Posted by Frank on March 11, 2010 · Leave a Comment
By Sue Sturgis
Hometown Hazards
March 10, 2010
My Congressman, Rep. Brad Miller, is the lawmaker who’s been raising hell about shoddy work by ATSDR in general, and particularly about what happened at Camp Lejeune Marine Corps base in North Carolina, where cancer is widespread among former base residents.
Yesterday Miller’s committee requested documents from the Navy and a private contractor out of concerns that they knew about benzene contamination at Camp Lejeune but kept that information under wraps. Here’s a recent news story about that:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/03/09/379463/congressional-investigators-seek.html
The private contractor is Baker Environmental, a subsidiary of the Michael Baker Corp. I decided to check out who exactly this Baker is. As it turns out, Baker Environmental holds the contract to provide general assistance to the PA DEP’s Superfund program. It manages the program, does investigation and remediation, and provides engineering studies and remedial designs:
http://www.mbakercorp.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1684&Itemid=278
Because of that, I do believe this ongoing Lejeune investigation will be worth watching for the folks back home in PA, and wanted to give you all a heads up.
Posted by Frank on February 20, 2010 · Leave a Comment
February 19, 2010
Two Oil-Field Companies Acknowledge Fracking With Diesel
By MIKE SORAGHAN of Greenwire
Two of the world’s largest oil-field services companies have acknowledged to Congress that they used diesel in hydraulic fracturing after telling federal regulators they would stop injecting the fuel near underground water supplies.
Halliburton and BJ Services acknowledged to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in January 2008 that they had used diesel in the controversial process that has expanded access to vast natural gas plays.
Read More
Posted by Frank on February 19, 2010 · Leave a Comment
http://www.mysanantonio.com/livinggreensa/84668452.html
Web Posted: 02/18/2010 12:00 CST
Who owns groundwater in the aquifer?
By Colin McDonald - Express-News
AUSTIN — The ownership and control of groundwater pumping rights in Texas is now in the hands of the state Supreme Court.
On Wednesday, the nine justices heard arguments in a case that pits the right of a landowner near Von Ormy to pump from the Edwards Aquifer against the government’s authority to regulate the use of ground and surface water.
For more than a decade, the Edwards Aquifer Authority has argued that in order for it to regulate pumping, landowners cannot own the water in the Edwards Aquifer.
It was first time the state’s highest court considered that argument.
Scores of landowners, private organizations, cities and state agencies that disagree with the EAA packed the courtroom and formed a line outside.
“Any ruling by the Court that in any manner destabilizes groundwater ownership rights could have dire consequences for Texans and the Texas economy,” wrote Texas Comptroller Susan Combs.
The EAA was created by state law in 1993 to ensure a future water supply for the region and protect endangered species by limiting pumping from the aquifer.
Instead of allowing landowners to continue to pump as much water as they wanted as long as they put it to some beneficial use, the authority issued pumping permits and put a cap on the total amount that could be pumped.
In 1996, Burrell Day and Joel McDaniel requested a permit to pump 700 acre-feet from the ground. The two wanted to start a peanut and oat farm on the 350-acre ranch they had recently purchased. Their plan was to use the free-flowing water from a well drilled by the previous owner that was filling a 50-acre man-made lake on the property. The EAA denied their application for groundwater. It told the landowners that if they wanted to use the water in the lake, which is considered surface water and therefore controlled by the state, then they would need a permit from the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality, not the EAA.
The EAA issued a permit for Day and McDaniel to pump 14 acre-feet a year.
The two sued in district court, arguing the EAA had “taken” their property by denying them the right to pump. Day died last year.
“They have regulated us out of our ownership of the groundwater by regulating it to the point of it being useless,” said Day’s and McDaniel’s lawyer Tom Joseph.
Because the well water mostly evaporated out of the shallow lake and never flowed off the property, Joseph argued it never became state water. Instead, it should be considered groundwater because it came from the well. As groundwater, it belongs to the landowners because they own the well.
The EAA countered the landowners did not have a constitutionally protected right to the water beneath their land and therefore could not sue.
