Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens’ Group Updates
July 3, 2014
* For articles and updates or to just vent, visit us on facebook;
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information, permanent documents, and meeting information
http://westmorelandmarcellus.blogspot.com/
* Our email address: westmcg@gmail.com
* To contact your state
legislator:
For the email address, click on the envelope
under the photo
* For information on PA state gas legislation
and local control: http://pajustpowers.org/aboutthebills.html-
WMCG Thank You
* Thank you to contributors to our Updates:
Debbie Borowiec, Lou Pochet, Ron Gulla, the Pollocks, Marian Szmyd, Bob
Donnan, Elizabeth Donahue, and Bob
Schmetzer.
Thank You --Recent Donations
Thank
you to April Jackman for her donation that supports our work for the health and
environment in local communities.
A little Help Please
Take Action!!
***Tenaska Plant Seeks to Be Sited in South Huntingdon,
Westmoreland County***
Petition !! Please forward to your
lists!
Please share the attached
petition with residents of Westmoreland and all bordering counties. We ask each of you to help us by sharing
the petition with your email lists and any group with which you are affiliated.
As stated in the petition, Westmoreland County cannot meet air standards for
several criteria. Many areas of Westmoreland County are
already listed as EPA non-attainment areas for ozone and particulate matter
2.5, so the county does not have the capacity to handle additional emissions
that will contribute to the burden of ozone in the area as well as health
impacts. According to the American Lung
Association, every county in the Pittsburgh region except for Westmoreland
County had fewer bad air days for ozone and daily particle pollution compared
with the previous report. Westmoreland County was the only county to score a failing grade for particulate matter.
The Tenaska gas plant will add
tons of pollution to already deteriorated air and dispose of wastewater into
the Youghiogheny River. Westmoreland
County already has a higher incidence of disease than other counties in United
States. Pollution won’t stop at the
South Huntingdon Township border; it will travel to the surrounding townships
and counties.
If you know of church groups or other organizations that will help with
the petition please forward it and ask for their help.
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Sierra Club Sues Texas Commission on
Proposed Tenaska Plant
SIERRA CLUB VS
TEXAS COMMISSION On ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY,
I. CASE
OVERVIEW
Sierra Club seeks an order reversing Defendant’s
December 29, 2010, final order in Docket No. 2009-1093-AIR.1 The order
authorizes the construction and operation of a new solid fuel-fired power plant
by approving the application of Tenaska Trailblazer Partners, L.L.C. (Tenaska,
Trailblazer, or Applicant) for state and federal air pollution permits.
This new facility is a large
solid fuel-fired electric generating unit, or power plant, to be constructed in
Nolan County, Texas. The Tenaska facility will generate about 900 megawatts
(MW) of electricity and is authorized to emit over 9,207 tons per year of
criteria air pollutants.2
While under the jurisdiction of the State
Office of Administrative Hearings, the proceedings bore SOAH docket number
582-09-6185. 2 There are several “criteria” pollutants: carbon monoxide, lead,
particulate matter with a diameter of less than 10 micrometers, particulate
matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers, nitrogen oxides, ozone,
and sulfur oxides. For each of these air pollutants, National Ambient Air
Quality Standards (NAAQS) have been established by the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and are adopted through the Commission’s rules. See e.g 30 TEX.
ADMIN. CODE § 101.21 (“The National Primary and Secondary Ambient Air Quality
Standards as promulgated pursuant to section 109 of the Federal Clean Air Act,
as amended, will be enforced throughout all parts of Texas.”) Criteria
pollutants must be evaluated prior to obtaining a PSD permit.
1.
Filed
11 March 14 IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF TRAVIS COUNTY, TEXAS
.3
The facility will also emit an estimated 6.1 million tons per year of the greenhouse
gas, carbon dioxide (CO2).
At the heart of this
lawsuit, Sierra Club alleges the approval of the permit application was made in
violation of:
a. the requirements of the Texas
Administrative Procedures Act (TEX. GOV’T CODE, Chapter 2001) regarding
Defendant’s authority and duties upon adoption of a final order;
b. the requirements for a
preconstruction application and approval by TCEQ, including:
i) Deficient information and legal
bases for the findings related to hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) and the
corresponding maximum achievable control technology (MACT) determination.
ii) Deficient information and legal bases
for the findings related to prevention of significant deterioration (PSD)
review and the corresponding best available control technology (BACT)
determination.
iii) Failure to consider and minimize the
impact of greenhouse gas emissions. II. DISCOVERY
1. This case is an appeal of an
administrative agency’s actions, and therefore based on the administrative
record. Designation of a level of discovery is not applicable. If discovery
becomes necessary, it should be controlled by Level 3. TEX. R. CIV. PROC. §
190.4.
Calendar
*** WMCG Group
Meeting We meet the second Tuesday of every month at 7:30 PM
in Greensburg-Next meeting July 8. Email
Jan for directions. All are very welcome
to attend.
***EPA Carbon Hearing
Pittsburg-July 31
Register now
Hearing: EPA Rules on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, July 31
As
a move to mitigate global warming, the EPA has proposed new rules for CO2
emissions from existing power plants. Hearings for public comment will be held
in Atlanta, Denver, Pittsburgh, and Washington DC. The Pittsburgh hearing will
be:
8:00
am to 9:00pm, Thursday, July 31, 2014
William
S. Moorhead Federal Building
1000
Liberty Ave,
Pittsburgh
Pa 15222
To testify and request a
time: contact Pamela Garrett at 919-541-7966 or at garrett.pamela@epa.gov.
NOTE:
There will be a lunch break from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. and a dinner break
from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
*******************************************************************************************
TAKE ACTION !!
***Letters to the editor are important and one of the best ways to share
information with the public. ***
***Health Survey Allegheny County-What Are Your
Concerns-Fracking
From Sierra Club: Our lead item this week is a call for people
to urge the Allegheny County Health Department to include fracking of County
Parks in the list of health concerns that need to be addressed.
The Allegheny County Health
Department is conducting a survey through the end of June 2014 to determine
County residents' concerns about public health matters. This is the same Health
Department that refused to study the health effects of fracking before the
County leased Deer Lakes Park by a 9-5 vote on May 6, 2014 to Range Resources.
In fact, ACHD Director Dr. Karen Hacker stated at a County Council Parks
Committee meeting on April 16, 2014 that as far as she knew, there were no
scientific studies about fracking and public health.
Protect
Our Parks (www.protectparks.org) is a broad coalition of individuals,
grassroots groups, and environmental organizations working to prevent toxic
fracking of the public parks in Allegheny County. Please take a few seconds to
help us send a message to Dr. Karen Hacker about her responsibility to protect
public health by answering her survey.
Here's how to do it:
• Go to www.achd.net/survey.html
• Click on "Take the survey." in the
middle of the page.
• Because the survey doesn't list shale gas
extraction as an option, find the box at the bottom for "Other (please
specify)".
• Write a few words, something to the effect
of "the dangers of leasing County Park land for fracking"
• Sign your name, type in your zip code, and
click "Next" at the bottom of the page. You're done!
It's
a simple as that. Once you've done it, please ask other Allegheny County
residents to help, too.
Thanks for your support, Protect Our Parks
www.protectparks.org
***See Tenaska Petition
at the top of the Updates
***Petition- Help the Children of Mars School District
Below
is a petition that a group of parents in the Mars Area School District are
working very hard to get signatures.
Please take a moment to look at the petition and sign it. It only takes 5 minutes. We are fighting to keep our children, teachers,
and community safe here and across the state of Pennsylvania.
Please share this with your
spouses, friends, family, and any organizations that would support this
cause. We need 100,00 signatures
immediately, as the group plans to take the petition to Harrisburg within a
week.
Your
support is greatly appreciated!
Best
Regards,
Amy
Nassif
***Petition For Full Disclosure of Frack Chemicals
From Ron Slabe
I
created a petition to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which says:
"We,
the undersigned, in conjunction with the public comment period currently
underway, call on the EPA to conduct public hearings in areas where fracking
operations are either occurring or have occurred so that we may voice our
concerns over the lack of full
disclosure of the fracking chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. (Docket
number EPA-HQ-OPPT-2011-1019)"
Will
you sign this petition? Click here:
Thanks! Ron Slabe
***Don’t let Gov Corbett Frack More State Parks and Forests
Gov. Corbett just lifted the
moratorium on leasing our state parks and forests for fracking. Our legislators
could stop him--but only if you act now. Send a message to your legislators
today.
