Westmoreland Marcellus Citizens’ Group Updates July 17, 2014
westmcg@gmail.com
* For articles and updates or to just vent, visit us on facebook;
https://www.facebook.com/groups/MarcellusWestmorelandCountyPA/
* To view past updates, reports, general
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.
Latrobe
Farm Market
Thank you to Mike Atherton and Cynthia Walter for
working our TDS testing table at Latrobe Farm Market.
Thank You --Recent Donations
Thank
you to April Jackman and the Shelton family for their donations that support
our work to protect the health and environment of local communities.
A little Help Please --Take Action!!
***Tenaska Plant Seeks to Be Sited in South Huntingdon,
Westmoreland County***
Petition !!
Just Use the Link
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. Email Jan for directions.
All are very welcome to attend.
*** Free Water Screening-TDS-Latrobe Farm Market July 22 , 2:00-4:00. We will have a table at the farm market at
Legion Keener playground to offer free testing and information. TDS is an
indicator of water problems that can be caused by fracking. Visit us at our
table.
**Delmont
Community Meeting: Proposed Mariner East I Natural Gas Liquids Pipeline July 30: 6 – 7:30 p.m. Delmont
Public Library, 77 Greensburg St, Delmont
Proposed Mariner East I Natural Gas Liquids
Pipeline
Sign
the petition for the PUC to deny Sunoco Logistics' application to be designated
as a public utility corporation for the Proposed Mariner East I Natural Gas
Liquids Pipeline project and require them to go before local zoning boards to
receive permission for the project.
Sign
here: http://petitions.moveon.org/environmental-action/sign/pa-puc-must-deny-sunoco
**Hearing:
Compressor Station proposed near farms-
New Sewickley Township Municipal Building July 23, 2014 - 6:30pm, 233 Miller Road, Rochester, PA
15074
Kretschmann Farm is an organic
farm serving many of us in the greater Pittsburgh area. This isn't just about
Kretschmann Farm, this is about ALL of the farms and their ability to continue
providing us with produce that is free of frack toxin. The production of
healthy food with the benefit of clean water and air is one of the values of
the environment and the most treasured of resources.
THE
ISSUE: 7/23/14 conditional use hearing on a Marcellus gas compressor station
that would be built adjacent to Kretschmann's farm - this meeting might be the
one where the supervisors grant permission for the plant.
TAKE
ACTION:
EMAIL:
the New Sewickley Board of Supervisors: manager@newsewickley.com and cc:
kretschmann@verizon.net
(See
Article #1)
***Quadrennial
Energy Review July 21 - 10 a.m.
CMU
Rashid Auditorium, Forbes Ave Gates-Hillman
Center, Pittsburgh, 15213
Panel
discussions on natural gas infrastructure
***We Should All
Submit a Written Statement
EPA Restricting Carbon
From Existing Power plants---Public Hearing Pittsburgh-July 31 and August 1
from Sierra Club
It is too late to register to speak, but you can send in a statement.
–We need to have interested people at this
hearing. The coal industry will be in full force!!
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
At the request of the coal industry, the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) plans to hold a hearing in Pittsburgh on July 31st about the new
rule to restrict carbon pollution from existing power plants.
We can expect the coal industry
to flood the hearing, so we will need to show the EPA - and the world - Pennsylvanian's
support a strong carbon pollution rule.
Come to the press conference!
LET'S
MAKE THIS THE BIGGEST CLIMATE EVENT WE'VE EVER HAD IN PA!
Supreme Court Supports EPA’s
Right to Regulate Carbon Emissions from Industrial Sources
On
June 23 the U.S. Supreme Court eased the way for President Obama to help
mitigate climate change and create healthier air. Before the Court was the
question whether the EPA has the authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate
carbon dioxide emissions from stationary sources. In general, environmental
groups welcomed the Court’s finding that the EPA has the authority to sought regulate carbon emissions from an
estimated 83 pct of the stationary sources across the nation. Here are some major points:
*EPA’s
authority to regulate CO2 emissions under Clean Air Act was re-affirmed.
*The
Court somewhat chastised the EPA for trying to alter some standards in the
Clean Air Act.
*EPA
has the authority to regulate emissions that cross state borders. This is
important for SW Pennsylvania.
*The
Court dismissed EPA’s authority to regulate emissions on relatively small
sources such as schools, apartment buildings, and shopping centers, which
amount to about 3 pct of the total stationary sources in the country.
*Judge
Scalia made it clear that the Court would not consider any future appeals
regarding the use of the Clean Air Act for regulation of carbon emissions. This
was a needed warning to Governors of coal-producing states such as
Pennsylvania.
*The
Court’s decision was generally accepted by both sides.
For information
about the carbon reduction plan:
Q:
How long do I have to speak?
A: Each speaker is given five minutes per
public hearing to speak.
Q: Can I register on the day of the hearing to
speak?
A: Yes, you may register the day of the
hearing to speak, although we cannot guarantee what time you will speak.
Even if the speaking slots fill up, we will be accepting written comments at
the hearing. Q: If I register before the hearing what do I need to do the day
of the hearing?
A:
You will need to check in at the registration desk prior to the time you are
scheduled to speak.
Q: Can I submit written comments at the
hearing site
A: We recommend that you submit your written
comments to the docket. The docket number for this rule is: Docket No.
EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602 (for the Clean Power Plan for Existing Sources) and
EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0630 (for the Carbon Pollution Standard for Modified Sources)
and information on how to submit written comments is listed below. The public
comment period will be open for 120 days from the time the rule is published in
the Federal Register. We will be taking comments that are submitted the day of
the hearing and will ensure that those get submitted to the docket.
Sierra Club recommends:
In
addition to the public hearing in Pittsburgh, comments on the EPA’s new rule
covering the carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants may be submitted via Email to A-and-R-Docket@epa.gov with
docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602 in the subject line of the message.
Additional information
What the EPA Rules Aim to
Accomplish
According
to the EPA , the new emission rules will:
*Cut
carbon emission from the power sector by 30 percent nationwide below 2005
levels, which is equal to the emissions from powering more than half the homes
in the United States for one year;
*As
a co-benefit, cut particle pollution, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide by
more than 25 percent;
*Avoid
up to 6,600 premature deaths, up to 150,000 asthma attacks in children, and up
to 490,000 missed work or school days—providing up to $93 billion in climate
and public health benefits; and
*Shrink
electricity bills roughly 8 percent by increasing energy efficiency and
reducing demand in the electricity system.
Why the EPA Rules Are So
Important
The
folk at Think Progress have nicely explained why this action by the Obama
administration is so important. Jeff Spross explained:
*It’s
the first step towards a global solution
*Climate
change is a threat to America and the world
*U.S.
carbon emissions are a sizable part of the problem
*Congress
isn’t going to do it anytime soon
And
Ryan Koronowski expandedwith the following points:
*This
is the most significant move any U.S. president has made to curtail carbon
pollution in history.
*There
is room for improvement, and time to improve it.
*The
EPA is just doing what Congress (and the Supreme Court) told it to do many
years ago.
*States
will have huge amounts of flexibility to comply.
*Coal
was on its way out and this speeds up the transition.
*This
is one rule in a long string of carbon-cutting actions since President Obama
took office.
*The
rule won’t come into effect overnight.
*It’s
not just fossil fuel companies and conservative groups that have a voice in
this process.
Impact on Pennsylvania
According
to the EPA, coal is currently the largest energy source for power generation in
Pennsylvania (Coal – 39.0 pct, Nuclear – 33.6 pct, Natural Gas – 24.0 pct and
Clean Energy – 3.4 pct). In 2012, Pennsylvania’s power sector CO2 emissions
were approximately 106 million metric tons from sources covered by the proposed
rule. Based on the amount of energy produced by fossil-fuel fired plants and
certain low or zero emitting plants, Pennsylvania’s 2012 emission rate was
1,540 pounds/megawatt hours (lb/MWh).
The EPA is asking Pennsylvania to
develop a plan to lower its carbon pollution to meet the proposed emission rate
goal of 1,052 lb/MWh in 2030. The EPA is giving states considerable flexibility
in how they achieve their reductions, including energy efficiency, clean energy
programs, etc. It will be interesting to see what Gov. Corbett’s administration
plans before the deadline of June 2016, but the Governor’s quick criticism and
the failure to support programs such as the Sunshine Solar Program do not
suggest enthusiastic compliance. Nor does Pennsylvania’s decision in 2005 to
serve as an observer rather than active member of the northeast Regional
Greenhouse Gas Initiative cap-and-trade system reflect well on our state.
