Every Drop Counts

How can I conserve water? My answer may surprise you.

Last week , a City of Longmont water board member commented that he has a fiduciary responsibility to sell Longmont’s ‘surplus water’. Currently, Longmont leases out 600 acre feet of water per year to big oil for fracking and drilling.

Oil fracking and drilling within our community will swell to consume thousands of acre feet of clear water per year.

Simultaneously, Longmont is encouraging its citizens to reduce their use of treated water by 3500 acre feet per year.

So, if I have a leaky faucet I have two choices:

1. I can repair the faucet to reduce my consumption. This will increase Longmont’s ‘surplus water’. The ‘surplus water’ from my leak will be sold for fracking. The water will be mixed with toxic chemicals to produce fracking fluid. The fracking fluid will be injected miles under the ground into the Niobrara tight sand formations. Toxic water spurts back from the well, and needs to be quarantined. It is trucked hundreds of miles to disposal sites to be forced into two mile deep isolation wells. The mountain stream water that Longmont sold to the drilling company is irrevocably removed from the hydrological system (assuming that everything goes well). It will never again runoff the surface. It will never again soak down or
evaporate up into the water cycle.
2. I can let the faucet continue to drip. In this case my leaked water will soak down into the soil or evaporate into the atmosphere or drain to the treatment system. It is conserved within our natural environment.

So, what is the best way for me to conserve the water that is leaking out of my faucet?

Maybe I should just let it drip. Every drop counts.

Joseph Bassman
Longmont, CO

Deputy Commissioner Leff takes the position that the best way to proceed with HVHF in New York State is to make a firm commitment to minimizing all exposures to harmful chemical substances released into
the environment by shale gas exploitation.  I argued that considering the history of shale gas exploitation throughout the United States and the limited ability of the DEC to enforce laws and regulations already in existence it would not be possible for DEC to act in a sufficiently substantial manner upon any commitment to minimization of exposures. There are many pollutant carcinogen exposures associated with shale
gas exploitation that have not been addressed in those areas where this activity exists, including:  (1) benzene, formaldehyde, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and soot particulates emissions of diesel trucks and compressors; (2) chemical carcinogens present in fracturing fluid and disposed of so as to contaminate surface and ground waters; (3) chemical carcinogens evaporating into the outdoor atmosphere from holding tanks utilized at gas well sites; (4) chemical carcinogens evaporating from HVHF waste water and entering the outdoor atmosphere; and (5) radioactive nuclides brought to the surface of the Earth in HVHF waste water.

Shale gas exploitation is not currently possible without imposing a relatively large quantity of exposure to pollutant carcinogens upon New York State residents.  At a time when cancer incidence is already far above an acceptable level as a result of exposures to pollutant carcinogens released into the environment by past and current polluting activities, shale gas exploitation is not acceptable.  Our organization advocates for a ban on shale gas exploitation throughout the United States.

Please utilize the powers of the DEC to set about insuring that the public is provided with a scientific knowledge based portrayal of shale gas exploitation impacts on health.  Will the DEC work in concert with the New York State Department of Health to produce a Health Impact Assessment for shale gas exploitation?  Provision of such a document to the residents of New York State will build political support for the banning of shale gas exploitation in our state.  Knowledge must be used to protect public health.  We find ourselves living in a time of pollutant carcinogen exposure cancer epidemic.  This is the time for minimizing exposure to all pollutant carcinogens.  Please assist with the effort to reject shale gas exploitation in New York State.

Donald L. Hassig, Director
Cancer Action NY
Cancer Action News Network
P O Box 340
Colton, NY USA 13625
315.262.2456
www.canceractionny.org

EDITOR: At 7 p.m. on Nov. 14, 2011, in spite of 22,094 comments objecting to this project, 35 bi-partisan Pa. state representatives, 2 state senators, the EPA, the Sierra Club, Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, and many other organizations across Pa., the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved and granted a certificate to Inergy/CNYOG to begin construction on the MARC-1 Pipeline Project. With this certificate, FERC has granted them the power to exercise eminent domain on private property owners who can not agree to their terms, or simply chose to say No to having a 30″ pipeline run across their property, even if it means the loss of use of that property by the property owner for agriculture, farming, recreation, or simply to have a safe, quiet property where we can raise our families, or pass on to future generations.

