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
Dimock Municipal Water
http://www.newschannel34.com/news/local/story/Dimock-Municipal-Water/nQ3hhSe3YkOkC1NQvgqwgw.cspx
Dimock Municipal Water
Last Update: 9/17/2010 10:15 pm
Pennsylvania’s top environmental regulator is proposing that residents in Dimock, PA who have had their drinking water wells contaminated by nearby hydro-fracking, be connected to municipal water supplies six miles away.
John Hanger says the best and only solution is to connect residents to the water system in Montrose at a cost of more than $10 million. The state DEP determined that the residential wells were contaminated with methane as a result of nearby natural gas drilling by Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas. Cabot has been supplying the homes with bottled water and the residents have launched a lawsuit against the company. Hanger says that if Cabot balks at paying the tab, the state will pay for the work itself, then go after Cabot for the money.
Researchers Concerned About Chemical In The Monongahela River
http://kdka.com/local/chemical.monongahela.river.2.1919015.html
Sep 17, 2010 8:02 pm US/Eastern
Researchers Concerned About Chemical In Mon River
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―The Monongahela River is the source for 13 different water companies.
The drinking water comes out of taps in homes and businesses in the better part of southwestern Pennsylvania.
Now researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are raising concerns about the level of bromide in the Mon River – something they detected in July and August.
“Bromide itself is not a concern,” says Dr. Jeanne VanBriesen, director of CMU’s Water Quality In Urban Environmental Systems Center. “We’re concerned that when the bromide gets into the drinking water plants there’s a reaction that takes place.”
And that reaction comes when the river water is disinfected with chlorine and forms byproducts. The byproducts are always present in our water at different levels, but continuous high levels are linked to health problems, says Dr. VanBriesen.
“Particularly cancer and reproductive outcomes,” she said.
There is not a lot that water companies can do. The bromide contamination has to be stopped at its source. They must find out how it’s getting into the river.
“We initially started researching it because the Marcellus Shale produced-water does have a significant amount of bromide,” Dr. VanBriesen said.
But the bromide levels only spiked this summer and a lot of other industries are capable to producing bromide.
“It’s crucial for people to understand that we’re concerned about this, but the water is safe to drink,” Dr. VanBriesen said.
It’s the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s job to monitor contaminants in the rivers.
“Going back and using our data to look at all the dozens of facilities along the Mon that discharge into the river,” is what the watchdog department is doing says spokesperson Katy Gresh.
DEP detectives will be looking at three categories of potential bromide polluters.
“Deep mining, oil and gas as you mentioned and other heavy industry like power plants and steel plants,” Gresh said.
Finding a source may take six months to a year to sample bromide levels, but for now the DEP agrees that our water meets all federal standards.
The increased bromide levels have nothing to do with the musty taste and smell that some water company customers were experiencing last month due to stressed algae in the rivers.
Penn State will hold workshop on drilling water tests
http://citizensvoice.com/news/penn-state-will-hold-workshop-on-drilling-water-tests-1.1017737
Published: September 18, 2010
Penn State will hold workshop on drilling water tests
Penn State Cooperative Extension will hold an informational workshop on how to interpret pre- and post-gas drilling water test reports starting at 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 27 in the Lake-Lehman Junior-Senior high school on Old Route 115 in Lehman Township.
Participants will learn how to understand the reports, as well as what drinking water standards are, how to treat pre-existing water quality problems, and the importance of chain-of-custody. Penn State Extension educators Peter Wulfhorst and Bryan Swistock will be the presenters.
The program is sponsored by the Penn State Master Well Owner Network, with funding and support from Penn State Cooperative Extension, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Pennsylvania Groundwater Association.
For information or to register to attend, call (570) 825-1701, 602-0600 or 888-825-1701.
Cement flows for permanent plug of BP’s Gulf well
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GULF_OIL_SPILL?SITE=PALEH&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-09-18-07-21-23
Sep 18, 2010
Cement flows for permanent plug of BP’s Gulf well
By HARRY R. WEBER
Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Crews pumped cement into BP’s blown-out oil well thousands of feet below the sea bottom Saturday, working to finally seal the runaway well.
Engineers initially had planned to pump in mud before the cement, but a BP spokesman said that wasn’t necessary because there was no pressure building inside the well.
BP expects the well will be completely sealed – and declared permanently dead – sometime Saturday, five months after the catastrophe began April 20, when an explosion killed 11 workers, sank a drilling rig and led to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
The cement couldn’t be pumped in until a relief well drill nearly 2.5 miles beneath the floor of the Gulf intersected the blown-out well, which happened Thursday.