Opposition to the New EPA
Rules
The
Obama Administration clearly anticipates strong opposition to the new rules,
and the fight will take place on several grounds. Despite strong public support
for the EPA’s proposed rules, the climate change deniers were quick to claim
the rules were unnecessary. The national Chamber of Commerce said the costs
were exorbitant, but Nobelist Paul Krugman dismisses their argument. But it is
the legal challenges that will perhaps slow-down the implementation of the
EPA’s rules, a delay we cannot afford.
Global Impact of the EPA
Power Plant Rule
The
most recent UN report concludes that there is little time left for a meaningful
international agreement to be enacted. Progress towards global action on
climate change has been stymied by the failure of the U.S. to demonstrate its
own willingness to control CO2 emissions. The new EPA rules will now allow the
U.S to take a stronger stand in the upcoming UN discussions in New York in September
and in Paris next year. Some evidence of that shift came from the G7 meeting
this week, and a suggestion that China will follow the U.S.’s example of CO2
emission reduction.
Shift from Coal to Natural
Gas
As
early as 2010 utilities were shifting away from coal to natural gas for
electricity generation, partly in anticipation of eventual climate regulation
but also because of lower operating costs with gas. That shift has accelerated
with the greater production of fracked gas, with natural gas predicted to
overtake coal as the preferred fuel by 2035. Although overall burning natural
gas is cleaner than burning coal, it is by no means a ‘clean’ fuel, and that
concerns environmentalists.
Given
the reliance on natural gas to achieve the reduction in emissions,
environmentalists will be calling for a number of actions, such as calling for
removal of exemptions to the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and other laws
that the drillers currently enjoy. But that requires unlikely Congressional
action. What the Executive branch can do is properly understand and strictly
regulate air and water pollution associated with all aspects fracking.
From Peter Wray Sierra Club: MAJOR CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIONS COMING UP
We
are organizing two buses from Pittsburgh to the PEOPLES CLIMATE MARCH in New
York City, September 21. See
http://alleghenysc.org/?p=19091.
*Important Public Hearing on
EPA Action to Curb Climate Pollution Extended Another Day, August 1. ACTION: Provide oral
testimony or send in written comment. (July 12, 2014) http://alleghenysc.org/?p=19081
*Rally
to Support Curbing Climate Pollution from Power Plants, Pittsburgh, July 31. ACTION. Demonstrate your support for national
climate action. (July 12, 2014) http://alleghenysc.org/?p=19099
*Join
the People’s Climate March in New York City, Sept. 21. ACTION: Register now for a seat on one of the
Pittsburgh buses. (July 12, 2014)
http://alleghenysc.org/?p=19091
State
Ethics Probe Into Deer Lakes Park Vote Expands from Futules to Kress and
Fitzgerald. Financial gain and deal making probed. (July 12, 2014)
http://alleghenysc.org/?p=19105
And Other Sierra Club Posts:
*Divestment
from Fossil Fuel Companies Gains Momentum. Churches and colleges
withdrawing financial support. (July 12, 2014)
http://alleghenysc.org/?p=19114
*Learn How
Citizens Forced Coke Plant Cleanup in New York. Visitors will describe how they gained a
record fine against polluting company, July 17 & 18. (July 10, 2014) http://alleghenysc.org/?p=19072
Supreme Court
Supports EPA’s Right to Regulate Carbon Emissions from Industrial
Sources. Decision eases way for Obama’s
Climate Action Plan. (June 27, 2014)
http://alleghenysc.org/?p=18967
Corbett Wants to
Keep Fracking of Parks and Forests under Wraps. Unclear if Ohiopyle Park and Forbes Forest
are threatened. (June 27, 2014)
http://alleghenysc.org/?p=18962
President Obama
Creates World’s Largest Marine Sanctuary. 782,000 square miles to be protected from
commercial fishing. (June 22, 2014) http://alleghenysc.org/?p=18869
====================
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TAKE ACTION !!
***Letters to the editor are important and one of the best ways to share
information with the public. ***
***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
***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
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/
***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. Great News-- PUC Will Not Review Ordinances and Withhold Impact Fees
Other three issues are a mixed Bag
(The
PUC issue was of great concern because local townships would feel pressure to
weaken local ordinances for fear they would lose their impact fee.)
From John: “The
main fight on this appeal was whether the PUC maintained the ability to review
local ordinances for compliance with section 3302, the operations section of
Act 13, and compliance with the Municipalities Planning Code MPC. By a 4-1 vote the Commonwealth Court ruled in
our favor and found that the PUC has no
oversight over local ordinances.
Meaning sections 3305-3309 of Act 13 were tossed. It is great news. Those provisions allowed industry to
challenge or threaten to challenge local oil and gas ordinances and as these
provisions of Act 13 provided for the denial of impact fees and the possible
payment of the industry lawyers attorneys fees. It was a significant weight on
the local government's shoulders. This leverage was built into act 13 to keep
oil and gas ordinances weak as the mere threat of a challenge and loss of
impact fees was in some instances enough of a deterrent for local officials to
enact anything but an industry blessed ordinance. That threat is now gone, at least for now
pending appeal to the PA supreme court.
The medical gag provision was found not to be
unconstitutional, but was a mixed bag.
The Court's interpretation actually alleviated some of our
concerns. The Doctor can tell his
patient and other doctors the proprietary chemicals that caused an exposure as
well as allowing this information to be included in medical records. As the patient has no restriction on who
he/she can tell, it is better than where we started. The private water notice we lost, not because
its good policy, but because the court felt it was not unconstitutional. Judge McCullough dissented on that issue
finding our favor. Judge Pelligrini did
subtly direct the DEP to do its job and tell people of spills regardless of the
statute. Hope it helps.”
John
Ruling On Act 13
Issues
“Pennsylvania
doctors have nothing to worry about when it comes to the so-called “gag order”
on chemical exposures from oil and gas drilling. That’s the message from the
Commonwealth Court today in a much-anticipated ruling on provisions of the
state’s two-year-old oil and gas law. The court issued the ruling after the
Supreme Court passed on the controversy, sending it back to the lower court.
The “gag rule” stems from a
section of Act 13, which requires nondisclosure agreements from healthcare
providers who seek information on chemical exposures, which may be deemed
“confidential” by industry. The law, which was drafted without the knowledge or
consultation of healthcare providers, forces doctors to sign a nondisclosure agreement,
thereby agreeing not to share any ingredients in the industry’s secret sauce
used to frack and drill for natural gas.
Writing for the Commonwealth
Court, President Judge Dan Pellegrini says the law is not unconstitutional, and
it neither prevents healthcare providers from obtaining the necessary
information or sharing it with other health practitioners.
“It just reinforces the
muddiness”
Governor Corbett’s administration
says it is pleased with the ruling.
In a statement, a spokesman for
the Governor’s Office of General Counsel said, “Pennsylvania remains one of the
most progressive and transparent states in the nation with respect to hydraulic
fracture disclosure.”
But some doctors say the ruling
does nothing to clear up the confusion left by lawmakers.
“It just reinforces the muddiness we already have,” says Dr. Amy Pare,
a plastic surgeon from Washington County.
She says the ruling doesn’t make her feel any safer
signing a non-disclosure form.
“I don’t think most physicians are well-versed in the
legal system to know if they are within the boundaries of the law,” says Pare.
“So you just avoid it, you don’t bring it up.”
Part of the problem, says Pare,
is that the language of the nondisclosure form remains a mystery.
“I can’t think of any other word
for it than intimidating,” says Pare. “It’s intimidating for the doctor, and
it’s intimidating for the patient.”
Not all the members of the
five-judge panel agreed. Judge Patricia
McCollough wrote a dissenting opinion, where she expressed concern about the
larger impacts to public health.
“While the range and precise language of the
confidentiality agreement is not known, it is a fair inference that a health
professional will be unable to share the information in the peer-review
setting, publish the clinical findings and proposed treatment plans in medical
journals, or coordinate the outcome and treatment plans with other hospitals
who later experience the same or a similar case.”
Court upholds other challenged
sections
The Commonwealth Court also upheld eminent domain for natural gas
storage facilities. And state environmental regulators do not have to notify
private well owners of drilling related spills.
Environmental groups argued that
the law should not treat private well owners differently than public water
suppliers. Act 13 requires the Department of Environmental Protection to notify
public water facilities of spills.
President Judge Pellegrini says,
like health providers, private water well owners have nothing to worry about:
Even though it is not required to
do so, in the event of a spill, the DEP will in all likelihood, canvas the areas to
identify individuals served by private wells and notify them of the
spill and aid them in getting alternative water supplies.
PUC
cannot review zoning ordinances
The Commonwealth Court also ruled
the state’s Public Utility Commission does not have authority to review local
zoning ordinances.
