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-
To
read former Updates please visit our blogspot listed above.
WMCG Thank You
Contributors To Our Updates
Thank you to contributors to our Updates:
Debbie Borowiec, Lou Pochet, Ron Gulla, the Pollocks, Marian Szmyd, Bob Donnan,
Elizabeth Donahue, and Bob Schmetzer.
A
little Help Please --Take Action!!
Tenaska Air Petitions—Please sign if you have not done so:
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.
*********************************************************************************
Calendar
*** WMCG Group
Meeting We meet
the second Tuesday of every month at 7:30 PM in Greensburg. This
month we are meeting the third
Tuesday, Sept 16. Email Jan for
directions. All are very welcome to
attend.
***Free TDS Water
Screening Legion Keener Park, Farm Market Sept 9, 12:00-3:30 WMCG will be handing out
information on fracking and screening for TDS with our new TDS meter thanks to
Marc Levine. If you can give an hour or two to work the booth please let Jan
know. It would relieve others. Bring water sample in clean plastic baggie.
***Conference-Shale
and Public Health Features Dr Paulson, Dr McKenzie, Dr Panettieri- Oct. 26/27
The League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania's
Straight Scoop on Shale initiative will hold a conference "Shale and Public Health: Days of Discovery" on Sunday
afternoon October 26 and Monday October 27 at the Pitt University Club.
Featured speakers on Monday
October 27 include Dr. Jerome Paulson, Director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for
Children's Health and the Environment (MACCHE), and Dr. Lisa McKenzie of the
Colorado School of Public Health.
On Sunday afternoon October 26,
Dr. Reynold Panettieri of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of
Medicine will present new research on the health impacts of shale gas
development.
The
conference is open to the public and free (with a small charge for lunch on
October 27), but pre-registration is required.
***Boston Art Show Utilizes Local Voices--
July 11, 2014 through January 5, 2015
Open to the public, Boston Museum
of Science
Several of us spoke to artist Anne Neeley about water
contamination from fracking. Excerpts of what we said about our concerns
regarding fracking will play in a loop along with music in the background as
people view Anne’s murals of water. The show is not exclusively about the
effect of fracking on water and includes other sources of pollution. (see sites
below).
Some of us were fortunate to see photos of Anne’s
murals. They are beautiful and very thought provoking. Jan
ANNE NEELY WATER STORIES
PROJECT: A CONVERSATION IN PAINT AND SOUND
July
2014 – January 2015, Museum of Science, Boston
“Water Stories: A Conversation in Painting and
Sound” is at the Museum of Science, Boston through January 2015. In recent
years I have conveyed ideas about water and the phenomena of water through
nature, the news, memory and imagination. These paintings explore the beauty
and foreboding of water, related to central themes, mostly manmade and thru
climate change affecting this country. Sound artist Halsey Burgund has created
a 35 minute audio composition that accompanies the paintings, comprised of five
sections grouped by thematic content: The Future, Stories, Bad Things, Science
and Cherish. The voices are edited and combined with water sounds and musical
elements and play in a continuous loop throughout the gallery. By placing this
work in this Museum of Science there is an extraordinary opportunity to clarify
and illuminate issues around water through visceral connections that paintings
often elicit from viewers while raising public awareness. My hope is that this exhibition will spawn a
new sense of ownership about not only the issues facing us about water but how
we use water on a daily basis.”
"Together, Anne and I
plan to explore big ideas about what’s happening with water in this country. In
the 2014, the Museum will exhibit Anne’s work and host a series of related
programs. At the Museum, we find that mixing art with our more typical
educational approaches works well. The art opens people to ideas, emotion,
scale, and import, in ways that more explicit techniques may not. It broadens
the audience, welcomes people who learn differently, and adds dimensions of
experience that are otherwise unavailable."
—
David G. Rabkin, PhD, Director for Current Science and Technology, Museum of Science,
Boston, MA
Visit these sites for images
and more information:
http://www.anneneely.com/pages/mos.html
*Join the People’s Climate March in New York
City, Sept. 21. ACTION:
Register now for a seat on one of the Pittsburgh buses. http://alleghenysc.org/?p=19091
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
***-
Pittsburgh’s Air At Stake- Please Comment
Send Statement/Comment To
Restrict Carbon From Existing Power plants
Everyone Should Submit a Written Statement
We need to send a strong
message to the EPA and Big Coal that there’s overwhelming public support for
national climate action –NOW! Big Coal and their climate-denying allies are
already trying to weaken the EPA’s historic climate protection efforts.
Comments on the
Clean Power Plan Proposed Rule must be received by October 16, 2014. You do not
have to write a long statement. Any statement of support for Carbon reduction
is helpful and there’s lots of data,
just google climate change—flooding, storms, effects on health, plant and
animal adaptation, etc.
Send Your Comments To:
A: 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.
Be sure to
reference Docket ID:
EPA-HQ-OAR-2013-0602
For
information about the carbon reduction plan:
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.
.And From
Public Citizen
See the top 10 FAQs on the
carbon pollution reduction plan.
***For Health Care
Professionals—Tell PA Dept of Health to Stop Ignoring Fracking Health Complaints
***Toxic Tuesdays
–Tell DEP’s Abruzzo--Do not approve paving with radioactive drill cuttings
“The next 4 Tuesdays, starting
8/26, are Toxic Tuesdays. They're the days we're going to call PA DEP Secretary
Abruzzo to tell him that his agency should NEVER have approved Range Resources'
permit to experiment with using drill cuttings as a paving material for well pads
and access roads! We're going to tell him to reverse their decision.
The DEP gave Range Resources
permission to experiment with using radioactive drill cutting to pave well pads
and access roads. We have 30 days to appeal.
Call
Sec Abruzzo to reverse the decision 717- 787- 2814”
From:
Karen Feridan
***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
***Food and Water Watch Asks For Your Story About Fracking Health
Complaints Earlier this summer,
StateImpact Pennsylvania reported that the Pennsylvania Department of Health
(DOH) has been willfully ignoring the health concerns and complaints connected
to drilling and hydraulic fracturing operations.
In
response, Food & Water Watch and our coalition partners, including Berks
Gas Truth, initiated a statewide listening project to collect the stories of
impacted Pennsylvanians who have personally contacted DOH to report their
families' health concerns. We have collected nearly a dozen stories from around
Pennsylvania thus far, but we know we are just scratching the surface.
Have you been directly
impacted by hydraulic fracturing? Did you reach out to DOH? Please let us know
by filling out the survey
Tell
us about your experience contacting Department of Health with a
fracking-related health complaint. Please share as many details about your
story as possible: When did you contact Dept. of Health? Why did you contact
Dept. of Health? How did you contact Dept. of Health? Did you contact them
once, or multiple times? Do you have any documentation of your attempts to
contact?
***Clean Air
Council--- Take the survey about the proposed Shell ethane cracker plant.
Health
Impact Assessment: Ethane Cracker
Royal Dutch Shell has proposed a
new natural gas and chemical processing station in Monaca, PA, outside
Pittsburgh. The proposed site is currently held by Horsehead Corporation which
owns the inactive zinc smelting facility. The proposed facility, known as a “cracker”,
will separate natural gas and chemical feedstocks into different compounds used
primarily in the manufacturing of plastics.
Increased hydraulic fracturing and natural gas collection has led to
increased ethane available for “cracking”.
The
ethane cracker is one of a number of large projects that Shell is considering.
Although, Shell has already secured feedstock agreements with multiple
companies, and has bought other land near the site of the proposed “cracker”.
Shell signed an additional option agreement with Horsehead, will pay for the
demolition of the existing buildings, and be allowed to take more time before
making a final decision. Considering these factors, and the fact that Shell
recently scrapped plans for a similar cracker in the Gulf Coast that was competing
for Shell’s capital resources, the likelihood of this project coming to
fruition appears relatively high. Even if this particular project does not come
to fruition, most industry experts agree that a cracker will be built in the
region eventually.
In partnership with community residents,
industry professionals, and academics, Clean Air Council is conducting a Health
Impact Assessment of the environmental, social, public health, and economic
impacts of such a facility.
Please
take our anonymous public survey about the proposed cracker: www.surveymonkey.com/s/WZC3WX5
***Sign On To Letter To Gov. Corbett-- Urge Him to Implement
De Pasquale’s Recommendations
For DEP
“I know you are as concerned as I am about
the recent news out of Harrisburg regarding the protection of our drinking
water from the dangers of natural gas drilling. Then join me to take action
now.
It started with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental
Protection’s (DEP) acknowledgment that there have been 209 known cases of water
contamination from oil and gas operations since 2007.
http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/policy-powersource/2014/07/22/DEP-Oil-and-gas-endeavors-have-damaged-water-supply-209-times-since-07/stories/201407220069
If that wasn’t enough, Auditor
General Eugene DePasquale also released his much anticipated audit http://www.auditorgen.state.pa.us/reports/performance/special/speDEP072114.pdf
of DEP’s ability to protect water quality in the
wake of escalated Marcellus Shale drilling. The report shows how the explosive
growth of shale development caught the DEP flat footed, how the agency is
underfunded, and slow to respond to monitoring and accountability activities.
