Emergency drought relief loans available for farmers
http://www.tnonline.com/node/135921
Reported on Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Emergency drought relief loans available for farmers
State Rep. Keith McCall said that farmers in Carbon County are eligible to apply for low-interest emergency disaster assistance loans from the federal Department of Agriculture to help recover crop losses associated with the summer’s dry weather.
“The extreme heat and lack of rainfall has had a negative impact on Carbon County’s farmers this year, and I’m glad the federal government is making these loans available to help our farm families stay afloat and keep their farms up and running,” McCall said. “I hope every farmer affected by the drought conditions will apply for this funding.”
Farmers can apply for the loans through the Carbon County Farm Service Agency in Lehighton at (610) 377-6300 or by visiting the department online at www.fsa.usda.gov.
Besides Carbon County, 15 other counties in the region were declared primary disaster areas: Bucks, Chester, Dauphin, Franklin, Fulton, Lehigh, Luzerne, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton, Northumberland, Schuylkill, Snyder, Union and York.
In addition, 22 counties bordering the primary disaster area were named contiguous disaster areas: Adams, Bedford, Berks, Centre, Clinton, Columbia, Cumberland, Delaware, Huntingdon, Juniata, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Lycoming, Mifflin, Montour, Perry, Philadelphia, Pike, Sullivan, Wayne and Wyoming.
Farmers in all affected counties have eight months from the Sept. 10 date of disaster declaration to apply for the loans, and each application will be considered based on losses, available resources and ability to repay.
Drought warning
http://www.tnonline.com/node/135919
Reported on Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Drought warning
Shortage of rain must be taken seriously
Last week, the Pa. Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a drought warning for our newspaper’s entire coverage area – Carbon, Lehigh, Monroe, Northampton, and Schuylkill Counties.
The combination of lower rain than usual with the excessive summer heat has resulted in stream levels being well below normal.
One only has to see the receding shore line at Mauch Chunk Lake Park to understand how critical the water level has become.
The National Weather Service says rainfall is four inches below normal for the past 90 days in the Lehigh Valley. Carbon County has a 4.5 inch deficit for 90 days while in Monroe County, there is a 5.2 inch rainfall shortage for the three-month period.
The DEP is asking people to conserve water. One of the most common sources of waste water is a leak within your residence, such as a toilet. DEP says a leaking toilet can waste up to 200 gallons of water per day. Although many households are strapped for cash right now, fixing such a leak should be a priority since it can also reduce your monthly water bill.
DEP encourages residents to conserve water by taking showers instead of baths.
Also, keep water in the refrigerator to avoid running water from a faucet until it is cold.
Run your dishwasher only when it is full.
Water is a precious resource and we can’t ignore the fact that levels at our storage facilities are being reduced by the lack of rain. Generally, the water lines aren’t fully restored until spring when a good snow pack melts. A dry winter will make things very critical, so it’s best to start conserving now.
This is especially true if you rely on wells rather than city water.
The DEP could do more to help the situation by making its Web site more user friendly with drought advice, suggestions, and information. Very little is stated on the DEP site about the drought conditions.
After all, it is the DEP which issues drought warnings.
We agree that there is a drought. We have to think ahead, though, to assure that if the drought continues, we’ll still have enough water to meet our every day needs.
By Ron Gower
rgower@tnonline.com
Cabot spokesman: Contaminants were already there
http://citizensvoice.com/news/cabot-spokesman-contaminants-were-already-there-1.1024703
Cabot spokesman: Contaminants were already there
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: September 22, 2010
Tests of two private water wells in Dimock Township showed traces of toxic chemicals in 2008 before Marcellus Shale gas drilling began nearby, according to test results made available to Times-Shamrock newspapers on Tuesday by the gas driller active in the township.
But a spokesman for Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. said those chemicals – toluene, benzene and surfactants – were not detected in 2008 in pre-drill samples taken at more than a dozen nearby water supplies along Carter Road in Dimock where a private environmental engineering firm recently found toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene.
