From the Star-Telegram, January 14, 2010:
In D-FW, ’sobering’ asthma numbers
Look at a third-grade class or a youth soccer game, and start counting.
“One, two, three, asthma; one, two, three, asthma,” said Larry Tubb, senior vice president for system planning at Cook Children’s Health Care System. “That’s sobering.”
It represents a growing health problem in North Texas, where 1 in 4 children ages 8 and 9 has the lung disease. The state average for 5- to 9-year-olds is 7.1 percent; the national average for all children is 9.4 percent.
-end of article excerpt-
Now, why would the Dallas-Fort Worth area have a childhood asthma incidence that’s more than 2.5 times the national average?
*Substitute your state environmental regulating agency
Guest post by Lynn Senick:
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On Feb. 2, DEP fined Talisman Energy $3,500 for violations at its “Cease” well pad in Troy Township discovered during inspections in 2009. A February 2009 inspection revealed that the company had not publicly posted the permit number and other required information at the entrance of the well pad. During a follow-up inspection in June 2009, a DEP statement explains, “flow-back fluids — or the fluids that are used to break up underground rock and then return to the surface — were found discharging into a drainage ditch, an adjacent sediment basin, and eventually through a vegetated area into an unnamed tributary of the south branch of Sugar Creek.” The Daily Review
“A vertical drilled well in The Marcellus Shale zone costs $810,000 to drill while a horizontal drilled well will cost you roughly 3-5 million dollars.” oilshalegas.com In the Marcellus shale, Talisman drilled nine gross (nine net) wells during the quarter, for a total of 12 gross (12 net) in the first half of the year. The development plan is ahead of schedule and the company is now producing at rates in excess of 30 million cubic feet of gas per day. ugcenter.com .
COST OF DRILLING ONE HORIZONTAL WELL; $ 4 MILLION
A FINE OF $3500 is 0.0875% – the value of a a used Chevy Caravan.
VALUE OF CLEAN AIR, LAND, & WATER?
PRICELESS
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Tags: DEP, fine, spill, Talisman, violations
photo credit The Daily Star
Excerpt from The Daily Gazette, Schenectady, NY on the pipeline explosion in North Blenheim, NY, twenty years ago on March 13, 1990:
Effects of deadly blast still felt
EDWARD MUNGER JR
Earth scarred by the massive explosion that rocked this rural Schoharie County town 20 years ago has since healed and buildings reduced to smoldering rubble have long since vanished.
But people who recall the sudden death of two neighbors and the devastation caused when a pipeline burst say they don’t expect to ever forget the fateful morning of March 13, 1990.
The pipe carrying liquid propane, running north of state Route 30 near West Kill Road in North Blenheim, ruptured and sent a cloud of flammable gas drifting downhill.
The cloud exploded about 7:30 a.m. when it got to the intersection of Route 30 and West Kill Road, killing Blenheim resident and firefighter Robert Hitchcock, 53, and Central Bridge resident Richard Smith, 43. The explosion destroyed 14 homes and injured five people.
New gear added to the pipeline’s infrastructure and town buildings built after the blast — dedicated in honor of Hitchcock – stand as reminders of the devastation today.
And in the 20 years since, more stringent regulations governing pipelines and an added emphasis on safety have accompanied a 10 percent reduction in serious accidents, a government spokesman said.
North Blenheim resident Peter Giesin recalls being in the cellar of his West Kill Road farmhouse when his daughter called to him asking what was going on in the field outside their home.
“I looked out, there’s this white plume. At the time, I thought it was smoke. I thought an airliner had crashed or something,” Giesin said.
The white cloud was a plume of gasified propane that leaked out of the Texas Eastern Products Co.’s underground pipeline — a pipeline run underground in the 1960s despite resident opposition that was ultimately overpowered by eminent domain.
“I realized it was the pipeline blowing this plume of gas across the field which, naturally, was going downhill away from us. Then, within less than five minutes, a ball of fire came back over the hill from downtown where it ignited,” Giesin said.