Gov. Corbett just lifted a
three-year moratorium on leasing of state forests and parks for gas drilling.
He is hoping we’ll all just
forget about the ways fracking has already devastated Pennsylvania. We’re no
fools. We know more drilling means more blowouts, more spills of toxic fracking
wastewater, and more ruined landscapes.
The governor’s order will allow
drilling under our state parks for the first time. The Legislature is the last
line of defense for our state parks and forests--and that’s why I need you to
act immediately.
Tell
your state representative and state senator to fight Gov. Corbett’s effort to
open more of our state parks and forests for fracking.
Already more than 700,000 acres of our state forests
have been leased for gas drilling. That’s more than 40 percent of our existing
state forestlands.
But the drillers want
more--and sadly, Gov. Corbett is happy to hand it to them.
Tell the Legislature to stop this
wrong-headed idea.
It
just makes sense: Our parks are some of the best natural places in our state.
They should not be sold off for private gain and put at risk.
We
cannot stand back and watch as more of our state is opened to drilling.
Click
here to stand up for our state parks and forests today.
Sincerely,
David
Masur
PennEnvironment
Director
***Forced Pooling Petition
“The PA DEP announced the first
public hearing on forced pooling in PA to be held in less than two weeks. We're pushing on the DEP to postpone
the hearings and address the many problems we have with their current plans. In
the meantime, we're circulating a petition to the legislature calling on them
to strike forced pooling from the books in PA.
Forced pooling refers to the ability to drill under private property
without the owner's permission. It's legal in the Utica Shale in western PA,
but the industry has not made an attempt to take advantage of it until now.
Forced pooling is a clear violation of private property rights and should not
be legal anywhere.
I know I've asked a lot of you.
Unfortunately, we're fighting battles on many fronts and they just keep coming.
But with your help, we've made lots of progress, so I'm asking you to help me
again by signing and sharing this petition.”
Appreciatively,
as always,
Karen”
***Sunoco Eminent Domain Petition
“Sunoco has petitioned the PA PUC for public
utility status, a move that would impact property owners and municipalities in
the path of the Mariner East pipeline. As a public utility, Sunoco would have the power of eminent
domain and would be exempt from local zoning requirements. A
December 2013 PA Supreme Court ruling overruled Act 13’s evisceration of
municipal zoning in gas operations and upheld our local government rights. We petition PA PUC to uphold the
Pennsylvania Constitution and deny public utility status to the for-profit
entity, Sunoco.
That's why I signed a petition to
Robert F. Powelson, Chairman, Public Utilities Commission, John F. Coleman Jr.,
Vice Chairman, Public Utilities Commission, James H. Cawley, Commissioner,
Public Utilities Commission, Gladys M. Brown, Commissioner, Public Utilities
Commission, Pamela A. Witmer, Commissioner, Public Utilities Commission, and
Jan Freeman, Executive Director, Public Utilities Commission, which says:
"We, the undersigned,
petition the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission to uphold the
Pennsylvania Constitution and deny public utility status to the for-profit
entity, Sunoco."
Will
you sign the petition too? Click here to add your name:
***Cove Point Liquid Gas Facility--Petition
In order to ship natural gas
overseas, you've got to liquefy it. The process is a very dangerous one. LNG
facilities that serve domestic energy needs already exist. An incident at one
of them in Plymouth, Washington in March forced everyone within a two-mile
radius of the facility to evacuate. The risks it poses are not limited to the
area surrounding the facility, however. Fracking
to extract the gas from the shale and then moving it by pipeline to the LNG
facility damage the environment and put health and safety at risk.
The Plymouth facility is located
in a fairly remote area, however. The proposed Cove Point LNG export facility
in Maryland is a different story. There are 360 homes within 4,500 feet of the
facility and there's only one road in and one road out of the area. Oh, and the
facility is adjacent to a public park. The Chesapeake Climate Action Network
prepared a fact sheet on Cove Point with lots more information.
At present, the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) is considering what the environmental impacts of
the Cove Point LNG facility might be. FERC is notorious for rubber-stamping
projects and downplaying their environmental impacts. Just last week, a U.S.
Circuit Court ruled that FERC acted improperly when it overlooked environmental
impacts by looking at a proposed pipeline one segment at a time, rather than as
a whole. It is a decision that is likely to have reverberations that are felt
within the commission for some time.
The ruling comes at an important
time because FERC is currently in the
process of downplaying the environmental impacts of the proposed Cove Point LNG
export facility. FERC is currently accepting comments on the environmental
review of the Cove Point project. The Department of Environmental Protection
and others called for an extension of the deadline, but FERC rejected their
requests yesterday. The comment period ends on Monday.
That means we only have a few more days to flood FERC with
comments telling them to conduct a full, comprehensive, and credible study
called an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Will you add your name to
my petition and share it with your friends?
Here's
the URL to the petition, just in case the link doesn't work. http://petitions.moveon.org/environmental-action/sign/say-no-to-the-cove-point
Thanks
so much, as always!
Karen
Frack Links
***Peters Township Zoning Workshop-
A discussion of Township
zoning options for gas drilling after the Act 13 ruling by the Pa Supreme Court.
Thank you to John Smith and David Ball, and to Bob Donnan for posting the
video.
1:49:00
-- Select the HD setting for viewing
***Link to Shalefield Stories-Personal
stories of those affected by fracking http://www.friendsoftheharmed.com/
***PCN TV Court Hearing- Act 13 –The remaining 4 issues (from
Debbie)
The May 14th Commonwealth Court session from Philadelphia
aired Tuesday, May 27. Here is the link.
It is now posted on the site but will only be available for about a month so
watch it now.
***To sign up for Skytruth notifications of
activity and violations for your area:
*** List of the Harmed--There are now over 1600
residents of Pennsylvania who have placed their names on the list of the harmed
when they became sick after fracking began in their area. http://pennsylvaniaallianceforcleanwaterandair.wordpress.com/the-list/
Frack News
All articles are excerpted. Please use links for the full
article.
Special Thanks to Bob Donnan for photos.
1. Apex Energy Considering
Penn Township Drilling Sites
“As part of its push into
Southwestern Pennsylvania, a Marcellus shale-drilling company is considering as
many as eight projects in Penn Township, municipal and company officials
said.
Representatives
of Apex Energy, which received state permits this year to drill in three
Armstrong County locations, have met with officials in Penn Township and
Murrysville as they evaluate several potential drilling sites in the region.
One
of the targeted locations is “real close” to the Penn Township-Murrysville
border.
Some residents in both municipalities are supposed to receive letters
requesting water-quality testing in case properties near them are used for
drilling, he said.
Leasing
agents working on behalf of the Pine Township-based company have been talking
to people in Penn Township and Murrysville about obtaining mineral rights.
“We
have people leasing and are constantly looking at projects in Southwestern
Pennsylvania,” Rothenberg said. “We have no bull's-eye on any singular township
out there or a single county.”
Though
Apex officials didn't divulge many details about potential sites in Penn
Township, they mentioned interest in as many as eight projects within the next
year, said Dallas Leonard, the township's community-development director.
Proposed changes to the township's zoning ordinance
that are being considered would permit oil and natural gas extraction in all
five of the proposed zoning districts, though some conditions would apply.
“There's
no question, they're looking at all the communities around,” Leonard said.
As of Tuesday morning, the
only potential Apex site in Penn Township that is listed on the state DEP
website is a family farm near the North Huntingdon and Trafford borders. To date, Apex has
requested only an expedited permit for erosion and sediment control, DEP
records show.
Meanwhile, Murrysville chief
administrator Jim Morrison said Apex applied for an
erosion-and-sediment-control permit with the state for Marcellus shale activity
in the municipality. But the property along Lyons Run Road isn't located within
the municipal drilling district, he said.
“We told them that whatever they
think they might do there, it is not a permitted use,” Morrison said. “They
said their plans were preliminary.”
Apex's interest in part of
Murrysville surprised homeowner Jeanne Zombek, who lives about a quarter of a
mile from the Murrysville Swim Club. She said a New York-based agent inquired
about a lease on her property, which she described as being “in the heart of
Murrysville.”
“It's
not something we would have even done if we were interested in drilling,”
Zombek said.