In December, the state Supreme
Court found that some portions of Act 13 dealing with restrictions on local
zoning for natural gas development violated Pennsylvania’s constitution. Given
the higher court ruling, the Commonwealth Court says any challenges to local
ordinances cannot bypass local zoning boards, effectively removing the role Act
13 set up for the PUC.
Act 13 originally gave the PUC
and the Commonwealth Court power to withhold a municipality’s share of the
Marcellus Shale impact fee if a local ordinance was found to be in violation of
the law.
Plaintiff’s
attorney Jordan Yeager praised today’s decision.
“It means that this industry has
to… respect local governments just like every other industry does,” he says.
“And that’s a good thing for democracy, that’s a good thing for public health
and the environment.”
A spokesman for the Marcellus
Shale Coalition – the state’s top drilling trade group – says the industry has
always been willing to work with local communities.
John Dernbach, a professor at
Widener University’s Environmental Law Center, expects both sides to appeal the
ruling.
“The state and its allies I think
are going to be unhappy with the continuing viability and strength of local
government authority,” he says. “The citizen petitioners are going to be
unhappy that some of their claims weren’t given the kind of credence that they
felt like they deserved.”
A spokesman says the governor’s
office is “carefully evaluating the impact of the Court’s ruling” on the PUC’s
role in overseeing local zoning rules for natural gas development.
You
can read StateImpact Pennsylvania’s annotated version of the ruling here at the
link under the article title. Jan
2. Kretschman Organic
Farm Needs Your Help- New Sewickley
From: Don Kretschmann [mailto:kretschmann@verizon.net]
http://www.kretschmannfarm.com/
“July
15, 2014
Greetings
from the Kretschmanns,
I wish I could talk about the what might
shape up to be the best early potato crop in years, or how nice the tomatoes
look, picture perfect fields of broccoli and cauliflower, or how excited we are
to see the winter squash growing beautifully after being planted using our
innovative new no-till system.
But unfortunately we are totally preoccupied
with stopping a Marcellus gas compressor
station from being sited on a property adjoining our farm in the rear. We are shell-shocked and beside ourselves
after the surprise phone call last Wednesday from a neighbor about a meeting of
the township board of supervisors at which they were to decide the issue.
In
eight hours we and several other neighbors came up with enough questions for
the board to delay decision and continue the hearing on 7/23 at the township
building. But we are told it will be an
uphill battle. The small group of neighbors calling ourselves the Bulldogs for New
Sewickley Health has alerted hundreds of residents, who also knew nothing about
these plans.
We don't like to bother our
subscribers with issues outside our farmer to consumer relationship and deny
many requests by outside groups to contact you.
But this is about the future of your food supply--make no mistake.
It's about the future of our
farm. Thus, we respectfully ask, beg,
that you write the board of supervisors voicing your concerns about the safety
and integrity of your organic food supply.
As citizens of Pennsylvania, we all have "a right to clean air, pure
water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and aesthetic
values of the environment." (Art.27Sec1PA Constitution) The state, and
thus the township is the trustee of these common resources to preserve them for
all of us.
Surely
the production of healthy food with the benefit of clean water and air is one
of the values of the environment and the most treasured of resources. We know you are busy-with-life. Please consider taking the time to send a
letter to the supervisors insisting they fulfill their duty to protect the
safety of your food supply. We are
taking this very seriously and have engaged legal talent including the attorney
who successfully confronted the free reign of the gas industry all the way to
the PA Supreme Court. We need your help
now, as the 7/23 conditional use hearing might be the one where the supervisors
grant permission for the plant. If
you're a parent, also appeal on behalf of your children who grow nourished by
this wholesome food. If you're a doctor
or health professional appeal on the basis of prudent concern for one's
health. Other professionals can lend a
hand as appropriate. If you know anyone
who could help out in the media, political, business, or legal arenas please
let us know. We certainly are not asking
for this kind of response based on the basis of NIMBY--not in my backyard. It's simply that an extra-ordinary number of
Pittsburgh area consumers are consuming food from our farm in a raw and unprocessed
form. That's a special case and you have
a right to its quality.
We
will be setting up a more automated a petition line, but you can send petitions
to the Board of Supervisors c/o twp manager, New Sewickley Twp.
Importantly, CC us in the e-mail, or simply send it to us and we'll print and
forward it. Please be respectful. Don served for many years on this board with
the current Chairman. Please put
"NST petition" in the subject line so we can make sure it is
introduced into the official record. We
thank our many subscribers who have supported us for decades by buying our
organic produce and thus making us the thriving organic farm which we are.
This has allowed us to laugh at
the lease agreements sought by the "land men". We haven't and won't sign. We need your help at this time in this
special way. Salient talking points are
the potential danger to your organically raised food supply and the farm which
produces it. We are confident the public
good can prevail if we all step forward together. We will be putting together more information
as we get a little ahead of this breaking wave.
Busy as bees, we are sincerely,
Don, Becky, & the Farm Crew
3. Former Health Secretary:
Don’t BS The Public- Their Health
Comes First
PITTSBURGH – Pennsylvania’s
former health secretary said the state has failed to seriously study the
potential health impacts of one of the nation’s biggest natural gas drilling
booms.
Dr. Eli Avila also said the
state’s current strategy is a disservice to people and even to the industry
itself because health officials need to be proactive in protecting the public. “The lack of any action speaks volumes,”
said Avila, who is now the public health commissioner for Orange County, New
York. “Don’t BS the public. Their health comes first.”
In 2011, an
advisory commission recommended the state create a public health registry to
track drilling-related complaints and address concerns. The state House
approved $2 million for it, but Senate GOP leaders and the governor’s office
cut the funding at the last minute.
Some people
have complained that nearby drilling led to headaches, nosebleeds and other
problems, and there are long-term concerns about the toxic chemicals used in
the fracking process that breaks the rock to free gas. But without coordinated
statewide research, it’s impossible to know how widespread or dangerous the
problems are or even if drilling is responsible.
Avila spoke after media outlet
State Impact reported two former Health Department employees said they were
told to forward certain environmental health complaints – including drilling –
to the Bureau of Epidemiology and to not discuss the issues with callers. The
memo included other subjects beyond drilling, such as Superfund sites, garbage
dumps and mining.
Health Department spokeswoman
Aimee Tysarczyk said in an email, “There was not and is not an effort to keep
employees from taking Marcellus Shale-related health complaints or from
following up on complaints.”
All such complaints, she said,
are “immediately reported to the Bureau of Epidemiology for review and
follow-up.”
Tysarczyk said the department has
responded to all 51 Marcellus Shale health-related complaints it has received,
and “any complaint or investigation is shared directly with the individual
involved and his or her physician if the individual has seen a physician.”
The database of the complaints
contains personal health information and can’t be made public because of
medical privacy laws.
State Impact reports Pennsylvania,
Colorado and North Dakota log drilling-related complaints in databases, but
Health Departments in Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Wyoming and West Virginia don’t
keep track of them at all.
Avila said he thinks Corbett is a
“good man” who’s being hurt politically by top advisers who don’t let the
governor hear directly from qualified health experts. Avila resigned from the
post in 2012 after serving two years.
T he AP asked Corbett Friday if he
supported creating a health registry for drilling complaints. Corbett said he
doesn’t know where the Department of Health stands on the issue now.
“I’d have to know what they’ve
been talking about before I can answer that,” he said.
Another public health expert said
the bigger point isn’t how the phone calls to the Health Department were
handled; rather, the issue should be the ongoing lack of a rigorous program to
study and respond to drilling-related health complaints.
Pennsylvania is “simply not doing” serious studies
into possible health impacts of drilling, said Dr. Bernard Goldstein, who has
five decades of public health experience at hospitals and universities in New York, New
Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Goldstein said questions about
drilling and public health are not going away, and he suggested that
Pennsylvania “do what their advisory commission told them to do,” since it’s
not too late to start a health registry for drilling complaints.
Avila noted that “fracking’s not
going anywhere. So what you really need to do is assure the public that you’re
going to protect them.”
That
hasn’t happened, he said.
“How can you keep the public safe
if you’re not collecting data” on drilling-related complaints, he asked.
http://www.observer-reporter.com/article/20140712/NEWS04/140719857#.U8IAKyi_D4i
4. Range Resources’ John Day Impoundment Contaminated
Ground Water
The “significant” leak
discovered two months ago at Range Resources’ John Day waste water impoundment
in Amwell Township, Washington County, was much bigger than first thought and now has contaminated groundwater in
addition to soil.
The state DEP now estimates that
brine from gas drilling stored in the football-field-sized pond leaked
undetected and contaminated about 15,000
tons of soil, or 650 triaxle truck loads.
In addition, the chloride that
contaminated the soil also has been detected in one of the on-site groundwater
monitoring wells.