“The village looked like a war scene. It was just destroyed,” said Blenheim resident Gail Shaffer, who was working as secretary of state in Albany and rushed to the scene.
“When we got to the village, it was all charred remains of buildings. There were 12 or 15 different fire companies with their hoses still on. It was organized chaos at that point,” Shaffer said. “I will never forget.”
photo credit The Daily Gazette
Today, offshore and onshore gas transmission lines carrying hazardous liquid such as propane stretch for more than 2.5 million miles in all 50 states, according to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA.
New York state accounts for a total of 53,275 miles of underground pipelines.
PIPELINE MAINTENANCE
Following the 1990 disaster in North Blenheim, engineers hired by the government determined that several months before the accident, workers from the pipeline company raised the pipe to insert a rubber washer between it and a casing pipe around it. The work was in response to a short circuit detected in the system that uses a small electrical charge to keep the pipe from corroding.
Engineers at the time said the crew filled the pipeline hole back in but the dirt might have been frozen. Once thawed, it allowed the pipe to settle and a weak point in the pipe — a manufacturing defect — broke in half.
A National Transportation Safety Board investigation that followed criticized the fact that the pipeline’s operators were unable to detect a drop in pressure when the pipe leaked; the nearest monitoring location was in Gilbertsville, Otsego County, about 15 miles west of Oneonta and roughly 68 miles from North Blenheim. Afterward, the pipeline company installed remote terminal units to monitor the pressure at pump stations and receiving stations.
The same 4,200-mile-long pipeline, which stretches from Texas to Selkirk, Albany County, sprang a leak in January of 2004. An explosion that followed destroyed one home in Delaware County but no injuries were suffered.
Engineers determined the 2004 pipeline leak was caused by frost heave separating a valve from the pipe. Roughly 5,000 gallons of propane in the pipe burned for three days after the blast.
In the 20 years since the blast in North Blenheim, the federal Department of Transportation has created the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, expanding the department’s inspection and enforcement abilities and doubling the number of inspectors and accident investigators, said Damon Hill, a spokesman for the federal DOT.
“Since then, we’ve had a number of regulations introduced that includes regulations for [pipe] integrity management programs, operator qualifications, control room management and quite a few other things to help make pipelines a lot safer,” Hill said.
Among the new standards is a requirement that pipelines be capable of undergoing an internal inspection, he said.
The “call before you dig” number was developed after the Schoharie County explosion, Hill said, to help stem third-party damage to pipelines he said are responsible for the bulk of pipeline failures today.
The pipeline changed hands in terms of ownership, with TEPPCO merging with Enterprise Products Partners LP in October of 2009, Enterprise spokesman Rick Rainey said.
Complete story available for fee from The Daily Gazette
Tags: eminent domain, pipelines
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Texas Pipeline Association, backed by Chesapeake, goes after small town to exhaust its budget
Since publishing the results of an air study, performed by Wolf Eagle Environmental, that showed that compressor stations are seriously degrading air quality in Dish, the town has been subjected to threats of legal action from the Texas Pipeline Association. An e-mail reveals that Chesapeake Energy (chk.com) is behind the TPA’s efforts to exhaust Dish’s small budget:
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Sent: Friday, January 29, 2010 6:30 PM
To: Bryn Meredith
Subject: RE: Response Letter to TPACelina,
I’ll try to look this over Monday and give you a list of what might be missing. Mostly I was hoping to get any mail or email correspondence between the Mayor and Wolf Eagle…guess that hasn’t happened?
Grover
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Celina Romero is a lawyer representing the TPA; she signed the letter threatening Dish with legal action if the town does not release more documents to the TPA. According to the mayor, the only documents not released relate to private health issues of Dish residents, information to which the TPA is not entitled.OK, fast forward – Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake, sues small town to exhaust its budget:
Tags: Aubrey, Chesapeake, harrassment, lawsuit, McClendon
Why is this man inside this pipe?