The relief well was the 41st successful drilling attempt by John Wright, a contractor who led the team drilling the relief well aboard the Development Driller III vessel. Wright, who has never missed his target, told The Associated Press in August that he was looking forward to finishing the well and celebrating with a cigar and a quiet getaway with his wife.
“I am ready for that cigar now,” Wright said in an e-mail Friday to the AP from aboard the DDIII.
The Gulf well spewed 206 million gallons of oil until the gusher was first stopped in mid-July with a temporary cap. Mud and cement were later pushed down through the top of the well, allowing the cap to be removed. But officials will not declare it dead until it is sealed from the bottom.
BP PLC is a majority owner of the well and was leasing the rig from owner Transocean Ltd.
The oil spill was an environmental and economic nightmare for people along the Gulf Coast that has spawned civil and criminal investigations. It cost gaffe-prone BP chief Tony Hayward his job and brought increased governmental scrutiny of the oil and gas industry, including a costly moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling that is still in place.
With oil still in the water – some of it still washing ashore – people continue to struggle. Fishermen are still fighting the perception their catch is tainted, and tourism also has taken a hit.
Battle lines drawn over drilling in Delaware watershed
http://standardspeaker.com/news/battle-lines-drawn-over-drilling-in-delaware-watershed-1.1017453
Battle lines drawn over drilling in Delaware watershed
BY STEVE MCCONNELL (STAFF WRITER)
Published: September 18, 2010
The battle lines among pro and anti-natural gas drilling groups are being drawn in the Delaware River watershed amid the development of new regulations by an obscure federal-interstate agency that has jurisdiction over the industry and has put the clamps on it.
Both groups have been firing salvos recently hoping to shape gas drilling policy here, a 13,539-square mile area draining into the Delaware River that has been mostly off-limits to gas drilling including a ban on producing gas wells enacted in May.
But environmentalists were dealt a major blow Wednesday to convince the Delaware River Basin Commission to conduct an cumulative impact study of natural gas drilling.
Seventy-seven organizations issued a joint letter to the commission, a five member-board that manages water resources in the four-state area, urging them to vote at their Wednesday meeting in West Trenton, N.J. to undertake the substantial environmental study prior to adopting new natural gas regulations.
That request, however, never came to fruition – giving pro-drillers some relief because it would have extended the drilling moratorium that is in place while the commission develops its regulations, a process that began this year.
Peter Wynne, a spokesman for the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance, a landowners group that has secured at least 80,000 acres in Wayne County for gas development, said Thursday it is not sensible to conduct a major environmental study before even knowing if there is a viable Marcellus Shale gas reserve in the watershed.
“The whole think would be an exercise in futility,” said Wynne, whose group signed a land lease agreement late last year with Newfield Exploration Company and Hess Corp.
Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said the commission’s lack of action on the study was a considerable setback, however, since the commission could use it to create effective regulations to protect the watershed.
“We really can’t develop regulations that would prevent pollution” without the study, Carluccio said. “You can’t develop regulations in a vacuum. We know it’s not safe now.”
Carluccio and other environmentalists remain concerned that a massive, industry-scale gas drilling operation could cause irreparable damage to the watershed and the Delaware River, which is part of the U.S. National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, home to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, and provides drinking water to an estimated 15 million people.
A U.S. House subcommittee has appropriated $1 million for the study, conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey and limited to the watershed. If and when that money will be available is not known.
Commmission spokesman Clarke Rupert said that even if such a study is funded today, “it could still be several years before final results … are known.”
The commission will move ahead with developing and adopting draft regulations regardless of whether the study is or is not done, he added.
Meanwhile, draft regulations – which were expected to be finished this month by commission staff – have been pushed back to mid-October.
Industry opponents had also asked the commission to halt exploratory well drilling – four wells are either in development or have been drilled in Wayne County – until the new regulations are put in place.
The commission denied the request by vote Wednesday.
The matter will, however, go before a retired federal U.S. district court judge in December who will make a recommendation whether the agency should regulate these wells before its gas rules are adopted or be included in the current moratorium.
Some in Palmerton feel borough was shortchanged
http://www.tnonline.com/node/134788
Reported on Friday, September 17, 2010
Some in Palmerton feel borough was shortchanged
By TERRY AHNER tahner@tnonline.com
TERRY AHNER/TIMES NEWS Dr. Kathleen Patnode, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, gives a presentation on the Palmerton Zinc Pile Superfund Site Natural Resource Damage Assessment to members of the Palmerton Area Chamber of Commerce earlier this week.