Some of the more alarming findings where:
DEP would rather seek voluntary compliance and encouraging industry to
work out a solution with impacted homeowners instead of issuing violations for
cases where industry impacted a water supply.
There is no system in place for frequent inspections of drilling pads,
especially during critical drilling operations much less during the lifetime of
the well.
DEP relies on a voluntary
system of reporting where and how fracking waste is disposed, instead of using a system,
where regulators can see how waste is handled from well site to disposal.
DEP’s system to track complaints
related to oil and gas development is “woefully inadequate.”
In addition to his findings,
Auditor General DePasquale made 29 recommendations, 18 of which require no
additional funding, for how DEP can address these issues and improve
operations. Email Governor Corbett today and urge him to have DEP implement all 29 of
the Auditor General’s recommendations.
These types of events shake the
confidence Pennsylvanians like you have in our government’s ability to protect
our drinking water. However, they also serve as a call to action. DEP owes it
to you to do everything it can to protect water supplies and public
health, Contact Governor Corbett TODAY
and tell him to have DEP take steps to improve the protection of our drinking
water from natural gas drilling.
Best,
Steve
Hvozdovich - Campaign Coordinator
Pennsylvania
Office, Clean Water Action http://org.salsalabs.com/o/2155/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=16207
***TRI (Toxic Release Inventory)
Action Alert-Close the Loophole:
“We need your help!! Please send an email to the US EPA urging
them to "Close the TRI Loophole that the oil and gas industry currently
enjoys".
We all deserve to know
exactly what these operations are releasing into our air, water and onto our
land. Our goal is to guarantee the
public’s right to know.
Please
let the US EPA know how important TRI reporting will be to you and your
community:
Mr.
Gilbert Mears
Docket #: EPA-HQ-TRI-2013-0281 (must be included on all
correspondence)
Mears.gilbert@epa.gov
Some facts on Toxics Release
Inventory (TRI) – what it is and why it’s important:
What
is the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)?
Industrial
facilities report annually the amount and method (land, air, water, landfills)
of each toxic
chemical
they release or dispose of to the national Toxics Release Inventory.
Where
can I find the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)?
Once
the industrial facilities submit their annual release data, the Environmental
Protection Agency
makes
it available to the public through the TRI’s free, searchable online database.
Why
is this important?
The
TRI provides communities and the public information needed to challenge permits
or siting
decisions,
provides regulators with necessary data to set proper controls, and encourages
industrial
facilities
to reduce their toxic releases.
Why
does it matter for oil and natural gas?
The
oil and gas extraction industry is one of the largest sources of toxic releases
in the United
States.
Yet, because of loopholes created by historical regulation and successful
lobbying efforts,
this
industry remains exempt from reporting to the TRI—even though they are second
in toxic air
emissions
behind power plants.
What
is being done?
In
2012, the Environmental Integrity Project filed a petition on behalf of sixteen
local, regional, and
national
environmental groups, asking EPA to close this loophole and require the oil and
gas
industries
to report to the TRI. Although EPA has been carefully considering whether to
act on the
petition,
significant political and industrial pressure opposing such action exists.
What
is the end goal?
Our
goal is to guarantee the public’s right to know. TRI data will arm citizens
with powerful data,
provide
incentives for oil and gas operators to reduce toxic releases, and will provide
a data-driven
foundation
for responsible regulation.
What
can you do?
You
can help by immediately letting EPA know how important TRI reporting will be to
you and your
community.
Send written or email comments to:
Gilbert Mears
Toxics Release Inventory
Program Division, Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW,
Washington, DC 20460
mears.gilbert@epa.gov
Docket #: EPA-HQ-TRI-2013-0281 (please be sure to
include in all your correspondence)
From: Lisa Graves Marcucci
Environmental Integrity
Project
PA Coordinator, Community
Outreach
lgmarcucci@environmentalintegrity.org
412-653-4328 (Direct)
412-897-0569 (Cell)
Frack Links
***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/
*** To See Water Test Results of the Beaver
Run Reservoir
IUP students test for TDS, pH, metals- arsenic, chromium, and strontium.
A group member who checks the
site still does not see testing for other frack chemicals including the BTEX
group or cesium for example. Here is a link to the IUP site:
***Video of a
Flare at a Pumping Station
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWKye3OA90k Sunoco Pipeline/Sunoco Logistics flare at a high pressure pumping
facility along the 3500 block of Watkins Road in Medina, Ohio. This video was
from an approximate distance of 900 feet. The gas was being flared from ground
level without a tower of any kind. They have since moved the flare to between
the buildings. This video link below will show you just how loud and powerful
the flaring of this product can be.
Local residents say, “It sounds like a jet engine running.”
***Video of
Pipeline Incidents since 1986
Frack News
All articles are excerpted
and condensed. Please use links for the full article. Special Thanks to Bob Donnan for many of
the photos.
***Letter To the Editor
By Michael Bagdes-Canning
“It
can what only be described as a mighty blow against industry hubris and
governmental malfeasance, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental
Protection (DEP) has rescinded a permit
it had previously issued to XTO for a proposed well site in Franklin
Township. It would be wonderful if this act of sanity could be attributed
to corporate conscience or governmental due diligence, but that is not the
case. This amazing turn of events
came about because a mighty band of residents pooled their pluckiness, their
resources and their expertise and felled Goliath - XTO is a subsidiary of the
richest company on the planet - ExxonMobil.
Time and again, XTO assured the residents
that they knew Franklin Township better than the folks that live there.
Time and again, XTO, its apologists and sock puppets crowed about meeting or
exceeding DEP's "stringent" regulations. Time and again,
governmental bodies soothed the concerned residents, "DEP will take care
of you."
XTO's permit application failed to address,
didn't even fill out, important parts of the application. Other parts
were merely boilerplate, failing to address facts on the ground. This put the Lake Arthur
watershed in harm's way, it endangered the drinking water supply of Harmony
Borough and the private wells of nearby residents. And how did DEP
respond? It approved this woefully inadequate and dangerously deficient
plan - living up to a moniker many of us now use to describe the agency, Don't
Expect Protection.
Using thousands of dollars of their own money, Save Lake
Arthur Watershed (SLAW), the aforementioned mighty band, mobilized.
These, mostly retired, residents did what XTO and DEP should have done.
They poured over maps, studied run-off patterns, read regulations, examined
documents, read research, and implored company and government officials to pay
attention. All to no avail. Finally, they filed suit - at great
cost. And then, XTO and DEP took notice.
The
system is broken. We, the residents of the Commonwealth, pay taxes to
fund an agency that doesn't do its job. Worse, that agency is held up as
an impediment to business and, contradictorily, a protector of the
Commonwealth. It's neither. DEP is a sham. Residents of the
Commonwealth shouldn't have to pay more money just so DEP will pay attention to
us.
If
XTO can't fill out paperwork properly, even when it knows that people are
watching, how can we trust them to do infinitely more complex things when no
one is watching? And how do we know that no one is watching?
Because DEP rubber stamps documents that leave entire critical sections blank.
A
while ago, a Butler County resident found that a driller located a well too
close to his house (the driller was XTO). He told me that he notified DEP
and was told, "XTO would never make a mistake like that." The
homeowner insisted that DEP measure and, sure enough, the well was too
close.
If XTO and
DEP can't take care of the little things, they have no business conducting or
regulating big and complex things.
What would we do without plucky residents?
Michael Bagdes-Canning
Cherry Valley
724-791-2754”
*** 3 Articles
On The Zoning Win
Lycoming County
Judge Lovecchio Rejects Approval For Frack
Well Pad In R/A Zone
“Last December, the supervisors of Fairfield Township, a mostly rural and residential
area in eastern Lycoming County, approved a zoning application from Inflection
Energy to put in a fracking well pad. On Friday, county Judge Marc Lovecchio handed down a decision that rejected that
approval - no drilling will happen there, for now.
The
supervisors of Fairfield Township decided last December that putting a fracking
well in their township within a quarter-mile of some 125 homes was acceptable.
In a decision handed down Friday, Lycoming County
Judge Marc Lovecchio told the supervisors they were wrong.
The
Fairfield supervisors had ruled that
an application submitted by Inflection Energy to put in a fracking well pad
near the Pines Development, on land owned by Donald and Eleanor Shaheen, was consistent with the
“residential-agricultural” zoning of the area. “
PennFuture:
Court ruling: Local government has a
constitutional charge to protect the environment
and quality of life for its citizens
Gorsline case rejects
gas operations in residential neighborhood
“On Friday, August 29, Judge Marc
F. Lovecchio of the Court of Common Pleas of Lycoming County decided in favor
of local residents in vacating and setting aside a conditional use permit that
would have allowed Inflection Energy, LLC to build and operate a natural gas
pad in the middle of a residential neighborhood in Fairfield Township. The case was an early test of the
Robinson Township decision, where the Supreme Court used Pennsylvania's
Environmental Rights Amendment to strike down parts of Act 13 that sought to
compel local government to allow gas operations across all zoned districts,
including residential districts.