It’s because he wants us to know the size of the natural gas pipeline Chesapeake wants to put under his front yard, feet from his house on Carter Avenue in Fort Worth, Texas.
It’s because he doesn’t
want his kids to have to
play a few feet above
Chesapeake’s pipeline.For being a concerned
father & good neighbor,
what has he gotten?Dragged into court against
Chesapeake, that’s what.And if that wasn’t enough,
hassled by the city of
Fort Worth.He can’t afford an
attorney, so he’s had to
take on the suit
(and the suits)
by himself.He’s doing a great job, but he needs our help.
The judge presiding over his case could sign the order any day that would grant Chesapeake the “right” to proceed with its plans to endanger this family and all their neighbors.
So it’s time to e-mail or snail mail the judge to let him know that we know that even though something may be legal (like a giant rich corporation using eminent domain to stick a hazardous pipeline through a modest residential neighborhood where people aren’t really in any position to defend themselves), that doesn’t make it moral, or just.
Read more here: Jammin’ Mole writes about Carter Avenue
and here: Durango Texas writes about Steve Doeung
and finally (or better yet, first) here: Please send e-mail to judge
These kids should not have to play over a pipeline
that’s a disaster waiting to happen
On a cold morning in March, Steve & family on the courthouse steps, seeking justice
Tags: Carter Avenue, Chesapeake, eminent domain, Steve Doeung
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http://1490newsblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/spill-now-believed-to-be-accidental.html reports:
“Although emergency crews first thought the oil spill on Hedgehog Lane this morning was malicious, police now believe a valve was accidentally opened, according to Bradford Township Supervisor Gayle Bauer. She said the investigation is continuing.
. . . . .“The operation is run by Aiello Brothers.
“Bauer said three vacuum trucks are still on the scene working on containment, and that another environmental cleanup company is coming in to help.
“Just over two weeks ago Schreiner was ordered by DEP to provide a permanent solution to water supply issues at two homes the company’s drilling activity impacted near Hedgehog Lane.
“DEP had previously determined that Schreiner was responsible for affecting water supplies at other homes in the area.”
Tags: Aiello Brothers, Bradford Township, McKean County, oil spill, Pennsylvania, Schreiner
Wheeling, WV Wheeling News-Register story, 3/8/2010
http://www.news-register.net/page/content.detail/id/535302.html?nav=511
SILVER HILL – As Chesapeake Appalachia prepares to drill for Marcellus Shale natural gas in Oglebay Park, Wetzel County resident Raymond Renaud says those living near the proposed drilling sites may get far more than they bargained for.
Renaud, whose residence lies about a mile from a Chesapeake drilling well in the Silver Hill area, isn’t talking about money. He’s talking about the impact he and other members of the Wetzel County Action Group have seen on the surrounding area and residents’ way of life since Chesapeake began drilling there about three years ago.
“Our first concern is the traffic, by far,” said Renaud. “The situation has become quite dangerous.”
The winding roads leading to the drilling sites, he noted, are simply not designed for large trucks to travel safely.
“Our infrastructure does not support the activity. Our roads are such that a tractor-trailer simply cannot maintain his lane around our turns,” Renaud said.
He added that Chesapeake has been cooperative in taking steps to minimize the danger to residents, including putting escort vehicles in front of tractor-trailers and providing security vehicles to observe traffic conditions.
“Without those steps, we would have had countless fatalities,” said Renaud. Still, he estimated three to four accidents per day occur in the Silver Hill area involving gas drilling vehicles “going into a skid, sliding across the center line and off the road.”
Renaud said Brock Ridge and County Road 89, two major access roads for Silver Hill residents, “have taken a major beating” as they’re not designed to bear the load of so many large trucks. He said to Chesapeake’s credit, the company repaved both roads at its own expense – but the repairs haven’t held.
“They finished in the late fall, and Brock Ridge is completely destroyed,” said Renaud. “Their new paving job is gone. It’s a mud road.
