Our neighbors in Tonawanda, on the Niagara River in western New York State just south of Buffalo, were being poisoned for decades by a company that, unlike the gas/oil industry, does not enjoy exemptions from clean water, clean air, toxic waste laws and other regulations set in place to protect our environment and health.

Joe Martens, commissioner of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, defended the record of his agency, which eventually set up high-tech air quality monitors that documented extremely elevated benzene levels, leading to the  enforcement actions. But he said such sophisticated equipment had not been available previously. So state officials had no way of knowing about the benzene, formaldehyde, and other toxic emissions seeping from leaks in equipment and piping at the plant, Martens said. “Hazardous air pollutants are difficult to detect. We didn’t have the equipment to do the type of detection — you know, police work — that EPA was able to do” later.

As often happens during in-depth investigations — an unexpected discovery. Reporters learned that the EPA maintains a “watch list” that includes serious or chronic Clean Air Act violators that have not been subject to timely enforcement. Two versions of the internal list, never previously made public, were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. (More about the watch list here.)

Congratulations to the investigators, researchers, writers, editors, publishers, and funder of these important pieces. May they awaken people to the dangers we face and help them force change to protect and sustain the places we live, the air we breathe, and the lives we hope to continue leading.

- Maura Stephens, independent writer, associate director of the Park Center for Independent Media, and a cofounder of Coalition to Protect New York

To anyone who knows a little of the history and nature of the oil & gas industry, it will come as no particular surprise that a couple of gas industry executives, at a 10/31 – 11/01  conference in Houston, recommended the use of military psy ops techniques and former military psy ops operatives to infiltrate and influence communities  in an campaign to “overcome public concern over hydraulic fracturing.”

Over and over, on every scale, from its dealings with everyone from homeowners to local government to state government,  the industry has demonstrated a gross sense of entitlement.  “What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is mine.” (Links later. ) But perhaps nothing exemplifies this so simply and directly as the statement of Matt Carmichael, Anadarko representative, (see photo above) who recommended his fellow industry executives, “Download the U.S. Army-slash-Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual, because we are dealing with an insurgency.  There’s a lot of good lessons in there and coming from a military background, I found the insight in that extremely remarkable.”

His fellow executive, Matt Pitzarella, also pictured above, of Range Resources, seconded Carmichael’s advice:  “One employee who works with municipal governments in Pennsylvania has a background in psychological operations in the Army. Since the majority of his work is spent in local hearings and developing local regulations for drilling, we’ve found that his service in the Middle East is a real asset.”  (Story with audio clips here)

Of course, these statements reveal much that warrants commentary,  but somewhere near the top is what Carmichael’s phrase, “We are dealing with an insurgency,” demonstrates about the gas industry’s self-perception.

Here’s Wikipedia’s definition of an insurgency:  “An armed rebellion against a constituted authority (for example, an authority recognized as such by the United Nations).”

So if in the gas industry’s thinking, community resistance to the many hazards of gas extraction constitutes an insurgency, or illegitimate armed rebellion, then the gas industry considers itself a “constituted authority.”

Citizens everywhere have news for you, boys: yes, the very special treatment you’ve been getting for the last 100 years has made you a very spoiled, very  large, and indeed very dangerous child.  But you are not a “constituted authority” despite your wet dreams.  And we are not a rebellion.

You are the outlaws.  We are the citizens with whom the constituted authority ultimately rests.

One thing you got right: we are armed, with a weapon that history suggests you have little use for – the truth.

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Public Comments

Kenneth Jaffe, MD

Meredith, NY

SUSQUEHANNA RIVER BASIN COMMISSION September 15, 2011

Thank you for the opportunity to address the Commission. I want voice my objection to permits to withdraw water, and to address the responsibilities of this commission in the light of new scientific information concerning hydrofracking and drinking water quality. I’ll start by referring to the SUSQUEHANNA RIVER BASIN COMPACT.