The contaminants found this spring and summer by Scranton-based Farnham and Associates, Inc. were at levels 1,000 times higher than the toluene levels detected in the two wells in 2008, the firm’s president, Daniel Farnham, said.
Cabot released the 2008 water tests on Tuesday in response to reports last week that Farnham had found widespread chemical contamination in water wells already tainted with methane linked to the gas drilling in Susquehanna County.
Farnham took the samples for families in Dimock Township who have sued Cabot for allegedly damaging their water, health and property.
The drilling company said the toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene found in the drinking water could not have come from hydraulic fracturing fluids used in its Marcellus Shale drilling operations because its service contractors do not use those chemicals.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves injecting millions of gallons of chemically treated water underground to break apart the gas-bearing rock. Critics of the process link it to anecdotal reports of water contamination and health problems in drilling regions like Dimock Township, while the industry and state regulators say the practice has never caused water contamination during decades of use.
“Ethylbenzene, toluene, xylene – those are not chemicals that we have used at all in our fracking,” Cabot spokesman George Stark said on Tuesday. “The fact that he’s found these is troubling, but they’re not from frack fluids.”
Cabot indicated that a likely cause of the contaminants, which are found in diesel and gasoline as well as some hydraulic fracturing additives, is an auto repair shop located near the affected wells.
The 2008 test results – which came from water samples taken by Farnham and analyzed by a separate firm for Cabot – detected surfactants at .07 mg/L in two wells, toluene at .002 mg/L in one well and .003 mg/L in the other, and benzene at .002 mg/L in one well.
Neither well showed the presence of ethylbenzene or xylene and none of the other wells sampled by Cabot contractors in 2008 along Carter Road showed any indication of the chemicals, Stark said.
Farnham, who conducted routine sampling of water wells along Carter Road this spring and summer, found ethylbenzene, toluene and xylene in the water at nearly all of the homes at levels between 2 and 7 mg/L.
Those levels exceed federal drinking water standards for toluene and ethylbenzene, a suspected human carcinogen.
Farnham also found ethylene glycol at 20 mg/L and propylene glycol at 200 mg/L in a May 2010 drinking water sample from one of the homes, owned by Victoria Switzer.
An independent water test performed for the Switzers in May 2008 did not analyze for glycols, but the test showed no indication of ethylbenzene, toluene or xylene.
Cabot’s contractors use ethylene glycol and propylene glycol in their hydraulic fracturing fluids, Stark said, but he does not believe they contaminated the Switzer well. Glycols break down within days in water, he said, and Cabot has not hydraulically fractured wells in the Carter Road area since November 2009.
“I would stand pretty confident they are not related,” he said.
The spikes of contamination recorded by Farnham in the water wells after periods of rain indicate a surface spill, not a disturbance of the aquifer through hydraulic fracturing, Stark said.
Cabot has reported at least five diesel spills since 2008 at or around its well sites in the township to the state Department of Environmental Protection, but Stark said the company does not believe its surface activity caused the contamination. A press release distributed by the company on Tuesday said “extensive testing performed this year in cooperation with the PA-DEP has confirmed that Cabot’s operations have not caused any such surface contamination.”
Efforts to contact a DEP spokesman on Tuesday to confirm Cabot’s statement were unsuccessful.
Farnham said the levels of glycols found in Switzer’s water indicate an industrial cause, not the auto repair shop.
“To show up in the levels that we’re seeing (the mechanic) must have had one hell of a radiator leak,” he said.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Sides of gas drilling debate split on fracturing study
http://standardspeaker.com/news/sides-of-gas-drilling-debate-split-on-fracturing-study-1.1022577
Sides of gas drilling debate split on fracturing study
By LAURA LEGERE (Staff Writer)
Published: September 21, 2010
Binghamton, N.Y. – Hundreds of people gathered in this Southern Tier city on last week to advise the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on how to conduct a multiyear study of hydraulic fracturing and the impact it may have on drinking water.
Despite the New York setting, many of the speakers at the first sessions of a two-day hearing about the gas drilling technology turned their attention south of the state border to describe evidence of the promise, or peril, of Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania.