As
for the water-quality testing letters, DEP spokesman John Poister said that is
something that some drilling companies do as a good practice. The state agency
advises companies to do the testing but doesn't require it.
“That
way, when there is a question (about water quality), they have a baseline to
work off of,” Poister said.
Read
more: http://triblive.com/neighborhoods/yourpenntrafford/yourpenntraffordmore/6372011-74/township-drilling-apex#ixzz36QdAqyRn
2. Air Pollution
Spikes In Homes Near Fracking Wells
“Levels of particulate matter
spike at night inside homes near gas wells in Southwest Pennsylvania, the
director of an environmental health monitoring project said.
The Southwest Pennsylvania
Environmental Health Project (SWPA-EHP) has been conducting a “pretty
aggressive” indoor air monitoring project since 2011 in the midst of
Pennsylvania’s gas drilling boom, particularly near unconventional wells that
employed hydraulic fracturing, project director Reina Ripple said in a webinar
hosted by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The project has documented sudden increases in
particulate matter within homes, she said.
“These are really significant spikes in particulate
matter, and a lot of the time they do happen at night,” Ripple said.
The spikes may last three to four hours, and they
cannot be explained by typical household activities like cooking, Ripple said.
The spikes occur at night, she believes, because of
stable atmospheric conditions that hold particulate matter low to the ground
instead of dispersing it.
“The air masses at night tend to be pretty stable, so
you’ve got a lot of people who are living not even downwind from these sites
necessarily, but downslope.”
SWPA-EHP
employs a nurse practitioner who conducts exams and offers consultations at
people’s homes and offices. In 2012-13,
they determined 27 health complaints were likely attributable to gas drilling
activities, including dermal, respiratory and neurological symptoms and eye
irritation.
“The acute impacts do seem to be
the concern right now, and you can imagine if these people are getting spikes
there are going to be acute impacts from that. What the long term effects are
going to be, we’re not certain,” Ripple said.
Likely sources include flaring, venting of gas at
compressor stations, and activities at processing facilities, Ripple said.
“That’s another thing were doing
with the data, we’re defining it in relation to what the source was—was it a
processing facility, was it a compressor station, was it a flare? And those are
going to create different acute health impacts, and as to what the chronic
effects are, we just don’t have that data yet.”
SWPA-EHP typically installs two Speck particulate monitors provided by
Carnegie-Mellon University’s CREATE lab in each home. The monitors are able to
document the duration and intensity of spikes that might not be revealed by
more common monitors that average readings over a longer sampling duration.
A 2010 air pollution study by the
DEP found compounds attributed to gas drilling activities, including methane,
ethane, propane, and benzene, but “did not identify concentrations of any
compound that would likely trigger air-related health issues” (pdf).
The Speck readings do not reveal the nature of the particles or the
presence of other pollutants, such as volatile organic compounds.
The project is now working with researchers from Yale and the
University of Washington to grab air samples during the spikes that can be
analyzed for content.
“That literally has gotten off
the ground in the last week or two,” Ripple said.
The pro-fracking website Energy
in Depth, a project of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, has
questioned SWPA-EHP’s findings because the project is supported by foundations
that have expressed environmental concerns:
“The Southwest Pennsylvania
Environmental Health Project is a non-profit entity closely related to some
very biased groups who directly or indirectly advocate against all natural gas
development. For obvious reasons, this should raise red flags in terms of the
veracity of the information they’re putting out.”
But the project could be
pioneering findings in a public health arena that, according to several
panelists at the NRDC webinar, has not received adequate study.
“These episodic peak exposures,
the particulates and volatile organic compounds, may be related to more short
term health effects. We can’t really tell because we’re not really tracking
this stuff in a useful way over time,” said John Adgate of the Colorado School
of Public Health.
“So what we see, what you hear,
is sometimes called anecdotal, but it’s but it’s consistent with the facts and
what we know about the compounds that are emitted.”
3. Fracking Study: New Gas Wells Leak More
“ In Pennsylvania’s gas drilling boom, newer
and unconventional wells leak far more often than older and traditional ones,
according to a study of state inspection reports for 41,000 wells.
The results
suggest leaks of methane could be a problem for drilling across the nation,
said study lead author Cornell University engineering professor Anthony
Ingraffea, who heads an environmental activist
group that helped pay for the study.
The
research was criticized by the energy industry. Marcellus Shale Coalition
spokesman Travis Windle said it reflects Ingraffea’s “clear pattern of playing
fast and loose with the facts.”
The
study was published Monday by the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A team of
four scientists analyzed more than 75,000 state inspections of gas wells done
in Pennsylvania since 2000.
Overall,
older wells – those drilled before 2009 – had a leak rate of about 1 percent.
Newer traditional
wells drilled after 2009 had a leak rate of about 2 %; the rate for unconventional
wells was about 6 %, the study found.
The leak rate reached
as high as nearly 10 % horizontally drilled wells for before and after 2009 in
the northeastern part of the state, where
drilling is hot and heavy.
The
researchers don’t know where the leaky methane goes – into the water or the
air, where it could be a problem worsening man-made global warming.
The
scientists don’t know the size of the leaks or even their causes and industry
officials deny that they are actual leaks. The study calls it “casing and
cement impairment,” but the study’s lead author said that is when methane is
flowing outside the pipe.
“Something
is coming out of it that shouldn’t, in a place that it shouldn’t,” said
Ingraffea, who was part of a team of Cornell researchers finding problems with
fracking. Also, Ingraffea heads a group of scientists and engineers that
criticized fracking and two of his co-authors are part of the group.
The
study didn’t discuss why the leak rate spiked. Ingraffea said it could be
because corners are being cut as drilling booms, better inspections or the way
the gas is trapped in the rock formation.
Pennsylvania
regulatory officials said their records show gas leaks peaked in 2010 and are
on the way down again, reflecting their efforts to stress proper cementing
practices. Further in 2011, the state focused more on unconventional wells to
make leak protection efforts “more stringent,” wrote Morgan Wagner, a spokesman
for the state environmental agency.
http://www.observer-reporter.com/article/20140630/NEWS04/140639960#.U7LnN0BnBtA
4. Cornell Study: Fracking Fluid Increases Pollution Potential
“Wastewater
from fracking could release tiny particles that bind to heavy metals and
pollutants, exacerbating environmental risks during accidental spills,
according to Cornell University researchers.
The
properties that make fracking fluid effective at extracting natural gas from
shale also make associated pollutants, such as heavy metals, leach out,
according to the Cornell researchers.
The
study’s findings can be used by people looking to prevent or cleanup fracking
fluid spills, co-author on the paper, Cornell postdoctoral associate Cathelijne
Stoof, said.
The
tiny particles they studied are colloids — larger than the size of a molecule
but smaller than what can be seen with the naked eye — which cling to sand and
soil due to their electric charge.
“If there’s a spill, mobilization of these
tiny particles by the flowback fluid (fracking wastewater) could cause
additional contamination of the groundwater,” Stoof said.
Stoof
said the Cornell research is a first step in studying the interaction between
fracking wastewater and colloids.
“What
we would like to do as the next step is continue with this and look at what
happens in more complex systems.”
The
research was supported by the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment
Station’s USDA Hatch funds, as well as the U.S. National Science Foundation and
the National Natural Science Foundation of China.”
http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20140625/NEWS01/306250048/Cornell-Fracking-fluid-has-increased-pollution-potential
5. PA Dept of Health “Buzzword” List Confirmed
“Did
Pennsylvania health department officials circulate a list of drilling-related
“buzzwords” and a meeting permission form that led department staff to believe
they were being silenced on the issue of natural gas development?
Two
weeks ago, when StateImpact Pennsylvania first reported on the buzzwords list
and meeting form, the department’s answer to that question was no.
Since then, State Impact Pennsylvania has obtained copies of the documents, which
show that department employees needed high-level permission to attend forums on
Marcellus Shale.
Agency officials confirm those documents
are authentic.
Two
retirees with the Department of Health have said that because of the
department’s policies, they and their colleagues concluded they were not
supposed to respond directly to public health concerns or attend forums about
drilling.
Michael
Wolf, state Secretary of Health, said in an interview with StateImpact
Pennsylvania this week that the goal was not to stifle the agency’s roughly
1,400 employees, but to ensure “that we are speaking with one voice.”