The Compacts Policy and Standard states that the Commission should act “in accordance with the best interests of the people of the basin and the states”  and “the commission may assume jurisdiction whenever it determines…. that the effectuation of the comprehensive plan so requires………  the commission may adopt such rules, regulations,  and water quality standards as may be required to preserve, protect, improve, and develop the quality of the waters of the basin.

What is missing from the agenda today is a discussion of the best interests of the people of the basin in “preserving and protecting water quality standard”  in the light of scientific information that has come to light in the past year concerning the risk of fracking to drinking water.

In August 2010, Dr. Philip Landrigan, nation’s leading authority on environmental health impacts on children, testified before the EPA. Dr. Landrigan is Professor and Chair of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and heads their Center for Children’s Environmental Health.  He told the EPA

“As pediatricians specializing in environmental medicine, we at The Center for Children’s Environmental Health are opposed to the current use of hydraulic fracturing not only due to the multiple known risks to children’s health, but also due to the substantial lack of research into the health effects of this practice. While this particular void in research is prominent and must be addressed, multiple health concerns have already been brought up by a wide range of individuals and groups, from rural communities to political bodies and environmental organizations to public health experts.”

That was a year ago.

The research void pointed out by Dr. Landrigan in August 2010 has been partially filled, making two things clear. First the information shows that fracking pollutes drinking water. Secondly that the void in our knowledge is even more dangerous and deep, that it appeared a year ago.

Days after Dr. Landrigan spoke, the EPA called a meeting in Wyoming where EPA Superfund Investigators, after studying drinking water contamination from gas drilling, spoke to residents of the town of Pavillion. They told the residents to not drink their water. They were told to leave their windows open when they shower or do laundry to avoid explosion. That might seem almost comical in the northeast in the winter, if it was not so meaningful, and disturbing.

In December 2010, the EPA in Texas filed suit against Range Resources under the Emergency Powers Section of the Safe Drinking Water Act. The EPA scientific staff detailed how Range’s gas drilling activities had contaminated drinking water wells with methane, and powerful carcinogens, including benzene.  US Justice Department is enforcing the Emergency Order in federal court.

In May 2011 in PA, after poisoning the drinking water of 16 families in Bradford County, Chesapeake Company was fined almost a million dollars by the PA DEP. Still there has been no systematic government study of ground water contamination in PA.  And numerous reported cases of livestock illness and death associated with surface spills in PA that have gone uninvestigated by PA government.

In April 2011 the National Academy of Science published research led by Osborne at Duke that demonstrating that the contamination of drinking water wells with explosive levels of methane increased the closer the well is to a fracking site. This was a peer reviewed study—-the first peer review study that investigated the relationship between fracking and drinking water contamination. Neither government nor industry has funded any peer reviewed research on this issue. This study was funded by Duke University.

In July, a PA newpaper quoted Professor Terry Engelder of Penn State concerning drinking water contamination even with new triple cased wells, “as long as the state is finding violations,  you can take the next logical step, which is obviously they haven’t solved the problem.”

This month, NY DEC SGEIS acknowledges the fact that gas drilling poses a serious threat to drinking water, by banning drilling in certain surface water systems (NYC and Syracuse) and groundwater systems. They made a policy decision to protect drinking water from primary aquifers but not other sole source aquifers. This distinction is not based on science or law. This rules would protect the health of 300,000 NY users primary aquifers in the Marcellus region, but not over 800,000 users of non-primary aquifers exposed to the same risks. Many of these 800,000 people are in the Susquehanna River Basin.

What have we heard from industry in the past year?  The same story, that there is no problem, that it is impossible for drinking water contamination to occur from fracking.  Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of ExxonMobil, told Congress:

“There have been over a million wells hydraulically fractured in the history of the industry, and there is not one, not one, reported case of a freshwater aquifer having ever been contaminated from hydraulic fracturing. Not one.”

Given the many episode of aquifer contamination identified by government and academics, we know that Mr. Tillerson’s statement is a shameful falsehood. His statement, echoed, and echoed again by the gas industry, is in the sordid tradition of lead paint manufacturers and tobacco companies that for decades, and with full knowledge of risks, denied those risks, and poisoned people hiding behind  fake science and, more relevant to this discussion, government protection to continue their practices.