The meeting is the last of four being held in the United States this year to gather public input about the scope and shape of the study, especially where to find appropriate places for case studies of the interaction – or lack thereof – of hydraulic fracturing and drinking water supplies.
Dimock Township in Susquehanna County was offered repeatedly as a perfect place to examine: It is an epicenter of Marcellus Shale gas activity in Pennsylvania, and state regulators have determined that water wells there were contaminated by methane associated with the drilling.
Victoria Switzer, a Dimock resident, testified that water from her household well was recently found by an independent lab to contain ethylene glycol, propylene glycol and toluene – all chemicals frequently used in the hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” process.
“EPA, do your job,” she said. “Please demand accountability. I offer you a case study: myself, Dimock.”
The commonwealth was also invoked as an example of the benefits of natural gas drilling by New Yorkers who support the development of the industry in their state, which has a moratorium on Marcellus Shale exploration while it develops rules for regulating it.
“Drilling is safe and will bring prosperity to New York,” said Lorin Cooper, a member of the Steuben County Landowners Coalition. “The evidence is in Pennsylvania, Wyoming and everywhere else drilling has been allowed to proceed.”
The sides of the drilling debate were split at the hearing in their advice to federal environmental regulators.
Those in favor of drilling tended to ask for a narrow study – one that looks at the specific moments when a gas-bearing formation is fractured by high volumes of water mixed with sand and chemical additives. The industry and state regulators say there has not been a single documented case of groundwater contamination in the United States that can be attributed to that process.
“All that we ask is that this study be focused and not take forever to complete,” said Broome County Executive Barbara Fiala, who supports drilling and hydraulic fracturing. “I hope the EPA is not going to study the entire natural gas drilling cycle.”
Those opposed to the drilling asked for an expansive study – one that covers everything from how water for fracturing is withdrawn from rivers to the disposal of the salt- and metals-laden wastewater that returns from the wells. Some also encouraged the agency to cover other associated impacts, including air pollution.
“The EPA study must look cradle to grave,” said Barbara Arrindell of Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, a Wayne County-based anti-drilling group.
Prior to the afternoon session, pro- and anti-drilling groups gathered on opposite ends of Washington Street shouting competing slogans of “Pass the gas” and “No fracking way.”
At the anti-drilling rally, where the props included a large plywood derrick, a Mother Earth puppet and a person dressed as “Frackin’stein,” the prop presented by Dimock resident Craig Sautner – a milk jug of brown water drawn from his well after intensive gas drilling occurred nearby – garnered the most response.
“I can’t say this is going to happen to your well. I’m not sure,” he said. “But do you want to take that chance?”
Down the road, Jim Riley, a landowner from Conklin, N.Y., said he does not have a gas lease, but would like one.
“First thing I’d do, I’d fix my house up,” he said. “I’d spend my money right here in the community.”
“I’m not afraid of the drilling,” he said.
The EPA meeting continues today, with two sessions from noon to 4 p.m. and 6 to 10 p.m. The agency is also accepting written comments on the study at hydraulic.fracturing@epa .gov through Sept. 28.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Free electronics’ recycling event planned for Carbon on Sept. 29
Reported on Monday, September 20, 2010
http://www.tnonline.com/node/135622
Free electronics’ recycling event planned for Carbon on Sept. 29
In cooperation with Advanced Green Solutions, Carbon County will host an electronics’ recycling event at the Lehighton Borough Public Works building, East Penn Street, Lehighton, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 28; and from noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 29.
Anything electronic will be accepted at no charge to the county or residents. Acceptable materials include, VCR’s, DVD players, radios, stereo equipment, computer keyboards, towers, printers, scanners, telephones, mainframe and telecom equipment, typewriters, hard drives, lap tops and copiers.
Advanced Green Solutions will also be accepting computer monitors for a $7 charge and TV’s and air conditioners will be $20.
No white goods/appliances or household items (such as microwaves, toasters, etc.) will NOT be accepted.
