‘Fracking’ Has a Friend in Pennsylvania
The Carbon County Groundwater Guardians do not support any political party or individual politicians.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/12/06/pa-gov-elect-to-open-state-land-to-fracking.html
‘Fracking’ Has a Friend in Pennsylvania
Beneath the eastern U.S. is enough natural gas to power the coast, perhaps for 50 years. But the cache is cordoned off because of concerns about “fracking,” the method of harvesting gas by blasting the shale with a mix of water, sand, and chemicals. The EPA is investigating if the method affects reservoirs, while landowners, spurred by flammable tap water and allegations of poisoned animals, have launched lawsuits. But fracking may be poised for a comeback—at least politically.
With the House in Republican hands, fracking is likely to survive efforts to regulate it under the Safe Drinking Water Act. But more significantly, this foe of environmentalists now has a friend in gas-rich Pennsylvania. Governor-elect Tom Corbett will soon reopen state land to new drilling, his spokesperson tells NEWSWEEK. That would clear the way for as many as 10,000 wells (up from the 25 active today) and, according to a recent study, create tens of thousands of new jobs and hundreds of millions in state- and local-tax revenue. The industry funded that research. But the prospect is tempting others: New York Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo is also open to lifting his state’s moratorium, says a spokesperson.
Live WVIA show eyes drilling’s impact
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Live_WVIA_show_eyes_drilling_rsquo_s_impact_12-05-2010.html
Posted: December 6
Updated: Today at 12:30 AM
Live WVIA show eyes drilling’s impact
WVIA will broadcast an episode of its “State of Pennsylvania” program debating the change natural gas drilling has brought to the northern tier of the state live at 7 p.m. Thursday from the Keystone Theater in Towanda.
A panel of Bradford County municipal officials, business owners and natural gas company representatives will answer audience questions and discuss changes in the economy and quality of life gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale has brought to the Towanda area.
Free tickets to attend the show may be reserved by calling the Keystone Theatre at 570-602-1150 or online at wvia.org.
Times Leader Staff
Horse out of the barn on gas drilling
http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101205/NEWS04/12050305
December 05, 2010
Horse out of the barn on gas drilling
The federal Interior Department is considering whether natural gas drillers should have to disclose the chemicals they use in hydraulic fracturing. This after-the-fact approach to environmental regulation says a lot about how Americans willingly accept unknown risks for the sake of immediate, relatively short-term energy gratification.
“Fracking” involves injecting millions of gallons of water containing chemicals and sand, deep underground. The pressure of the liquid creates cracks through which natural gas can flow and be extracted. The process is highly controversial because of the possibility of spills and of contaminating groundwater. Already instances of contaminated wells have cropped up in well-drilling areas of Pennsylvania, and many spills have occurred. This represents a major public health and safety concern. After all, the majority of Pocono-area residents rely on wells for their drinking water, and millions of Pennsylvanians and New Yorkers depend on clean drinking water from the Delaware River.
Material safety data sheets that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection obtained from drilling companies list nearly 80 chemicals they use in the fracking process, among them ethylbenzene, methanol, aqueous ammonia and sulfuric acid. These pose a threat to everything from the tiny organisms that live under rocks in streams to birds, fish, animals and humans.
Industry officials argue that disclosing exactly what they use in the fracking process would reveal valuable proprietary information. But as long as regulators allow this drilling method, the public should know the formula for what is flowing into the ground under their property and their neighbors’ property. And certainly workers should know what they may be exposed to. An Oil and Gas Accountability Project study reported that Colorado had about 1,500 reported spills of various types, including fracturing fluids, in five years, while New Mexico had close to 800.
Still, shouldn’t regulators be focusing more on how drillers are extracting gas, rather than on what’s in the fracking fluid? Requiring super-strong well casings would reduce the likelihood of blowouts that could pollute the shallow aquifers we tap for our drinking water. Requiring all drillers to recycle the little fracking fluid they recover would help, too. Instead, regulators say they want to know what’s in the fluid, presumably so that after the fact they can treat the used water, treat humans who’ve been exposed to it, or enable well owners to test for specific contaminants. That’s all about response, not prevention.