“We thought from the beginning
that it was a significant spill and contamination,’’ said John Poister, a DEP
spokesman. ‘‘Much more soil is being removed than we originally thought.
The DEP issued a permit for
construction of the impoundment in January 2010.
Mr. Poister said DEP inspectors are at the impoundment
remediation site daily to monitor the cleanup and investigate why the
impoundment’s two leak-detection systems did not work.
State
inspectors found that the one beneath the impoundment appeared to have been
crushed and was non-functional, he said.
“At
no time did the systems show water coming out during the time the impoundment
was active,” he said. “It’s a problem we are investigating. We’ve seen such
systems work elsewhere, but this has raised questions about leak-detection
systems at other impoundments of this vintage and that were constructed in this
manner.”
Range
received notices of violations from the DEP in February and August 2013 for
erosion and sedimentation violations at the Day impoundment, but records do not
indicate it paid any fines.
Don
Hopey: dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.
Read
more: http://www.post-gazette.com/business/2014/06/12/Range-Resources-John-Day-impoundment-leak-bigger-than-first-thought/stories/201406110179#ixzz34RW1hJMx
5. Even Low Doses
of Arsenic Trigger Lung Cancer
EPA delay due to Lobbying By Pesticide
Companies
(Arsenic has repeatedly been found in water contaminated
from fracking. A few examples:
***Center for
Environmental Health (CEH) today released a new report outlining the
health risks to pregnant women and young
children from harmful chemicals used in fracking. The report, Toxic and Dirty Secrets: The Truth About
Fracking and Your Family’s Health, Just some of the harmful substances
commonly used in fracking include methane, BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene
and xylenes), arsenic, radium, ozone, formaldehyde, radium, radon, nitrogen
oxides, methylene chloride and silica sand. These substances are associated with low birth weight, birth defects,
respiratory problems, and cancer and fertility problems.
**And
A Texas study found elevated levels of arsenic at water wells within three kilometers
of gas wells
**And A new study of 100
private water wells in and near the Barnett Shale showed elevated levels of
contaminants such as arsenic and selenium closest to gas extraction sites, according to a team of
researchers that was led by UT Arlington associate professor of chemistry and
biochemistry Kevin Schug.
jan)
By
David Heathemail
“The low doses of arsenic similar
to what many Americans consume in their drinking water are enough to develop
tumors in mice, a new NIH study has found. Researchers at the National Institutes of
Health fed mice very low doses of arsenic and were surprised to find that many
of them developed lung cancer, according to a study just published. What
made the results so surprising was that in previous studies, mice were fed
extremely high doses of arsenic before they developed excess tumors. In the new
study, mice fed lower doses of arsenic were more likely to develop tumors. The
Center for Public Integrity recently exposed how lobbying by pesticide companies that sell weed killers containing
arsenic has delayed the EPA from issuing its findings and taking action on them
for years.
“This is the first study to show
tumor development in animals exposed to very low levels of arsenic, levels
similar to which humans might be exposed,” Michael Waalkes, lead author on the
paper and director of the National Toxicology Program Laboratory, said in a
press release. “The results are unexpected and certainly give cause for
concern.”
Studies in countries such as
Taiwan, Chile and Bangladesh have shown that people who drink high doses of
arsenic get cancer skin, bladder and lung cancer. High levels of arsenic in
well water in Bangladesh created one of the worst environmental disasters in
history.
Extrapolating from those studies,
scientists with the U.S. EPA have tentatively concluded that arsenic is a
serious problem at low doses. A draft report on arsenic concluded that for every 100,000 women who drink the legal
limit of arsenic in water each day, 730 will get lung or bladder cancer from
it.
Some scientists argue that there
is a threshold dose, below which arsenic is harmless. But the new study casts
serious doubt on this contention.
NIH researchers fed adult mice
arsenic before breeding and continued to give offspring arsenic in water
throughout their two-year lives. Fifty-one percent of the male mice given
arsenic at 50 parts per billion developed tumors, compared to 22 percent of
mice given no arsenic. Fifty-four percent of male mice given 10 times that
amount of arsenic also developed tumors. But there was no significant increase
in tumors among mice given a much higher dose of 5 parts per million.
Researchers were not expecting
worse effects at lower doses and say their findings raise concern about levels
of arsenic to which people are exposed. The current drinking-water limit in the
United States is 10 parts per billion.
“Although this is only one study, it adds to
a growing body of evidence showing adverse health effects from very low
exposures to arsenic, raising the possibility that no level of arsenic appears
to be safe,” Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of
Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program, said in a
statement.”
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/07/08/15049/even-low-doses-arsenic-trigger-cancer-mice-study-finds
6. 24 Arrested Blocking
Entrances to FERC
Cove
Point Rally
WASHINGTON
- July 14 - Residents impacted by shale gas infrastructure and their supporters
blocked the entrances to the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) headquarters today in protest of the
proposed Cove Point liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility and others
proposed around the country.
This
is the second consecutive day of action to demand that the Obama administration
take the voices of impacted communities seriously in the federal regulatory
process, and that FERC reject Dominion Resources’ proposed LNG export facility
in Cove Point, Maryland, just 50 miles south of the White House on the
Chesapeake Bay. Over a thousand people rallied on the National Mall and marched
to FERC yesterday despite scorching heat and high humidity.
Protesters
linked arms and blocked the main entrance and a secondary entrance of FERC as
employees came in to work this morning. A total of 24 people were arrested for
the shut down, including participants from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia,
North Carolina, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. The protesters were arrested
by Homeland Security police and then turned over to the DC Metropolitan Police
for processing. They were charged with “incommoding,” or blocking a public
passageway, and are being released with a citation and $50 fine.
“People ask what the connection is between
Marcellus Shale and Cove Point,” said arrestee Ann Bristow from Garrett County,
Maryland. “One connection is the transportation of this product. Compressor
stations have been shown to be one of the most toxic sources of air emissions.
Pipelines and compressor stations will only increase with more demand from
Cove Point.”
If
approved, the Cove Point export facility would be the linchpin tying together
communities from northern Pennsylvania to central Virginia to southern Maryland
that are struggling for a clean and healthy environment free of fracked gas
infrastructure.
Alex Lotorto, a resident of Pike County,
Pennsylvania, was among the arrestees. “There is a FERC-permitted natural gas
pipeline and compressor station about to be constructed in my hometown of
Milford, Pennsylvania. The exhaust is equal to over a 100 diesel school buses
idling constantly next to homes where children are sleeping,” said Lotorto.
“I’m here to let FERC and the company know what’s waiting for them if the
permit is issued.”
Michael Bagdes-Canning from
Butler County, Pennsylvania was also arrested in front of FERC’s office. “I'm
willing to go to jail because my friend Susan wakes up every morning with
headaches from the air she breathes from the Bluestone natural gas processing
plant,” said Bagdes-Canning. “I'm willing to go to
jail for the dozens of battles we are fighting in Butler County, Pennsylvania;
battles that will only intensify if the international market is opened up by
export facilities like Cove Point.”
Among
the arrested people, their supporters, and the 150,000 people who sent in
comments to FERC opposing the Cove Point project, the consensus is clear: Now
is the time to stop the pollution of communities dealing with the extraction,
transportation, processing and potential export of hydraulically
fractured—fracked—natural gas. It’s time to get serious about shifting to
clean, jobs-producing, renewable energy.
Karen
Leu, a resident of Takoma Park, Maryland, was among the arrestees. “The LNG
facility at Cove Point does not speak love to rural communities faced with
unhealthy drinking water or a world facing a climate catastrophe,” said Leu.
“What will we stand up for if not love?”
###
http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=itemlist&layout=category&task=category&id=7&Itemid=11#sthash.9cgEG60o.dpuf
7. DEP Refuses To Hand Over Data On Radiation
Delaware Riverkeepers Hires Expert To
Do Own Study
It's
well established that radiation can be harmful. But is it possible that the release of information about
radioactive material is dangerous as well?
That
was an argument that the state DEP made when it denied a request from an
environmental group for recently collected information about radiation levels
in and around oil and gas well sites in the Marcellus shale region.
But that view did not fly with the state's
Office of Open Records. The office on Friday ordered DEP to release the records
initially requested by the Bucks County-based Delaware Riverkeeper Network and
one of its research associates, Corinne Bell, in April.
The
department collected samples and other information for a comprehensive study
that Gov. Tom Corbett ordered last year to look at naturally occurring levels
of radioactivity in by-products associated with oil and natural gas
development.
That
report will be made public when it is completed. The news release announcing the study indicated a 12 to 14 month
timeline that led some to believe that it should have been done by now.
