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To paraphrase the old saying,
with deliberate acts like this, who needs accidents?.
Tags: dumping, wastewater
From “The Spill Seekers,” Outside Magazine, November 2010
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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.
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Do yourself a favor: pick up a copy at your favorite newstand and read the whole piece. And say thanks to Outside Magazine.
Tags: the resource curse
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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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Tags: dumping
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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COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Dept. of Environmental Protection
Commonwealth News Bureau
Room 308, Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg PA., 17120FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
07/1/2010CONTACT:Justin Fleming, Department of Agriculture717-787-5085Cattle from Tioga County Farm Quarantined after Coming in Contact with Natural Gas Drilling WastewaterHARRISBURG — The Department of Agriculture announced today that it has quarantined cattle from a Tioga County farm after a number of cows came into contact with drilling wastewater from a nearby natural gas operation.
Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding said uncertainty over the quantity of wastewater the cattle may have consumed warranted the quarantine in order to protect the public from eating potentially contaminated beef.
“Cattle are drawn to the taste of salty water,” said Redding. “Drilling wastewater has high salinity levels, but it also contains dangerous chemicals and metals. We took this precaution in order to protect the public from consuming any of this potentially contaminated product should it be marketed for human consumption.”
Redding said 28 head of cattle were included in the quarantine, including 16 cows, four heifers and eight calves. Those cattle were out to pasture in late April and early May when a drilling wastewater holding pond on the farm of Don and Carol Johnson leaked, sending the contaminated water into an adjacent field where it created a pool. The Johnsons had noticed some seepage from the pond for as long as two months prior to the leak.
The holding pond was collecting flowback water from the hydraulic fracturing process on a well being drilled by East Resources Inc.
Grass was killed in a roughly 30- x 40-foot area where the wastewater had pooled. Although no cows were seen drinking the wastewater, tracks were found throughout the pool. The wet area extended about 200-300 feet into the pasture.
The cattle had potential access to the pool for a minimum of three days until the gas company placed a snow fence around the pool to restrict access.
Subsequent tests of the wastewater found that it contained chloride, iron, sulfate, barium, magnesium, manganese, potassium, sodium, strontium and calcium.
Redding said the main element of concern is the heavy metal strontium, which can be toxic to humans, especially in growing children. The metal takes a long time to pass through an animal’s system because it is preferentially deposited in bone and released in the body at varying rates, dependent on age, growth status and other factors. Live animal testing was not possible because tissue sampling is required.
The secretary also added that the quarantine will follow the recommended guidelines from the Food Animal Residue Avoidance and Depletion Program, as follows:
• Adult animals: hold from food chain for 6 months.
• Calves exposed in utero: hold from food chain for 8 months.
• Growing calves: hold from food chain for 2 years.In response to the leak, the Department of Environmental Protection issued a notice of violation to East Resources Inc. and required further sampling and site remediation. DEP is evaluating the final cleanup report and is continuing its investigation of operations at the drilling site, as well as the circumstances surrounding the leaking holding pond.
_________________End of press release___________________
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See also http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog/?s=farming which contains:
Is hydrofracture compatible with farming? in which photos document tumors and ulcers on animals living near gas operations
Is hydrofracture compatible with farming? Part 2 in which details about the photos are provided
Is hydrofracture compatible with farming? Part 3 Video, in which Tweeti Blancett explains how gas operations have made her ranching operation nearly impossible
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Tags: cattle, DEP, PA, water contamination
Dispatch from Dimock:
The activity has really picked up here and over toward Elk Lake. Truck and tanker activity is steadily increasing. Water / whatever trucks running all night long. A dump truck roared by while I was along the road and it reeked of an oily smell – what was he hauling? Dirt roads are being widened and built up. Watched Brown Tree employees cut giant trees along a road that I considered one of the most beautiful walks in Dimock. The well site at Rayias has a pit. Thought pits were out? The Lathrop Compressor is just the beginning – it will be expanded as more wells come on line. Pipeline paths everywhere. After some optimism last few weeks I am sad to inform you – the destruction is in full swing, it does not look like we will get any help here in Susquehanna County. Heard a Cabot worker bought the bar a round at a local bar, dropped $600.00 on the crowd. Business is good…
- Victoria Switzer
Tags: Dimock, industrialization, PA
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Remember this?