Anyone with questions should call Duane or Patti and the Solid Waste Office at (610) 852-5111.
Lawsuit: Gas drilling fluid ruined Pa. water wells
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/business/7202580.html
Lawsuit: Gas drilling fluid ruined Pa. water wells
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM and MARY ESCH Associated Press Writers © 2010 The Associated Press
Sept. 15, 2010, 5:13PM
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Thirteen families in the heart of the gas-rich Marcellus Shale say their water wells have been contaminated by poisonous fluids blasted deep underground by a drilling company using a technique at the center of a fierce nationwide debate.
A faulty gas well drilled by Houston-based Southwestern Energy Co. leaked toxic fracking fluid into local groundwater in northeastern Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna County, exposing residents to dangerous chemicals and sickening a child, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The lawsuit — one of the first in the nation to link hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to tainted groundwater — said the well’s cement casing was defective. It also cites spills of industrial waste, diesel fuel and other hazardous substances.
“The fracking fluid leaked into the aquifer and contaminated wells within several thousand feet, if not more,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Peter Cambs of Port Washington, N.Y.
A Southwestern official denied any problems with the well and state environmental officials said they found no link between the well and any contamination.
Fracking is the process by which natural gas is extracted from dense shale deposits, including the vast Marcellus Shale in the Northeast. Millions of gallons of water, mixed with chemicals and sand, are pumped at high pressure thousands of feet underground to create fissures in the rock and release the gas.
Pennsylvania and West Virginia have seen thousands of wells drilled in recent years as the riches of the Marcellus Shale have become more accessible with the fracking technique. Some geologists estimate the Marcellus, which also lies beneath New York and Ohio, contains more than 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The oil and gas industry says hydraulic fracturing has been used safely for decades and that there has never been a proven case of groundwater contamination caused by fracking. Environmentalists fear otherwise.
The Susquehanna County claims come as the Environmental Protection Agency — just 40 miles away in Binghamton, N.Y. — holds the last of four national hearings on the impact of fracking on water and public health. Fracking is currently exempt from EPA regulation; the agency is considering how to structure a study requested by Congress, where bills are pending that would reverse the exemption.
The environmental group Riverkeeper released a report to EPA on Wednesday summarizing more than 100 cases of contamination related to natural gas drilling around the country. The report cites cases where federal and state regulators identified gas drilling operations as the known or suspected cause of groundwater, drinking water, and surface water contamination.
Riverkeeper documented more than 20 cases of tainted drinking water in Pennsylvania; more than 30 cases of groundwater and drinking water contamination in Colorado and Wyoming; and more than 10 surface water spills of drilling fluid in the Marcellus Shale region. Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection has logged 1,435 violations of the state’s oil and gas laws in the Marcellus Shale in the last two and a half years, the report says.
The report also documents more than 30 investigations of stray gas migration from new and abandoned wells in Pennsylvania and five explosions between 2006 and 2010 that contaminated ground or surface water.
“Despite industry rhetoric to the contrary, the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing are real,” said Craig Michaels, an author of the report.
The lawsuit filed in Susquehanna County said water wells became contaminated with high levels of barium, manganese and strontium after Southwestern, in 2008, drilled its Price No. 1 well in Lenox Township. The contaminated water wells are less than 2,000 feet from the gas well.
The plaintiffs seek monetary damages, environmental cleanup and medical monitoring. The suit said the child who has been sickened has shown neurological symptoms “consistent with toxic exposure to heavy metals.” A lawyer would not elaborate on the child’s ailments.
John Nicholas, who oversees Marcellus development for Southwestern, told The Associated Press that the well is mechanically sound and that there’s no evidence its drilling operations have harmed water supplies.
He said the company and state environmental regulators investigated complaints by residents living near the well, “and we failed to find any tie between our operations and these local water problems.” He said the company tested the Price No. 1 well and found that “the mechanical integrity of the well is good.”
Nicholas declined comment on the suit itself, saying the company has not seen it.