To add insult to injury, the environmental protections, setbacks from residential areas, upgraded materials and safety standards have apparently been removed from their application. They will primarily be using “class one” safety standards, which means minimum safety precautions and materials, minimum noise control [if any], and emission/pollution controls.

It will also be the enabler for virtually hundreds of unregulated gathering lines, an unknown number of compressor stations, and turn New Albany, Monroeton, Dushore, Laporte, Lake Mokoma, Sonestown, Muncy Valley, Beech Glen, Glenn Mawr, Picture Rocks, and Hughesville into a drilling corridor for the gas industry. This signals the end of agriculture, tourism, fishing, hunting, new home building, small businesses, as well as our way of life in the Endless Mountains. It will also have a devastating effect on property values, quality of life, public health and safety, while ultimately increasing property taxes to offset the damage to our already fragile infrastructure. Corporate profits will socialize the cost to those who live in the most heavily impacted areas.

This permit, along with HB 1950 and SB 1100 that will remove, and prompt the right of municipalities to enact their own regulations, ordinances, laws, protections, and safety standards regarding oil and gas development in and around our communities.

In short, life as we’ve known it is now over for Bradford, Sullivan and Lycoming counties, and life across rural Pa. This change will not be for the better. A 7- to 10-year “boom/bust” cycle, which we are already 3.5 years into, will leave rural Pa. a toxic and unlivable industrial and economic wasteland when all those “industry jobs” move on.

We owe our children, and our children’s children yet to be born, an apology for leaving this world in far worse shape than we received it, and for the burdensome financial responsibility for it they will inherit.

I’d like to remind everyone to take the opportunity to appropriately thank our obtuse local (Sullivan County Commissioners; Darla Bortz, Betty Reibson, and Bob Getz,) (Bradford County Commissioners John Sullivan and Doug McLinko) and state/federal lawmakers (Senator Pat Toomey and Congressman Tom Marino), who went out of their way to “urge FERC to overlook the concerns and interests of local citizens and approve the MARC-1.”

At this point, considering the FERC approval, and the horrific legislation poised to be passed, I no longer see a political solution, legislative remedies, or effective legal recourse to what is being forced upon us by the gas and oil industry with the consent of our elected leaders. Beyond an environmental problem, and a health and public safety problem, the bigger issue is that we have a democracy problem and a leadership problem in Pennsylvania that is bi-partisan.

Our system of government has morphed into a corrupt “corpocracy” whose goal is to control us by taking control of the essential ingredients of our existence: affordable and sustainable energy, pure water, clean air, and our sense of place.

This morning, I awoke in the security of my “home.” Tonight, I will lay down in just a “house” that I happen to own that has not had safe potable water for two months, and may never have again. I no longer have a “sense of place,” or a feeling of “home” here, knowing that I have no voice, no rights as a PA citizen/property owner, and am of no concern to political/corporate the powers that be. I am, as we all are now in Pennsylvania, politically insignificant, and simply “in the way” of the gas industry’s corporate special interests.

John Trallo
Sonestown

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Read about Rancho Los Malulos on this blog

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Elizabeth has now been subpoenaed by Chevron
for publicizing their poor performance.

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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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Pipeline in Dallas, PA

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Dear Mr. Applebome,

How could a reporter as good as you have missed the actual story of the voter sentiment and the politics surrounding gas drilling in the region you discussed?

With respect, the real story is the overwhelming opposition to gas drilling among the voting population in the region you covered.  Personal conflicts in town disputes concerning land use is not news. This story, based on the facts, is not neighbor verses neighbor, but rather a few large landowners (and the gas industry) against a huge majority of the population and the voters in the region.