Dawn Gorsline, one of the local
residents represented by PennFuture, expressed her joy at hearing of the
decision. Said Mrs. Gorsline, "We prayed so hard and long. Like many persons, we purchased our home in
a residential neighborhood with the expectation that we would raise our
children in a healthy environment. We are so grateful to PennFuture for their
efforts to protect my family, home and neighborhood. The residents of
Fairfield Township would, without a doubt, be in a 'much darker' place without
them."
"We are pleased that the court supported the rights of citizens to
rely on local zoning to protect their property values and way of life,"
said George Jugovic, Jr., chief counsel for PennFuture. "Robinson
Township recognized that local governments have a constitutional obligation to
protect the environment and quality of life of their citizens and this decision
affirms that principle."
Mark Szybist, staff attorney and
co-counsel for PennFuture, praised the work of the Court. "It is plain
from the decision that Judge Lovecchio took extraordinary care to meticulously
review the record. His decision is a
wake-up call to all municipalities that after Robinson Township, local
government cannot ignore their Article I, Section 27 responsibilities.
Pennsylvania courts get it."
Judge Lovecchio ruled that Fairfield Township's zoning
ordinance only permitted gas drilling as a conditional use in its
Residential-Agriculture district if the proposed land use was "similar to
and compatible with" the residential and other low-impact uses authorized
as a right in the district. In holding that the Township's findings were not supported by
substantial evidence, the Court stated that the constitutional right of
citizens to a healthy environment "cannot be ignored and must be
protected." The Court found that the company had failed to provide the
township with any evidence to support the conclusion that the proposed use was
similar and compatible, while the citizens had "presented substantial
evidence that there is a high degree of probability that the use will adversely
affect the health, welfare and safety of the neighborhood."
“There is a long-held tradition
in Pennsylvania that citizens can, through their local governments, endeavor to
maintain the character of their communities," said Cindy Dunn, president
and CEO of PennFuture. "With this decision, the court affirmed citizen
rights with respect to land use."
The
full decision is here: http://www.lycolaw.org/Cases/opinions/2014/Gorsline082914L.pdf
PennFuture is a statewide public
interest membership organization founded in 1998 with offices in Harrisburg,
Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barre. The organization's activities
include litigating cases before regulatory bodies and in local, state, and
federal courts; advocating and advancing legislative action on a state and
federal level; public education; and assisting citizens in public advocacy.
Contact:
Elaine Labalme, labalme@pennfuture.org, 412.996.4112
SOURCE
PennFuture
Residents Beat
Gas Co. In Zoning Fight
Not in residential
and agricultural zone
“Lycoming County residents
prevailed in a zoning fight with a gas company, one of the first such battles
since the Supreme Court overthrew portions of the state’s oil and gas law.
After
their township zoning board granted
Inflection Energy LLC a conditional use approval to build a well pad in a district
zoned for residential and agricultural use, four Fairfield Twp. residents
appealed the decision to the Lycoming County Court.
In
his Friday opinion and order, Judge Marc Lovecchio based his decision to deny
the permit on local zoning law.
In
public hearings held in October and November, neither Inflection Energy nor the
township supervisors could convincingly explain how natural gas drilling fit
into the zoned residential district, Judge Lovecchio wrote.
George
Jugovic, one of the attorneys for environmental group PennFuture who argued the
residents’ case, put it this way: “Why is storing 5 million gallons of water
and hazardous chemicals and waste and lighting a site 24 hours a day for six
straight months the same as putting a fence up in your backyard and playing
stickball with your kids?”
Mr.
Jugovic stressed that residents must testify in a public hearing if they plan
to appeal zoning matters to county court. Those hearings will, in most
circumstances, form the evidence a judge uses to make a decision, he said.
“Whenever local
government has a hearing, it’s important to go and testify about what concerns
you,” he said.
Judge Lovecchio’s decision
included several significant references to the Supreme Court decision, Robinson
Twp. v. Commonwealth.
“Fairfield
Twp. has a substantial and immediate interest in protecting the environment and
the quality of life within its borders,” he wrote. “This quality of life is a
constitutional charge that must be respected by all levels of government.”
In the Robinson Twp. decision, the Supreme Court
found unconstitutional a portion of Act 13 that prohibited local governments
from regulating oil and gas development.
The
Supreme Court found these sections violate the state’s Environmental Rights
Amendment, which affirms the citizens’ rights to a clean environment and the
commonwealth’s duty to maintain it.
“While
the Court understands the constraints that the (zoning) board may have been
operating under as a result of Act 13 and the litigation regarding its constitutionality,
our Supreme Court has now ruled with
respect to such, the citizens’ rights cannot be ignored and must be protected,”
Judge Lovecchio wrote.
Mr.
Jugovic said it’s the first zoning battle over natural gas extraction he’s
aware of that referenced the Robinson Twp. decision.
Before
the December decision, the Environmental Rights Amendment, or Article 1,
Section 27, languished in obscurity. Two Supreme Court decisions in the early
1970s had effectively buried it, said John Dernbach, a law professor and
director of the Environmental Law Center at Widener University in Chester.
“For
many lawyers and local officials, it is as if Act 1, Section 27 appeared in the
Constitution for the first time last December,” he said.
It’s
not clear if Inflection Energy will resubmit its application or appeal the
decision. Efforts to reach its attorney and a company spokesperson were not
successful.”
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/residents-beat-gas-company-in-lycoming-county-zoning-case-1.1746707
***Butler
Township Commission Refuses To Vote On Gas Wells
Near Homes
“BUTLER TWP — Rex Energy’s proposal to build a gas well pad on the property of Krendale Golf
Course advances to the township commissioners but without a recommendation from
the township planning commission.
After
hearing the plans , the planning
commission refused to vote in favor or against the project.
Planning
commission members did not even make a motion to take a vote. Afterward, some
of the members declined to comment, while others said their actions — or lack
of actions — were intended to send a
message:
They
agree with the township engineer, solicitor and zoning officer that the plan
meets the zoning ordinance requirements. They just don’t like it.
“It’s
too close to residential houses,” said planning member Ernie Oesterling.
A
half-dozen representatives of Rex Energy described their intentions to the
planning commissioners and to about two dozen people who attended the meeting
at the township municipal building.
The
well pad, they said, would be accessed from Route 68 near its intersection with
Eberhart Road and would be capable of housing up to 9 wells. It would be on a portion of the 239-acre
lot that is zoned multifamily residential and is not used by the golf course
itself.
The
proposal calls for two storm water retention ponds, but no ponds for retention
of fracking water.
About a half-dozen people who
live nearby spoke against the well pad, citing threats to water, safety and air
quality as well as potential harm to their property values.
Calling the plan “madness” and “ridiculous,” residents noted the
proximity of stores, houses, a nursing home and more than 50 condominiums.
Resident
Rosemary Smith questioned why this is allowed in her neighborhood. She said
during her 30 years of living on Judson Avenue, she asked the township for permission to open a car painting business
and a beauty salon in her home. She said she was turned down both times because
she was told the traffic and fumes a business might create are not permitted in
a residential neighborhood.
“I
don’t want this in my neighborhood,” she said of the well pad.
No
one from the golf course attended the meeting.
The
plan will come before the township commissioners at their Sept. 15 meeting.
Commissioner Sam Zurzolo is a member of the
planning commission. Two commissioners, Charles Nedz and Joseph Hasychak,
attended the planning commission meeting and heard the proposal and residents’
objections to it.”
http://www.thecranberryeagle.com/article/20140902/CRAN05/140909987/-1/CRAN
***DEP Says Cecil
Officials Must Meet With Them In Private
“CECIL
– Groundwater test results at Cecil Township 23 impoundment will be released
soon, but Cecil officials must first meet in private with the state DEP to get
the details.
Township Manager Don Gennuso said
supervisors asked for a copy of the test results prior to a meeting with the
DEP – tentatively scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday – and requested that it be a
public meeting. Gennuso said DEP
officials would meet only in private with supervisors and would not provide
test results beforehand.
“To
me, it’s troubling,” Gennuso said. “It should be troubling to all of
Pennsylvania.”
DEP spokesman John Poister said test results are
still being analyzed, and that the DEP prefers to meet in person to explain
results related to any potential chemicals detected in groundwater at the
wastewater impoundment on Swihart Road.
“It’s
important that we be there to answer any questions and give a complete picture
of what we found,” Poister said. “I think it would be probably not in the best
interest of everybody, and particularly the community, to put (test results)
out and not have any explanation for what people are seeing.”
Cecil officials already had been
planning to meet with the DEP to ask questions about the structure of the Cecil
impoundment, formerly called Worstell, in light of recent leaks at Range
Resource’s Jon Day and Yeager impoundments in Amwell Township.
The
meeting became even more timely when the DEP started conducting tests at the
Cecil impoundment after Range reported in July that it had been seeing chloride
spikes in a groundwater monitoring well since January.
Supervisors
and the DEP faced criticism last September for holding a private meeting to
discuss the Worstell impoundment. State
Rep. Jesse White, D-Cecil, criticized the DEP’s handling of the Cecil
impoundment at Tuesday’s supervisors meeting and urged the board not to accept
a private conference.
“I
would urge the board of supervisors to refuse to accept anything less than the
complete and total truth from the DEP,” White said. “No more private meetings
behind closed doors. No more half-truths and blatant lies.”