The lines were drawn, and some 14 years and multiple appeals in federal and state courts later, the Texas Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
In general, the other courts agreed with the EAA and the outcome of the permit process. But the state Court of Appeals ruled landowners do have “some ownership rights in the groundwater.”
On Wednesday, the EAA argued that if the groundwater is owned by the landowners, then it and the roughly 95 groundwater conservation districts in the state would be open to a lawsuit every time they tried to limit pumping or be forced to compensate landowners.
“This is no small question for the authority,” the EAA lawyers wrote in their brief to the court.
The EAA would have its “legs pulled out from underneath it” if the court ruled against it, EAA lawyer Pamela Baron told the justices.
Justice Harriet O’Neill questioned that logic, pointing out a “takings” claim is difficult to prove, and water ownership would not necessarily limit the power of the EAA.
Justice Nathan Hecht also challenged the EAA’s stance and asked Baron if the landowners don’t own the water beneath their land, then who does?
Baron replied that no one had to own groundwater.
But if the landowner does not own the water, Hecht continued, then what protection is there from the state coming in and taking all of the water for another use?
Baron said the landowners and the water would be protected from such a radical change by locally elected board members of the EAA and the conservation districts. If the board members did something the landowners did not like, they would be voted out.
To Joseph, Hecht questioned why the EAA’s limit on pumping was any different than a zoning restriction. Both limit the value and use of a property, but the zoning is not considered a “taking.”
Joseph argued that the rule of capture, which has historically allowed landowners to use all the water they can, should still apply.
But it was specifically that approach to water use the EAA was formed to curtail.
Find this article at:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/livinggreensa/84668452.html
Posted by Frank on February 19, 2010 · Leave a Comment
http://www.fb.org/index.php?fuseaction=newsroom.newsfocus&year=2010&file=nr0217b.html
Ground Water Awareness Week Slated for March 7-13
WASHINGTON, D.C, February 17, 2010 – The American Farm Bureau Federation is urging Farm Bureau members to schedule an annual water well checkup during National Ground Water Awareness Week, March 7-13.
Ground Water Awareness Week is sponsored annually by the National Ground Water Association. NGWA is urging every household well owner to check his or her well cap to make sure it is in good condition to protect the water supply from contamination.
“A damaged or unsecured well cap can allow the entry of bacteria or other contaminants into the well. It is one of the easiest things to check, and a well owner can do it,” said John Pitz, CPI, a member of NGWA’s national board of directors.
“While well owners can spot a damaged or unsecured well cap, they should always use a qualified water well systems contractor who knows applicable well construction codes,” Pitz said. “If the well cap is damaged or unsecured, the water well contractor may also need to test the water and disinfect the well.”
Having your well tested is the surest way to determine that the water is safe. Even if your well cap fits tightly on your well and your water tastes fine, the water well system should be given a checkup by a contractor every year, according to NGWA.
Farm Bureau supports National Ground Water Awareness Week because of the vital importance of ground water to farms and ranches for irrigation and because 96 percent of rural Americans depend on ground water for their water supply, according to AFBF President Bob Stallman.
“Irrigation accounts for the largest use of ground water in the United States. Some 58 billion gallons of ground water are used daily for agricultural irrigation from more than 374,082 wells,” Stallman said. “America’s farmers and ranchers take their roles as environmental stewards very seriously. We are committed to ensuring that America’s ground water supply is safe, clean and pure.”
To learn more about proper well location and construction, well maintenance, water testing and treatment, and groundwater protection, visit NGWA’s Web site, www.wellowner.org.
Contacts
Tracy Taylor Grondine
(202) 406-3642
tracyg@fb.org
John Hart
(202) 406-3659
johnh@fb.org
Posted by Frank on February 18, 2010 · Leave a Comment
The calls to “reduce, reuse and recycle” have long been the watchwords of resource conservation, and when it comes to disposing of wastewater from shale-gas operations, those refrains still run deep, sometimes thousands of feet beneath groundwater sources.
Read the full story on Live: http://live.psu.edu/story/44473/nw69
Previous webinars — which covered topics such as water use and quality, legal questions surrounding natural gas exploration, and gas-leasing considerations for landowners and implications for local communities — can be viewed at http://naturalgas.extension.psu.edu/webinars.htm online.