In recent years Pennsylvania has become a mecca for gas drilling companies eager to exploit the gas-rich Marcellus shale deposit. The substances flowing underground, and sometimes escaping above ground and into our streams, could produce a dangerous legacy for our future. The real fact is that we are risking our common environment and natural landscape and putting our clean water in jeopardy for the sake of a few decades of natural gas.
Judge denies gas driller’s motion to dismiss Dimock lawsuit
http://citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/judge-denies-gas-driller-s-motion-to-dismiss-dimock-lawsuit-1.1070624
Judge denies gas driller’s motion to dismiss Dimock lawsuit
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: November 30, 2010
A federal judge has denied a motion by Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. to dismiss a case brought by Dimock Township residents who claim their health and property have been harmed by the company’s natural gas drilling activities.
Cabot sought to have a judge throw out the case brought by 63 residents of the Susquehanna County township, arguing the families failed to establish a legal basis for the suit against the Texas-based driller.
But in an order issued Nov. 15, U.S. District Court Judge John E. Jones III found there is reason to allow the case to go forward on all but part of one count. He also refused Cabot’s request to strike several allegations from the families’ complaint.
In the suit, filed in November 2009, the families claim Cabot’s gas drilling activities allowed methane and other toxins to migrate onto their land and into their drinking water, causing them illness, property damage, fear of future sickness and emotional distress.
Of particular interest in the judge’s order was his decision not to throw out the families’ claim that Cabot is legally responsible for the alleged harm based on the principle of strict liability. The principle holds that some activities are so dangerous that those conducting them are responsible for any damage they cause regardless of the precautions they take to prevent it.
Pennsylvania courts have not directly addressed whether gas drilling is an “abnormally dangerous” activity that fits the strict liability standard. In its motion to dismiss, Cabot argued that state courts have determined that similar activities, such as operating petroleum pipelines or underground storage tanks at gas stations, are not abnormally dangerous.
In his order, Jones said it is too early in the case to extend the standard for pipelines and storage tanks to gas drilling.
“We believe it improvident to automatically extend this reasoning to drilling activities without more thorough consideration,” he wrote, adding that Cabot can raise the issue at a later point when more facts have been presented in the case.
Ross H. Pifer, a professor at Penn State University’s Dickinson School of Law who follows Marcellus Shale-related laws and litigation, said the judge’s choice to put off a decision on the strict liability question means that gas drilling in general, and not just Cabot’s particular activities, is left open to scrutiny in the case.
“It definitely would be significant if a court were to rule that drilling is abnormally dangerous, but we’re not there at this point,” he said.
Jones also denied Cabot’s motion to dismiss the families’ claims under the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act and for a medical monitoring trust fund. He dismissed the families’ claim of gross negligence as a cause of action, but allowed them to retain the allegations they made under that claim to support their broader claim for punitive damages.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
‘Water Footprinting’ to Deal With Demand for Supplies
I.H.T. Special Report: Business of Green
‘Water Footprinting’ to Deal With Demand for Supplies
By TANAYA MACHEEL
Published: November 29, 2010
NEW YORK — A water-use report issued in September by Coca-Cola with the Nature Conservancy found that 518 liters of freshwater are required to produce just one liter of its Minute Maid orange juice, and 35 liters are needed to produce a half liter of Coca-Cola.
A growing awareness of just how much water it takes to produce everyday consumer goods is inspiring a rising interest in “water footprinting” — akin to carbon footprinting — as a tool to analyze and guide the development of new technologies, water infrastructure investment and policies aimed at coping with the world’s rising water demand.
Conceptually, the water footprint is similar to that of carbon — an impact indicator based on the total volume of direct and indirect freshwater used in producing a good or service. There is a difference, however. Unlike carbon in the atmosphere, fresh water resources are localized, not global.
“Water is not carbon,” said Jason Morrison, program director at the Pacific Institute, a research organization in Oakland, California, that studies resource sustainability issues. “Whatever you might say about the validity of carbon credits, it will be extremely hard to have that amount of success in the water area because, volumetrically, one volume of water has a different meaning in one part of the world versus another.”
Still, in July, Veolia Water North America, a water and wastewater utility based in Chicago, and part of the French utility Veolia Environnement, presented its water impact index. The company said it was the first indicator to provide a comprehensive assessment of the effects of human activity on water resources.