“We’re talking about massive road failure. … We’re talking about some pretty massive effects. If your road totally disappears, that’s a pretty massive effect,” he continued. And during the winter, said Renaud, those roads are blocked by oversized vehicles multiple times each day.
“Locals who used to drive Brock Ridge now go out of their way and use other roads,” he said, noting he’s also a member of the Wetzel County Emergency Medical Service. “It’s normally a 14-minute trip, and I was an hour and a half getting to the Silver Hill Fire Department.”
Photo credit: Ed Wade, Wetzel County Action Group
Water pollution also is a concern, Renaud noted. He said in snowy weather, the company lays down “tremendous volumes” of cinders so its trucks can gain traction. When the snow melts, the cinders mix with the water, creating “a lava flow of cinders going into the creeks,” Renaud claims.
“The worst part about this, when it dries up, you’re inhaling tremendous volumes of cinder dust. The summer irritant for us is dust. … People have to power wash their homes,” he said.
Another worry stems from an industry process called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracing,” in which million of gallons of water, sand and chemicals are blasted into each well to break up the tightly compacted shale. Once the rock is fractured, some of the water – estimates range from 15 percent to 40 percent – comes back up the well. When it does, it can be five times saltier than seawater and laden with dissolved solids such as sulfates and chlorides, which conventional sewage and drinking water treatment plants are not equipped to remove.
Chesapeake officials have maintained they “aggressively implement best practices to reduce the possibility of leaks, spills and discharges” with regard to fracing.
Another industry practice, called flaring, occurs when drilling companies burn off surplus combustible vapors.
“They literally burn it out of the stack. Our concern is, we don’t know how toxic that gas is,” said Renaud. “If you live downwind or in a hollow, it’s a gagging odor. … It’s just not very pleasant.”
Renaud believes all these factors are adding up to plummeting property values for landowners near natural gas drilling sites.
“I moved here in the ’70s,” he said. “I moved to get away from the city, to live in a nice rural atmosphere, and now I live in an industrial zone. ”
If you live on a rural road and experience 40 trucks going by your house a day, you would have a hard time selling your house. … These people are now trying to get Chesapeake to buy their property because they can’t recover what they paid for the property. Mortgages outstanding are greater than the value of the property today,” Renaud claimed.
Renaud is calling on government officials to step in and help “exploit the Marcellus Shale in a way that benefits the citizens of Wetzel County and West Virginia.”
“I really don’t fault the gas development companies, because if they went out of their way to satisfy what we’re asking for, it’s going to increase their costs,” he said. “They wouldn’t be able to compete. It’s an industrywide thing. To me, this is a social issue that requires local, state and federal government.”
Please go to the story to see reader comments section
Tags: brine, Chesapeake, damage, flaring, local road, natural gas extraction, property values, roads, Wetzel County, WV
Click anywhere on image to be taken to:
Tags: eminent domain, Pennsylvania, Spectra Energy, Steckman Ridge compressor station
Just what every property owner wants: exhibitionist nitwit trespassers freely accessing their properties via the pipeline easements you seized by eminent domain.
The star of this little film describes it thusly:
“just me riding a honda recon on the millenium pipeline stayed in 2ed gear because i couldent realy shift , i was holding the camra”
Tags: eminent domain, pipelines, trespass
Jerry Lobdill, Fort Worth, Texas, writes:
“Public Education”, indeed! We know a lot about that here in Texas. We have the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council (BSEEC) here. Its director is a Ph. D. in economics who made a mint working for Enron before coming to the BS. He also thinks he looks good impersonating Yul Brynner. He is the Grover Norquist of gas drilling here. Funded lavishly by industry (who all have similarly non-technical PR types in top management) he creates the talking points of the week for industry and appears everywhere the media shows up. Yesterday he was on a right-wing radio talk show in the DFW area blowing his blue smoke.
Chesapeake has another PR guy who is the front man for their propaganda machine here. He looks awfully sharp in his $1000 suit yukking it up with City Council members and the City Attorney.