Most jarring are statements last month from former EPA officials to the NY Times that hundreds of cases of drinking water contamination were known to industry, but investigators were barred from seeing those records, as court settlements sealed these public health impacts and hid them from officials. This information gives us, and you, a fuller idea of the extent of industry’s knowledge of drinking water contamination, and their use of secrecy to hide the extent of the drinking water pollution from public scrutiny.

With what we have learned in the past year, the scales should fall from your eyes. It is past the time when you could say you do not know that the drinking water quality and the health of the people in SRB are under attack by the current policy on hydrofracking.  You have the facts to tell you this process is not safe.  It is also time to acknowledge that you do not yet know the full extent of the threat.

It is time to stop being so credulous with an industry that has consistently lied to you and the public about safety. Frankly, by maintaining the status quo, the Commission runs the risk appearing as puppets of an industry that acts with a shameless and callous disregard to public health.

You are being asked—-to follow the SUSQUEHANNA RIVER BASINCOMPACT’s mandate

“to protect the water quality of the basin in accordance with the best interests of the people of the basin.” You should halt hydrofracking in the SRB, and not entertain resumption until thorough, unimpeded, objective scientific study of drinking water and health impacts is completed.

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From a follow-up interview conducted by e-mail and used with permission:

Hi David,

Thanks for coming up to Ithaca on Friday.

On a separate note, would you mind if I share your experience with fracking with people in Ithaca?  If it’s okay with you for me to do so, I’d also like to confirm what you told me:

1.       Pollution of your well (two wells?). How did this show up?

Bohlander:  We have two wells on the farm (190 acres).  We had a detailed baseline water testing done on both before any of the gas activity happened in our area.  We subsequently have had another 6 or so tests done on these wells.  It is crucial to have certified baseline testing done prior to any activity by gas companies or they will claim there is no proof they are the cause and argue it was a pre-existing condition.  We also retained a very competent hydrologist (who has the gas company clients) who was the plaintiffs hydrologist in the Dimock, PA contamination (highlighted in the movie Gasland).  The well for the barn/and original farmhouse was so contaminated with methane they thought it would explode so the well pump was disconnected for six months and water was trucked in by the gas companies for the animals, and spring water for the humans!

2.       The operations end up being more extensive than anticipated.  The “pads” are large, and end up being used for other operations.

Bohlander:  Gas companies are major deceivers.  They do this many ways. One is using land agents that are not their employees so that they can claim “we never said that ..they did”

Most all the neighbors were told that the gas wells would be drilled, it would take 3 months or so, and then land would be restored to earlier state. In reality this is what happens. They excavate a pad obliterating the natural terrain, hauling in 100’s of trucks of stone, gravel, etc.  Once the pad is completed, they only drill 2-4 actual gas wells of what ultimately are likely going to be 12 or so on that pad.  They may not frack the drilled wells immediately, but wait sometimes a year.  The intention is to refrack over and over the same drilled wells.  They are now claiming there is 60 years of gas here.  Simultaneously, although not on all pads, they use the pads for other things such as equipment storage, frack water storage, and the worst:  frack water recycling which we have three in our neighborhood and 2 are 10 year permits (one is in the review process, 9 days to go).  These are REGIONAL frack water recycling operations bringing in dirty radioactive brine from 15 miles away or more, operating 24/7 with extensive noise, lights and traffic.  DEP is way behind on enforcement.  The neighbors are the enforcers, but it is David vs. Goliath (the gas companies).  After four years now, I have not seen one well pad restored back to the original state.  The stated plan by the gas companies is that there will be one well pad every 50 acres.  If the well pad is 10 acres, 20% of our surface land area will be a perpetual well pad.