“Current water footprints focus almost exclusively on volume,” said Laurent Auguste, the company’s president and chief executive. Volume, he said, is “a good indicator to raise awareness, but not sufficient to represent the impact on a water resource.”
The volume of water needed to produce a carton of orange juice or a bottle of Coca-Cola, for example, may be fixed; but the actual effect on a freshwater resource, and the local environment, can vary tremendously — including the amount of energy and raw materials used and the chemical and other waste contaminants created in the process.
To give a fuller view, Veolia’s index integrates other variables, including resource stress, water quality and competing consumption needs with existing volume-based water measurement tools.
Some analysts, however, question the usefulness of that approach.
Claudia Ringler, a senior research fellow in Montreal with the International Food Policy Research Institute, based in Washington, said water footprinting was a good concept in theory, but less so in practice. “It’s almost impossible to do a comprehensive analysis,” Ms. Ringler said. “One has to be very careful before drawing conclusions based on it.”
David Zetland, an economist and the author of a forthcoming book, “The End of Abundance: Your Guide to the New Economics of Water Scarcity,” said footprinting would serve little purpose unless, for a start, water was priced according to its value.
If water were appropriately priced, he said, the price of consumer products would reflect the amount of water used in making them. Since most consumers either would not understand footprinting, or would not care, Mr. Zetland said, they would almost always pay more attention to the price of what they bought than to a certificate on the label.
From the point of view of producing companies, he added, if water supplies were free, or nearly so, water footprinting and investments in water efficiency would remain superfluous. “Water footprinting has no operational, economic or social value to companies if the cost of labor and equipment to reduce water consumption exceeds the cost of the water saved,” Mr. Zetland said.
The basic problem, he said, is that the price of water rarely reflects its value or scarcity. “The price for most products combines value to consumers with the cost of production and delivery,” Mr. Zetland said. “Since the price of water only reflects the cost of delivery — the water itself is free — we don’t pay a price that reflects its value or scarcity.”
Still, not all experts are so dismissive. Even though water footprinting is still in its infancy, and there is no common agreement on what variables should be taken into account, tools like the Veolia index could help to map the relative risks associated with water use in specific locations, said Mr. Morrison, the Pacific Institute program director.
With water-related risk likely to become more pronounced over time, he said, “there is a lot of value to water footprinting, no matter how you define it.”
A recent report by the institute, prepared for the United Nations Environment Program, evaluated different water-accounting tools and found that many, though still evolving, would be essential to companies in their water risk and impact assessments and water management, Mr. Morrison added.
Water footprinting has also spawned interest in markets as a possible driver for smarter water use. Water markets are full of distortions, said Ms. Ringler, the International Food Policy research fellow, and it is almost impossible to create a real competitive international market. But there are examples of successful in-country water markets, she added, citing river basins in Australia and Chile.
Michael Van Patten is chief executive and founder of Mission Markets, a financial services company that operates Earth, a multi-environmental credit exchange regulated by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in the United States. “We might be several years away, but the potential is huge,” he said. “The world knows we have a huge water problem, and no one knows how to solve it yet. This is one way to approach it.”
His idea is to develop tradable credits from the offsets of localized water projects. These could be bought by companies, countries or any community with a direct effect on the water supply. While there is no regulation in the United States to drive such a market, credit programs, if managed properly, could help to encourage environmental protection by reducing the costs involved, said Christian Holmes, a senior adviser for energy and environment at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Still, said Charles Iceland, an associate with the World Resources Institute, water is a highly political topic, and allocation decisions cannot be made on the basis of economic efficiency alone.
“Whatever management scheme you devise must have equity built into it,” Mr. Iceland said, “so that people have their human right to water.”
Unanimous Vote for Stronger Well Construction Standards
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/newsroom/14287?id=15270&typeid=1
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
11/18/2010
DEP Secretary Praises Unanimous Vote for Stronger Well Construction Standards to Prevent Gas Migration, Protect Public and Environment
Regulations Move to Attorney General for Approval
HARRISBURG — A set of new standards that will make natural gas wells safer were approved unanimously today on a vote of 5-0 by the state’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission, Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger said today.
Hanger praised the IRRC vote, saying the new regulations will, among other things, impose more stringent construction standards on gas wells, making them less likely to allow natural gas to escape and contaminate water supplies or cause safety concerns.