The Pennsylvania DEP sampled a plaintiff’s well about two years ago and found an elevated level of manganese. DEP told the resident it was unable to establish that drilling “contributed to the degradation of your water supply,” according to a letter from DEP provided by Cambs, the plaintiffs attorney.
“The data that we had from our samples did not allow us to conclude that the well had been contaminated by gas well drilling,” DEP spokeswoman Helen Humphries said Wednesday.
More recent testing of the plaintiff’s well by an independent lab, Appalachia Hydrogeologic and Environmental Consulting of Hallstead, Pa., found elevated levels of barium, iron, manganese and strontium.
“Appalachia recommends that water from the potable well NOT be used as a drinking water source until the barium and strontium levels are remedied,” according to Appalachia’s report.
Plaintiff Mary Donovan, 39, said she’s drunk nothing but bottled water since Appalachia’s April tests.
“The only thing I can do (with well water) is bathe with it and wash my clothes, and God knows if that’s harmful to me,” she said.
“These people don’t care what they’re doing to the environment and to people,” she said.
The Lenox Township developments recall the situation in nearby Dimock Township, where state regulators say Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. drilled faulty wells that allowed methane gas to escape into residential groundwater supplies. More than a dozen families in Dimock have filed suit. Cabot claims the high levels of methane detected in the wells might be naturally occurring.
Some of the cases in the Riverkeeper report were also included in a report submitted to the EPA last year by the Cadmus Group, hired by the agency to analyze reports of contamination believed to be related to hydraulic fracturing.
The Cadmus report identified 12 cases in six states — Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming — that may have such links. The report said there was insufficient information to definitively confirm or rule out hydraulic fracturing as the cause.
Online: http://www.riverkeeper.org/
Riverkeeper releases First-of-its-kind Report on Environmental Impacts of Gas Drilling
http://www.riverkeeper.org/news-events/news/safeguard-drinking-water/report-on-environmental-impacts-of-gas-drilling/
09.13.10 :: Latest Developments :: Safeguard Drinking Water
Riverkeeper releases First-of-its-kind Report on Environmental Impacts of Gas Drilling
Fractured Communities is a follow-up to the 2009, Riverkeeper Case Studies report presented to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in an attempt to dispel myths from state regulators and gas industry executives that drilling was always safe and that reports of contamination were inaccurate. This report highlights some of the environmental impacts that hard working Americans have had to deal with as we strive to work with government agencies and industries to take the lead in creating long-term energy solutions and sustainable economies of scale that do not require the sacrifice of clean air and water. It also provides recommendations that may help to alleviate some of the problems documented across the country, including legislative and regulatory actions that would be necessary in order to prevent and control further environmental contamination.
EPA Escalates Debate Over Gas Fracturing on Water Quality Concern
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-09/epa-asks-nine-companies-to-disclose-chemicals-for-gas-extraction.html
EPA Escalates Debate Over Gas Fracturing on Water Quality Concern
Federal regulators asked companies including Halliburton Co. to disclose chemicals used to dislodge underground natural gas after residents in two states where the practice is widespread were warned not to drink well water.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asked nine oil service companies to identify chemicals they employ in hydraulic fracturing for a study on potential threats to drinking water, the agency said yesterday in a statement. In fracturing, millions of gallons of chemically treated water are forced into underground wells to break up rock and allow gas to flow.
The EPA action is likely to heighten the debate over drilling for gas locked in shale formations, which is accelerating along with concern over possible health and environmental risks. Such production may produce 50 percent of the U.S. gas supply by 2035, up from 20 percent today, according to IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
“EPA is taking seriously its charge to examine the risks associated with hydraulic fracturing,” Kate Sinding, senior attorney with the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council, said in an interview. “As EPA goes forward with its studies, we may well see recommendations about what the states can and should be doing better, as well as plans for more federal oversight.”
Wyoming, Pennsylvania
On Aug. 31, the EPA told residents of Pavillion, Wyoming, not to drink water after benzene, methane and metals were found in groundwater. Pennsylvania regulators issued a similar warning to residents near Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s gas wells after reports on Sept. 2 of water bubbles in the Susquehanna River. States have taken the lead in overseeing the boom in hydraulic fracturing after the EPA’s oversight role was limited by a 2005 energy bill. Congress is debating legislation to give the EPA explicit authority over the process.