3.       Extensive light pollution due to 24/7 operation.

Bohlander:  Re frack water recycling:  They power huge lights that light of the pads for the whole night.  They don’t use street electric but generators which contribute to the noise.  The trucks have large pumps that due to the volume of 5200 gallons per truck are large motors,  the trucks endlessly are using their backup safety beepers, horns for instructions to the ground crew, etc.  The three sites in our neighborhood will generate 800 trucks a day, 1600 with return trip passes.

The gas drilling when it goes on makes it almost impossible to sleep.  24/7, 7 days a week.

4.       Extensive trucking.

Bohlander: The gas companies make new roads over smaller older roads to accommodate their extensive traffic.  The state allows them to exceed the weight limit of the road by paying some fee or posting a bond.  The small country road in front of our farm is now elevated 3 feet in the air from normal ground level.  Certain roads are used as main arterial roads after they have been rebuilt –this happened to ours.  The trucks are hauling huge amounts of gravel, fill, fresh water for fracking and the dirty brine water out, as well as all the equipment for the drilling process.  Each well on the pad uses 5 million gallons of water.  60% flows back and is recycled, but removed from the site.  Our road was destroyed initially and impassible.  The gas companies then closed 10 mile stretches of the road for months at a time as they began rebuilding it.  One landowner could only get to and from his property with a four wheeler.

5.       Feel free to add any other relevant details.

Bohlander:  The gas companies have a very systematic playbook from the years of operating and polluting Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, etc.  They have two sides:  a friendly neighborly “give $35K to the fire company” and then a ruthless no-holds-barred side.   Three times they threatened that in 24 hours they were going to stop trucking in water for the cows in our barn unless we agreed to things.  These things include non-disclosure agreements, consent not to sue, etc.  Read the book Collateral Damage.  A lot of good environmental activist groups with websites and a lot of info.  Many have been to our house.  We were one of the first contaminated sites in this region from the drilling.

The public does not have any idea how bad the permanent environmental contamination is going to be.  There has been major barium and radiation poisoning with some already.  One not far from us is a 13-year- old girl with barium poisoning.  One of our immediate neighbors’ daughters is having clumps of hair fall out and his dog got sick and parakeet died from drinking his well water.  He abuts one of the frack water recycling sites.

Air pollution is the sleeping giant.   Each well pad on an ongoing basis emits things into the air (like toluene) as the gas goes through a preliminary filtering process at the well pad.  The absolutely worst are the gas compression stations for both noise and air pollution.

As you may know, the gas drilling is exempt from the Clean Water Act  — we actually are more apt to be fined if manure is spread on the road, than these major infractions the gas company are doing.  The environmental enforcement agencies only slap their wrists with fines.  Cost of doing business to gas companies –easier to just pay the fine.

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Leaked to un-naturalgas.org:

NYSDOT Draft

Transportation Impacts Paper

on natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale
for internal use with Governor Cuomo’s office and DEC

From the executive summary:

“The potential transportation impacts are ominous. Assuming current gas drilling technology and a lower level of development than will be experienced in Pennsylvania the Marcellus region will see a peak year increase of up to 1.5-million heavy truck trips, and induced development may increase peak hour trips by 36,000 trips/hour. While this new traffic will be distributed around the Marcellus region this Discussion Paper suggests that it will be necessary to reconstruct hundreds of miles of roads and scores of bridges and undertake safety and operational improvements in many areas.

“The annual costs to undertake these transportation projects are estimated to range from $90 to $156 million for State roads and from $121-$222 million for local roads. There is no mechanism in place allowing State and local governments to absorb these additional transportation costs without major impacts to other programs and other municipalities in the State.

“This Discussion Paper also concludes that the New York State Department of Transportation and local governments currently lack the authority and resources necessary to mitigate such problems. And, that if the State is to prepare for and resolve these problems it is time to establish a frank and open dialogue among the many parties involved.”

Click here for OCR’d version.

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In its Executive Summary of the revised SGEIS released yesterday, the DEC states clearly that groundwater is at sufficient risk from gas drilling to restrict gas drilling to protect  those drinking groundwater. But they only afford that protection to those drinking from primary aquifers. The DEC leaves the great majority of drinkers of groundwater in the Marcellus unprotected. They have some explaining to do.

