Don't frack our food and farms!

PETITION STATEMENT
California is the largest producer of food in the U.S. Fracking and farming cannot co-exist. If we frack California's farms, we put the entire country's food supply at risk. Please stop auctioning off California's public lands to the oil and gas industry for fracking.
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Petition Background

You may not live in California, but chances are a lot of the food you buy, including organic produce, is grown there. California is the largest producer of food in the U.S. In 2011, the state's 81,500 farms and ranches had sales of $43.5 billion. What happens to our food if we frack and poison the groundwater that irrigates California’s farms?
In a move that a federal judge says violated environmental law, the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has already auctioned off 1,750 square miles of California’s public lands to oil companies intent on extracting oil, using a controversial technology called hydraulic fracturing – or fracking. In May, the BLM plans to auction off even more of California’s Monterey Shale, a geological formation that extends from northern California to Los Angeles, and is home to cattle ranches, dairy farms, vineyards and organic farms.
Fracking and farms cannot co-exist, as we’ve heard over and over from farmers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Dakota, West Virginia and Colorado. Farmers whose lives and farms have been ruined by fracking’s methane emissions and toxic chemicals. As one farmer explained, “We depend on good water for our cows, our crops and our own health. Once you mess up your groundwater, you can’t fix it.”
The oil and gas industry argues that it’s fine to pump huge amounts of cancer-causing chemicals deep into the earth, because we’ll never use that water. U.S. environmental regulators agree – which is why fracking is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, and why the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued more than 1,500 permits for companies to pollute aquifers in some of the country’s driest regions. But as our population grows, and temperatures rise, we may find ourselves doing what Mexico City has already been forced to do: drawing water from mile-deep aquifers that until now would not have been tapped for drinking water.
We all depend on California for our food. California’s unique Mediterranean climate allows the state to grow over 450 different crops. Some of these crops are exclusive to California: almonds, artichokes, dates, figs, kiwifruit, olives, persimmons, pomegranates, pistachios, prunes, raisins, clovers, and walnuts.
Fracking is bad for our water, bad for our air, bad for our health, bad for the climate. Without clean air and clean water, there are no farms. Without farms, there is no food.
Please sign this petition to the Bureau of Land Management asking officials there to stop auctioning off California’s public lands for fracking.

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Take Back the Tap Guide to Safe Tap Water

Do you drink bottled water? Do you think it is safer than tap water? So did I until I began to do some investigating.
Turns out I was wrong...and I was paying a lot of money for water that is tested less often and less extensively than my own tap water.
Tap water is tested more frequently for safety concerns than bottled water, but the water quality reports issued by local utilities can be confusing to read. Use this guide, the Take Back the Tap Guide to Safe Tap Water to help understand these reports and why they are important. Then get tips on finding the right filter for your household tap water based on the water quality in your area. 

Get the Facts. Bottled water is not safer than tap water. Despite the marketing, bottled water is not safer than tap water. In fact, tap water is subject to more stringent regulation that bottled water. Tap water is regulated by the EPA, while bottled water is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Perpetually under-funded and short-staffed, FDA has a poor record of protecting consumer health and safety. FDA sends inspectors to bottling plants once every two to three years. Read this: Bottled Water: Illusions of Purity and then resolve to reduce your bottled water consumption.
You can download a nifty app for your smartphone called Tap Buddy to find water fountains in your area, and you can visit Food & Water Watch's website to see what you can do to support access to safe food and water.