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Riding the bike everywhere I could for a month saved me... two lousy gallons?By Nick, Section News
Happy Monday everybody. Unless you had to fill up the gas tank this weekend. I love my car and I still figure I'll be one of the last guys on the open road if the Mad Max dystopia ever turns into a reality but I'm not embarrassed to admit that I've gotten a lot of work on the bicycle over the last month.
Weekly stops to my folks house for dinner or my brothers house for a Monday night free weights session (I'm ripped) only save six miles here, three-quarters of a mile there but between that and my extended ride on Saturday, to and from the Life Walk, Grand Rapids to Hudsonville, I've probably saved a good... no, less than a half-tank. Wait, is that all? And here I'd felt like I was making real progress and saving the environment. Turns out all I've saved is what, thirty bucks? Over the last month? Now I've got this sudden, overwhelming compulsion to go cut down a tree or something to get even with Algore for tricking me. Or to try to dig an oil well in my backyard. Read on for a startling DEQ admission about drilling here and now...
I kid, I kid. I may very well want to reassert my personal carbon footprint (I'd think of it along the same lines as intentionally sailing a ship towards the flat end of the earth) but Algore never had me fooled. Besides, I needed the refresher on the old two-wheeler for Saturday's event, which went pretty well by the way. THANK YOU all again for what you did to help!
I felt rotten asking everyone to sponsor me for a piddly little nine mile ride so I added fourteen-plus each direction, riding from my home in Grand Rapids out to the site in Hudsonville and back. I'm not at all embarrassed to admit that of all the bikers I finished the actual course first. That's right, numero uno. Of course, I was the ONLY biker... the other two or three hundred people there were walking or running. Guess the "ride" part was pretty new to the event and no one else answered the call. What can I say, I'm on the cutting edge of fundraising evolution. I'm a trend setter. And I'm also anxious to get back in the car and to run it hard on the highway for a while. Not that I wouldn't mind dramatically lower gas prices. Which we could engineer, interestingly enough, if we'd get off our backsides here in the States and start drilling. Here and now. Turns out it's environmentally friendly, too. MLIVE carries a story this morning out of Bay County where hundreds of barrels are pumped every day. The newsies caught up with Vicki Barnard from the DEQ's Office of Geological Survey, which regulates oil wells in the state.
All new wells have to be surrounded by dikes capable of holding at least 1.5 times the volume of their largest tank, and dikes have to include a 60-millimeter plastic liner to keep spills from migrating.
The regulations are less stringent for existing wells, but some companies have upgraded their facilities to continue pumping.
Barnard said she doesn't have environmental concerns with new oil wells, due to advances in exploration and drilling technology and laws that cover endangered species, wetlands and wildlife. Yep, that's a rep from the universally despised ultra liberal, tree hugging, plants before people, pro-life means protecting weeds MDEQ. No environmental concerns with new oil wells due to advances in technology and appropriate legal protections. But we're still not drilling in the desolation of ANWAR, uninhabited portions of the American northwest and fifty miles further off the Florida coast than China because... Maybe when gas prices hit five dollars a gallon Carl Levin and the Democrats in Congress will finally act.
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Riding the bike everywhere I could for a month saved me... two lousy gallons? | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 hidden)
Riding the bike everywhere I could for a month saved me... two lousy gallons? | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 hidden)
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