I’m looking forward to hearing the DEC’s logic and science—their risk assessment strategy— used to assess that only some drinkers of contaminated groundwater need protection.

Primary aquifers are used as drinking water for some municipalities.

The list is on  on page 5: http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/water_pdf/togs213.pdf

The list includes about 300,000 people in those municipalities drinking water from these primary aquifers in counties in the Marcellus shale. (see attached spreadsheet and chart at bottom.)

Page 18 of the new DEC doc describes the exclusion of primary aquifers. It’s pasted below, bold face added.

No HVHF Operations on Primary Aquifers

Although not subject to Filtration Avoidance Determinations, 18 other aquifers in the State of New York have been identified by the New York State Department of Health as highly productive aquifers presently utilized as sources of water supply by major municipal water supply systems and are designated as “primary aquifers.” Because these aquifers are the primary source of drinking water for many public drinking water supplies, the Department recommends in this dSGEIS that site disturbance relating to HVHF operations should not be permitted there either or in a protective 500-foot buffer area around them. Horizontal extraction of gas resources underneath Primary Aquifers from well pads located outside this area would not significantly impact this valuable water resource.
- http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/administration_pdf/execsumsgeis072011.pdf

As the DEC says, this is in addition to the exclusion of drilling in the watersheds of NYC and Syracuse.

Now, one can make an argument, as the DEC has, that the exclusion of drilling in the NYC and Syracuse water supplies is based on their being unfiltered surface water (as opposed to ground  water), with a risk of “turbidity” from surface drilling activity.  And because there have been rules in place for years restricting industry and development  in unfiltered surface watersheds to avoid having to build  super-expensive filtration plants, as  for NYC.  A more clear eyed assessment of carving out the NYC watershed is that the DEC wants to excise the political opposition of NYC, which could easily create a critical mass of opposition in the state.  But they do have the surface water “turbidity” argument  to fall back on to explain this preferential exclusion, even if politics is the underlying reason.

But when you are dealing with groundwater sources, how can you rationally and scientifically exclude some aquifers and not others? Again, the actual rationale appears overtly political, rather than based on the science or risk.  The DEC is trying to carve out the opposition of the  municipalities drinking from primary aquifers—including Jamestown, Elmira, Cortland, Binghamton, Corning, Salamanca.  After all, these municipalities  are really organized entities of people…….. who would otherwise likely oppose drilling.

Problem is, there are at least 1,140,000 people drinking groundwater in the Marcellus shale.   What’s up, DEC? You’ve determined that groundwater is at risk. You’re going to protect 300,000 people from ground water pollution, but not the other 840,000.

Who are those people? Hello, it’s us, the people of rural NY State who will be drinking from polluted wells. It’s us,  people who will not be receiving equal protection against the very threats that the DEC assesses are too risky for the people of upstate municipalities.

I think I’m going to call my lawyer.

Ken Jaffe, MD
Slope Farms
Meredith, NY
www.slopefarms.com

Source material
http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/36164.html
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/water_pdf/305bgrndw10.pdf
http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/46381.html
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/water_pdf/togs213.pdf

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From Ron Bishop, 4/11/2010:

“A few “eco-friendly” fracturing schemes are out and about, but they all come with some* issues.”

“Propane is a gas at ordinary pressures, but can be fairly easily liquefied with pressure.  It is, of course, a fossil fuel itself.  Using propane would get around using millions of gallons of water, but would not deal with some real technological challenges.  First, in order to suspend sand or other proppants, liquid propane needs to be thickened, typically by foaming agents like peroxide.  Using peroxide requires the addition of even more corrosion inhibitors than when water is used, and biocides are still required to control microbe growth.  (I’ve heard misinformation that fracking with propane requires no chemical additives; that’s just not true.)

“The use of propane introduces new problems with controlling a pressurized liquid that quickly turns to a gas when the pressure is released.  It’s not easy or cheap, and a lot of gas escapes into the atmosphere.  This is a greenhouse gas, though not as potent as carbon dioxide (another [so-called] “green” fracking fluid candidate) or methane.