New York State town supervisors & boards – do you want to be had by the short hairs?Mt Pleasant supervisors had voted against MarkWest’s plans to expand their compressor stations. Hickory’s been taking it on the chin from gas extraction, and the supervisors knew that more compressor stations were not in the community’s interests.
So Range Resources threatened lessors with the possibility that their royalties might be affected if the compressor stations couldn’t be built. And the lessors fell for it and pressured the supervisors. And the supervisors caved.
Mt. Pleasant officials OK compressing station expansions
HICKORY _ Two gas compressing stations in Mt. Pleasant Township got the OK to expand after supervisors voted 3-0 tonight on an agreement with MarkWest Liberty Midstream.
Supervisors approved an agreement that will allow the company to expand its Stewart and Fulton stations up to five compressors each.
MarkWest had been turned down by the zoning hearing board in May when it applied to expand the stations. The company processes natural gas for Range Resources.
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Suggestions from residents that the township monitor the air for toxic emissions at the stations were not acted upon because officials said air monitoring is a matter handled by the state Department of Environmental Protection, not the township.
- Full story at Mt Pleasant Okays Compressors
credit: http://pafaces.wordpress.com/2010/04/23/an-a1-industrial-zone/
Another report:
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Mt. Pleasant OKs expansion plan for gas processor
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HICKORY – A gas-processing company got approval Wednesday to expand two of its compressing stations after an agreement was worked out with the Mt. Pleasant Township supervisors..
Supervisors voted 3-0 to allow MarkWest Liberty Midstream to expand its Stewart and Fulton stations. The agreement sets a number of conditions on the company, including requiring it to control dust, place placards on company trucks and make sure the 911 center has current addresses for emergency response..In response to residents’ suggestions that the township also undertake air monitoring at the stations, officials said that is a matter handled by the state Department of Environmental Protection. In May, the township zoning hearing board turned down a request from the company to expand the stations. Betsy McKnight, solicitor for the zoning board, said the township was able to intervene in the matter as an interested party..Following Wednesday’s supervisors meeting, the zoning hearing board met to approve the agreement. Its chairman, Barry Johnston, called it “the only reasonable path” the township could take under the circumstances..
Supervisor Larry Grimm said the agreement was best for the township because it enabled it to place conditions on the company’s operations. Had the matter gone to court, the township could have lost that ability, he said..MarkWest plans to expand the stations on Washington and Caldwell avenues to five compressing engines each. The company processes natural gas for Range Resources..Resident Joanne Wagner said the DEP is monitoring air at four points around the county, including at the Stewart station. She said a report on the air quality will be available in August and asked that any decision wait until then..Brian Simmons, an attorney for MarkWest, said if the DEP should find something wrong at the station, it would require the company to fix it. Christopher Rimkus, associate counsel with MarkWest Energy Partners, agreed and noted the DEP makes random, unannounced visits to the stations..But Stephanie Hallowich, who lives near the MarkWest Stewart station as well as one operated by Laurel Mountain Midstream, said with the expansion she soon will live near eight compressors. She said while DEP does not allow an eight-compressor station, she may soon have that with two separate companies operating nearby. Hallowich also wants to have some type of alarm sound at the stations to notify neighbors in the event of an accident or emission at night. “It’s a huge concern to me,” she said..Solicitor William Johnson said supervisors would not attempt to change the agreement at the last minute. “There have been weeks and weeks of negotiations leading up to this proposed agreement,” he said..
After the meeting, Grimm said he believed the agreement was the best way to protect residents, even though some would argue it wasn’t stringent enough and others would say it was too strict.
-Story published by the Observer-Reporter
The new 30 pieces of silver: MarkWest will pay the township $50,000 within 20 days and another $25,000 within a year to put its compressors in what is still zoned as an agricultural industrial zone.
Yes, $75,000 to the town buys the residents’ loss of property values, health and quality of life. And we all thought some things were priceless.
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Tags: compressor stations, Hickory, MarkWest, PA, Range Resources
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