially corn-based ethanol, but there has been much less attention paid to what it means for air pollution and health. For people who like to breathe clean air, the balance doesn't look promising.

6. Non-stick, No-Stain and No-Good
They were the miracle products that were supposed to make life easier - keeping spills from staining our couches and making it easy to clean our pots without scrubbing -- until it all went sour. Chemicals in the original Teflon and now off-the-market Scotchgard were linked to cancer and developmental problems. They have a way of polluting everything and they refuse to go away.

7. Monsanto Owns Corn (and also soybeans)
80% of the corn and 95% percent of the soybeans grown in America contain genes inserted by Monsanto scientists, and the company writes tough - and secret - licensing agreements to maintain control and lock out competitors. Now the Justice Department and some states are thinking these practices might violate anti-trust laws. Turnips, anyone?

8. Occupational Hazard: Microwave Popcorn
This fun food turned to be no fun for people who make it. A strange lung malady that sickened workers in plants that make microwave popcorn was traced to a widely used butter flavoring. And one popcorn-crazy consumer was felled, too. It took a while, but OSHA finally took a look, and the stuff is being phased out.

9. Dead (Zone) on Arrival
In the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere, vast expanses of ocean have been turned into biological deserts as fertilizer runoff from farms washes downstream and nourish runaway algae growth, which deplete most of the oxygen when the tiny organisms die and decompose. The Gulf dead zone has more than doubled in size since the 1980s - accelerated by the boom in crops grown to make biofuels. In 2009, it was smaller than predicted, but more intense, in 2009.

10. The (Not So) Great Pacific Trash Gyre
It's hard to spot from the water or even from space, but an estimated 3.5 million tons of mostly plastic trash from all over the world floats just below the surface of the Pacific, swirling slowly around in an area of circular currents twice the size of Texas. It's devastating to birds and sea creatures that think the plastic bits are food. It's time to stop adding to the mess - and then see if there's any way to clean it up.

What stories top your list of the decade's biggest environmental news??

If you're a Westerner - and what American isn't, really? -- Colorado College's State of the Rockies Project is a must-read, must-bookmark web destination.

The project's mission -- to conduct "state-of-the-art research to help Rockies residents clearly see their communities, environment and economy, so they can better shape their own future" -- is strikingly like Environmental Working Group's detailed, hyper-local data and analysis.

This year: Food & Ag
This year's topic, food and agriculture, is a natural fit with EWG's work. CC students, guided by economics professor Walter E. Hecox, an economics professor, are using EWG's farm subsidy database to help document how the economics and demography of farming are changing the physical and cultural landscape -- and how its traditions and economic and demographic pressures are shaping agriculture and ranching.

Last week, I traveled to the CC campus to preview EWG's new AgMag for a State of the Rockies symposium on the politics of agriculture. (Full disclosure: my son Shannon Morgan, a CC sophomore contemplating a major in an environmental field, was in the audience. It was great to see him and enjoy a few moments at an historic campus where Katherine Lee Bates, a visiting teacher, was inspired to compose America the Beautiful. But he's not one of the privileged few upperclassmen tapped each year for the project team.)

Students find complicated agricultural picture
The student researchers have already dug up some facts that make for a complicated picture. On one hand, farmland acreage is shrinking and the number of farming and ranching operations is growing. That could suggest more family and small-business farms profiting from rapidly expanding demand for locally-grown food. On the other hand, "mega-agricultural enterprises" are major factors in the regional agricultural economy.

Upcoming speakers: Stanford professor Rosamond Naylor, an expert on trade-offs between grass-fed and industrial livestock, journalist and author Richard Manning, author of Rewilding the West: Restoration in a Prairie Landscape,"and Dr. Bonnie Lynn-Sherow, associate professor of history at Kansas State University and author of Red Earth: Race and Agriculture in Oklahoma Territory.

If you can't make the lectures, no worries - you can download past report cards and sign up for the agriculture edition, due in March.

Meanwhile, there's a wealth of information in previous years' report cards.

The most recent, published last spring, focuses on incarceration, historic preservation and protection of wildlife in a region whose population is increasing 2.6 times faster than that of the U.S. The CC Rockies project is aimed at helping the West's people manage that tumultuous change.

You can still see the wilderness as it was, and still is, and should remain, in the State of the Rockies photo gallery.