Buzzwords include “hair falling out,” “skin
rash”
On
February 24, 2012, the Bureau of Health Planning and Assessment sent an email
to eight bureau directors and the deputy secretary.
“Please
share the following email with all staff as a reminder,” it said.
The email instructed employees to
call the Bureau of Epidemiology with complaints about “possible cancer
clusters, health concerns related to natural gas drilling, and other types of
environmental hazards” from citizens, legislators, healthcare professionals, or
public employees.
It also includes a list of 19
words and phrases that may be used in these complaints including: “hair falling
out,” “skin rash,” "superfund site", "drilling",
"fracking" and "Marcellus Shale".
Tammi
Stuck, a retired community health nurse in Fayette County, told StateImpact
Pennsylvania she remembered that her
supervisor – after distributing what Stuck called the list of “buzzwords” –
told employees not to return calls on these topics.
“We had to take their name and number and forward
it on to our supervisor,” Stuck said. “Somebody was supposed to call them back
and address their concerns.”
Marshall
Deasy, a retired program specialist with the Bureau of Epidemiology, said some
nurses he knew also told him they were not allowed to return calls about drilling-related
health complaints.
When
StateImpact Pennsylvania first contacted the Department of Health, a
spokesperson denied that a list was sent out to community health employees.
The
department has since confirmed the February 2012 email. Spokesperson Aimee
Tysarczyk said she had not been aware of the list because she did not work for
the department at the time the email was sent.
“Nowhere
in those documents does it say not to take health complaints as these employees
are claiming,” Tysarczyk said.
That
is true, but the only instruction the email clearly offers is to send
complaints to the Bureau of Epidemiology.
Stuck
said employees were not told how to counsel people who called other than
passing the information up the chain. Normally,
she said, community health nurses would discuss symptoms and gather other
information from the caller.
“This
was the only time I can remember getting a list of buzzwords saying this is a
list that you don’t talk about,” she said.
Since
2011, Celeen Miller, a public health advocate based in Bucks County, estimates
she has worked with about two-dozen people from heavy drilling areas who
reported drilling-related health concerns.
She said they described to her their
frustration as they were referred from their local state health offices to the
Department of Environmental Protection and back again to the Department of
Health.
Miller
was concerned that the department’s district offices did not know how to deal
with these complaints.
“It
just was this lack of communication between the [state and] individuals who
were concerned about what they were experiencing with symptoms whether it would
be nosebleeds or asthma attacks,” Miller said. “I think it was frustrating for
people. Many were afraid and concerned.”
Miller
began facilitating contact between people with complaints and Department of
Health employees in Harrisburg who seemed willing to help.
She
was aware of the February 2012 email laying out the protocol for handling these
complaints. Miller said it did not seem to minimize confusion in the district
offices.
Tammi Stuck and Marshall Deasy
also said that community health employees were informed in 2011 that in the
future they would need permission to attend any meetings outside the agency.
They said that directive came after a meeting where a consultant with the
department made statements about Marcellus Shale that upset officials in
Harrisburg.
Tysarczyk
initially said employees were not required to fill out a form, but that it was
“not unusual” for an agency to want to know what staff are doing and saying in
public settings.
However,
the form does exist. You can read it by clicking here. (see article, jan)
According
to a bulletin distributed by the Bureau of Community Health on August 10, 2011,
permission had to be granted by a district executive director, the bureau
director or the deputy secretary depending on the nature of the meeting.
Two
“special initiatives requiring Deputy Secretary approval for attendance” were
Marcellus Shale and the health insurance exchanges mandated by the Affordable
Care Act.
The Department of Health said that policy is still
in effect.
Secretary Wolf said he did not think this policy
would discourage an employee from attending a forum about natural gas
development.
“One
of the challenges that we in the Corbett administration faced when we walked in
the door to the Department of Health was the fact that there was, from time to
time, not commonality of message,” said Wolf, who would not say specifically
what discrepancies existed within the department.
“One
of the things we are trying to accomplish and still accomplish today is to make
sure that we’re providing guidance to our employees who are working in the
public and make sure that we are speaking with one voice.”
The
Governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
“We’re
doing our job”
The
Department of Health said it has logged 51 complaints related to natural gas
development in a database since 2011 and has found no link between drilling and
illness.
However, the agency said the contents of the
database include “protected health information” and cannot be made public.
“If
we get a complaint that comes in from an individual it is still investigated,”
said Wolf. “The only thing that really should truly matter to people is that
we’re doing our job and we’re investigating what we’re supposed to
investigate.”
*You can see
the actual documents by going to the link to the article below:
http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2014/07/02/pa-health-department-policies-on-drilling-meant-to-guide-not-silence-employees/
6. Thyne: Trinity Aquifer Contaminated By Fracking
Posted June 25, 2014 by PETER GORMAN in News
“A
geologist who has spent years studying the effects of natural gas drilling on
water sources said last week that he has “no
doubt” that Range Resources gas drilling activity has contaminated the Trinity
Aquifer, ruining several water wells in Parker County — but not due to leaks from the gas wells
themselves.
Retired
professor Geoffrey Thyne, who has worked as a consultant for gas drillers, gas
drilling critics, and the EPA, told Fort Worth Weekly he is convinced
that natural gas, disturbed by the
hydraulic fracturing process, is migrating through a natural fault into the
aquifer. The Trinity aquifer serves as a primary water source for 20 counties,
from the Oklahoma border south to Bandera.
Thyne
is principal geochemist at Wyoming’s Science Based Solutions LLC, which
investigates environmental impacts of industrial development on watersheds.
Since 2010, he said, the number of water wells affected — in
some cases to the point that the water is so saturated with methane that it can
be set on fire — has gone from one to five, and the five make a line that
parallels a geologic fault in the area.
“Initially I was
hopeful that this was stray gas that would dissipate in time,” Thyne said.
Instead, the area of methane pollution of the aquifer “is getting bigger. It’s spreading geometrically. And it’s not the fault of a bad well,” he said. “The wells are very
well done. This is coming from the rock that has been fracked, and it may be
the first time we are actually seeing that.” The Barnett
Shale strata lie several thousand feet below the level of the aquifer.
Not
only has the number of affected wells grown, but the methane levels have risen,
and the methane has a chemical signature
that ties it back to the Range Resources fracking operation, he said.
“We
have no way of knowing if it will get worse, but you cannot fix this,” he said.
“And that makes it a game changer.”
The
affected wells are in Weatherford. Steve Lipsky, owner of one of those wells,
has gained a measure of celebrity for demonstrating, on film, that his well
water can be set on fire.
Lipsky’s
problems started in 2009, shortly after Range Resources fracked two natural gas
wells near his property. He and several other nearby families said that their
water wells had soured, and Lipsky himself began to suffer daily from nausea
and headaches.
He
attributed it to a possible gas buildup in his water well. After the problem
literally reached the flammable point, he contacted the Railroad Commission.
The agency required Range to run a series of tests on the water well.
Lipsky also contacted Alisa Rich of
Wolf Eagle Environmental to test the water. Her tests showed high levels of
methane, as did the Railroad Commission tests. Lipsky and his wife Shyla were
told by the commission to stop using their well.
In
late 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency also tested Lipsky’s well and
shortly thereafter issued an emergency order that included a finding that Range
Resources had “caused or contributed” to the contamination of the Lipsky water
well and another nearby. The order directed Range to develop “a plan for EPA
approval identifying gas flow pathways to the Trinity Aquifer, eliminating gas
flow to the aquifer if possible, and remediating impacted areas of the
aquifer.”
The
EPA hired Thyne as an independent contractor to evaluate all the testing data.
“I did a report saying that I thought the gas signature matched the water wells
with the gas wells,” he said.
Ironically,
Earthworks’ Oil and Gas Accountability Project had hired Thyne in 2005 to
review an EPA study of fracking. His negative remarks about that study —
related to a lack of data “to evaluate potential links between fracking and
water quality” — led him to be excoriated by the gas industry.
The signature, Thyne explained, “is equivalent to a fingerprint, or
unique pattern of 10 or so distinct parameters that are very similar or
identical” in the detailed chemical makeup of the gas found in the water wells
and that coming from Range’s operations.
But then the EPA backed off.
“The
EPA settled and told me to drop it, and since [his work] was litigation
support, that was the end of it,” Thyne said. “But I was still curious as to
how Range got such a different conclusion than I had, so I continued to follow
the case, analyzing data that came along.”