To be fair, these folks may not be aware of the fact that what money men at the very top tell them to say is not true and is laced with many lies that are designed to grow the cancer they bring to the people. We know that these “educators” have no degree in petroleum engineering, geology, chemical engineering, physics, pipeline engineering, environmental science, or any other field that was involved in designing and implementing the methods being used in these shale plays.
But, that’s enough fairness–maybe too much. How do these people sleep at night? Sorry. That presumes that they are not sociopaths. Oh, maybe some of them were brought up to ride for the brand. Deal with cognitive dissonance like a man. If you work for a man, work for him. You know–that kind of thinking.
The fact is, we don’t need any more blue smoke. With the mentality we see them demonstrating here, if you let them drill, you’re finished. It’s that simple.
—————–
In response to article in The Times Leader (Scranton, Pennsylvania)
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Gas_drilling_meeting_draws_lots_of_interest _ 02-05-2010.html
February 5
On WVIA show, members of industry admit not telling public about methods.
By Rory Sweeney
PITTSTON TWP. – Members of the gas-drilling industry acknowledged on Thursday evening a failure to inform the public about their procedures, and the audience at the WVIA call-in show reminded them of that often.
Home water supply after gas drilling, Hickory, PA
Governor Rendell, Governor Paterson, will you join us?
Mr Grannis? Mr. Gruskin? There’s plenty for all.
I live in Hickory, PA… just to update what is going on here, we had our water sent to an independent lab. The amount of toxic chemicals found were off the chart. We had the DEP come to the house (they are a complete joke!). They took a sample of the water months ago and we have had no report come back from them. My landlord called them and they said it was safe to drink. We still have had no report from them. The same day they took the water sample, I took a picture of our water, you won’t believe it.
From time to time our water quits running so I have to reset the pump, this is when this brown oily water flows through our pipes. Believe it or not, the DEP took three vials of this same water for testing. The lab told us not to drink the water, not to use it for cooking and not to use it for bathing. When you can’t [get] help and you can’t get another water supply because too many people have their pockets padded, what are you to do? We take quick, lukewarm showers (pray for me) we do not drink it and don’t use it for cooking, we buy alot of bottled water.
Here is a picture of the brown water, it’s not always brown but it’s always full of toxins!
It’s strange how people are so scared of the swine flu, but when you talk about how the gas drillers poison our water supply they think you’re crazy or they get mad because they think they can become rich off of a deal with a gas company, money is more important to them than their health. Finally, but too late for them, people’s eyes are starting to open to see the truth.
Thank you and keep up the fight, I know I will, the future of our nation’s health depends on it!Hickory, PA resident, to Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, January 13, 2010
‘Petro-pirates’ robbing Alberta’s resources
Flushing justice down the pipeline with Wiebo Ludwig’s arrest
Published January 14, 2010 by Jack Locke in Viewpoint Corey Pierce
. . . . . Alberta is not a democratic province. It is a province controlled by international corporations that see profit and extraction of natural resources as their prime object.
In order to accomplish their objective, the industry will use its abundant resources to do things that are not very nice. Companies will send crews of desperate men to attack the land and lay waste on anyone who gets in their way. These crews may wear uniforms and call themselves Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Or the petro-pirates may hire private security forces to instigate dirty tricks to dissipate legitimate opposition to the destruction of Alberta’s air, water and land.
There is a great amount of opposition in Alberta to what the Progressive Conservative dynasty allows. There are voices in every Alberta city that oppose the wanton poisonings of citizens who happen to live downwind or adjacent to an oil or gas well.
But Oilberta is a one-industry town. It is run by the bosses of EnCana, Shell and other giant corporations. They have infiltrated every aspect of Alberta society: hospitals, schools and the government. They have put a clamp on dissension and discussion in a most disgraceful way.
. . . . .