But department spokeswoman Lisa
Kasianowitz said that 12 to 14 month period only accounted for the time the
department needed to collect the samples. Now the results are
being analyzed and then will be reviewed internally and by an outside
consultant before the report is issued, which is expected to be later this
year.
Because
of the upsurge in drilling activity in the Marcellus shale region and the
potential health and environmental risks that come with it, the network's
deputy director Tracy Carluccio said her
organization has hired an outside expert to conduct a study of its own of the
department's sampling results and study about radioactivity in the
environment caused by the drilling.
"It's
a huge issue," she said. "It has substantial health – human health
and environmental health – implications. We felt it was so important that
people have the opportunity to hear from somebody outside of the agency that is
permitting these activities."
But the network's effort to gain access to
critical pieces of information to conduct its analysis was denied by the
department.
DEP's
Kasianowitz said the department is reviewing the Office of Open Records'
decision and has not yet made a determination as to whether it will appeal it
to Commonwealth Court.
In
denying the records, DEP took the position that the public release of
"preliminary unvalidated data, including sample locations," could
risk harm to the public's health, pose a security risk if it falls into the wrong
hands and lead to "erroneous and/or misleading characterizations of the
levels and effects" of radioactive material.
It further argued that the samples it
collected fall under the Right to Know Law's exemption that allows noncriminal
investigative records to be kept private.
But in the Office of Open Records' appeals
officer Jill Wolfe's view, the department cedes that the information is public
and will released once it has the chance to "validate" the data. Besides
that, she said the investigative exemption doesn't apply in this case because
this Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material study by
"the very name identifies it as a study" and not an investigation.
Further,
she states the department incorrectly "attempts to equate the risk of
radioactive material itself to the release of information about radioactive
material."
The
department's position is disturbing to Office of Open Records executive
director Terry Mutchler. For one thing, she said, "As a practical matter, you are dealing with radiation levels in
water. If that doesn't rise to the level of something the public should know, I
can't think of much that would."
What's
more, Mutchler said the department's
denial highlights "one of the biggest issues we see" in the
application of the Right to Know Law and that is the misuse of the
investigative exemption.
For
the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, the delay in the department's release of
information it requested – as well as the DEP study that the network believed
based on the department's news release would have been released by this past
spring – is concerning. Not only does it hinder the network's ability to
perform its own study of the data, but Carluccio said "the sooner the
public knows this information the better."
"Every
day, millions of gallons of wastewater are produced and we know that much of
the wastewater contains high levels of radioactivity. We also know the gas
itself has radioactive elements in it," Carluccio said.
Pointing
to her own research based on information from various federal government
sources, she said there are indications that Marcellus shale contains higher
levels of radioactivity than other shale being developed in the United States.
She
said she hopes hidden motivations that go beyond the public's interest are not
behind the department's delay.
Carluccio
said, "We don't want politics to get in the way of the timely release of
this report. It's certainly one that could be out and made public so the
magnitude of the problem is understood."
Kasianowitz
said the department had no comment on the network's suspicions.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/07/which_release_is_worse_radiati.html
Maya K, van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper,
215 369 1188 ext 102 (rings office & cell)
Tracy Carluccio, Deputy Director, Delaware
Riverkeeper Network, 215-369-1188 x104
Just In-- Delaware River
Keepers Wins Open Records Case On Radioactivity Records
Thank you Delaware River Keepers!
“Harrisburg, PA – Delaware Riverkeeper Network challenged
PADEP denial of a Right to Know Law request filed by the organization for
access to PADEP’s study of technologically enhanced radioactive material
(TENORM) produced by oil and gas extraction.
PADEP refused to provide several documents, claiming exemption as
internal, predecisional deliberations and noncriminal investigative records
under the Right to Know Law. Delaware Riverkeeper Network appealed the
denial to the Office of Open Records, arguing that the records are purely
factual not deliberative, and not part of an inquiry or official probe, simply
part of an agency study.
The Department had provided
Delaware Riverkeeper Network with 294 pages of records generally describing the
study and an earlier NORM study (1994), as requested by the organization. In response to Delaware Riverkeeper Network’s
appeal, PADEP produced an exemption log
containing 57,308 pages of information and further claimed public disclosure of
the shielded records posed a threat to public safety and public security of
infrastructure and a threat to personal safety.
Claiming that the data was
unvalidated and preliminary and would eventually be validated in a final report
issued to the public, PADEP argued that the premature release of the data would
lead to “…erroneous and/or misleading characterizations of the levels and
effects of NORM and/or TENORM associated with [Oil and Gas] exploration and
production…” PADEP went on to assert that the release of the information would
“likely result in a substantial and demonstrable risk of physical harm”
resulting from the public knowing the location and quantity of the radioactive
materials.
“The public’s right to know is
founded on the important principle that citizens need access to information
about their government’s activities to ensure openness, prohibit secrets, and
promote opportunity for critical review and accountability of public officials
for their actions. DEP’s attempts to
hide facts about their study of radiation caused by gas development sounds
disingenuous and like they are trying to hide something. Delaware Riverkeeper Network fought for this
information so the sun can shine on what DEP is doing regarding this critical
study and the impacts of shale gas drilling and fracking, the public has a
right to know,” said Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper.
The
Office of Open Records determination stated:
“It is important to note that the
TENORM study is the gathering of information on radioactive material that
already exists from the oil and gas exploration and production activities. The Department contends that a reasonable
likelihood of harm exists by releasing the information because of the risks
associated with exposure to radioactive materials. In essence, the Department’s argument
attempts to equate the risk of radioactive material itself to the release of
information about radioactive material.
The risks associated with exposure to radioactive material is not the
same as any risk associated with releasing information about radioactive material”.
Decision at 10.
The
Office also ruled that the responsive records are “factual in character
consisting of sample data collected and sample location” and not part of a
deliberative process that will express legal opinions or policies. Decision at 12. The Office also decided that the information
being sought is not part of a searching inquiry or official probe but rather a
study, stating, among other reasons, “The very name identifies it as a study”. Decision at 7. This makes the files
ineligible to be concealed as a “noncriminal investigative record”. Decision at 5. The Office points out that records are
“presumed public unless exempt” and exemption is only granted “…by a
preponderance of evidence”, citing 65 P.S. Section 67.708(a). Decision at 5. “The public has a great capacity for understanding facts and
information, deep concern about the levels of radioactivity associated with
shale gas development in the state since people are being exposed every day,
and huge interest in what DEP is finding. For DEP to assert that the public can’t handle
this information intelligently is an insult and is no excuse for withholding
information the public has a right to,” said Tracy Carluccio, Deputy Director,
Delaware Riverkeeper Network.
PADEP was ordered to provide all responsive records requested by DRN
within 30 days. Under the law, the
Order can be appealed by DEP to Commonwealth Court.
The Final Determination is available at
http://bit.ly/1nJdKMh
Tracy Carluccio
Deputy Director Delaware
Riverkeeper Network
8. Intersex Fish in Pa
“DEP
has begun an extensive sampling of chemical contaminants in response to the
discovery of intersex fish in three of the state's rivers, a department
spokeswoman said.
Male fish carrying eggs were found in the
Susquehanna, Delaware and Ohio river basins, a sign that the water may be
tainted with chemicals, the U.S. Geological Survey found in research released
Monday.
Amanda
Witman, a DEP spokeswoman, said the agency is testing two tributaries of the
Susquehanna River: Juniata River and Swatara Creek.
The
USGS research said that two fish species, smallmouth bass and white sucker,
were exhibiting intersex characteristics due to exposure to
endocrine-disrupting chemicals — hormones and hormone-mimicking chemicals that
caused the male fish to produce eggs.
"The
sources of estrogenic chemicals are most likely complex mixtures from both
agricultural sources, such as animal wastes, pesticides and herbicides, and
human sources from wastewater treatment plant effluent and other sewage
discharges," said Vicki Blazer, a fish biologist and lead author of
the USGS study.
Estrogenic
chemicals disrupt the endocrine system, which regulates the release of hormones
such as estrogen and testosterone. This interferes with the fish's ability to
reproduce.
Some
of the compounds and contaminants found were new, and researchers had to
develop new laboratory test procedures to measure them, Witman said.
"The
results will provide a much better understanding of the kinds, distribution and
concentrations of these compounds," she said.”
9. Exxon Mobil Faces Criminal Charges Over Wastewater Spill Thanks to Kathleen Kane
“As a defense, it is arguing that
the state’s attorney general illegally singled it out to stop hydraulic
fracturing.
Attorney General Kathleen Kane-D said Exxon’s claims are false.
Prosecutors
allege that Exxon subsidiary XTO Energy is criminally liable for a water spill
in 2010 at a fracking site in north-central Pennsylvania.
“The case involves the first criminal
charges filed against a public company drilling in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus
Shale,” the Wall Street Journal said.