The
EPA dropped the potential litigation against Range immediately after the
Railroad Commission issued a report in March 2011 noting that “hydraulic
fracturing can be ruled out as a potential source of natural gas in the
Silverado neighborhood” where the Lipskys lived. The report instead suggested
that the methane in the neighborhood’s water wells most likely came from gas
migrating from the Strawn shale formation, which is much shallower than the
Barnett Shale into which Range drilled.
The
Railroad Commission got involved in the Lipsky case again in August 2013, at
the request of the Lipskys and several neighbors, when the level of methane in
their wells increased. New tests
confirmed that in five of the nine water wells sampled, methane levels had
risen.
However,
in its most recent report, the commission still concluded that the data “are
inconclusive as to a specific source of the gas.” The report said that “seismic reflection data submitted by Range
Resources to the RRC do not show the presence of faults” that would allow
gas to migrate into the Trinity Aquifer and thus into the water wells.
Thyne
is certain that there is such a fault. “What
we … have is that back in 2010, there was one well that had a serious problem.
Now there are five, and they form a straight line, and that line is parallel to
the fault system in the region … that is allowing the gas from the Barnett to
seep up to the Trinity Aquifer,” he said.
Range Resources did not return calls
for comment on this story.
Railroad
Commission spokesperson Ramona Nye wrote in an e-mail that “Our staff could
find no evidence that oilfield activity is the cause of methane contamination
in the aquifer, and as a result no further investigation activities are
currently planned … . [T]he physical data described in the commission’s report
do not reveal pathways that could allow natural gas to migrate from the Barnett
Shale (approximately 5,700 feet below ground) and into the residents’ water
wells.”
Nathan
Matthews, a staff attorney with the Sierra Club, disagreed. “To my knowledge, this is the first time
the signature of the methane in the water is identical to the methane in a gas
well in Texas,” he said. “We’ve seen it in Pennsylvania, but this is a first
for Texas.”
Sharon
Wilson, representative of the Texas Oil and Gas Accountability Project, posted
the initial video of Lipsky’s well water being lit on fire on her BlueDaze
blog. “As far as industry is concerned, they’ve never done anything wrong, so
they’re not going to change anything,” she said. “But in the public eye, I
think this is a game changer. The
possibility of poisoning an aquifer is a very big deal.”
Calvin
Tillman, former mayor of DISH, Texas, and a co-founder of Shale-Test, a company
that helps communities test air and water quality before and after fracking,
said he understands why the Railroad
Commission denied any connection between the gas drilling and water well
contamination.
“They’re
nothing more than a PR group for the oil and gas industry. If they would own up to the problems, we could see what went wrong
and try not to let it happen again,” he said. “Instead the industry goes into
denial, and they’re backed by the Railroad Commission — which fails to remember
that they are a taxpayer-funded organization.”
Tim Ruggiero, Tillman’s partner in
ShaleTest, said the findings by Thyne should be a game changer but probably
won’t be “until more scientists come forward with proof that the water wells
are being contaminated by drilling. As it is, we have one industry scientist
saying there is no conclusive evidence that fracking spoiled the wells and an
independent scientist saying there is proof. That builds a level of doubt in
the public’s mind as to what is the truth.”
“We never imagined [the aquifer pollution] would spread, but it is
spreading on this linear thread,” said Thyne, who will soon be publishing a
peer-reviewed article on the Parker County situation. “Will it get worse? We
don’t know. I hope not, but we just don’t know.”
http://www.fwweekly.com/2014/06/25/proof/
7. EQT Offers $50,000 To Leasors Who Sign
Release From All Liabilty
“ In a corner
of Washington County, EQT Corporation has been busy – drilling close to a dozen
new wells on one site.
It didn't take long for the residents of Finleyville
who lived near the fracking operations to complain – about the noise and air
quality, and what they regarded as threats to their health and quality of life.
Initially, EQT, one of the largest producers of natural gas in Pennsylvania,
tried to allay concerns with promises of noise studies and offers of vouchers
so residents could stay in hotels to avoid the noise and fumes.
But
then, in what experts say was a rare tactic, the company got more aggressive:
it offered all of the households along Cardox Road $50,000 in cash if they
would agree to release the company from any legal liability, for current
operations as well as those to be carried out in the future. It covered
potential health problems and property damage, and gave the company blanket
protection from any kind of claim over noise, dust, light, smoke, odors, fumes,
soot, air pollution or vibrations.
The agreement also defined the company's operations
as not only including drilling activity but the construction of pipelines,
power lines, roads, tanks, ponds, pits, compressor stations, houses and
buildings.
"The release is so incredibly broad and such a
laundry list," said Doug Clark, a gas lease attorney in Pennsylvania who
mainly represents landowners. "You're releasing for everything including
activity that hasn't even occurred yet. It's crazy."
The industry has
undertaken an array of efforts to quell worries and preserve its business —
lobbying state legislators, conducting its own scientific studies and
occasionally settling quietly out of court with landowners who have threatened
to sue.
The liability agreements EQT has used in Finleyville —
they are often known as nuisance easements — have been used in other
circumstances. Residents living close to airports, for instance, are often
offered such easements as compensation for having to bear with the noise,
vibrations and fumes from air traffic. Property owners close to landfills and
wind farms may also sign similar agreements.
But experts say
such easements are rare in the oil and gas industry.
"This is only the second time I've seen
one," said Clark, the Pennsylvania attorney. "They're absolutely not
common at all."
Clark says it is unlikely that companies will start
handing out such agreements en masse, saying doing so could decrease
landowners' confidence about the safety of the company's operations and their
personal health.
"People are going to say the gas companies must
be concerned about air pollution because they're offering these
easements," said Clark. "Everybody's going to get suspicious."
Earlier this year, a couple in Texas was awarded $3
million in a lawsuit against a gas drilling company. The couple alleged that
the company's operations had affected their health, decreased their property
value and forced them to move away. The case was one of the first successful
lawsuits alleging that air pollution from gas drilling activity caused health
issues.
Experts say that verdict and others like it have
emboldened landowners to take their claims to court. Nuisance easements may be
one way to ensure that the company can easily block landowners from claiming
damages.
Apart from drilling and fracking wells, EQT also
builds and operates the infrastructure — pipelines and compressor stations —
necessary to move natural gas to market. Its operations are headquartered in
Pennsylvania but it also owns wells in Kentucky and West Virginia.
In 2008, landowners in Finleyville signed a gas lease
for drilling with Chesapeake Energy. The company only drilled one well, but
last year it sold its leases to EQT, which has since drilled 11 additional
wells.
So far the company's strategy to reduce its
liabilities has worked with some landowners.
Muriel Spencer, whose house is about 500 feet from the
drilling, took the money. She said she did not consult with a lawyer, but had
asked the company to put a five-year time frame around the release. The initial
contract released the company from liabilities indefinitely.
Muriel Spencer, who lives about 500 feet from EQT
Corp.’s gas well, says she has no complaints about the company’s operations.
(Courtesy of Robert M. Donnan)
"I cannot complain
about the drilling to this point," Spencer said, adding that EQT "has
been nothing but fair with me."
The company's spokeswoman would not comment on how
many landowners EQT approached with the proposed agreements, but said that
"approximately 85% of the residents" had signed them.
An initial version of the proposed standard
agreement listed 30 Finleyville residents and required that they all sign the
agreements in order to receive the $50,000. When the residents refused, EQT
modified the agreement such that the compensation was not contingent on all
landowners signing it.
ProPublica found that at least four of the 30
residents have agreed to some version of the initial agreement that EQT
proposed and have received $50,000 in exchange. It is unclear what changes
were made to the agreement during negotiations.
Robertson, the company
spokeswoman, said in her statement that "any changes made to the
agreements during negotiations were based on requests directly from the
resident, and/or their attorney."
But some of the residents have refused to negotiate
with the company.
"I was
insulted," said Gary Baumgardner, who was approached by EQT with the offer
in January. "We're being pushed out of our home and they want to insult us
with this offer."
Baumgardner says his house is like an amphitheater,
constantly vibrating from the drilling. At times the noise gets up to 75
decibels, equivalent to a running vacuum cleaner, he said. Earlier this year,
EQT Corp. put up a sound barrier to limit the noise, but Baumgardner says it
has made little difference to his quality of life.
"We took the pictures down in the bedroom
because they still vibrate at night," he said.