The final-form regulations now go to the state Office of Attorney General for final review and approval. The regulations were deemed approved by the House and Senate Environmental Resources and Energy committees.
“When gas migrates from a poorly constructed gas well through the ground, it can contaminate water supplies or build up to explosive levels in water wells or even homes,” said Hanger. “These strong rules will eliminate or significantly reduce the problem of gas migration from poorly designed or constructed gas wells, as long as the rules are followed or enforced.”
Hanger added that the new rules also will require drillers to report production and waste volumes electronically and to submit a detailed report of the chemicals they use in the hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – process. In addition to these important provisions, operators will be required to keep a list of emergency contact phone numbers at the well site and follow a new set of instructions on what steps to take in the event of a gas migration incident.
The regulations also include provisions clarifying how and when blow-out prevention equipment is to be installed and operated.
The Environmental Quality Board approved the regulations on a final vote of 15-1 in October, after receiving nearly 2,000 public comments during the comment period and a series of five public hearings. A majority of the comments supported the new regulations.
In drafting the regulations, DEP also met with numerous oil and gas operators, industry groups and environmental groups to discuss the regulations in detail.
The department used the public’s input to make several important changes to the regulations, which further improved the well-design requirements to prevent gas migration incidents, including:
· A provision that requires operators to have a pressure barrier plan to minimize well control events;
· A provision that requires operators to condition the wellbore to ensure an adequate bond between the cement, casing and the formation;
· Provisions that require the use of centralizers to ensure casings are properly positioned in the wellbore; and
· A provision that improves the quality of the cement placed in the casing that protects fresh groundwater.
Once all reviews and approvals are obtained, the regulations will go into effect upon publication in the PA Bulletin.
For more information, visit www.depweb.state.pa,us, and select “Public Participation.”
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
Dept. of Environmental Protection
Commonwealth News Bureau
Room 308, Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg PA., 17120
CONTACT:
John Repetz, Department of Environmental Protection
717-787-1323
Halliburton unveils website with fracking details
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFN1526804120101115?sp=true
Halliburton unveils website with fracking details
By Ayesha Rascoe
Mon Nov 15, 2010 8:36pm GMT
* Halliburton outlines chemicals in 3 fracking products
* EPA issued subpoena for Halliburton on fracking fluids
WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (Reuters) – Halliburton (HAL.N: Quote) unveiled a new website on Monday offering some details about the mix of chemicals used in a natural gas drilling technique, as the company attempts to allay public concerns about the impact of the practice on drinking water.
The new website outlines the make-up and concentration of the chemicals contained in three of its products commonly used for hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania.
(Website: http://www.halliburton.com/hydraulicfracturing )
“We believe this effort represents an important and substantive contribution to the broader long-term imperative of transparency,” David Adams, a Halliburton vice president, said in a statement.
The move follows the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision last week to subpoena Halliburton to force the company to turn over information about the chemicals it produces for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. [ID:nN0983184]
But Halliburton said the website is not a response to EPA’s actions or meant to satisfy the agency’s demands.
“That was not the intent. What we’ve done is try to provide information in a way that the public can understand,” a Halliburton spokeswoman said on a conference call.
Fracking is a process that injects a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into rock formations to stimulate oil and natural gas production. [ID:nN18229665]
Although it has been around for decades, use of the drilling practice has exploded in recent years as companies use it to extract unconventional yet abundant reserves of shale gas.
The expansion of shale gas drilling in states such as Pennsylvania has raised ire of some homeowners in areas near gas development, who complain the drilling has contaminated their drinking water.
Environmental groups have called for more federal oversight of the practice and complete disclosure of all the chemicals involved.
Energy companies argue that the practice is safe, pointing out that it is done thousands of feet below ground, much deeper than most water sources.
In response to public concerns, some companies have begun attempting to make information about the chemicals used in fracking more accessible to the public.
Halliburton said its website, which does not list the chemicals used in individual well sites, will expand in the future to include details about fracking fluids for every state where the company’s services are used. (Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Fixes: Clean Water at No Cost? Just Add Carbon Credits
Fixes: Clean Water at No Cost? Just Add Carbon Credits
By By TINA ROSENBERG
Published: November 15, 2010
In America, I turn on the faucet and out pours water. In much of the world, no such luck. Nearly a billion people don’t have drinkable water. Lack of water ─ and the associated lack of toilets and proper hygiene ─ kills 3.3 million people a year, most of them children under five.