About 57,000 gallons of
wastewater from a fracking operation leaked from storage tanks on an XTO site
and into a tributary of the Susquehanna River.
In
November 2010, a Pennsylvania inspector found wastewater leaking from a partially open valve.
“XTO says it had turned over the
site to contractors, didn’t cause the spill and can’t be held liable for it.
The company also says that biologists from Pennsylvania’s Department of
Environmental Protection studied the tributary and found no impact from the
spill,” the Wall Street Journal said.
A
year ago, XTO paid $100,000 to settle civil charges under the federal Clean
Water Act. And it agreed to do a clean up estimated to cost $20 million.
“Two
months later, Pennsylvania prosecutors filed eight criminal misdemeanor charges
against the company. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of $25,000 a day,”
the Wall Street Journal said.
XTO’s
lawyers have said in court filings that the criminal charges “may be part of an
arbitrary and improper law-enforcement agenda . . . to end hydro-fracturing in
Pennsylvania altogether.”
Prosecutors
have acknowledged that the state attorney general is opposed to fracking.
But
the state denies that it has singled XTO out for improper reasons.”
10. Oklahoma-- Seven Earthquakes
in 14 hours
“Drilling has been blamed for more
earthquakes on the vast stretches of prairie across Texas and Oklahoma. The
US Geological Survey has recorded seven
small earthquakes shaking central Oklahoma in a span of about 14 hours.
The
temblors are part of an increase in earthquakes across Oklahoma, Texas and
Kansas that some scientists say could be connected to the oil and gas drilling
method known as hydraulic fracturing, and especially the wells in which the
industry disposes of its wastewater.
Seismologists know that fracking can cause microquakes that are
rarely strong enough to register on monitoring equipment.
However,
fracking also generates vast amounts of wastewater, which is pumped into
injection wells thousands of feet underground. Scientists wonder whether they
could trigger quakes by increasing underground pressures and lubricating
faults. Another concern is whether injection well operators could be pumping
either too much water into the ground or pumping it at exceedingly high
pressures.
Hundreds
of central Oklahoma residents met with regulators and research geologists last
month in Edmond, and many urged regulators to ban or severely restrict the
disposal wells.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/14/oklahoma-seven-earthquakes-14-hours
11. Range Resources To Sell, Ship Marcellus Gas and Ethane
“Range Resources Corp. is lining
up deals to ship natural gas and ethane it's pulling from the Marcellus shale
to export terminals and proposed petrochemical plants.
The Fort Worth-based energy
company, which has a large presence in Pennsylvania, announced Thursday it signed several agreements involving
planned pipeline projects, terminals and ethane crackers. The agreements
would last between five and 20 years.
The
projects include:
•
Energy Transfer Partners' Rover Pipeline, which is expected to connect the
Marcellus and Utica shale fields in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia with
Canada and the Gulf Coast by 2017
•
The Sabine Pass LNG terminal in Cameron Parish, La., where Cheniere Energy Inc.
is building a liquefaction plant
•
An unnamed, planned liquefied natural gas terminal
• A
proposed petrochemical plant that an affiliate of Sasol Ltd. might build near
Lake Charles, La.
•
The Ascent ethane cracker that Odebrecht proposes to build in Parkersburg, W.
Va.
“The Rover pipeline provides
Range flexibility in selling natural gas to high demand markets in Canada and
the Gulf Coast, while the LNG and ethane supply agreements further diversify
and strengthen our customer base with industry leading companies,” Range CEO
Jeff Ventura said in an announcement.
Read
more:
http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/6350727-74/ethane-gas-range#ixzz35mOaiN9C
12. Activists Blockade Chevron Frack Site in
Eastern Romania
Twenty-five activists from across
seven countries, chained themselves to the gates of a Chevron shale gas
exploration well in Eastern Romania yesterday, and are calling on the
government to ban fracking in the country.
The Greenpeace activists—from
Romania, Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Germany—held
banners reading “Pungesti anti-Chevron quarantine area” and “Stop Fracking!” in protest of the U.S.
energy giant’s exploration work on the ground.
Chevron
began work on the exploration well in Pungesti, northeast of Bucharest, in
December last year having postponed operations several times due to local
opposition.
The
protests in the village attracted widespread attention and media coverage last
year as villagers, framers, protesters and the community’s religious leaders
came together to block the fracking site and halt Chevron’s plans.
For
more than two months, the village became the front line of a nationwide battle
to stop fracking.
The protesters argue that the
Romania government has failed to protect the local environment and its citizens
by allowing Chevron to explore the area for shale gas and are calling on it to
end it support for dirty fracking.”
13. Pipeline
Threatens Our Family Land
By
ANN NEUMANN JULY 12, 2014
LANCASTER,
Pa. — The Tucquan Creek, home to towering tulip poplar and oak trees and the
occasional red fox, rushes over natural rock dams and plunges into secluded
swimming holes before it meets the Susquehanna River and continues to the
Chesapeake Bay.
I know this creek, the way it
tastes and sounds, because I grew up with it, playing in the ferns and wild
columbine along its banks. My father moved to the hollow as a single parent in
1976. When he died 30 years later, my sister, Malinda Harnish Clatterbuck,
decided to raise her two daughters in the home where we were raised.
This spring a man with a
clipboard knocked on Malinda’s door. He wanted permission to survey her
property for a natural gas pipeline. My sister asked what would happen if she didn’t sign. Williams Partners, an
Oklahoma-based natural gas transporter, would prefer to negotiate, he cheerily
said, but the company would invoke the
federal right of eminent domain if she didn’t.
The Atlantic Sunrise pipeline is planned to be up to 42 inches in diameter,
buried three to five feet beneath yards, fields and woods. It will connect
two existing lines, and is cheaper for Williams to build than upgrading what
the company already has in the ground. During
construction, set to begin in June 2016, a path up to 125 feet wide will be
clear cut with chain saws and bulldozers, destroying the trees we’ve always
known, the dainty trillium we’ve looked for each year. “Horizontal
directional” drilling could be used to run the high-pressure pipeline beneath
the Tucquan Creek’s fishing holes and falls.
A permanent
50-foot-wide path will have to be kept clear of buildings and trees — and
maintained not by Williams, but by landowners. Pumping, meter and deodorization
stations will be built along the route, although Williams has not made a final
determination of how many or where.
The Central Penn Line will
slice through 178 miles, eight counties and hundreds of properties. Once it is
operational, Williams will have access to the pipeline indefinitely, for
maintenance and upgrades — and for cleanup after leaks or explosions. Like all
major gas transport companies, Williams has a long list of violations and
disasters.
Fracking, I once thought, was
something that happened to other people, not mine. Hydraulic fracturing may be
confined to the shale regions of the country, but the wider effects of the
natural gas boom, and the pipelines being built to support it, include the
feverish development of wilderness and private property.
FIRST granted 300 acres of
property in 1734, my Mennonite family has lived in the same area for hundreds
of years. A ninth-generation Lancastrian, Dad chose to leave farming and the
church to settle in the Tucquan Glen a handful of miles from the family farm.
When a housing development
threatened the township in the 1980s, he and his neighbors organized. My
Reaganite father found himself shaking his fist at township meetings and
selling sandwiches to raise money, all to save the hollow he loved. Today, 336
acres of the glen are in preservation. Dad’s legacy is a hiking trail that
bears his name, watched over by a flock of wild turkeys, and a hollow free from
the subdivisions and big-box stores that now characterize much of the
northeastern United States.
Preservation, however, can’t stop companies like Williams, with the
complicity of federal agencies, from seizing public and private land. The
natural gas industry is creating a vast infrastructure for processing and
transport, with 89,000 miles of pipelines currently proposed or in the approval
process.
In Pennsylvania alone, where 2012 gas production rates increased by 69
percent over the previous year, thousands of miles of new pipelines will have
to be built to support gas production. After the pipelines have bolstered
corporate profit margins — many experts predict that gas reserves will last
only another 35 years; the United States Energy Information Administration says
90 years — they will be left to molder below family fields, forests and
streams.
Many banks, afraid of liabilities,
are reluctant to refinance mortgages or provide loans for properties with
pipelines. My sister asked USAA, the financial-services company that insures
her home, about her policy and was told that the pipeline would change her
insurance category from residential to commercial, with a higher premium.
The pipeline approval process is
neither democratic nor transparent. The Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission works with local, state and federal agencies to
produce an environmental impact statement, which determines project approval.
But the statement doesn’t guarantee safety; many interstate pipelines that have
leaked or exploded received an environmental impact statement beforehand. The
Atlantic Sunrise Project’s impact statement has not yet been published.