Board Chairman Andy Schrader and
Vice Chairwoman Cindy Fisher disagreed with the nature of the private meeting
and inability to review data prior to the meeting, but ultimately agreed to
move forward.
Fisher
expressed concerns that a difference of opinion on the board would affect the
information that supervisors relay to residents. The board discussed bringing a
court reporter to Monday’s meeting, but Poister said that should not be
necessary at an informal meeting.
“We
don’t see the need for a court reporter for this meeting,” Poister said. “We
expect to have a free and open discussion and a question-and-answer session
with the supervisors.”
Gennuso
urged any residents with questions about the impoundment to submit them to the
township via phone, email or letter before Monday’s tentative meeting.
***Research Study: Fracking Workers Could Be Exposed To Dangerous Levels Of Benzene
“A new study out this month reveals unconventional oil and natural gas
workers could be exposed to dangerous levels of benzene, putting them at a
higher risk for blood cancers like leukemia. Benzene is a known carcinogen
that is present in fracking flowback
water. It’s also found in gasoline, cigarette smoke and in chemical
manufacturing. As a known carcinogen, benzene exposures in the workplace are
limited by federal regulations under OSHA. But some oil and gas production activities are exempt from those standards.
The National Institute of
Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH) worked with industry to measure chemical exposures of workers who
monitor flowback fluid at well sites in Colorado and Wyoming. A summary of
the peer-reviewed article was published online this month on a CDC website. In
several cases benzene exposures were found to be above safe levels.
The study is unusual in that it did not simply rely on air samples. The
researchers also took urine samples from workers, linking the exposure to
absorption of the toxin in their bodies. One of the limits of the study
includes the small sample size, only six sites in two states.
Dr. Bernard Goldstein from the
University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health says the study is the first of
its kind. Goldstein did not contribute to the study’s research, but he has
conducted his own research on benzene. And he’s treated patients exposed to the
carcinogen.
“These workers are at higher risk for leukemia,” said
Goldstein. “The longer, the more frequently they do this, the more likely they
are to get leukemia particularly if the levels are high.”
The study looked at workers who
use a gauge to measure the amount of flowback water that returns after a frack
job is initiated. A spokeswoman for NIOSH says none of their studies draw any
conclusions about exposures to nearby residents, but focus specifically on
workers.
But Dr. Goldstein says it shows that there could be potential risks to
residents as well.
“We’re not acting in a way to
protect the public who are at high risk,” said Goldstein. “And we can’t even
tell you who is at high risk. Yet we’re rushing ahead in a situation where all
of the data are telling us that there are risks.” He urges a similar study should take place in
Pennsylvania.
“These are the kind of studies
that should be done,” said Goldstein. “It should have been done a long time
before this. They’re first being done now. They must be done in Pennsylvania.”
A spokeswoman for an industry
group says there is always room for improvement if toxic exposures exist.
“[The study represents] a small
sample size,” said Katie Brown with the group Energy In Depth. “It is limited
in that respect. I think that’s the whole reason for this partnership is to
study it and see how [drillers] can improve.”
Authors of the NIOSH benzene
study said that more research with larger sample sizes should be done,
especially since there was so much variation in the levels observed at
different times and well sites. The researchers also listed a number of
recommendations for industry to take to reduce benzene levels on the job site.
These include changing tank gauging procedures, training workers, limiting
exposure times, carrying gas monitors, using respiratory and hand protection,
and monitoring exposure levels.
***Drill Cutting
Records Don’t Match DEP’s On Landfill Tonnage
21 tons versus
95,000 tons
“Data submitted by oil and gas
operators on the amount of drilling cuttings and fracking fluid sent to
Pittsburgh-area landfills don’t match up to reporting required of landfills.
The DEP has opened an investigation into drillers’ under-reporting of the landfill
waste.
EQT Corp. told the DEP that it
sent 21 tons of drill cuttings from its Marcellus Shale wells to area landfills
in 2013. But landfills in southwestern Pennsylvania told a different story.
Six facilities in this part
of the state reported receiving nearly 95,000 tons of drill cuttings and
fracking fluid from the operator last year.
The landfills’ records are
the correct ones, said Mike Forbeck, waste management director with the DEP. He said the agency has
opened an investigation into drillers’ under-reporting of landfill waste.
The EQT case — 21 tons vs. 95,000 tons — may be the
most dramatic example of how data submitted by oil and gas operators don’t
match up to reporting required of landfills. The DEP said it has been aware of the problem for “a
number of months” and is looking into why the different reporting channels
aren’t yielding the same results.
When
the EQT figures were brought to its attention, the DEP launched an
investigation into the company’s reporting practices, said John Poister, a
spokesman for the agency.
“We don’t understand why there’s that discrepancy,”
Mr. Forbeck said.
Asked
for comment on inconsistencies in waste sent to landfills by Range Resources
last year, the DEP started another investigation and found that Range’s numbers were off by 22,000 tons compared with what
landfills reported receiving from the driller in 2013.
“We’re
also having discussions with the company to try to find out what’s going on
there,” Mr. Forbeck said.
Range’s spokesman Matt Pitzarella
said: “It appears as though, through basic human error perhaps, that we only submitted the paperwork for
one landfill vendor and not the rest, which makes up the majority of our
gap,” Mr. Pitzarella said.
He added the company has
“reaffirmed that all materials were safely disposed of and in compliance with
regulations and properly manifested.”
The DEP would not say if other
companies are being investigated as part of the agency’s probe into the issue.
Across the board, nine southwestern Pennsylvania landfills
analyzed for this story reported accepting three to four times the amount of
waste that operators said they sent there.
Two landfills that accept a lot of Marcellus Shale waste — Yukon in the
Westmoreland County community of the same name and Burger in Washington County
— aren’t required to file quarterly reports with the DEP as part of a consent
agreement.
However, their manager, Carl
Spadaro, said Yukon took in 135,980 tons of oil and gas waste last year. Oil
and gas drillers reported disposing of 26,485 tons there.
Some
landfills, such as Imperial — named
after its host community in Allegheny County — reported accepting waste from a handful of operators that never
indicated the facility as a destination in 2013. Drill cuttings and
fracking fluid waste from Range Resources, Royal Dutch Shell, Consol Energy,
Rex Energy and Energy Corp. of America ended up at the landfill last year, but
only Denver-based Energy Corp. of America listed Imperial as a disposal target.
Landfills also are required to
report more types of waste than oil and gas operators. For example, a Marcellus
driller doesn’t have to say how much construction trash was taken off the well
site. Landfill reports — which are more detailed — indicate that’s a small
fraction of incoming oil and gas waste.
Landfills are just one destination for Marcellus Shale waste, which
includes drill cuttings, fracking water and brine, flowback sand and other
liquid streams.
The majority of liquid waste that operators don’t
recycle onsite goes to a centralized treatment facility. Another large chunk is
pumped into injection wells. Both of those disposal destinations have to report to the DEP — on
paper — how much waste they receive, but the agency said it isn’t looking into
whether their numbers match what the operators say they’re sending to those
facilities.
The Post-Gazette analysis
examined landfill records from 2013 only. The DEP said its investigation showed
discrepancies between operator and landfill reporting have actually narrowed
over the years.
Some companies appeared better
able to match their numbers to landfill figures, while others had far larger
gaps.
Mr. Poister and Mr. Forbeck said
the discrepancies are a concern, but DEP uses landfill numbers in
decision-making about the waste program, not operator-submitted figures.
“We know the number. We know the
amount [of waste]. We know it’s accurate at the landfill level,” Mr. Poister
said. “The area of discussion is going to be why the discrepancy and why
under-report it.”
Anya
Litvak: alitvak@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1455.
By the Editorial
Board Of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
(Excerpts)
“To say that the records of
Marcellus Shale well waste disposal are riddled with gaps and discrepancies
doesn’t begin to describe the scale of the problem.
A Post-Gazette review found that
differences between the amount of waste that drillers said they delivered to
landfills and the amounts the landfills reported receiving varied enormously.
At the receiving end, nine southwestern Pennsylvania landfills analyzed by
reporter Anya Litvak reported accepting three or four times the waste that
drillers said they sent them.
All this conflicting data raises
questions about DEP’s oversight. Although the agency said it has been aware of
the problem for “a number of months,” it didn’t launch an investigation into
EQT’s or Range’s reports until the Post-Gazette told the government what it had
learned.
After-the-fact inquiries by the
agency are not reassuring, and neither is DEP’s assertion that the landfill
numbers are accurate and those are the ones it uses in making policy decisions.
DEP says it is trying to figure
out why there are such huge discrepancies and why the drillers seem to be
consistently low. If the agency expects the public to have confidence in its
work, it’s going to have to do a much better job of reconciling the numbers.”
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2014/09/03/Dirty-numbers-Someone-s-account-of-shale-waste-disposal-is-way-off/stories/201409030026
***Study: Arsenic
in Water Wells Near Drill Sites
30% of wells within
1.8 miles
“North Texas water wells within two miles of active gas drilling sites
contain higher concentrations of arsenic and other carcinogens, according to a
study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
In the study, University of Texas
at Arlington biochemists measured 100 wells across the Barnett Shale, and
compared the results to a similar study undertaken before hydraulic fracturing
technology .