Polls consistently show that between 70% and 90% of voters are opposed to gas drilling where local and regional polls have been done—across Otsego, Delaware, and Sullivan Counties. This includes polls done by towns and professional polling companies. Further west when local polls have been done, similar results have occurred.

The story is the overwhelming local opposition, and the plan of governor to ally with the gas companies to act against local voters and their governments, and attempt to  eviscerate local land use regulation that is guaranteed by the NY State Constitution.

Among many recent polls showing voter opposition in Otsego County,  was one done by the government of the Town of Hartwick in Otsego County which  showed overwhelming opposition to gas drilling. (79% opposed, 16% in favor, 3% undecided). Hartwick is definitely not a haven for retirees and second homeowners. Hartwick recently welcomed the building of a large newly completed  USDA slaughterhouse on the main street through town, hardly the type of development that your analysis would expect from local opponents to gas drilling (who you suggest are yuppie nimbys). Yet the people of Hartwick  understand that meat processing capacity is critical to local farming,  and that gas drilling has nothing whatsoever to do with farming. It’ s unrelated investment from which some landowners—including some farmers—would like to profit, at the expense of their neighbor who will be net losers. Hartwick’s town government, which gladly approved the new slaughterhouse,  is now planning a local law to ban gas drilling.  People in farming communities see through the false  claim that gas drilling helps farming, and see through efforts by gas companies to put  farmers up as poster children for a type of industrial development which threatens farming. Farmers know what helps farming.

In a survey this year, specifically of farmers in Meredith—where I live and farm— more farmers listed gas drilling as the largest threat to the future of their farm when given a list of threats (which also included taxes, high fuel costs, labor issues, machinery costs).  The was survey run by the town government as part of a NY State grant to create a farmland protection plan.

This month, a poll by a professional polling company (Pulse Opinion Research) of 500 randomly selected residents in both Sullivan and Delaware County asked two questions.

Do you support natural gas extraction by means of hydraulic fracturing in your town?

                                      No              Yes            Not sure

Delaware County        72%           27%             1%

Sullivan County           69%            26%            4%  

Would you support your town enacting zoning ordinances to restrict natural gas extraction by means of hydraulic fracturing?

                                      Yes            No              Not sure

Delaware County         69%           27%           4%

Sullivan County            69%           24%           7%

There are numerous other polls with similar results that can be cited.

Again, “he said, she said” misses the story.  It is a story of overwhelming local opposition to hydrofracking. It is a story of  gas companies attempting to use state government power to violate local land use regulations and voter sentiment, and impose their will on this region.

Sincerely,

Ken Jaffe
Slope Farms
Meredith, NY

For the story to which Ken Jaffe responds, see NYT story:  Drilling Debate in Cooperstown, NY, is Personal

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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Independent Coalition of Citizens Against Fracking
For Immediate Release
September 20, 2011

Grassroots Groups Expose Bias of Cuomo’s Fracking Advisory Panel in Report Released Today

Contact: gasmain.org(@)gmail.com

Report available at GasMain.org

New York State’s recently named Hydraulic Fracturing Advisory Panel is stacked with appointees who have already made clear they’re on the side of the gas industry’s plan to industrialize the state, say grassroots organizations from around New York. The panel was established by Governor Andrew Cuomo’s DEC commissioner Joe Martens in early July – just a week after the governor ended the de facto statewide moratorium on hydraulic fracking.

In a report released today, the grassroots groups show that the panel is dominated not only by industry representatives and industry-paid academics, but also by representatives of national groups that claim to be working to protect the environment but actually are on record as being promoters of so-called “natural” gas.

“The large national organizations’ coziness with polluting industries, Albany and Washington explains their repeated betrayal of grassroots efforts to protect communities and the environment,” said Robert Jereski of New York Climate Action Group, a grassroots environmental organization focused on climate change and ending industrial logging of old growth forests. “These national groups were chosen by Cuomo because he knew he could count on them to support the false notion of ‘safe’ fracking.”