I have lived 15 km downwind of a gas plant. I can tell you stories about the clouds of toxic chemicals that are emitted in the dark of night, while country children sleep in their beds. I can tell you how the Alberta government watchdog agency prohibited me from speaking at a public hearing over whether to allow Shell Canada to expand its Caroline gas plant. I can tell you how the government of Alberta intercepted my private communications for at least four months in 1999.
Nobody likes explosions of pipelines. Nobody likes to have a seismic crew destroy the ageless aquifers that provide drinking water for cattle and country folk. Nobody likes to have a gas well spewing harmful vapours into the air. But people do like automobiles, and they like to receive unnaturally healthy returns on investment. Ah, there’s the rub.
The situation in Alberta will continue for some time to come. So long as birds are found dead on tarsand tailings ponds, so long as drinking water ignites in the rural homes of Albertans, so long as the government permits these atrocities, not much will change.
All that Ludwig wanted was a decent place to live, free from the dangers of modern life. A simple rural existence, subsistence. You’d think it could be found in remote Hythe, Alta. But obviously not.
The idea of sustainable development, respect of citizens and nature and a just society are words not often heard in Alberta’s highest offices. And even if they are heard, they are meaningless in the current political environment.
. . . . .
As a large, cold nation we should develop a national policy that protects the land for future generations, one that protects our natural resources. Depletion of our life’s blood will only ensure a miserable future for our children.
Even if our governments allow for the exhaustion of our non-renewable resources, they must not prohibit legitimate debate on the subject. The word tyranny should have no place in the Canadian lexicon. Yet, the repeated arrest of Ludwig is a sad example of justice being flushed down the pipeline.
Read full piece at Fast Forward Weekly
Tags: Alberta, Canada, pipelines, police
Have you noticed how often the industry and its sympathizers repeat the refrain that fracking happens so far below the water table from which drinking water is drawn that there’s no danger of frack fluids getting into drinking water? This despite the evidence that stuff really does get around, even if they don’t understand how.
There’s another way drinking water gets contaminated: surface spills. Spilled substances can seep down to groundwater. Or, as at Buckeye Creek, a town’s drinking water can be contaminated by spills that find their way into surface waters.
In late November the Sootypaws website and blog posted an extensive update on the mysterious spill at Buckeye Creek, in Doddridge County, WV.
Make yourself a cup of coffee and settle in for an excellent and thorough account of what is known.
Timeline and links to more
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Tags: Buckeye Creek, Doddridge County, WV
The Associated Press reports:
Gas line explodes in Panhandle
Nov. 5, 2009, 9:29AM
AP
Flames blazed more than 400 feet high above a natural gas line explosion that rocked Bushland, Texas about 1 a.m. today.
BUSHLAND — A natural gas pipeline exploded in the Texas Panhandle on Thursday, shaking homes, melting window blinds and shooting flames hundreds of feet into the air, authorities said. Three people were injured in the blast, which occurred at 1 a.m. near Amarillo, and they were taken to an area hospital with burns, said Potter County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Roger Short. “My home is about 20 miles something away and I could see the flames from my home,” Short said. “You could hear the roar of the flames 20 miles away.” Firefighters were able to contain most of the flames by 5:30 a.m. though small grass fires continued to burn, Short said. Nearby residents were evacuated, and the pipeline’s gas was shut off, Short said. One house was destroyed, and several others were damaged in Bushland, about 15 miles west of Amarillo, he said. “The heat onto the homes, it did a lot of damage. You could see blinds inside the homes that were melted … it was very hot,” Short said. Bushland Middle School principal, Mark Reasor, said about 60 people who were evacuated took shelter at the school for a few hours before returning home before dawn. Gas service had been cut off to nearby homes and Bushland’s schools, officials said. Messages left with the hospital for conditions of those injured were not immediately returned Thursday. A team of investigators was heading to the pipeline, said Robert Newberry, a spokesman for El Paso Natural Gas. El Paso Natural Gas is a subsidiary of Houston-based El Paso Corporation.
Tags: pipelines
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