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Maryland Bans Fracking

Senate passes bill with GOP governor’s support, following six years of grassroots resistance across the state of Maryland
With game-changing support from Republican Governor Larry Hogan, the Maryland state Senate Monday night gave final approval to a bill to forever ban the practice of fracking in Maryland. The move culminates years of protests against gas fracking from landowners, health leaders, and environmentalists in the state. It also sets a nationally significant precedent as other states grapple with the dangerous drilling method.
Maryland will now become the first state in America with proven gas reserves to ban fracking by legislative action. New York has banned the drilling process via executive order. Vermont has a statutory ban but the state has no frackable gas reserves at present.
The Maryland ban is sending political waves across the East Coast and the nation. From Virginia (where leaders have imposed or proposed local bans at the county and municipal level) to the state of Florida (which is looking to follow Maryland’s statewide ban), the “keep-it-in-the-ground” movement is gaining new bipartisan steam even as President Donald Trump recklessly works to approve disastrous pipelines like Keystone XL.
“Let the news go forth to Congress and the White House: fracking can never been done safely,” said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network. “The Republican governor closest to DC – Larry Hogan of Maryland – has joined scientists and health leaders in agreeing that fracking must be banned. This is a win for Marylanders and for citizens nationwide as we move away from violent fossil fuels and toward sustainable wind and solar power.”
With Senate passage late Monday night, the Maryland bill will now be sent to Gov. Hogan’s desk in the next few days for signing.
The push to ban fracking in Maryland began six years ago as gas companies swarmed into western Maryland to tap the Marcellus Shale basin. This is the same pool of gas that has been widely fracked in Pennsylvania and West Virginia with negative consequences. But then-Governor Martin O’Malley (D) imposed a temporary moratorium before any drilling occurred. Over the years, the movement for a permanent ban came to include farmers, doctors, students, faith leaders, environmental groups, and others – constituting the largest statewide grassroots movement ever seen in Maryland on an energy issue. Former member of the House of Delegates Heather Mizeur was a leading figure in sparking the statewide ban effort. With time, multiple counties and cities in the state banned fracking locally and public polling consistently showed growing support for a statewide ban. Finally, earlier this month, with overwhelming support among Democratic lawmakers, even the previously pro-fracking Republican governor saw the wisdom of a ban.
The Chesapeake Climate Action Network has been honored to play a leading role in this campaign along with our friends in the Don’t Frack Maryland Coalition, including Food and Water Watch, Citizen Shale, Engage Mountain Maryland, the Sierra Club, the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, Physicians for Social Responsibility and many others.
 

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Backyard Talk News Archive

What Does Standing Rock and Love Canal Struggles Have In Common?

Real democracy in action.  Both situations did not have the law on their side, regulations or much of anything. Yet both of those fights had real victories. There are real lessons that can be learned from these two high profile situations. Lessons that are important as we as a country enter the Trump era. Although there was science and legal work in both situations that was done to build a case to stop the madness that was not the magic answer.  It was people. Hundreds of people and at time thousands of people who stood up, took risks, spoke out in a united voice to say, “NO” that made the difference.
It was also using the media and a narrative that the average American person could understand.  It was value-based and widely supported. One of the differences was at Love Canal the residents had the mainstream media on their side. In Standing Rock it was the alternative media, Amy Goodman from Democracy Now, who refused to let the story go. It wasn’t until she was charged by police for breaking the law, that the story caught on with the mainstream media. There was also the difference of Love Canal families who were largely working class white people and at Standing Rock were Indigenous Peoples at the center of the struggle. That’s part of America’s racism that is real and again demonstrated at Standing Rock.
This is a story,  a comparison which needs more analysis and lessons learned. Yes, a longer article needs to be written. Unfortunately I can’t do that now, but  will likely in the future. My reason for raising this comparison at all, is for all of those who say under Trump we have no chance. Yes you do–yes we do– but only if we organize people, unite voices and build the political power that is needed to not only save what we’ve got, but win more. We can do it– but it takes stepping out of your place of comfort, take some risks like signing a petition that your friends might not agree with or giving something– a dollar, an hour, food, make a phone call, go to a meeting  and so much more. Today is the day for you to make a change so we — all of us — can live in a free, safe, healthy  and inclusive world.