Members of grassroots environmental, civic and community organizations from across the state, who have been educating themselves and others about fracking for several years, are sure the Advisory Panel’s forthcoming report will contain no surprises.

Finger Lakes-based Lisa Wright, a longtime activist on shale issues, pointed out, “New Yorkers and most people throughout the world who have looked closely at unconventional gas development know that fracking for gas is seriously problematic. Organizations that call themselves ‘environmental’ need to stand up for our communities and act like forward-thinking stewards of the earth, not shale-gas salesmen.”

Cecile Lawrence of Tioga Peace and Justice, Green Party NYS 2010 candidate for U.S. Senate and 2011 candidate for Tioga County Legislature commented  “From the moment he began his campaign for Governor of NYS, Andrew Cuomo insisted on being vague regarding his stance on the fracking of the state. Through the makeup of this panel of fracking advisors he has shown that he clearly has allied himself with fossil fuel based monied interests. The lack of presence of anyone from a true grassroots organization grounded in the people of the state whose lives and livelihoods are at stake shows that Cuomo needs an education as to whom he was elected to represent.”

Carl Arnold of Chenango, Delaware, Otsego Gas Drilling Opposition Group (CDOG) also sees pro-“safe” drilling agendas driving some of the larger, supposedly green groups represented on the panel. “Some groups surely know that drilling can never be safe, yet are fudging on a ban,” he said. “This contradiction is made clear when one examines the connections between multinational polluters, large financial and law firms, the oil and gas boys and some well-known NGOs that claim to be protectors of the environment. Those connections raise the obvious questions: What do they receive from the deep pockets of the oil and gas industry? How can they work with those folks?”

The focus of many allied upstate and downstate activists is Part 2 of a just-released report (available at gasmain.org) on the Cuomo advisory panel members who were purportedly appointed to represent the environmental movement.

Coalition to Protect New York is a collective of organizations around the Finger Lakes, central, western, and Southern Tiers regions. “We’ve learned from painful observation and experience,” said one of the coalition’s cofounders, Jack Ossont of Yates County, “that there is no way to ‘regulate safely’ this destructive industrial process. That’s why informed New Yorkers as well as people across the country are demanding that it be banned.”

Adds a fellow CPNY cofounder, Kate Bartholomew of Schuyler County, “Even with our huge and growing movement, the governor’s panel hasn’t got a single member representing our position. To use taxpayer money — our money — to establish this panel and to promote fracking using these discredited ‘environmental’ organizations and industry insiders is not only the opposite of good representative government; it’s downright deceitful.”

In the report released today by the grassroots alliance, familiar groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, National Sierra Club, Riverkeeper and many others, including New York State level groups, are examined. Their collusion, as well as the incestuous connections between the industry, Governor Cuomo’s advisers, and vendors hired by his administration and his regulatory body, are a major threat to representational government in our state. In July the Albany Project reported that a vendor paid by DEC to conduct an “independent” economic study of proposed fracking has no expertise in such analysis. The firm is also a paid consultant for big oil and gas clients.

“That’s antidemocratic and unethical,” said Dave Walczak of Bath-based Citizens for Healthy Communities. “Besides, if the governor and Department of Environmental Conservation needed a study on community impacts, to save taxpayers the costs of this so-called ‘independent study,’ all they had to do was drive across the Pennsylvania line below Elmira. What you see there is not what we want in any part of New York.”

A similar federal-level advisory panel examining fracking came under fire recently when 28 top scientists challenged President Obama. His panel, they charged, “appears to be performing advocacy-based science” because its chairman profits from fossil fuel exploitation. Gas industry representatives and academics who are publicly avowed fracking advocates figured prominently on the federal panel.

Clare Donohue of Sane Energy Project expressed the question being asked by thousands of New Yorkers: “Governor Cuomo, we demand an explanation of why you have given the people on the ground, in thousands of communities where fracking is proposed—we whose lives would be forever altered—no seats on your advisory panel?”