Has Palmerton been shortchanged out of a $20 million settlement for damage to the environment?
A number of borough officials and business owners believe so, and let their thoughts be heard at a meeting of the Palmerton Area Chamber of Commerce earlier this week.
Dr. Kathleen Patnode, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Pennsylvania Field Office, explained the nature of the settlement reached last year between the Environmental Protection Agency and CBS Operations, Inc, as well as the decision-making process that determined how the funds are to be used.
Recently, government trustees have decided that more than 95-percent of the natural resource damage assessment funds are expected to be expended on projects well outside the Palmerton area.
Patnode gave a presentation on the Palmerton Zinc Pile Superfund Site Natural Resource Damage Assessment Draft Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment.
As part of her dialogue, Patnode shared the context for the natural resource damaged assessment; summarized the natural resource injury assessment; outlined the restoration opinions analysis; described the preferred restoration alternatives; and reviewed the public process.
Patnode said that under Superfund site law, natural resource damage assessments are conducted by government officials designated to act as “trustees” to bring claims on behalf of the public for the restoration of natural resources injured due to hazardous substances. Those trustees include the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, Department of Environmental Protection, Pennsylvania Game Commission, and Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, she said.
The goal, Patnode said, is to make the public whole for the hazardous substance-related loss of natural resources through restoration, replacement, or acquisition of the equivalent of injured resources.
Patnode stressed that natural resource damages are in addition to remedial actions. and that remedial actions are risk-based to protect human health and the environment from further unacceptable harm, such as to bind metals in soils and plants on the mountain; to stop metals from contaminating groundwater; and to prevent metals from entering the creek.
Natural resource damages for the Palmerton site are the restoration needed to compensate for the level and type of natural resources that would have existed if metals had not contaminated the mountain, groundwater and creek, Patnode said.
She said the keys in the NRDA process are to define the scope, evaluate the injury, use information to reach settlement with potentially responsible parties, and develop a restoration plan.
The settlement for natural resource damages was reached with the responsible parties on Oct. 27, 2009, by judicial consent decree, Patnode said.
That includes the transfer of about 1,300 acres of the “King Manor” property to PGC; the discharge of the $300,000 mortgage on the Lehigh Gap Nature Center; a nonprofit conservation and environmental education organization located in the Lehigh Gap; a cash payment of $9.875 million, that, based on the cost of potential restoration projects, would compensate for remaining losses; as well as full reimbursement of the trustees’ damage assessment costs, she said.
The proposal, Patnode said, calls for the funds to be used for habitat acquisition/easement protection of the Cherry Valley National Wildlife Refuge; Lehigh River Headwaters and other areas on Kittatinny Ridge and the Lehigh River; a Lower Lehigh River Dam removal feasibility study; a Parryville access site for fishing on the Lehigh River; and restoration and enhancement of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.
But, many residents in the Palmerton area believe that a greater percentage of the funds should be use on local environmental projects, said Peter Kern, chamber president.
“I think everybody understands the difference between remediation and replacement,” Kern said. “People are concerned there will be little or no money in the local community.”
Terry Costenbader, president of Palmerton Borough Council, was a bit more blunt in his approach.
“Let’s cut to the chase; CBS is paying the penalty here for causing the damage,” Costenbader said. “It sounds to me you people want to spend the money in other areas than where we’re sitting.”
Jim Christman, owner of Christman Realty, told Patnode the criteria “seems odd”, and added that the real damage to the community “has been the stigma as a Superfund Site attached to it.”
Patnode said that while she could empathize, a specific set of rules and regulations must be followed.
“I understand what you’re saying and that there could be many civic products in Palmerton,” Patnode said. “This law only basically allows us to restore natural resources.”
Patnode said appropriate lands could include the Cherry Valley National Wildlife Refuge and the Upper Lehigh River area.
She said the public comment period was from June 15 to July 15; however, comments submitted after the deadline were accepted. Trustees will review all comments and develop a revised document and response to the comments, Patnode said.
Also, she said additional restoration projects for Trustee evaluation are being accepted. But, Patnode said potential projects won’t be reviewed until the restoration plan is final; projects will be divided by alternative type and evaluated by the subcouncil responsible for that alternative; and the subcouncil recommendations must receive unanimous vote by the entire trustee council.
Patnode said the goal is to get the plan finalized this fall, at which point projects could be reviewed.
Dan Kunkle, director of the Lehigh Gap Nature Center, said the group is merely “following the law.”
“I trust they are going to look at our proposals, and accept or reject them based on the criteria,” Kunkle said. “I think the project is really working.”