Since 2008, 1,785 wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania’s portion of the Marcellus Shale, a gas-rich rock formation from New York to West Virginia. New York regulators have placed a moratorium on new gas drilling and the state senate voted in August to prohibit new permits until May 15.
The EPA will hold public hearings on the issue in Binghamton, New York, next week.
“The companies have different views on whether or not they should be providing this information,” Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners LLC, a Washington-based policy analysis firm, said in an interview. “The EPA is nudging in everywhere they see what looks like state accommodation.”
Halliburton Statement
Houston-based Halliburton said it would comply with the request.
“Halliburton supports and continues to comply with state, local and federal requirements promoting the forthright disclosure of the chemical additives that typically comprise less than one-half of one-percent of our hydraulic fracturing solutions,” Teresa Wong, a Halliburton spokeswoman, said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.
EPA’s request for companies to volunteer the information also went to Schlumberger Ltd.; BJ Services Co., which was acquired this year by Baker Hughes Inc.; Complete Production Services Inc.; Key Energy Services Inc.; Patterson-UTI Energy Inc.; RPC Inc.; Superior Well Services Inc. and Weatherford International Ltd., according to the agency’s statement.
“We are pro-actively evaluating all of our wells in the area and we are prepared to take all necessary steps to remedy the situation,” Chesapeake spokesman Brian Grove said in an e- mail. “Based on comprehensive field testing, the issue does not pose a threat to public safety or the environment.”
‘Misinformation’ Campaign
Gas drilling is safe and will benefit residents and produce tax revenue, the Hamburg, New York-based Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York, an industry group whose directors include representatives from Halliburton and Talisman Energy Inc., said in a statement. Critics of fracturing in New York have waged a “a calculated campaign of misinformation and ignorance,” said IOGA executive director Brad Gill.
“Our position is generally we have no qualm with disclosing what it is we’re adding to the water we’re pumping,” Joe Winkler, chief executive officer for Houston-based Complete Production Services, said in an interview.
Since 2009, the EPA has been investigating complaints of tainted groundwater in Pavillion, Wyoming, in Fremont County, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) west of Caspar. While the latest round of tests detected petroleum hydrocarbons, including benzene and methane, in wells and in groundwater, the agency said it could not pinpoint the source of the contamination.
More Tests
Further tests are planned. The EPA is working with Calgary- based EnCana Corp., the primary gas operator in the area, according to a statement.
Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake was issued a notice of violation and is working with Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection to determine the source of gas detected in the Susquehanna River and at six private water wells this month. The Chesapeake wells haven’t been fractured with water and chemicals and aren’t producing gas.
“This scientifically rigorous study will help us understand the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water, a concern that has been raised by Congress and the American people,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at jefstathiou@bloomberg.net.
EPA Gets an Earful at Coal Ash Disposal Hearings
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2010/2010-09-09-092.html
EPA Gets an Earful at Coal Ash Disposal Hearings
DALLAS, Texas, September 9, 2010 (ENS) – Concerned about the health and environmental dangers of coal ash dumps, hundreds of residents from four states packed a U.S. EPA hearing in Dallas Wednesday, urging the agency to adopt the stronger of two plans to regulate the waste from coal-fired power plants.
The agency’s proposed regulation is the first national effort to ensure the safe disposal and management of ash from coal-fired power plants, which generate some 136 million tons of coal ash every year.
Texas burns more coal than any other state and also produces more coal ash. Power companies can bury it in landfills or store it in impoundment ponds, or they sell it as a component of building materials, roads or pavement.
“EPA must protect the public health by regulating this waste.” said Travis Brown of the Neighbors for Neighbors group in Texas. “Because coal ash is being dumped into unlined mining pits in our community, we are concerned that the groundwater we depend on may become contaminated.”
“Without federal oversight,” he said, “the state of Texas will continue to put profits before people and allow companies to escape cleaning up their own messes.”