Some 30 percent
of the wells within 1.8 miles of gas drilling sites showed an increased amount
of arsenic and other heavy metals, the study said, and 29 wells exceeded the EPA
s maximum arsenic limits of 10 parts per billion.
One of the researchers, UTA
biochemist Zacariah Hildenbrand, told The Denton Record-Chronicle that "to find that high of arsenic
concentrations was alarming."
"This is indirect evidence
that drilling does affect the water," he said.
Researchers believe the
wells were contaminated when shaking caused by fracking knocked rust off old
pipes and into fresh water. But Texas Alliance of Energy Producers spokesman Alex Mills called the
theory "a little farfetched."
An industry veteran, Mills said
natural gas wells are drilled so deep that vibrations from drilling would never
reach far shallower water wells.
Researchers also said in the study that higher
concentrations of heavy metals could alternatively be the result of the
lowering of the water table or faulty casings around gas drilling operations,
which would allow contaminants to flow up through the well bore and into
aquifers and other supplies of drinking water.
Fracking produces millions of
gallons of chemical-laced wastewater. The liquid, called brine, is a mix of
chemicals, saltwater, naturally occurring radioactive material and mud, and is
considered unsafe for ground water and aquifers.”
***Grant County,
PA Fights Frack Waste Injection Well
“Grant
Township, Indiana , 26 square miles south of Little Mahoning Creek
It's
what one company wants to put back into the ground that has people fighting
back with an ordinance that's the subject of a federal lawsuit. Township
supervisors must decide this week whether to defend their stance in court,
despite case law that favors the company's side.
“Basically, we're afraid for the water. We just want to be in control
of our own community, instead of letting a corporation come in and say, ‘You
don't have rights. We're the ones with the rights,' ” said resident Judy Wanchisn, 71, who led the charge
against a Pennsylvania General Energy Co. plan to place an injection well for
disposal of drilling waste.
The well would hold waste
generated by fracking.
“It's their junk, their waste,
and they should take care of it and not dump it on us,” Wanchisn said.
She organized a group that appealed PGE's federal
permit to convert a production well to a disposal well, and with an
environmental group's backing, she convinced township leaders to pass an
ordinance banning such wells.
PGE this month sued the
township, saying the ordinance violates federal laws. Through its attorney, Blaine A. Lucas of the Downtown firm Babst
Calland,
PGE declined comment because of the litigation.
The company’s lawsuit claims that
The Community Bill of Rights that Grant
supervisors passed in June illegally tries to trump federal law that
regulates injection wells.
John Yanity, who owns the land on which the PGE well
sits, said he does not oppose its conversion to a disposal well. He declined further
comment.
Opponents worry that wastewater — laden with brine
from drilling and injected 7,000 feet underground — will make its way to Little
Mahoning Creek.
The well is about 7 miles south of the creek. It provides popular spots for
fishing and a home to the giant eastern hellbender salamander, the inspiration
for the name of Wanchisn's group.
Generations
of families in Grant have gathered in the swimming hole known as Big Rock. Runs
and springs feed miles of the creek that provides Grant's northern border.
“It would be a crying shame to
ruin all of this,” Supervisor Fred Carlson said.
The
Government Accountability Office in July said the EPA should do more to monitor
injection wells but noted “few known incidents of contamination” from them.
Earthquakes linked to injection wells in Ohio have increased federal scrutiny
of them.
Wanchisn
and Carlson don't oppose the drilling industry, just the waste wells.
Lawyers involved in fights
between drillers and municipalities say courts have ruled that communities
cannot enact blanket bans against specific activities such as drilling. Recent
court rulings on the state's oil and gas law, Act 13, upheld local authority to
pass zoning rules but officials must allow for some drilling, lawyers said.
Towns still try to block related
activities such as seismic testing, Gallagher noted. It's unclear whether
disposal wells will become another front in the fight; Pennsylvania has only 10
such wells.”
Read
more:
http://triblive.com/news/indiana/6656277-74/township-disposal-wanchisn#ixzz3C7TKBGwG
***FEMA: No Flood Assistance
For Property Owners With Gas Leases
“Paula Fenstermacher shows
pictures of her parents' home along the Loyalsock Creek in Lycoming County. The
home was damaged by flooding during Tropical Storm Lee.
The Scranton Times-Tribune
reports that property owners with natural gas leases are no longer eligible for
federal hazard mitigation assistance after a flood. The new policy, enacted by
the Federal Emergency Management Agency on May 5, has affected eight households
in Pennsylvania in Wyoming and Lycoming Counties.
It means that FEMA will not buy out flood-prone properties or pay to
assist raising or relocating homes and other structures if the owner has signed
a lease with a developer.
“We, right now, need to have some
direction on what to do, how to get these mitigated,” Wyoming County emergency
director Gene Dziak told Mr. Wright. “Next month is three years (since the
flood). We need to get these people out of these properties.”
Pennsylvania Emergency Management
Agency chief deputy director Robert Full told Mr. Wright he wished he had
cleared all 21 households that applied for assistance after Hurricane Irene and
Tropical Storm Lee before the May 5 rule. It will only apply for future
acquisitions, not those already approved, Mr. Wright said.
FEMA told the Times-Tribune that
the policy may only be temporary and that it is watching for the results of
studies from other federal agencies on the environmental impacts of shale
development, including the controversial process of fracking wells to release
oil and gas.”
https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2014/08/25/fema-no-flood-assistance-for-property-owners-with-natural-gas-leases/
***Fracking
Victims Flee Colorado's Toxic Air
And the Fracking
is subsidized with tax dollars
“Natural gas is widely touted as
a 'green fuel'. But fracking's anything but. Lives and health are being ruined by pollution from taxpayer-subsidized
gas wells, flaring and refining plants, while property values collapse. Now a
mass of environmental refugees are fleeing the ravaged state.
They sign nondisclosure forms or move away. Very few
win lawsuits. Some sign gag orders, but more just move away, lose everything,
and marriages crumble.
A general contractor in
Colorado's Grand Valley, Duke Cox says the first time he became aware that
drilling for gas might be a problem was back in the early 2000s when he
happened to attend a local public hearing on oil and gas development.
A woman who came to testify
began sobbing as she talked about the gas rigs that were making the air around
her home impossible to breathe.
"There were 17 rigs in the
area, at that time", Cox says. "And they were across the valley, so I
wasn't affected. But she was my neighbor."
The
incident led Cox to join the Grand Valley Citizens Alliance, a group of
activists concerned about drilling policies in his area on Colorado's Western
Slope. Within months he became the group's President and public face.
And as fracking for gas became
more common across the state, he has found more and more of his time taken up
with the cause. "We are ground zero for natural gas and fracking in this
country", he says.
His claim is not hyperbole in
many respects. Scientists in Colorado
are publishing alarming studies that show gas wells harm those living in close
proximity, and dozens of stories stretching back over a decade have documented
the ill effects of natural gas drilling on Colorado's citizens.
In response to public unease, the
state has created a system to report complaints of oil and gas health effects.
The subject has become so acute that it consumes Colorado's politicians and
electorate, who have been squaring off on multiple ballot initiatives to limit
where companies can drill, in order to provide a buffer between gas wells and
people's homes.
Don't
mention the tax subsidies!
But there's one fact the industry would like to hide
from the public (but uses in its lobbying of Congress): much of the drilling
activity in Colorado would never happen were it not for generous tax subsidies.
At
the national level, the report shows over $21 billion in federal and state subsidies
that taxpayers provided to the fossil fuel industry in 2013. The use and value
of these subsidies have increased dramatically in recent years-a product of the
'all of the above' energy policy.
"They are profitable because of tax breaks", says
Cox.
Studies
published in leading scientific journals continue to document the potential
harm to people living close to gas wells. In
2012, a Colorado nonprofit called The Endocrine Disruption Exchange published
the results of gas well air samples tested for chemicals.
The study found several
hydrocarbons at levels known to affect the endocrine system and lower the IQ
scores of children exposed while they were fetuses.
Last
February, researchers with the Colorado School of Public Health and Brown
University released a study that discovered that children born close to gas
wells had a 30% greater chance of congenital heart defects and a higher
incidence of neural tube defects.
The
study was met with criticism from Colorado's Chief Medical Officer ... a
perhaps unsurprising reaction from a state official appointed by a governor
with well documented strong ties to the oil and gas industry.
When a New York Times reporter
went to Garfield County three years ago, the paper published a video on
residents complaining of air problems caused by natural gas rigs.
"We're gonna pack up. We're leaving", said
Floyd Green, a welder who had lived in the County for the past three years.
"We're moving back East, and we're having to start completely over."
Green detailed several symptoms
his family experienced, forcing them to leave the area. "We constantly smell the fumes from the
condensate tanks which cause headaches, sometimes nausea. Diarrhea, nosebleeds,
muscle spasms."
A link to the video can be found
at Frack Free Colorado, which has a webpage devoted to "Colorado's
Affected People". Green is just one of many people who allege problems
from natural gas including Susan Wallace Babbs, of Parachute and Karen Trulove
of Silt.