Williams is required to host
public meetings, but these are not exactly town halls; residents at a meeting
in Lancaster last month were left to wander among information tables. Detailed
maps of the route are available for inspection there, but the maps available
online don’t contain property lines or owners’ names, so communities find it
hard to organize. There’s a financial
incentive to work with the company. A Williams’s representative told me that if
a landowner negotiates, she is likely to be paid two to three times the
assessed value of her property. If she fights, judges typically award eminent
domain at only the assessed value.
I heard deep resignation in Steve
Groff’s voice when he told me he had allowed Williams to survey his land. Steve
and I grew up together. He now farms the rich corn and produce fields his
father once did. As kids, Steve, Malinda and I picked baskets of tomatoes from
sun-baked fields. Steve knows farmers in other parts of the country who have
spent their entire savings in an unsuccessful attempt to stop pipelines. “You
know how much this farm means to me,” he said. “They have all the power, and I essentially have nothing.”
On June 10, Williams proposed two
alternative routes that the pipeline could take through the township. Both
would bypass the lower end of the glen (and take a bigger bite of Steve’s
farm). But the next day, Williams submitted its pre-filing report — essentially
a formal proposal that gets a project onto the schedule — to the regulatory
commission with the glen route listed as the primary one.
A project like this will always
harm someone, and it’s easy for the protestations of those in the path of the
pipeline to be dismissed as a Nimby — not in my backyard — lament. Residents
could indeed have squabbled over whose property the pipeline should run
through, but instead have banded together: The industry’s short-term economic
benefit is not more important than the Tucquan watershed. The question, they
say, is not where the pipeline should run, but whether the pipeline should run
at all.
As Malinda, my two nieces and I
walked through the Tucquan Glen last weekend, broad white rhododendron blooms
with pink stamens brushed our shoulders. Why do thousands of hikers visit the
glen each year? Why do we sisters, who know it so well, spend our time together
there? It’s our home, yes, as much as the farm is Steve’s home, as much as this
kind of preserved land belongs to all of us — until it doesn’t. “I love this
place more than anywhere else,” Malinda said. “It doesn’t have a price.”
Ann
Neumann is a visiting scholar at the Center for Religion and Media at New York
University and the author of a forthcoming book about how Americans die.
A
version of this op-ed appears in print on July 13, 2014, on page SR9 of the National
edition with the headline: A Pipeline Threatens Our Family Land. Order
Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/opinion/sunday/a-pipeline-threatens-our-family-land.html?_r=0
14. Ohio and PA
Lead in Hazmat Spills
Ohio leads the country in
hazardous material transportation accidents, according to a four-month Enquirer
investigation. PA is second according to the chart. (Please see article for
charts and graphs.) More than a
quarter of Ohio's overall incidents occurred in Greater Cincinnati which experienced
a hazmat spill every day on average in 2013.
The Enquirer analysis shows there
have been about 5,550 hazardous waste incidents in Southwest Ohio and Northern
Kentucky over the last 10 years. After a significant dropoff caused by the
shutdown of DHL's hub in Wilmington and the recession, incidents have risen
over the last three years, the data shows.
In the last decade, the local
incidents include 169 major spills, 94 evacuations, 16 injuries and two
fatalities.
Truckers and railways aren't even required
to notify communities when dangerous materials are about to ship through a
town. "People really don't realize how much of this stuff actually is on
our roads, and how dangerous it can be," said University of Cincinnati
environmental health professor Andrew Maier.
Keep
in mind, nearly one in seven Americans, or more than 48 million people, live
within 300 feet of a major highway, railroad or airport, so transport of
hazardous materials potentially affects people not just where they travel but
where they live.
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/your-watchdog/2014/07/02/hauling-danger-hazmat-spills-rise-ohio/12072309/
15. New
York Report By Concerned Health Professionals
of New York-Excerpt
This is an excellent resource. All
studies are referenced. Please see the report at the link provided.
(This week I will reprint 2 sections of the report. Next week I will
include water references.jan)
Threats to agriculture and soil quality
Drilling and fracking pose risks to the
agricultural industry. Studies and case
reports from across the country have highlighted instances of deaths,
neurological disorders, aborted pregnancies, and stillbirths in cattle and
goats associated with livestock coming into contact with wastewater. Potential
water and air contamination puts soil quality as well as livestock health at
risk. Additionally, farmers have expressed concern that nearby fracking
operations can hurt the perception of agricultural quality and nullify
value-added organic certification.
Air
pollution
June 26, 2014 – Public health professionals at the Southwest
Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project reported significant recurrent spikes in the amount of particulate matter in the
air inside of residential homes located near drilling and fracking operations.
Captured by indoor air monitors, the spikes tend to occur at night when
stable atmospheric conditions hold particulate matter low to the ground.
Director Raina Ripple emphasized that spikes in airborne particulate matter are
likely to cause acute health impacts in community members. She added, “What the
long term effects are going to be, we’re not certain.” At this writing,
researchers from Yale University and the University of Washington are working
to collect and analyze more samples.
May 21, 2014 – Raising questions about possible links to worsening
air pollution from the Uintah Basin’s 11,200 oil and gas wells, health professionals reported that infant
deaths in Vernal, Utah, rose to six times the normal rate over the past three
years. Physician Brian Moench said, “We know that pregnant women who breathe
more air pollution have much higher rates of virtually every adverse pregnancy
outcome that exists....And we know that this particular town is the center
of an oil and gas boom that’s been going on for the past five or six years and
has uniquely high particulate matter and high ozone.
With air quality that was formerly
pristine, Uintah County, Utah received a grade “F” for ozone in the American
Lung Association’s 2013 State of the Air Report, with 27.3 more high ozone days than 2007.5
May 8, 2014 – Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found high
levels of methane leaks as well as benzene and smog-forming volatile organic
compounds in the air over oil and gas drilling areas in Colorado. Researchers
found methane emissions three times higher than previously estimated and
benzene and volatile organic compound levels seven times higher than estimated
by government agencies. The Denver
Post noted that Colorado’s Front Range has
failed to meet federal ozone air quality standards for years.
April 26, 2014 – A Texas jury awarded a family $2.8 million
because, according to the lawsuit, a fracking company operating on property
nearby had “created a ‘private nuisance’
by producing harmful air pollution and exposing [members of the affected
family] to harmful emissions of volatile organic compounds, toxic air
pollutants and diesel exhaust.” The family’s 11-year-old daughter became
ill, and family members suffered a range of symptoms, including “nosebleeds,
vision problems, nausea, rashes, blood pressure issues.” Because drilling did not
occur on their property, the family had initially been unaware that their
symptoms were caused by activities around them.
April 16, 2014 – Reviewing the peer-review literature to date of
“direct pertinence to the environmental public health and environmental
exposure pathways,” a U.S. team of
researchers concluded: “[a] number of studies suggest that shale gas
development contributes to levels of ambient air concentrations known to be
associated with increased risk of morbidity and mortality.”8
April
11, 2014 – A modeling study commissioned by the state of Texas made striking
projections about worsening air quality
in the Eagle Ford Shale. Findings included the possibility of a 281 percent
increase in emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Some VOCs cause
respiratory and neurological problems; others, like benzene, are also
carcinogens. Another finding was that nitrogen oxides—which react with VOCs in
sunlight to create ground-level ozone,
the main component of smog—increased 69 percent during the peak ozone season.”
March 29, 2014 – Scientists warn that current methods of
collecting and analyzing emissions data do not accurately assess health risks.
Researchers with the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project showed
that methods do not adequately measure
the intensity, frequency or durations of community exposure to the toxic
chemicals routinely released from drilling and fracking activities. They found
that exposures may be underestimated by an order of magnitude, mixtures of
chemicals are not taken into account, and local weather conditions and
vulnerable populations are ignored.
March 27, 2014 – University of Texas research pointed to
“potentially false assurances” in response to community health concerns in
shale gas development areas. Dramatic
shortcomings in air pollution monitoring to date include no accounting for
cumulative toxic emissions or children’s exposures during critical
developmental stages, and the potential interactive effects of mixtures of
chemicals. Chemical mixtures of concern include benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene,
and xylenes.
March 13, 2014 – Volatile
organic compounds (VOCs) emitted in Utah’s heavily drilled Uintah Basin led
to 39 winter days exceeding the EPA’s eight-hour National Ambient Air Quality
Standards level for ozone pollutants the previous winter. “Levels above this
threshold are considered to be harmful to human health, and high levels of
ozone are known to cause respiratory distress and be responsible for an
estimated 5,000 premature deaths in the U.S. per year,” according to
researchers at the University of Colorado. Their
observations “reveal a strong causal link between oil and gas emissions,
accumulation of air toxics, and significant production of ozone in the
atmospheric surface layer.”13 Researchers estimated that
total annual VOC emissions at the fracking sites are equivalent to those of
about 100 million cars.