“Doctors and scientists are just beginning to learn how the hazardous substances found in coal ash detrimentally affect human health,” said Dr. J.P. Bell, an emergency room physician from Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Coal ash is composed primarily of oxides of silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium, magnesium, titanium, sodium, potassium, arsenic, mercury, and sulfur plus small quantities of the radioactive elements uranium and thorium.
“I learned that radioactive coal ash dumps are like sleeper cells, causing chaos down the road,” said Dr. Bell. “The health of citizens not affected until they become patients 20 years later.”
“In my personal experiences with citizens in Arkansas and Oklahoma battling against these huge waste pits, I have seen the negative consequences firsthand. Common sense dictates that the EPA should protect citizens when industry and the states refuse to.”
Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said, “It’s been an inspiring day, seeing so many people from the region taking action to protect their air, their water, their health.”
The public hearing is one of seven the EPA is holding across the nation through the end of September on its plan to regulate coal ash. EPA will hold one additional public hearing in Knoxville, Tennessee during the week of October 25, 2010, the exact date to be announced.
The need for national management criteria and regulation was highlighted by the December 2008 spill of coal ash from a surface impoundment at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant in Roane County, Tennessee. TVA, a public utility owned and operated by the federal government, local, state and federal agencies continue to work on recovery and cleanup of the millions of tons of ash that buried a valley and spilled into the Clinch and Emory rivers.
EPA has proposed two main coal ash management approaches. The stronger one treats coal ash as a hazardous waste. It would phase out surface impoundments and move all coal ash to landfills. Each state would have to individually adopt this version of the rule, which would be enforced by state and federal governments.
Protective controls, such as liners and ground water monitoring, would be required at new landfills to protect groundwater and human health, under the stronger proposal. Existing landfills would have no liner requirements, but groundwater monitoring would be required.
The weaker proposal would continue to allow coal ash to be disposed in surface impoundments, but with stricter safety criteria. New impoundments would have to be built with liners.
Existing surface impoundments would also be required to install liners and companies would be provided with incentives to close these impoundments and transition to safer landfills which store coal ash in dry form. Existing impoundments would have to remove solids and retrofit with a liner or close the dump within five years of the rule’s effective date.
This weaker proposal would apply across the country six months after final rule takes effect, but there would be no state or federal enforcement. Citizens or states would have to enforce this version of the rule through the courts.
The coal industry prefers the weaker proposal, which treats the ash as as a non-hazardous product.
Thomas Adams, executive director of the American Coal Ash Association, told the EPA hearing in Denver last week that by labeling it as a toxic, the EPA would jeopardize a successful recycling industry for coal ash products such as bricks and concrete that uses nearly half the coal ash produced.
In advance of the public hearings, the Environmental Integrity Project, Earthjustice and Sierra Club issued an extensive report on the nationwide scope of the coal ash disposal problem.
The report, “In Harm’s Way” pinpoints 39 previously unreported sites in 21 states where coal waste has contaminated groundwater or surface water with toxic metals and other pollutants.
Their analysis is based on monitoring data and other information available in state agency files and builds on a report released in February of 2010, which documented similar damage at 31 coal combustion waste dumpsites in 14 states.
When added to the 67 damage cases that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has already acknowledged, the total number of sites polluted by coal ash or scrubber sludge comes to at least 137 damaged sites in 34 states.
“At every one of the 35 sites with ground water monitoring wells, on-site test results show that concentrations of heavy metals like arsenic or lead exceed federal health-based standards for drinking water,” the report states.
“For years nobody, including the Environmental Protection Agency, has had a full picture of how much of this toxic waste is out there, where it is, or if it is safely contained. It has been dumped with no federal oversight, and utterly inadequate state policies,” said Dr. Neil Carman, Clean Air Program director with the Lonestar Chapter of Sierra Club. “Now that we’re aware, we are finding contamination everywhere we look.”