Baumgardner
says he has had to leave his house at least three times so far because the gas
fumes from the well site were too much to bear. A local health group has
installed air quality monitors in his home and several of his neighbors. Last
year when the one of the monitors began flashing red, his daughter, pregnant at
the time, fled the house. She has since moved away after her doctor advised her
not to live close to a drilling site.
"Our house is most often not livable,"
said Baumgardner. EQT's response to his complaints, he said, has been
"constant dismissals, excuses, delays and broken promises."
Robertson would not respond to Baumgardner's
specific assertions. She did point to several mitigation efforts she said the
company had taken, including the sound wall, but also involving switching to
quieter machinery and applying for permits to transport water via pipes instead
of trucks.
Baumgardner
believes the nuisance easement he was offered is a part of the industry's
tactic to silence landowners.
"Throughout
the last several months, an EQT regional land manager, one of our community
advisers, and our community relations manager have all been engaged in phone
calls and personal meetings with residents, attended township meetings, and
visited the production site on multiple occasions to identify and confirm the
reported issues, if any," Robertson's statement said.
"The easements are part of our overall
consistent and ongoing effort to address leaseholder concerns."
http://www.propublica.org/article/aggressive-tactic-on-the-fracking-front
If you've been approached by the oil and gas
industry with an overly broad agreement, email naveena@propublica.org.
8. More Than Chloride Found At The John Day Impoundment Leak
DEP Will Get Info From Range Resources
“A
DEP spokesman on Thursday confirmed that “other
chemicals associated with drilling” have been found in the contaminated soil
being hauled from the Jon Day impoundment in Amwell Township, Washington
County – the site of a “significant” leak earlier this year.
The
spokesman, John Poister, said a “wider array” of tests showed the other
chemicals, while initial testing showed
only chlorides, which he indicated was a “marker” for contamination.
The exact chemicals found in the soil were
not immediately disclosed.
DEP
is seeking further information from Range
Resources, Poister said.”
http://marcellusmonitor.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/dep-additional-chemicals-associated-with-drilling-found-in-contaminated-soil-at-range-resources-impoundment/
9. Oil/Gas Industry Buys Colorado
Fracking Election
“In what may have been the most
expensive and farce of an election in the history of Colorado, the oil and gas
industry has likely spent $1 million to buy a fracking election in the city of
Loveland, CO.
When the votes were tallied last night for a
two-year fracking moratorium in Loveland, “no” votes squeaked out a victory by
a 10,844 to 9,942 margin, getting just 52 percent of the vote.
The
industry has so-far reported spending more than $375,000 on those 10,844 votes, but massive
unreported spending that exploited a loophole in the Colorado campaign finance
law ruled the election. As long as the
industry’s ads didn’t say “vote for” or “vote against,” they didn’t have to
report their spending. That resulted
in a deluge of an aerial attack of TV ads, radio ads, newspaper ads and
inserts, and mailers that inundated voters in Loveland. Residents reported getting
one and sometimes two mailers a day over the last three weeks,
many including bucolic photos of pristine Colorado landscapes while hailing
positive aspects of fracking.
Anti-fracking
activists from a local group Protect Our Loveland
spent about $7,500
trying to pass the moratorium. In the end, Protect Our Loveland was likely
outspent by a 100 – 1 margin by the most profitable industry on the planet.
At
the same time that the industry bought the election, it also fought fiercely to
manipulate the election date and process. Anti-fracking activists in Loveland
gathered the signatures and tried to place the vote on the ballot in November
of 2013 at the same time that anti-fracking elections swept neighboring
cities of Fort Collins, Boulder, Lafayette and Broomfield in Colorado’s “Frack
Zone.” But, the oil and gas industry sued in court to get the election
postponed and bullied the Loveland City Council into delaying the vote. A
couple months later, a judge ruled against the industry
and the city and forced the election to occur. An industry-friendly city
council then cherry-picked a date—June 24—for the election that coincided with
the hotly contested Republican Governor’s race in Colorado, thus ensuring a
large turnout of very conservative voters.
The
anti-fracking fight continues
in Colorado where 53,000 active wells are splattered across the landscape and
about 3,000 new wells are drilled every year, many of those in suburban
neighborhoods like Loveland. But, one thing is clear: the oil and gas industry
will do anything, say anything and spend anything to force fracking down the
throats of citizens. If you’re involved in the fracking fights in New York,
Pennsylvania,
Ohio,
Texas
or California,
be forewarned—this industry is fighting for its life and you will have to fight
for yours, too.” ““http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/271-38/24486-oil-and-gas-industry-buys-colorado-fracking-election
10. Heavily Fracked Oklahoma Has More
Earthquakes Than California
“Oklahoma has had nearly double
the number of earthquakes as California, after
five earthquakes on Thursday morning rattled an area of the state where oil and
gas drilling is prevalent.
While
California recorded 88 earthquakes of a magnitude 3.0 or greater this year, 174
of the same intensity have shaken Oklahoma. On Thursday, the region was hit by five quakes with magnitudes higher
than 3.0 — the magnitude at which tremors can easily be felt, Oklahoma City’s
KOCO news reported.
Whereas California’s quakes are
spread throughout the state, seismic activity in Oklahoma is concentrated in
the central and northern part of the state — areas where oil and gas drilling,
otherwise known as fracking,
has increased in recent years. In Oklahoma as a whole, drilling doubled between 2009 and 2012.
The
rise in oil and gas drilling in the state has paralleled increasing earthquake
activity. Previously, the state averaged about one quake per year, but that has
increased to at least one a day, KOCO reported.
Seismologists have concluded that fracking can
cause small earthquakes.
At
the Seismological Society of America’s annual meeting in May,
scientists said that underground disposal of vast amounts of wastewater generated by fracking likely
induce earthquakes by changing the state of stress on existing faults.
Researchers
hypothesized that as more wastewater is sequestered underground, it could
trigger larger faults tens of miles away from fracking sites.
While
researchers initially believed such fracking-triggered quakes could not exceed
5.0 magnitude, the U.S. Geological Survey reported a 5.7-magnitude
"human-induced" earthquake in a heavily drilled area near Prague,
Oklahoma, in 2011.
Another
quake stronger than magnitude 5.0 occurred in 2011 near Trinidad,
Colorado, another heavily fracked area. On Tuesday, Colorado officials shut down
a fracking wastewater well in Greeley after the second earthquake in less than
a month was felt.
Scientists
believe wastewater disposal could have a cumulative effect and that as more
wastewater is shot underground, more intense earthquakes could become the norm.
The
Red Cross recommended a free earthquake app
after an earthquake swarm — a series of small earthquakes — hit the state. The
organization cited the skyrocketing numbers of quakes since 2009.
The
state government has begun reviewing scientific data, holding public
discussions, and considering new regulations.”
11. Letter From Dr. Paulson, Director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health
& the Environment And Professor of Pediatrics
To Abruzzo, Sec. of DEP
Dr
Paulson is Director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health & the
Environment
Child
Health Advocacy Institute
Children’s
National Health System
Professor
of Pediatrics and of Environmental & Occupational Health
George
Washington University
(Health
departments in both New York and Maryland, which also lie atop the Marcellus
Shale, are working on health studies. Those studies are funded by their
respective state governments and their governors have refused to allow fracking
until the studies are complete.)
30 June 2014 Dr
Paulson’s letter:
E. Christopher Abruzzo
Secretary,
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
Rachel
Carson State Office Building
400
Market Street
Harrisburg,
PA 17101
Via
e-mail and hard copy cabruzzo@pa.gov
Dear
Secretary Abruzzo
I am writing in regard to
decisions that your office will be making about unconventional natural gas
extraction (UGE). Some of these decisions may relate specifically to children,
such as decisions about setbacks between UGE sites and schools. Other decisions
may relate to UGE in a broader sense. As
a physician with significant expertise in environmental health*, I want to
point out that there is no information in the medical or public health
literature to indicate that UGE can be implemented with a minimum of risk to
human health.
In this very new area of
research, there are very few articles in the public or peer-reviewed literature
that do indicate that there are health problems and there are a number of other
pieces of data that suggest that UGE is fraught with negative health outcomes.
Elaine Hill at Cornell University compared pregnancy outcomes from a group of
mothers who lived in proximity to active wells to outcomes in mothers who lived
near wells currently under permit but not yet developed. The results showed an
association between shale gas development and incidence of low birth weight and
small for gestational age (25% and 18% increased risk).