Lack of access to clean water is one of the world’s biggest health problems. And it is one of the hardest to solve. Lots of different groups dig wells and lay pipes ─ but the biggest challenge comes after the hardware is in.
The villages of Africa and South Asia are littered with the ghosts of water projects past. A traveler winding through the dirt roads and trails of rural India or Ethiopia will find wells, pumps and springs with taps ─ but most of the wells will be contaminated, the pumps broken, the taps rusted away. When the British group WaterAid began its work in the Konso district of southwestern Ethiopia in 2007, the first thing it did was look at what had come before. It found that of 35 water projects built in the area, only nine were functioning.
Pieter Bauermeister Water must be transported by hand when there is an absence of fresh water in villages. These women in rural Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, trek one and a half hours to gather water from Nongoma, a larger town.
People who work on providing clean water in poor countries estimate that about half the projects fall into disrepair soon after their builders move on. Sometimes someone loots the pump. Or it breaks and no one knows how to fix it. Or perhaps spare parts are available only in major cities. Or the needed part costs too much for the village to afford ─ even if it is just a few dollars.
Unlike one-shot vaccines, water systems need to function all day, every day, forever. So sustainability ─ the issue we find so important that it started off the Fixes series ─ is particularly crucial. It’s important to donors, who don’t want to see their money wasted. It’s important to the groups that do the work: no project is successful unless it’s taken over by local people to run. And it’s most crucial to villagers themselves, who grow cynical about promises after they see project after project inaugurated only to fail.
Now there’s a new way to save water projects from an early death: make clean water a for-profit business, charging people an unusual price: zero. Several multinational companies, such as Bechtel and Suez, already run for-profit water systems in cities around the world. These companies have attracted a lot of criticism, especially for the way they treat rural people and slum dwellers. The companies have little incentive to lay pipes to reach people who are far away, and if they do, they charge very high prices. I’m talking about something different: a water business run by a company that has headquarters in Switzerland, Vestergaard Frandsen, that plans to provide clean water to some of the world’s poorest people and charge them nothing.
Where will the profits come from? Polluters.
What will make this work are the global carbon credit markets. These markets were established after the 2007 Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gases that cause climate change. The markets provide a way for wealthy countries and corporations to offset their emissions of these gases by financing other projects that will reduce emissions. Projects can be awarded credits if auditors certify they will cut carbon emissions ─ for example, a new wind energy plant whose output will replace coal energy. These credits can then be purchased by polluters, be they countries, companies or individuals. The system is highly controversial, as it allows wealthy countries to go on polluting as long as they can pay others to cut back for them. But it does provide financial incentives for the creation of green projects.
Most of the projects that have won certification from the carbon markets are big energy plants in India and China. Less than three percent of the credits come from projects in Africa, and none of them help people get clean water. But one of the carbon credit markets does grant credits for cookstoves that use solar energy instead of wood or coal.
Vestergaard Frandsen’s idea is similar. By giving people an alternative to boiling water in order to purify it, it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in countries where trees are scarce. Boiling water is harmful for many reasons. Burning coal produces greenhouse gases, and certain ways of burning wood can, too. The indoor pollution created by burning wood or coal is a prime cause of respiratory disease. The constant need for wood is deforesting poor countries. Women who are already spending hours collecting water must spend additional hours collecting firewood as well. From the standpoint of the carbon credit markets, however, the key point is that boiling water will eventually create demand for fossil fuel, as many areas are running out of trees. So for many reasons, finding a usable alternative to boiling is good for people and good for the earth.
Now it can be good business as well. If you are a hiker or camper, you may have heard about Vestergaard Frandsen’s LifeStraw. It’s a hollow stick equipped with a series of filtering membranes. You put the end of the stick in a river or puddle ─ or a toilet, for that matter ─ and suck on it. By the time the water hits your lips, it is clean and safe ─ its filters are fine enough to trap virtually all bacteria, viruses and parasites. The product has a bigger cousin called the LifeStraw Family. You hang it on your wall, pour dirty water in the top, open the tap and clean water comes out the bottom. No power or replacement parts are required. Each unit cleans about 18,000 liters of water ─ enough for a family for three years. The market cost of the unit averages out at a penny per ten liters of water purified.