While these individuals were once actively speaking
out about the dangers of fracking, their voices have fallen silent. Phone
numbers have become disconnected and addresses no longer current.
"They sign nondisclosure
forms or move away", says Tara Meixsell, who lives on a ranch outside New
Castle. "Very few win lawsuits. Some sign gag orders, but more just move
away, lose everything, and marriages crumble."
But this experiment of exposing
people to toxics released by natural gas development would not occur without
billions in subsidies from the federal and state governments. In a recent
report,
Oil Change International has found that federal
subsidies for production and exploration for fossil fuel subsidies have grown
by 45%, from $12.7 billion to a current total of $18.5 billion. Much of the increase
comes from intensified production.
"At a time when scientists
are telling us that oil and gas production is unsafe for our communities and
also our climate as a whole, it's simply
irrational to continue pumping billions of taxpayer dollars to this industry
via increased subsidies", says David Turnbull, Campaigns Director of
Oil Change International.
The White House has estimated
that the subsidy for accelerated depreciation of natural gas distribution
pipelines was $110 million in 2013. This
subsidy allows companies to deduct higher levels of pipeline depreciation costs
upfront, providing a financial benefit to the companies.
Or, as the American Gas Association itself puts it,
depreciation helps to "encourage the expansion and revitalization of the
natural gas utility infrastructure."
Colorado also kicks in financial
support. The state currently supplies additional gas production subsidies in
the form of sales tax exemptions, allowing industry to escape Colorado's 2.9%
sales tax.
"The rest of the country
doesn't get it", says Cox. "[Natural gas] is not a clean fuel. But
the word is getting out, and they are starting to lose the fight."
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2535304/fracked_off_natural_gas_victims_flee_colorados_toxic_air.html
***Frack Pits Release Tons of Toxic
Chemicals Into the air
These two articles out
of Colorado discuss the problems with frack pits. Jan
“Evaporation ponds used to process contaminated
water in Grand County have released tons of toxic chemicals into the air since
April 2008.
But the Colorado company running
the 14-pond facility operated without a Utah air-quality permit
for more than six years while providing officials faulty data that
underreported its emissions and exaggerated the efficiency of its
emission-control equipment.
Danish Flats, located north of Cisco, at first avoided
regulation by asserting its emissions were "de minimis," or too small
to require a permit.
But
a later, more reliable analysis indicated the company’s emissions were not
negligible, but were instead tens and possibly hundreds of
tons a year — revealing the site was a major emission source for hazardous
air pollutants and volatile organic
compound
There are 15 pond
"farms" operating in the Uinta Basin to handle the liquid waste,
known in the industry as "produced water." Six are on tribal land and under federal jurisdiction.
Oil and gas operators prefer disposing of their produced water by injecting it
back into the earth. But that’s not always possible, and millions of barrels
wind up in evaporation ponds after equipment separates out hydrocarbon
condensates — a light, valuable fuel.
The
Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, or DOGM, regulates the handling of this
waste. But DAQ is now monitoring the
air-quality impacts. Its permit for Danish Flats gives the company another 18
months to install a flare and related equipment to capture and burn pollutants.
Bird
said DAQ believes the $50,000 fine is sufficient to secure compliance with
state requirements in the future.
The
largest single hazardous air pollutant emitted by Danish Flats came as a
surprise. Instead of the usual petroleum-based suspects, it turned out to be methanol, a chemical the industry uses as antifreeze
and a fracking agent.
Categorized
as both a hazardous pollutant and a volatile organic compound, methanol is a form of alcohol. Unlike condensates, it is
highly soluble in water, so it isn’t separated out by processing.
Some
of the company’s estimates of its emissions were based on readings from summa
canisters, perforated devices that contain activated carbon that absorbs
volatile compounds. Summa
canisters were placed on posts on berms separating the ponds. But the devices
provide reliable measurements only in enclosed settings, according to Lee
Shenton, Grand County’s field inspector.
"Using
them on an outdoor evaporative facility was not the most accurate way to
sample.
In
updated filings, Danish Flats said the most methanol it emitted in one year
would have been 55 to 177 tons, based on the content of the waste it received.
Measuring
the precise emissions from a field of evaporation ponds the size of Salt Lake
City’s Liberty Park isn’t feasible. But
since little methanol can be removed by processing, most of the methanol
dissolved in the wastewater arriving at the plant is ultimately released into
the air.
So
calculating the amount of methanol in the water allows more accurate
assessments of how much Danish Flats emits of this single hazardous pollutant —
which alone exceeds the de minimis standard.
Methanol
may be toxic and volatile, but it evaporates slowly and microbes quickly break
it down, so ambient levels of the gas are low outside the facility’s fence,
according to Shenton.
"I’m
not suggesting that the methanol has no impact," he stressed. "When
these microbes consume methanol, the end product is carbon dioxide and water.
The removal of the hydrocarbon makes it cleaner, but it doesn’t make the
facility innocuous."
Danish
Flats began accepting wastewater in 2008 with a 1.3-acre settling pond and
eight five-acre evaporation ponds, each lined with thick plastic sheets and
about eight feet deep.
The
produced water is first pumped into separation tanks, where valuable
hydrocarbon condensates, such as butane and propane, are recovered. Then the
liquid is moved to concrete vaults for a second phase of separation.
The
system was designed to then direct the water to a settling pond, where more
hydrocarbons would be suctioned off.
However,
one regulator noted in April 2010 that a
waxy block had formed on the settling pond’s surface, and he doubted any
hydrocarbons could be skimmed off.
Efforts to clean the tarry
substances out of the pond failed, so the firm is using one of its evaporation
cells as the settling pond, according to Shenton.
A
system of pipes connects the ponds, and the water is moved between them as it
evaporates.
In
2010, Danish Flats finished adding six deeper ponds, which reach a depth of 18
feet. It said in filings with the county that the expansion gave it the
capacity to handle up to 2.7 million barrels a year at natural evaporation
rates — pegged at 57 inches for that area, the company reported to DAQ.
But,
in 2009, the company handled nearly twice that much water, about 5.2 million
barrels, according to DOGM data. It used misting equipment that year to
speed evaporation, which led to a citation for violating DOGM rules.
Castle
Valley resident Pam Hackley saw the misting in September 2009, after she toured
the site as a representative of a special services district. She didn’t see anything alarming during the
tour, she said, and she left, driving north. An hour later, on her way back
south, she noticed a plume coming off a
Danish Flats pond and blowing over the surrounding land.
"I
took pictures and drove through it and
realized it was not water vapor. It was creating a gagging response,"
said Hackley, who later served on the Planning Commission that drafted the
county’s first produced-water ordinance.
She
reported the incident to county officials. DOGM shut down the misting operation and cited Danish Flats for
allowing wastewater to escape the ponds.
—After the citation, DAQ and Grand
County began pressing the company for data about its emissions and control
equipment.
The
last pond built remains empty because the county will not issue Danish Flats a
permit to operate it until the company complies with the new produced-water ordinance and pays a new 10-cents-a-barrel
monitoring fee, Shenton said.
The
company’s business has plunged since it expanded by six ponds. Last year it
handled a million barrels, about a fifth of the water it processed four years
earlier, according to DOGM data.
The
drop may be due in part to other facilities that have opened closer to the
Colorado gas fields, including an injection well and a purification plant at
Harley Dome, just inside Utah’s border.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58298470-78/danish-flats-ponds-company.html.csp?page=3
Utah Highlights Frack Pit threat
“One
way to dispose of frack waste is in massive
surface ponds in which fracking water is stored until it can be recycled or
buried or is left to slowly evaporate. Those ponds, which can grow to
several acres in size, dot the landscapes of virtually every state that
produces natural gas.
The scandal
at Danish Flats Environmental Services, in
Clark County, next to Colorado, began as soon as the ponds were developed in
2007. The facility, which consists of 14 ponds filled mainly with oil and gas
wastewater from Colorado, had been
allowing the water to evaporate without an air quality permit from the state.
Until early August the state considered the facility — and every other
wastewater pond in Utah — below the de minimis pollution standard, meaning it
wasn’t emitting enough to be regularly inspected by air quality regulators or
to need a permit.
But
after an updated analysis of its emissions was conducted, regulators found that Danish Flats was allowing fracking chemicals like
methanol and other volatile organic compounds into the air and fined the
facility $50,0000 in early August.
“These places are the size of football
fields, they’re all across the state, and none of them were declared above de
minimis,” said Chris Baird, director of the Canyonlands Watershed Council,
a western Utah environmental group. “They’ve just kind of resisted regulatory control.”
Now the state is looking into the dozens of other wastewater facilities across
the state.
But
as Utah begins to clamp down on the facilities, environmentalists say the type
of ponds that got Danish Flats in trouble is still an environmental concern
elsewhere The fracking process requires thousands of gallons of water. There’s
the fracking fluid, a mixture of water, sand and chemicals that’s used to break
up rock thousands of feet below the surface. And then there’s flow-back water,
which pours out of the well during the fracking process and includes some of
the fracking fluid as well as the very salty water that’s naturally in shale
rock.
As tens of thousands of wells are drilled
each year, billions of gallons of contaminated water are left over. Environment
America estimates 280 billion gallons of wastewater were produced by fracking
wells in 2012 alone (PDF).