March 3, 2014 – In a report summarizing “the current understanding
of local and regional air quality impacts of natural gas extraction,
production, and use,” a group of researchers from the NOAA, Stanford, Duke, and
other institutions described what is known and unknown with regard to air
emissions including greenhouse gases, ozone precursors (volatile organic
compounds and nitrogen oxides), air toxics, and particulates. Crystalline
silica was also discussed, including as a concern for people living near well
pads and production staging areas.15
February 18, 2014 – An eight-month investigation by the Weather Channel, Center for Public Integrity and InsideClimate News into fracking in the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas revealed that fracking is “releasing a toxic soup of
chemicals into the air.” They noted very poor monitoring by the state of Texas
and reported on hundreds of air complaints filed relating to air pollution
associated with fracking.16
January 28, 2014 – Congenital
heart defects and possibly neural tube defects in babies were associated with
the density and proximity of natural gas wells within a 10-mile radius of
mothers’ residences in a study of almost 25,000 births from 1996-2009 in
rural Colorado. The researchers note that natural gas development emits several
chemicals known to increase risk of birth defects (teratogens).
January 4, 2014 – As summarized by Bloomberg View Editorial Board’s
Mark Whitehouse, preliminary data from researchers at Princeton University,
Columbia University and MIT showed elevated
rates of low birthweight among infants born to mothers living near drilling and
fracking operations during their pregnancies.18
December 18, 2013 – An interdisciplinary group of researchers in
Texas collected air samples in residential areas near shale gas extraction and
production, going beyond previous Barnett Shale studies by including emissions
from the whole range of production equipment. They found that most areas had “atmospheric methane concentrations
considerably higher than reported urban background concentrations,” and many
toxic chemicals were “strongly associated” with compressor stations.
December 10, 2013 – Health department testing at fracking sites in West Virginia revealed
dangerous levels of benzene in the air. Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department
Administrator Howard Gamble stated, “The levels of benzene really pop out. The
amounts they were seeing were at levels of concern. The concerns of the public
are validated.”
October, 2013 – A preliminary 2013 Cornell University study of the
health impacts of oil and gas extraction on infant health in Colorado found that proximity to wells—linked with air pollutants
from fracking operations—was associated with reductions in average birthweight
and length of pregnancy as well as increased risk for low birthweight and
premature birth.21 A study by the same
author, currently under review, analyzed births to Pennsylvania mothers
residing close to a shale gas well in Pennsylvania from 2003-2010 also
identified increased risk of adverse effects. This includes low birth weight, as well as a 26% increase in APGAR scores
under 8 (APGAR—or American Pediatric Gross Assessment Record—is a measure
of newborn responsiveness. Scores of less than 8 predict an increase in the
need for respiratory support).22
October 11, 2013 – Air sampling before, during, and after drilling
and fracking of a new natural gas well pad in rural western Colorado documented
the presence of the toxic solvent
methylene chloride, along with several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)
at “concentrations greater than those at which prenatally exposed children in
urban studies had lower developmental and IQ scores.”23
September 19, 2013 – In Texas, air monitoring data in the Eagle
Ford Shale area revealed potentially dangerous exposures of nearby residents to
hazardous air pollutants, including cancer-causing
benzene and the neurological toxicant, hydrogen sulfide.24
September 13, 2013 – A study by researchers at the University of
California at Irvine found dangerous
levels of volatile organic compounds in Canada's “Industrial Heartland” where
there are more than 40 oil, gas and chemical facilities. The researchers noted
high levels of hematopoietic cancers (leukemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma) in
men who live closer to the facilities.25
August 26, 2013 – Medical experts at a rural clinic in heavily
drilled Washington County, PA reported
case studies of 20 individuals with acute symptoms consistent with exposure to
air contaminants known to be emitted from local fracking operations.
May 2, 2013 – Reports of symptoms commonly linked to exposure to
elevated levels of ground-level ozone associated with gas drilling have been
documented in shale-heavy states. In Pennsylvania in 2012, a study of more than
100 state residents living near gas
facilities found that reported health symptoms closely matched the
scientifically established effects of chemicals detected through air and water
testing at those nearby sites, and that those negative health effects occurred
at significantly higher rates in households closer to the gas facilities than
those further away.28 Indicative of the growing prevalence of such health impacts
in the state, a poll showed that two-thirds of Pennsylvanians support a
moratorium on fracking because of concern about negative health impacts.
April 29, 2013 – Using American Lung Association data, researchers
with the Environmental Defense Fund determined that air quality in rural areas with fracking was worse than air
quality in urban areas.30
March, 2013 – A review of regional air quality damages in parts of
Pennsylvania in 2012 from Marcellus Shale development found that air pollution was a significant concern,
with regional damages ranging from $7.2 to $32 million dollars in 2011.
February 27, 2013 – In a letter from Concerned Health
Professionals of New York to Governor Andrew Cuomo, a coalition of hundreds of
health organizations, scientists, medical experts, elected officials and
environmental organizations noted serious health concerns about the prospects
of fracking in New York State, making specific note of air pollution. Signatory organizations included the American Academy of
Pediatrics of New York, the American Lung Association of New York and
Physicians for Social
Responsibility. The New York State
Medical Society, representing 30,000 medical professionals, has issued similar
statements.
January 2, 2013 – A NOAA
study identified emissions from oil and gas fields in Utah as a significant
source of pollutants that contribute to ozone problems. Exposure to elevated levels of ground-level ozone is known to
worsen asthma and has been linked to respiratory illnesses and increased risk
of stroke and heart attack.35
December 3, 2012 – A study linked
a single well pad in Colorado to more than 50 airborne chemicals, 44 of which
have known health effects.
July 18, 2012 – A study by the Houston Advanced Research Center
modeled ozone formation from a natural gas processing facility using accepted
emissions estimates and showed that regular operations could significantly
raise levels of ground-level ozone (smog) in the Barnett Shale in Texas and
that gas flaring further contributed to ozone levels.37
March 19, 2012 – A Colorado
School of Public Health study found air pollutants near fracking sites linked
to neurological and respiratory problems and cancer. The study, based on three years of monitoring at Colorado sites,
found a number of “potentially toxic
petroleum hydrocarbons in the air near gas wells including benzene,
ethylbenzene, toluene and xylene.” Lisa McKenzie, PhD, MPH, lead author of
the study and research associate at the Colorado School of Public Health, said,
“Our data show that it is important to include air pollution in the national
dialogue on natural gas development that has focused largely on water exposures
to hydraulic fracturing.”
December 12, 2011 – Cancer
specialists, cancer advocacy organizations, and health organizations summarized
the cancer risks posed by all stages of the shale gas extraction process in a
letter to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.41
October 5, 2011 – More than 250 medical experts and health organizations
reviewed the multiple health risks from fracking in a letter sent to New York
Governor Andrew Cuomo.42
April 21, 2011 – Environment
& Energy (E&E) reported that ozone levels exceeding federal health
standards in Utah’s Uintah Basin, as well as wintertime ozone problems in other
parts of the Intermountain West, stem from oil and gas extraction. Levels
reached nearly twice the federal standard, potentially dangerous even for
healthy adults to breathe. Keith Guille, spokesman for the Wyoming Department
of Environmental Quality, said, “We recognize that definitely the main
contributor to the emissions that are out there is the oil and gas
industry....”43
March 8, 2011 – The Associated Press reported that gas drilling in some remote areas of Wyoming caused a decline of
air quality from pristine mountain air to levels of smog and pollution worse
than Los Angeles on its worst days, resulting in residents complaining of
watery eyes, shortness of breath and bloody noses.44
November 18, 2010 – A study of air quality in the Haynesville
Shale region of east Texas, northern Louisiana, and southwestern Arkansas found
that shale oil and gas extraction
activities contributed significantly to ground-level ozone (smog) via high
emissions of ozone precursors, including volatile organic compounds and
nitrogen
oxides.45 Ozone is a key risk factor for asthma and other respiratory and
cardiovascular illnesses.46 47 48 49
September, 2010 – A health
assessment by the Colorado School of Public Health for gas development in
Garfield County, Colorado determined that air pollution will likely “be high
enough to cause short-term and long-term disease, especially for residents
living near gas wells. Health effects may include respiratory disease,
neurological problems, birth defects and cancer.”
January
27, 2010 – Of 94 drilling sites tested for benzene in air over the Barnett
Shale, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TECQ) discovered two well
sites emitting what they determined to be “extremely high levels” and another
19 emitting elevated levels.
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
To receive our
news updates, please email jan at westmcg@gmail.com
To remove your
name from our list please put “remove name from list’ in the subject line