McKenzie and colleagues looked at
the relationship between proximity and density of gas wells to maternal address
and birth defects, preterm birth and fetal growth. Two approximately even exposure groups were
formed for births in rural Colorado between 1996 and 2009: zero wells within
ten miles and one or more wells within ten miles. For
women residing with one or more wells within ten miles, women were then
categorized into three groups of increasing number of wells within ten miles. Women in the highest exposure group, with
greater than 125 wells per mile, had an elevated risk of births with congenital
heart disease (CHD) and neural tube defects (NTD). A risk for both CHD and NTD
increased with increasing number of wells.
The authors cited chemicals such as benzene, solvents and air pollutants
as previously established associations between maternal exposure and CHDs and
NTDs.
It is also very clear that there
are adverse mental health outcomes associated with UGE in addition to the
physical health problems noted above. A community study by Ferrar and
colleagues found that the predominant
stressor of citizens impacted by shale gas drilling in Pennsylvania was a
concern for their health. The
majority of persons interviewed felt that their health concerns were largely
ignored and the most common health complaint of community members was stress.
Noise can also be a source of stress for residents near UGE activities. Well pad operations, when set up, are
industrial facilities often running 24 hours a day near homes, schools and
public areas, creating unhealthy noise levels for the surrounding area. Although noise is a part of
our daily life, with typical conversations occurring at sounds levels between
55-60 decibels (dbA), annoyance to noise can begin to occur at sound levels
around 55 dbA, school performance begins to decline at 70 dbA, and sleep is disturbed
at anywhere from 35-60 dbA. For well
pads, noise levels have been shown to be 89-90 dbA at 50 feet from the pad,
60-68 dbA at 500 feet and 63-54 dbA at 1,000 feet from the pad. Stressors may also include odors, such as
from the rotten egg smell of hydrogen sulfide released by unconventional gas
extraction operations.
In addition to individual health,
UGE activities can impact population health and create community wide
changes. A health impact assessment done
in Battlement Mesa, CO found that unconventional gas extraction activities
create community-wide impacts, including
an increased transient worker population and a decreased use of public outdoor
areas. The assessment also found increased crime rates and rates of sexually
transmitted infections (STIs) and although crime rates and STIs cannot be
directly correlated with UGE activities, they are none the less real community
changes that coincided with the introduction of UGE. Other identified health impacts include:
increased traffic accidents, decreased use of outdoor space and reduced
physical activity, increased stress, a decline of social cohesion and strain on
community resources, such as healthcare and housing, due to an influx of
workers.
Although research is limited on
the health impacts of UGE, there are real pathways of exposure, such as through
air and water, from UGE activities to human populations. Air
pollution occurs during every stage of UGE.
In an analysis of all chemicals used in UGE processes, 37% were found to
be volatile and therefore able to aerosolize. Of these volatile chemicals, 81%
were found to have adverse effects on the brain and central nervous
system. Aerosolized chemicals have the
ability to be inhaled and be absorbed directly into the bloodstream, bypassing
the body’s detoxifying mechanisms of the liver. Diesel engines and
generators, another source of air pollution, are widely used in UGE and a
number of federal agencies and international bodies classify diesel exhaust as
“carcinogenic to humans,” as “reasonably
anticipated to be a human carcinogen,”
or as “likely to be carcinogenic to humans.”
Water pollution has been
documented in association with UGE.
While this research focuses on contamination with methane, it is reasonable to think that components
of hydraulic fracturing fluids and normally occurring underground toxic
substances travel with the methane.
Data collected by the Minority Staff of the Committee on Energy and
Commerce of the US House of Representatives in 2011, based on data submitted by
the 14 leading oil and gas service companies, revealed the use of more than
2,500 hydraulic fracturing products containing 750 chemicals and other
components. From the limited information
available, it is evident that many of the substances used in hydraulic
fracturing fluid are toxic, including some which are known carcinogens. Wastewater, such as the flowback
and produced water, can contain a large number of naturally occurring toxic
chemicals in addition to the chemicals added to make the hydraulic fracturing
fluid. Naturally occurring toxic
chemicals may include radioactive material, salts, salts of manganese,
chlorides, sodium bromides and heavy metals such as lead and arsenic.
Radionuclides shown to be present in natural gas wastes include: radon,
226radium and 228radium and radionuclides of potassium, strontium, lead,
thallium, bismuth and thorium. Radium in flow-back and produced water often
incorporates into solids formed during wastewater treatment, thereby producing
low level radioactive waste. ,
In protecting children from
environmental health hazards, it is essential to recognize that for many
reasons children may be more exposed to environmental health hazards than
adults in the same location. Moreover,
children may have different outcomes than adults similarly exposed. For
example, children breathe more air and drink more water per unit of body weight
than adults do, Therefore, if the air or water are contaminated, the children
will receive a higher dose than the adults. Children also live longer than
adults. While that may seem self-evident, it is important in the environmental
context because many outcomes of environmental exposures occur years after the
exposure. If the delay between exposure and outcome is, for example, 40 years
or more, as it may well be in terms of some of the chronic lung diseases of
adulthood, if a 60 year old adult is exposed, s/he may not live long enough to
develop the adverse outcome. A child, however, will, in all likelihood, live
long enough to experience that adverse outcome.
In summary, neither the industry, nor government agencies, nor other
researchers have ever documented that UCG can be performed in a manner that
minimizes risks to human health. There is now some evidence that these
risks that many have been concerned about for a number of years are real risks.
There is also much data to indicate that there are a number of toxic chemicals
used or derived from the process, known or plausible routes of exposure of
those chemicals to humans; and therefore, reason to place extreme limits on
UGE. When and if industry can present the following information, it would then
be reasonable to expect your agency and the communities which may become
involved in UGE to make decisions on whether or not to proceed with UGE: 1)
disclosing complete information of the composition
of all materials used to make hydraulic fracturing fluid, 2) studying and
disclosing information about all air
contaminants released from well pads and the extent of their expected
dispersion, 3) studying and disclosing information about mechanisms of water contamination and
dispersion of contaminants in ground and surface waters, and 4) studying and disclosing information on the
extent to which air and water pollution can reasonably be expected to be
minimized. While this type of research should not be carried out by
industry, it certainly should be funded
by industry. Industry profits from UGE; and industry should bear the
responsibility for determining how it can be done in the safest manner possible.
Then, and only then, can regulatory and public health agencies and communities
make reasonable decisions about whether or not UGE should proceed.
If
you or your staff have any questions, I be happy to try to provide answers.
Sincerely
Jerome
A. Paulson, MD, FAAP*
Medical
Director for National & Global Affairs
Director
of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health & the Environment
Child
Health Advocacy Institute
Children’s
National Health System
Professor
of Pediatrics and of Environmental & Occupational Health
George
Washington University
* Jerome A. Paulson, MD, is
a Professor of Pediatrics at the George Washington University School of
Medicine & Health Sciences and Professor of Environmental &
Occupational Health at the GW Milken Institute School of Public Health. He is
also the Director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the
Environment (MACCHE) based at the Children’s National Health System. Dr Paulson
has helped organize and was a presenter on a panel on Unconventional Gas
Extraction at the 2011 American Public Health Association national meeting; and
helped organize and was the lead-off speaker at the 2012 conference on the
Public Health Aspects of Shale Gas Extraction jointly sponsored by Physicians,
Scientists and Engineers for Healthy Energy and MACCHE. He was an invited
panelist at the May 2012 meeting on unconventional gas extraction organized by
the George Washington University School of Public Health and the Agency for
Toxic Substances & Disease Registry; and on the planning committee for a
meeting on data collection related to water and air toxics exposures from
unconventional gas extraction that was jointly sponsored by the Natural
Resources Defense Council, the Harvard Center for Environmental Health and
MACCHE in December 2013.
MACCHE
(www.childrensnational.org/MACCHE) is one of 10 Pediatric Environmental Health
Specialty Units (PEHSUs) (www.pehsu.net) in the US. MACCHE serves Federal
Region 3; i.e., Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Virginia and the
District of Columbia. It is funded by a grant from the Association of
Occupational and Environmental Clinics (AOEC) (www.aoec.org) which receives its
funding for this project from the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease
Registry (ATSDR) of the CDC and from the EPA. MACCHE receives no corporate
funding. The two basic functions of MACCHE, and the other PEHSUs, are to
provide education to health professionals and others about environmental issues
that impact on the health of children and to answer questions from the public
that are related to children, health and the environment. MACCHE has been receiving inquiries about the
potential health impacts of unconventional natural gas extraction for at least
the last 7 years.