Increasingly, there seems to be no completely safe option for
this water. Injection wells may prevent air
quality issues, but they also might cause earthquakes. Treating the water and
releasing it into the environment might save water, but it also might irradiate
streams and rivers.
In
the arid West, allowing the water to slowly evaporate is an attractive option
for natural gas companies. But the ponds
have environmental effects, including possibly leaching toxins into the air,
water and earth. And they can be death traps for birds that confuse the ponds
with fresh water.
It’s
unclear how many wastewater ponds exist in the U.S., but experts believe the
number is undoubtedly well into the hundreds. In North Dakota, Montana and
Texas, almost 50 percent of all fracking waste is stored in ponds, according to
industry publication WaterWorld.
“They’re
usually in rural areas where not that many people see that they’re there or see
the damage they can cause,” said Natural Resources Defense Council senior
policy analyst Amy Mall. “No one really
knows where all these places are.”
As
of now, Utah has relatively lax regulations. There’s currently no requirement for groundwater monitoring, and
companies aren’t required to present plans for how to remedy the effects of
water and toxins released into the environment.
Other
states are beginning to impose stricter regulations. Pennsylvania might be a sign of things to come for pond
regulations. In 2010, after the state
had a spate of high-profile fracking water spills, including one that spilled
50,000 gallons of wastewater at a drilling site, the state beefed up
enforcement of environmental regulations regarding ponds and now has some of
the most stringent regulations in the nation, including requirements for
groundwater monitoring and environmental remediation.
. “Where there’s
hydraulic fracturing, there’s going to be flow-back water, so you need a way to
store it that’s environmentally friendly,” he said. “But these [ponds] are relatively expensive, they tend to leak, and
regulations are getting more stringent, so the industry is starting to turn
away.”
***Fired Reporter Says Newspaper Caved To Industry Pressure
“A
veteran investigative journalist covering Colorado’s booming oil and gas
industry says he was fired earlier this year largely due to pressure on his
newspaper from local government and energy company officials.
“[Oil and gas companies] complained about
me, the Garfield County commissioners complained about me, and [the Glenwood
Springs Post Independent] took me off both those beats,” said John Colson, a
hard-hitting reporter for various newspapers in Aspen, Carbondale and Glenwood
Springs since 1978. Ultimately, Colson said, publisher Michael Bennett
fired him.
“[Bennett]
told me he didn’t want me doing investigative reporting; he didn’t want me
doing government reporting,” said Colson, who admits he clashed with management
over corporate influence at the paper. “He wanted me doing features, nice
features.”
Judges recently have sided with
state and industry, but public health concerns have steadily increased along
the state’s populous Front Range, where US Rep. Polis has been blasted by
community activists for striking a deal with the governor that they say ignores
drilling impacts.
“I
focused to a large degree when I first started covering oil and gas on the
people that it was affecting, the people who lived near oil and gas facilities
and were getting sick and dying in one case,” Colson said.
“I,
along with a couple of other industry
folks, complained when John wrote an opinion piece in the Aspen paper that was
harshly critical of the industry and questioned its ethics,” Doug Hock, a spokesman for Canadian oil and gas giant EnCana, said of a 2009 column Colson wrote in the Aspen Times about the
documentary film “Split Estate.”
“I
think John is a great guy,” Garfield County Commissioner Tom Jankovsky told The
Colorado Independent. “I just think he editorialized instead of reporting. No,
I did not call the paper and say, ‘You should get rid of this guy.’ I
do know that there was [county] staff that talked to the paper, but
[the commissioners] did not tell them to do that. It was more complaints about
the quality of a piece.”
Judy Jordan,
a former Garfield County oil and gas liaison
who was fired after Jankovsky took office in 2011, said industry representatives had a direct pipeline to the county
commissioners and often advised them on policy matters.
“My
experience when I was at the board of county commissioners was that the
industry wielded so much power, because they regularly called up the
commissioners and told them what they wanted and what they should do, whereas
regular citizens almost never do that,” Jordan said in a 2011 interview.”
http://www.realvail.com/fired-oil-gas-reporter-claims-local-newspaper-chain-buckled-industry-pressure/a1034
***California
Halts Injection of Frack Waste, It May Be Contaminating
Aquifers
“California officials have
ordered an emergency shut-down of 11 oil and gas waste injection sites and a
review more than 100 others in the state's drought-wracked Central Valley out
of fear that companies may have been
pumping fracking fluids and other toxic waste into drinking water aquifers
there.
The
state's Division of Oil and Gas and Geothermal Resources on July 7 issued cease and desist orders to seven
energy companies warning that they may be injecting their waste into aquifers
that could be a source of drinking water, and stating that their waste disposal
"poses danger to life, health, property, and natural resources."
The action comes as California's
agriculture industry copes with a drought crisis that has emptied reservoirs and
cost the state $2.2 billion this year alone. The lack of water has forced
farmers across the state to supplement their water supply from underground
aquifers, according to a study released this week by the University of
California Davis.
The problem is that at least 100 of the state's
aquifers were presumed to be useless for drinking and farming because the water
was either of poor quality, or too deep underground to easily access. Years
ago, the state exempted them from environmental protection and allowed the oil
and gas industry to intentionally pollute them. But not all aquifers are
exempted, and the system amounts to a patchwork of protected and unprotected
water resources deep underground. Now,
according to the cease and desist orders issued by the state, it appears that
at least seven injection wells are likely pumping waste into fresh water
aquifers protected by the law, and not other aquifers sacrificed by the state
long ago.
"The aquifers in question
with respect to the orders that have been issued are not exempt," said Ed
Wilson, a spokesperson for the California Department of Conservation in an
email.
A 2012 ProPublica investigation of more than 700,000
injection wells across the country found that wells were often poorly regulated
and experienced high rates of failure, outcomes that were likely polluting underground
water supplies that are supposed to be protected by federal law. That investigation also disclosed a
little-known program overseen by the U.S. EPA that exempted more than 1,000 other
drinking water aquifers from any sort of pollution protection at all, many of
them in California.
Those
are the aquifers at issue today. Those exemptions and documents were signed by
California Gov. Jerry Brown, who also was governor in 1981.
"We do not have any direct
evidence any drinking water has been affected," wrote Steve Bohlen, the
state oil and gas supervisor, in a statement to ProPublica.
Bohlen
said his office was acting "out of an abundance of caution."
Among the issues, California and
the federal government disagree about what type of water is worth protecting in
the first place, with California law only protecting a fraction of the waters
that the federal Safe Drinking Water Act requires.
The EPA's report, commissioned
from outside consultants, also said that
California regulators routinely failed to adequately examine the geology around
an injection well to ensure that fluids pumped into it would not leak
underground and contaminate drinking water aquifers. The report found that
state inspectors often allowed injection at pressures that exceeded the
capabilities of the wells and thus risked cracking the surrounding rock and
spreading contaminants. Several accidents in recent years in California
involved injected waste or injected steam leaking back out of abandoned wells,
or blowing out of the ground and creating sinkholes, including one 2011
incident that killed an oil worker.”
Next Page >http://www.propublica.org/article/ca-halts-injection-fracking-waste-warning-may-be-contaminating-aquifers
***Hilcorp
Withdrawing Application- Forced Pooling In
PA
“Forced pooling refers to the
ability to drill for gas or oil under a property without the owner's permission
because enough other property owners in the area have signed leases.
It's not legal in the Marcellus Shale, so it hasn't been the issue in
Pennsylvania that it has been in other states. That changed when drillers set
their sights on the even deeper Utica shale where, thanks to old oil and gas
laws, forced pooling is legal.
The DEP first legal notice for the public
hearing stated that the public was not invited to speak. In fact, the
property owners who would be directly impacted were not considered
"parties of interest". The DEP planned to hold the hearing during the
day when most people wouldn't even be able to attend it and scheduled it for a
room that seats eight, yes, eight. The notice itself was only published a
couple of weeks before the hearing.
We
pushed back. We demanded a fair hearing for our friends in Lawrence County. We
wanted more time. We wanted the public to have the chance to comment. We wanted
any hearing to be scheduled when the public could attend and held in a room
that could hold them. More than anything, though, we wanted to buy time for the
legal team representing the property owners.
Earlier
this year, we won all of our procedural demands. Today, the outstanding legal
team's efforts resulted in Hilcorp's decision. By signing and sharing the
petition, you helped demonstrate to the DEP and Hilcorp that Pennsylvanians
oppose forced pooling and oppose any attempt to deny the public its right to
participate in the process, but you also helped buy the legal team the time it
needed.
Thank you so much for speaking out!! Have a
wonderful holiday weekend!!
So appreciatively,
Karen”
----------------------------------------------
Here is the legal team (maybe more
attorneys are finally beginning to step up...)
Omar K. Abuhejleh (we understand that Omar
did a large amount of the work on this one.)