Vestergaard Frandsen will distribute the LifeStraw Family for free. It is helping to sponsor a traveling campaign through the western part of Kenya set for April, 2011, that will reach 4 million families. The campaign bundles various products ─ each family that attends will get insecticide-treated bednets to protect against malaria, AIDS tests and counseling and a free LifeStraw Family.
The company is on the way to getting approval from one of the carbon credit markets for the LifeStraw Family, and expects to win it in February. Approval will provide a way for Vestergaard Frandsen to recoup its $24 million initial investment and to turn the product into a sustainable business ─ at no cost to users. It will earn credits for preventing greenhouse gas emissions, credits that polluters will then buy. The company will open free repair shops across western Kenya. Every three years, at the end of the units’ lifespan, it will replace them at no charge.
Why would a for-profit business do all this? Because the amount of carbon credits it receives depends on how much boiling it prevents ─ and therefore, how much water is purified. (Periodic audits will answer these questions.) The more the product is used, the more credits Vestergaard Frandsen is awarded, and so the more money it makes. So it has a strong financial incentive to maximize the number of families using the purifiers and keep them working properly.
You will notice that this financing method pays for performance. Normally, water projects get financing from donors up front. Whether they end up working or lasting is rarely even measured, because there is no cost for failure. But the carbon credit market penalizes failure. Vestergaard Frandsen also now has a good monetary reason to improve the product ─ to create one, for example, that can be refurbished instead of replaced, or one that lasts longer than three years. This kind of incentive is a rarity with products that are given away.
One problem that the LifeStraw program does not address is water collection: someone still has to fetch water to pour through it. Getting water is staggeringly burdensome — in southwestern Ethiopia, I met women who spend eight hours a day or more each day traveling back and forth to the river with 50-pound yellow plastic jerry cans on their backs. The need to help mom while she fetches water is a primary reason that many girls don’t go to school. Fetching water enslaves women.
But if the LifeStraw Family succeeds as a profitable business, it is possible that the carbon credit markets could also be used to finance many different types of projects. On Saturday, I’ll write about the wider possibilities. For villagers in Africa, however, none would be as important as using them to finance traditional water projects ─ ones like wells with pumps that do bring water closer to its users. After all, a family that used to boil river water is also cutting down on its emissions when its village gets a clean-water well. If running water pumps in rural Africa suddenly becomes good business, pumps will proliferate ─ and they will be maintained.
Tina Rosenberg won a Pulitzer Prize for her book “The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism.” She is a former editorial writer for The Times and now a contributing writer for the paper’s Sunday magazine. Her new book, “Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World,” is forthcoming from W.W. Norton.
Official seeks ordinance barring use of biosolids
http://www.tnonline.com/node/146100
Official seeks ordinance barring use of biosolids
Reported on Tuesday, October 26, 2010
By CHRIS PARKER cparker@tnonline.com
Lansford needs to have an ordinance in place barring the use of biosolids – commonly known as sludge – in the community, Tommy Vadyak of borough council’s Public Safety Committee said Monday.
He hopes that if Lansford adopts such an ordinance, surrounding communities will follow suit to the material, the byproduct of domestic and commercial sewage and wastewater treatment, out of the area.
Council may discuss the matter when it meets at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 9 in the borough’s community center at 1 W. Ridge St.
“It’s a safety matter,” he said. “Years ago, there were two young boys who died … I’m on the down side of life. It’s not to protect me, it’s to protect the youth coming up. I’m just looking out for their safety.”
Vadyak referred to 17-year-old Daniel Pennock of Mohrsville, Berks County, who died in 1995 days after coming in contact with biosolids used as fertilizer in a farmer’s field. Pennock died about six months after an 11-year-old Clearfield County boy, Tony Behun, died after riding his dirt bike across a strip mine where biosolids had been used.
He said there are few areas where biosolids might be used in Lansford. However, Lehigh Coal & Navigation of Pottsville has extensive mine pits in the Panther Valley where the substance could be used.
“I want to get a start here. Maybe if we get something started here, maybe the other communities around us will pick up on it and get one in place in their communities,” he said. “There are proper places to take biosolids; it’s not to dump it in our backyards.”