“And none of these exotic “fluids under pressure” help with the toxicity of the deep brines that still flow out of gas well bores.  These brines continue to be among the greatest waste problems faced by the industry.”

______________________________________________________________

Some further observations:

• The only benefit of propane fracking would be the apparent elimination of water usage for the hydraulic fracturing phase of well development.
• Water would still be required for parts of the drilling phase.
• Frequently, one of the key problems caused by gas extraction, groundwater  contamination, takes place during the drilling phase, prior to fracking.  There are multiple opportunities for groundwater contamination to occur during the drilling phase, starting with the very first stage, which necessarily takes place with no casing in place yet as the lengths of casing can only be inserted as sections of the borehole are drilled out.
• Regardless of the method used to complete (or ‘frack’) a well, the overall footprint of industrial impacts on the landscape, and on future options for land use, remain the same:  the same number of pipeyards/chemical storage sites, access roads, well pads, compressor stations, pipelines, and gas processing units.

So:

merely reducing the amount of water hauled to the site for fracking
would leave in place most of the major problems
associated with petro-methane extraction.

Keep your eye on the big picture, New York:
hydro (i.e. water) fracking is only one of many ways
petro-methane extraction can ruin us.

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*Ron specializes in understatement.

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In a February 23rd story, the Denver Post reports that homeowner Tracy Dahl lost his case before the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Dahl’s water went bad on June 30, 2010, according to the Post story, “the same day that Pioneer fracked its Alibi well about 1300 feet away.”

The COGCC – which “regulates” gas extraction in the state – is notoriously pro-industry,  a universal condition of regulating agencies, which really serve the industry they’re supposed to be watchdogging.

According to the story,

“‘There is no question there is something wrong with your well,” commission member Mark Cutright said. ‘The question is whether you proved fracking impacted your well.’

“The commission, in a unanimous vote, ruled Dahl had not.

“‘Alibi is a good name for that well,’ Dahl said.

“The commission investigates dozens of well complaints each year.”

Whether any of those complaints receive a fair hearing is a question worth considering.  According to someone present at the hearing, “The landowner…was not allowed to present his side of the story and [was] barred from submitting his consultant’s reports on the grounds they were hearsay.”

The oil & gas industry is used to calling the shots wherever it goes, a reality that must be acknowledged by any individual considering leasing and every public official in every state where the industry seeks drilling permits.  To fail to understand the nature of the industry, and the nature of its relationship with its “regulating” agencies, is to pave the way for tragedy and travesty.

Complete Denver Post story here.

From “The Spill Seekers,” Outside Magazine, November 2010

————————————-

While I was in Louisiana, there was an event at the Cajundome, in Lafayette, called the Rally for Economic Survival:  11,000 people packed the place to hear the governor, the lieutenant governor, and, of all people, the executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Marketing and Promotion Board rail against the Obama administration for stealing their jobs by imposing a six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling.

“Enough is enough!” raged the lieutenant governor, Scott Angelle, in his thick Cajun accent.  “Louisiana has a long and strong, distinguished history of fueling America, and we proudly do what few other states are willing to do. …America is not yet ready to get all of its fuel from the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees!”

True, but of the six billion to seven billion barrels of oil consumed by the U.S. each year, only about 10 percent comes from federal Gulf of Mexico waters; we get the same amount from both the Persian Gulf and Canada.  Louisiana is no longer a significant source of crude, on- or off-shore.  What it does supply is cheap labor and a pliant local government.  In this, it’s eerily reminiscent of Third World places ruined by oil.  The BPs of the world would have you believe oil brings prosperity to the countries where it’s discovered, but it brings misery so dependably that economists have a name for the phenomenon:  the resource curse.