While
MACCHE is indirectly funded by ATSDR and the EPA, the opinions expressed in
this letter do not represent the policy of either organization and have not
been reviewed by either organization.
12. No Health Registry So PA
Doesn’t Know The Impact of Fracking
on Health
SW Health The Only Agency Doing Health Related Research
By Natasha Khan
PublicSource
“After
more than five years and about 6,000 wells drilled in the Marcellus Shale boom,
public health experts said the need to collect information near fracking
operations in Pennsylvania is urgent.
A
health registry could show trends of illnesses, collect data and potentially
answer the question of whether fracking is safe – a debate currently
characterized by emotional arguments with little reliable information.
How
will anyone in the state know the possible health impacts of hydraulic
fracturing unless information is collected?
A health registry “is a critical
issue that needs to be addressed,” said Dr. Ralph Schmeltz, an endocrinologist
and former president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society.
Three
years ago, the Governor’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission recommended that
just such a registry be created to track people near fracking operations who
reported they believed they were sick because of fracking.
“The
most timely and important initiative that the Department (of Health) can
undertake is the creation of a population-based health registry,” Dr. Eli
Avila, the state’s secretary of health at the time, told the commission.
Yet Gov. Tom
Corbett, a Republican who appointed the commission, has made no move to create
a registry, and funds for it were stripped from Act 13, a bill that rewrote the
state’s oil and gas law.
Aimee
Tysarczyk, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Health, said in an
email that the agency is still “exploring” creating a registry, but is trying
to answer the question of where the money would come from. Without a registry,
some researchers are forming partnerships to study health information in
drilling communities. But there is little funding for the studies.
Many
residents blame natural gas drilling for health problems that include
headaches, stomach aches, respiratory issues and rashes, as well as the
psychological impacts from the noise, lights and heavy traffic that are part of
drilling. But there’s been no long-term study about how drilling affects public
health overall, which is exactly what the Governor’s Commission called for –
following individuals who live within a one-mile radius over time. Currently,
evidence of health impacts is largely anecdotal.
Health departments in both New York and
Maryland, which also lie atop the Marcellus Shale, are working on health
studies. Those studies are funded by their respective state governments and
their governors have refused to allow fracking until the studies are complete.
While groundwater issues have
long been a focus of the health debate, research also is needed on air
emissions, wastewater disposal and potential harm to gas workers, public health
experts said.
The
lack of funds for the registry is a problem, said Dr. Bernard Goldstein, a
former dean of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.
“The impact fee goes to 17
different state agencies, sub-agencies and commissions, but not the
Pennsylvania Department of Health,” Goldstein said. “Does that mean that the
Department of Health is certain that there is no impact on public health?”
When asked if she sees a
state-led health registry getting created anytime soon, Raina Rippel, director
of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project, said: “Not under
this administration.”
It’s
not the Health Department’s fault, said Nina Kaktins, a nurse and co-chair of
an environmental health group within the Pennsylvania State Nurses Association.
“They
had their hands tied,” she said. “If there is no budget allocated, they can’t
perform the duties they are supposed to.”
•
The Southwestern Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project
The
Health Project is a nonprofit in Washington County, that uses public-health
researchers, toxicologists and medical professionals to study health impacts
from fracking. It also staffs a nurse practitioner who evaluates people who
think they’ve been sickened by drilling.
It may be the only outlet in the country
doing health-related research and providing medical attention in shale
communities.
The Health Project is currently funded by
the Heinz Endowments and the Claneil Foundation. (PublicSource also
receives funds from the Heinz Endowments.
In
June, the Health Project published a health survey of people who live near
drilling sites in Washington County. Between 2012 and 2013, the project found
27 cases of sick people who believed their symptoms were caused by air and
water pollution from nearby drilling. Their symptoms included skin rashes, eye
irritations, breathing problems, headaches and nosebleeds.
Researchers
and medical professionals at the project continue to monitor them, Rippel said.
In March, the project released a study that
suggests common air-monitoring techniques used by state and federal regulators
don’t protect the public against health threats. The techniques fail to record
harmful air emissions that spike during different stages of gas-drilling
operations, researchers found.
“And
we absolutely feel that those spikes are associated with poor health outcomes,”
Rippel said.
http://www.observer-reporter.com/article/20140630/NEWS01/140639985#.U7L4ykBnBtA
PublicSource is an investigative news organization
that collaborates with newspapers and radio throughout Pennsylvania. Learn more
at publicsource.org. Reach Natasha Khan at 412-315-0261 or nkhan@publicsource.org.
13. Woman Driver Burned
By Fracking Chemicals
(Note that this article dates 2011 and
refers to an incident in 2008, but it contains
interesting information about drivers and their exposure. Jan)
“Posted By: TXSHARON NOVEMBER 18, 2011
‘Frac
Tech has agreed to pay $450,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a transport driver
who claimed she could not find any working safety showers after suffering
chemical burns at Frac Tech’s Aledo facility in Texas, according to a statement
released November 16 by the woman’s attorney. Frac Tech Services provides
hydraulic fracturing services to gas-well drilling sites, using pressurized
rigs to shoot so-called “fracking fluid” into casings deep underground in
efforts to fracture rock formations and free natural gas. According to the
statement, the woman, a worker for – 2 – L&B Transport, was unloading hydrochloric
acid in February 2008 when a hose fitting came loose, spraying the acid onto her face and body. The victim alleged that
of the two safety showers in the Aledo facility, “one was not working properly
and that the second was locked and not accessible,” according to the attorney’s
statement, which notes that the woman suffered serious chemical burns to her
face, chest, and abdomen.
LINK FIXED – Source:
http://www.reporternews.com/news/2011/nov/16/woman-alleging-no-working-safety-showers-at-frac/
Note From Sharon: This is not the first time
and it won’t be the last. I have talked with three people who worked for
trucking companies that hauled fracking chemicals or hydraulic fracturing
chemicals. Two of the people worked for the same company. All three told me that their companies did not provide any kind of
protective gear. Yet they forced workers to go inside the tanks on their trucks
and clean them out after hauling fracking chemicals or flowback. One woman
suffered from a chronic cough. The others witnessed coworkers who suffered
horrible chemical burns that even penetrated through their leather boots.
This is not new news folks. Fracking chemicals are deadly.”
http://www.texassharon.com/2011/11/18/woman-burned-by-fracking-chemicals-not-the-first-wont-be-the-last/
Donations
We are very appreciative of donations, both
large and small, to our group.
With
your help, we have handed out thousands of flyers on the health and
environmental effects of fracking, sponsored numerous public meetings, and
provided information to citizens and officials countywide. If you would like to
support our efforts:
Checks to our group should be
made out to the Thomas Merton Center/Westmoreland
Marcellus Citizens’ Group. And in the Reminder line please write- Westmoreland
Marcellus Citizens’ Group. The reason for this is that we are one project
of 12 at Thomas Merton. You can send your check to: Westmoreland Marcellus
Citizens’ Group, PO Box 1040, Latrobe, PA, 15650. Or you can give the check or
cash to Lou Pochet or Jan Milburn.
To make a
contribution to our group using a credit
card, go to www.thomasmertoncenter.org. Look for the contribute
button, then scroll down the list of organizations to direct money to. We are
listed as the Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens’ Group.
Please be sure to write Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens’ Group
on the bottom of your check so that WMCG receives the funding, since we are
just one project of many of the Thomas Merton Center. You can also give your
donation to Lou Pochet or Jan Milburn.
Westmoreland Marcellus Citizen’s Group—Mission Statement
WMCG is a project
of the Thomas Merton Society
To
raise the public’s general awareness and understanding of the impacts of
Marcellus drilling on the natural environment, health, and long-term economies
of local communities.
Officers: President-Jan Milburn
Treasurer and Thomas Merton Liason-Lou Pochet
Secretary-Ron Nordstrom
Facebook Coordinator-Elizabeth Nordstrom
Science Advisor-Dr. Cynthia Walter
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news updates, please email jan at westmcg@gmail.com
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