Site tracks shale industry campaign spending
http://citizensvoice.com/news/site-tracks-shale-industry-campaign-spending-1.1021359
Site tracks shale industry campaign spending
BY ROBERT SWIFT (HARRISBURG BUREAU CHIEF)
Published: September 20, 2010
HARRISBURG – The natural gas industry contributed more than $3 million to statewide and legislative candidates from 2001 through March and spent more than $5 million on lobbying since 2007 when a new public disclosure law took effect, according to a new campaign spending tracking website.
Common Cause PA and Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania recently launched the website www.marcellusmoney.org to provide a window on industry spending as up to date as possible under the infrequent state campaign finance reporting deadlines. The website is searchable by company, political candidate and contribution amount.
It debuts with intense debate over Marcellus Shale tax and regulatory issues dominating Harrisburg during an election year.
Search our online databases on natural gas drilling
The site identifies 25 natural gas companies as top campaign contributors during the past decade, including several active in Northeast Pennsylvania, a hot spot for drilling and exploration in the Marcellus Shale geological formation. They include Chesapeake ($75,000), Chief Oil & Gas ($16,800), Anadarko ($8,600), Williams Production ($2,750) and Cabot Oil & Gas ($1,500).
Indiana, Pa.-based SW Jack Drilling tops the list with $950,000 in contributions, one-third of the total. But there’s an important caveat. The firm’s chairwoman is Christine L. Toretti, the National Republican committeewoman and frequent contributor to GOP candidates.
According to the website, the top 10 recipients of driller campaign cash during the past decade include: Attorney General and GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett ($372,000), Lt. Gov./Senate GOP leader Joseph Scarnati ($117,000), Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell ($84,000), Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato ($74,000), Rep. David Reed, R-Indiana ($57,000), Democratic Auditor General and gubernatorial candidate Jack Wagner ($50,000), Sen. Don White, R-Indiana ($48,000).
Also: Senate Appropriations Chairman Jake Corman, R-Bellefonte ($33,800), Former House Democratic leader Bill DeWeese, D-Waynesburg ($29,400) and House Minority Whip Mike Turzai, R-Pittsburgh ($26,000).
Northeastern region lawmakers receiving contributions include House Speaker Keith McCall, D-Summit Hill ($12,000), Senate Minority Leader Robert Mellow, D-Peckville ($7,000), Rep. Matt Baker, R-Wellsboro ($6,200), Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Lower Saucon Township ($5,300), Sen. David Argall, R-Tamaqua ($3,900), Rep. Tina Pickett, R-Towanda ($2,500), Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Lehman Township ($1,500), Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Williamsport ($1,500), Sen. John Gordner, R-Berwick ($1,300), House Majority Leader Todd Eachus, D-Butler Township ($1,250), Rep. Ed Staback, D-Archbald ($500), Rep. John Yudichak, D-Nanticoke ($250) and Rep. Karen Boback, R-Harveys Lake ($250).
“This is such a good issue to demonstrate the power of money in elections in Pennsylvania,” said Common Cause director Barry Kauffman, citing the impact of the drilling boom on water quality, local roads and the use of chemicals in fracking fluids. “These are all pretty important issues for people in two-thirds of the state.”
Industry spokesmen point to another side of the coin regarding efforts to influence policy on Marcellus Shale issues.
Two Harrisburg-based nonprofit organizations that advocate for a state severance tax on natural gas production have funding issues of their own, they add. The environmental group PennFuture receives taxpayer-funded grants to promote alternate-energy development, while the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, which issues studies on the tax structure, has major labor leaders on its board.
The natural gas industry doesn’t receive tax dollars and is transparent about who contributes to its advocacy efforts, said Travis Windle, spokesman for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry trade group.
Alex Kaplan, the Marcellus website creator, built the database using campaign reports filed with the Department of State. The department’s campaign finance website allows for searches of individual candidates and PACs, but not anything more in-depth.
“It’s impossible to get a sweeping view of an industry on that (state) website,” said Kaplan. He said such analysis is important since Pennsylvania is one of the few states that doesn’t limit the amount of campaign contributions.
rswift@timesshamrock.com