Ecuador, Venezuela, Iraq:  Bad things happen to countries “blessed” with oil.  The Niger Delta is the Mississippi River Delta’s separated-at-birth twin, offering the scariest cautionary tale of all.  This tropical river delta held some of the greatest wetlands on earth, with abundant shellfish, crabs, and shrimp, the foundation of the economy and culture, but it also harbored vast oil reserves.  In the past 50 years, Shell has grown preposterously wealthy off that oil, while Nigeria, with the tenth-largest oil reserves in the world, has become a post-apocalyptic wasteland.  Almost three times as much oil has spilled into the Niger River Delta as was spilled by the Deepwater Horizon:  546 million gallons and counting.  The creeks are black, and the crabs and shrimp are dead.  There are always leaking, corroded wellheads and pipelines.  Gangs of rebels and oil thieves roam the jungle.  Flaring rigs fill the air with mercury, arsenic, and carcinogens.  Disease is rampant.  The government is cardboard.

Southern Louisiana is no Nigeria, but it’s also no longer quite recognizable as the United States.  The trailer homes on pilings, the dearth of education, the chronic disease, the fat parish chiefs – I know the Third World when I see it.  Cajuns haven’t grown rich on crude; Houston has.  And when the oil runs out, there’s nothing left to fall back on.

I bet Angelle would simply argue that oil is worth billions more than seafood.  But that’s only because we aren’t sophisticated enough to put a value on all the multifarious “ecosystem services” the gulf provides:  benefits of the natural world, resources and processes we all too often take for granted.  If we were to add these things to the ledger – all that gulf seafood and the health savings from it, the hurricane protection and wildlife habitat in all those marshes, to name only a few – and apply the calculus of their self-perpetuating sustainability, the astronomical value would blow your mind.  It leaves petroleum in the pit.  … How much are all those acres of disappearing land worth?  What price the mental anxiety of a culture watching its homeland disintegrate?  How much added value do you assign oyster reefs because they’ve never, ever blown up and killed anyone?  It’s only ignorance – an inability to tally all the gains and losses – that makes oil look good.

—————————–

Do yourself a favor: pick up a copy at your favorite newstand and read the whole piece.  And say thanks to Outside Magazine.

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Pipeline ‘pig’ crashes through Grand Prairie home

GRAND PRAIRIE — Those worried about the growing number of gas pipelines in North Texas may have new justification for their concerns.

This time, it’s not a leak or an explosion, but a pipeline testing device that was launched into the air like a missile.

Some say the end result could have been just as deadly.

To Grand Prairie residents living near a pipeline construction project at Arkansas Lane and Highway 161, the equipment and activities had been little more than a eyesore.

Until last Friday, that is, when a device called a “pig” — being used to pressure test a pipeline under construction — was launched like a missile out of the end of a pipe, straight toward a house 500 feet away.

As the photographs provided to News 8 showed, it was a direct hit — right into Robert Heredia’s bedroom.

“It looked like a war zone in here when it hit, it was really bad,” Heredia said.

He and his wife were not at home at the time, but his daughter Christina was. While she was in another part of the house, he realizes the incident could easily have had tragic consequences.

“If it would have been 20 minutes later, she probably would have been in here getting ready to go to work,” Heredia said. “That’s what gets me as a dad… you know what could have happened.”

The 150 lb. flying object was retrieved by its owners, DFW Midstream. They admit their mistake and have offered to pay for damages to two homes.

. . . . .

“It could have killed somebody,” [Heredia] said. “Still I haven’t heard from anybody since Friday, the day it happened.”

Heredia feels that by just paying for his damages, the company avoids paying a price for endangering lives.

Even though the accident took place on Friday, the incident was not officially reported to the Texas Railroad Commission until Wednesday after News 8 began inquiring about what happened.

Reportable incidents are supposed to be brought to the attention of Railroad Commission investigators within two hours.

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We knew it happens; here’s proof:

Wetzel County Action Group photo used with permission

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Tanker dumping fluid onto public road

see also   Sootypaws Journal – Fracture Waste

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Side-by-side sampling reveals that the Texas Department of Environmental Quality air monitor in Dish, Texas is under-recording toxic VOC levels in the air.

Now why d’ya suppose it’d do that?

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