Vadyak said toxins from the material can be carried up to four miles on the wind. “I want to have a buffer,” he said. “Maybe we can get something going here to protect the whole area. This is not a dumping ground.”
Vadyak said that the biosolids matter surfaced in 1999-2000, when Lehigh Coal & Navigation of Pottsville proposed using the material to reclaim mine lands behind the Panther Valley High School in Summit Hill along Route 209 between Lansford and Nesquehoning. That plan was later dropped.
Lansford In June 2004 expected to adopt an ordinance governing biosolids, after neighboring Summit Hill adopted such an ordinance. That borough’s action was prompted by LC&N’s proposal to use biosolids, along with fly ash and kiln dust, for mine reclamation. The ordinance required that biosolids be tested for germs, chemicals, metals, radioactivity and material that would attract rodents.
Vadyak wants his council and those of neighboring communities to adopt an ordinance modeled after the much tougher one in place in East Brunswick Township, Schuylkill County, one that has withstood legal challenges at the state level.
East Brunswick’s ordinance will also likely be adopted Schuylkill Township supervisors. On Oct. 6, the Harrisburg Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility withdrew its plans to use biosolids in a Schuylkill Township mine reclamation project. The mine is on land owned by the county and leased to Premium Coal of Hazleton. The treatment facility and Material Matters, the Lancaster County consultant representing it, ran into a wall of opposition from residents and township officials.
Although Schuylkill Township has an ordinance in place regulating the use of the material, supervisors plan to update the law by adopting one based on the East Brunswick Township ordinance.
E.P.A. Official Seeks to Block West Virginia Mine
E.P.A. Official Seeks to Block West Virginia Mine
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: October 15, 2010
WASHINGTON — A top federal regulator has recommended revoking the permit for one of the nation’s largest planned mountaintop removal mining projects, saying it would be devastating to miles of West Virginia streams and the plant and animal life they support.
In a report submitted last month and made public on Friday, Shawn M. Garvin, the Environmental Protection Agency’s regional administrator for the Mid-Atlantic, said that Arch Coal’s proposed Spruce No. 1 Mine in Logan County should be stopped because it “would likely have unacceptable adverse effects on wildlife.”
In 2007, the Bush administration approved the project, which would involve dynamiting the tops off mountains over 2,278 acres to get at the coal beneath while dumping the resulting rubble, known as spoil, into nearby valleys and streams. The Obama administration announced last year that it would review the decision, prompting the mine owner, Arch Coal, based in St. Louis, to sue.
In its review, the E.P.A. found that the project would bury more than seven miles of the Pigeonroost Branch and Oldhouse Branch streams under 110 million cubic yards of spoil, killing everything in them and sending downstream a flood of contaminants, toxic substances and life-choking algae.
Kim Link, a spokeswoman for Arch Coal, said in a statement that the company intended to “vigorously” challenge the recommendation.
“If the E.P.A. proceeds with its unlawful veto of the Spruce permit — as it appears determined to do — West Virginia’s economy and future tax base will suffer a serious blow,” Ms. Link said. She said the company planned to spend $250 million on the project, creating 250 jobs and tens of millions of dollars in tax revenues in a struggling region
“Beyond that, every business in the nation would be put on notice that any lawfully issued permit — Clean Water Act 404 or otherwise — can be revoked at any time according to the whims of the federal government,” she said, referring to the federal law under which the original permit was granted. “Clearly, such a development would have a chilling impact on future investment and job creation.”
The E.P.A. said the construction of waste ponds as well as other discharges from the Spruce No. 1 mining operation would spread pollutants beyond the boundaries of the mine itself, causing further damage to wildlife and the environment.
Arch Coal had proposed to construct new streams to replace the buried rivers, but the E.P.A. said they could not reproduce the numbers and variety of fish and plant life supported by the indigenous streams.
An E.P.A. spokesman said that Mr. Garvin’s recommendation was a step in a long process and that the agency’s Office of Water and the E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, would review his report and thousands of public comments before making the final decision, likely before the end of the year.
The Sierra Club applauded the E.P.A. for “staring down Big Coal and industry lobbyists.”
“This mother of all mountaintop removal coal mines would destroy thousands of acres of land, bury seven miles of streams and end a way of life for too many Appalachian families,” the Sierra Club’s executive director, Michael Brune, said in a statement.