429 Forbes Ave. Suite 450
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
Dwight Ferguson
2605 Nicholson Rd, Bldg II
Wexford, PA 15143
Mike Oliverio
501 Smith Dr. Suite 3
Cranberry Twp, PA 16006
***I Wont Be Quiet Anymore-
Living A Nightmare in
Gas Land
"We were lied to from the start." We’ve lived on our
land since 1983. It was given to our
generation by my father-in-law. I loved
it here. It was quiet. If you saw more than one car all day
something was going on. We could sit on our porch and be out in the yard, and
only hear birds singing all the time. We never worried about what we were
drinking or breathing. Our three children
were born and raised here. Back then
everyone got along with their neighbors.
Everyone is family. We keep an
eye out for everyone. You could count on
people. Now there’s a division between
people.
In
2014 we applied for a second mortgage.
We wanted to update the furnace, the bathroom, and put in a pool for the
grandchildren and my husband, Robert.
The water therapy is good for him.
He suffers from severe back pain and neuropathy that was caused when a
tree fell on him in January of 1988. We applied
for a $15,000 loan. Our credit was
excellent and our home had recently been appraised at $125,000. We didn’t expect a problem. Our home and our credit is all we have. Robert doesn’t believe in credit cards. “If you can’t afford it, you don’t need it,”
he always says. We had previously taken
out a loan on the house to help pay for our youngest daughter to go to nursing
school. We’ve never missed a payment on
the house and we paid off our last car loan early.
We
went straight to Hometown Bank of Pennsylvania.
We have banked with them for the last 10 years. We filled out the paperwork and were
initially approved. A few days later,
Carol at the bank called us. She explained that the attorney had looked
at the loan and it was too big of a risk for them. She said that since the water well was
contaminated, the property wasn’t even worth the $33,000 we still owed on
it. They said it was worth nothing.
We tried three other banks, but the result was the same. At first they would approve us but as soon as
they saw the tax assessment said “contaminated well” they turned us down.
Our
water well was dug on September 15, 1989.
It is a 118 ft. artesian well.
When it was dug they tested the water.
The test showed traces of sulfur and iron so we had a filter installed
to filter them out. Once a year, our
contractor, George comes out and changes the filter. Gas drilling started in our area around 2002. Pennsylvania General Energy Corp (PGE) drilled five production wells, 2002
being the first well. We were told these
wells would last for 10 to 15 years. The
one they drilled on our land, SR 6, only lasted 2 ½ years. We were lied to from the start."
Then
PGE sold to this company Steckman Ridge, a spin-off of Duke Energy. Steckman Ridge has become a real life
nightmare. This company has plans to put
in 23 wells, for storage of gas, and built The Spectra Energy facility – known
as Steckman Ridge – is a 12-billion cubic feet underground natural gas storage
reservoir with a 5,000 horse power compressor station, 13 injection/withdrawal
wells and related pipeline infrastructure in Monroe Township, Bedford County,
Pennsylvania. The compressor station is
LESS than 0.66 miles from our property, and the wells are, from our home, SR. 6
is 1,713.49 feet and 1663 is 4,402 feet. We are downhill from SR. 6.
In
2007 George came out to change the filter on our water well. I remember him telling us that the water
“wasn’t right.” He recommended testing
it. Two or
three days later the lab called us and told us not to use the water to drink or
bathe. The results showed arsenic levels
of MCL = 0.034 mg/l. According to EPA, the maximum “safe” level is MCL = 0.010
mg/l. The PA DEP also tested the water
and found similar levels. After that,
water tests became a way of life.
In July of
2008 the DEP tested the water again. The
level of arsenic was MCL = 0.0225 mg/l.
Strontium was detected at 0.529 mg/l.
In December of 2009, the arsenic
spiked at 0.0719 mg/l. Strontium was at
0.230 mg/l. Our water was also tested
using methylene blue active substance (MBAS).
MBAS detects the presence of man-made anionic surfactants (such as a
detergent or foaming agent) in a sample of water. Our results showed 0.20 mg/l.
The
DEP seemed indifferent to our plight. In
November of 2010, Sam Jones of the DEP
downplayed the high arsenic levels saying that the level wasn’t as high as it
is rat poison. As you can guess,
that didn’t make us feel any better. We
he came to our house he told us that this would be last the DEP tests our water
because we were wasting the taxpayers’ money.
The results he sent us from the test didn’t even contain results for
arsenic or strontium.
Others
in the area have also had their water tested.
Their water also had arsenic in it.
Who knows how long we’d been drinking poisoned water.
In 2007, Spectra Energy/Williams built the
Steckman Ridge compressor station 2/3 of a mile from our home. We have experienced numerous problems
since then. There have been 40 blow-offs between 2009 and June 2011. A blow off is what they call it when they
vent gas, benzene, toluene, formaldehyde, and other toxic chemicals into the
air. According to the Bedford Gazette,
the local paper, Spectra Energy is legally permitted by the DEP to emit 50 tons
annually of volatile organic compounds and 25 tons of hazardous air pollutants.
The
first BIG emergency shutdown was in August 2009. The PA DEP) issued two Notices
of Violation in 2009 for Spectra Energy’s “unlawful conduct” during the first
year of operation at its Steckman Ridge compressor station in Clearville
(Bedford County), PA. Spectra Energy’s
“unlawful conduct” violated air quality and clean stream regulations of the
Pennsylvania Code, according to the Pennsylvania DEP and received a $22,000
fine but they never came out to clean up our property. We were given $25.00 to go get something to
eat. We really thought it was a joke
after oil rained down on all of our property. We had oil all over our cars and
garden.
We
always had a garden and a small barn for beef cows, pigs, chicken, and
turkeys. It was cheaper than the store
and you knew what you were eating. Once
the compressor station when in, it all went to crap. Our cows just dwindled away. The first one died within a few months. Then there was a second one. We’d
never lost a cow before except during birth.
Not
long after a blow-off in August 2009, I was working out back in the garden when
I blacked out. It happened a second time
one morning while my youngest daughter was getting ready for school. I was in the bathroom. When I fell, I landed in front of the
door. It took my daughter five minutes
to force the door open so she could help me.
With time, they became more frequent and lasted longer. I’ve broken every rib except one from all the
falls. For safety reasons, I lost my
license for a while and I’m not allowed to shower. I’ve been to see specialists in Altoona,
Johnston, and Pittsburgh and none of them can tell me for sure what is causing
the blackouts.
Once,
it happened while I was in the doctor’s office.
My daughter was about to start nursing school and she needed a
physical. The doctor told me that it was
cataplexy as a result of toxic exposure.
Now I’m on medication that makes it better and I will be for the rest of
my life although it increases my risk for Parkinson’s disease.
On
the evening of March 9, 2013 I was outside with the kids when we heard snapping
and popping sounds. I thought they were
firecrackers. Robert’s brother, who
lives up the hill next to compressor station, called and said he could see
smoke coming from the station. My bother
was at our house that night. He was
trained as an electrician in the Air Force and said it sounded like electrical
fire. Soon the sound turned into a rush
of air like a jet engine.
We
called 911 and fire trucks from the nearby town of Everett were sent out. Robert and I have a scanner and were
listening to the trucks coming in. I
could tell by the radio chatter that they were heading the wrong way so I
called 911 and helped them get here.
About 3 hours later it was over.
According to the newspaper the first responders couldn’t get in to the
facility because no one had the key.
Initially
Spectra said that only a small amount of air leaked out of the facility due to
a faulty valve. Through our own efforts, however, we now know that Spectra Energy’s
uncontrolled leak in this latest incident amounts to 431.5 thousand cubic feet
of natural gas vented to the atmosphere over a two-day period. That is enough natural gas to power five homes
in the Northeast for a year, according to the Energy Information Administration
of the U.S. Department of Energy. Hardly a “small volume” as Spectra Energy
officials claimed. Moreover, documents
from the DEP reveal that the uncontrolled release was tied to a malfunctioning
electronic level switch in a dehydration unit.
Another lie.
My
oldest daughter gave birth to our first grandson in 2011. She was 27 at the time. After he was born, she was diagnosed with
pre-cancerous uterine and had a hysterectomy.
She had never had any health problems before this. In January of 2012
she went in for surgery. I remember the
surgeon telling us in pre-op that he was going to try to save her ovaries but
that if he saw anything that looked suspicious he would have to remove them
too. If the surgery went any longer than
2 hours we would know that he had found more.
I kept up hope until 2 hours and 15 minutes in the surgery and then I
knew. He had found more cancer cells on
her ovaries.
In
September of 2012, my husband was diagnosed with sterility. His testosterone levels were so low they
didn’t even register on the test.
A
few months later, my son turned 27. He
and his wife were trying to have their second child. It had been 7 years since his first child was
born. Previously healthy, he was tired
all the time. After several test, they
determined that he was sterile in February of 2013. The doctor said that someone his age and in
his health should have testosterone levels around 1,000. His was under 200.
When
it was just me, I could keep my mouth my shut.
But now that my children are suffering too, I won’t be quiet
anymore.
I
don’t care what they do to me, but don’t mess with my kids.
It
is frustrating to know that you worked you’re tail off your whole life and now
your land is worthless. Robert’s brother
is selling and leaving. They are robbing
us of the land that Robert’s father left us.
Michele Beegle, PA Farmer, nurse,
grandmother
Bedford County
http://www.friendsoftheharmed.com/michele-beegle.html
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
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