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Backyard Talk

Environmental Justice Concerns for Dominion’s ACP Pipeline

In the wake of the Paris agreements, alternative energy is first on the minds of many environmental activists. As we consider the impacts of fossil fuels on the environment, it’s critical to also recognize the environmental justice implications of our extractive energy industries. Across Virginia, opposition is growing in response to a proposed pipeline project that would carry natural gas across the center of the state. In addition to promoting natural gas drilling, the pipeline project carries a host of environmental and social justice concerns.

Dominion Power, under a subsidiary company,  is planning to construct an interstate pipeline for natural gas, dubbed the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. The pipeline would carry gas from West Virginia  to North Carolina, cutting a line across the middle of Virginia. Currently, the company is surveying land along the proposed route. In late October they submitted route changes to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, addressing concerns that were brought up with respect to the environmental impact statement on the project. Environmental groups, mobilizing together as the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance, have opposed the pipeline given its potential to endanger water resources.
In addition to impacts to the natural environment, the pipeline project carries profound environmental justice implications. The project proposal involves placing a natural gas compressor station in Buckingham County near Charlottesville, VA, and community activists have raised concern that this compressor station, in addition to the pipeline itself, will mostly impact elderly African American residents. Friends of Buckingham County, a group opposing the pipeline, has been conducting surveys to better assess the demographics of the affected areas, and determine if historic African American communities in the area will be adversely impacted by the pipeline.

The environmental concerns associated with this pipeline are only a portion of what must be considered in the planning stages of this project. As the company’s survey work moves forward and environmental and EJ groups continue to mobilize against the plant, I will continue to follow this story, so stay tuned. In the meantime, you can read about Friends of Buckingham County’s efforts to oppose the pipeline at their website and Facebook page.

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Backyard Talk

Study Finds Fracking Increases Reproductive Risks

The enormous growth of unconventional natural gas fracturing (also known as fracking) in recent years has come at the expense of knowing little if anything about the health risks associated with this practice. As production as slowed due to dropping gas prices in the past year or so, several studies have come out that raise serious questions about the health impact of this process. A study published earlier this month by a group of researchers at the John Hopkin’s School of Public Health concluded that “expectant mothers who live near active natural gas wells operated by the fracking industry in Pennsylvania are at an increased risk of giving birth prematurely and for having high risk pregnancies.” This paper was published in the journal Epidemiology.

In this paper, the authors examined more than 9,000 births in 40 counties in northern and central Pennsylvania between January 2009 and January 2013. They compared electronic birth outcome data with information that estimated the cumulative exposure to fracking activity in the region. This information included how close wells were to homes where the mothers lived, what stage of drilling the wells were in, the depth of the wells, and how much gas was generated from the well during the mother’s pregnancy. This information was used to generate a cumulative index of how active each of the wells were and how close they were to the women.

They found that living in the most active area of drilling and production activity was associated with a 40 percent increase in the likelihood of a woman giving birth before 37 weeks of gestation (considered pre-term) and a 30 percent increase in “high risk” pregnancies, a designation that can include elevated blood pressure and excessive weight gain during pregnancy. In total, 11 % of the pregnancies were born preterm, with 79% born between 32 and 36 weeks.

Other research in recent years has also shown a connection between fracking wells and low birth weight. “There are now four studies that have looked at various aspects of reproductive health in relation to this industry and all have found something,” Brian Schwartz, the lead author of the Hopkins study, said in an interview. In one of these studies, researchers found an increased risk of congenital heart and neural tube defects in babies whose mothers lived within 10 miles of a natural gas well in rural Colorado.

In a media statement released with the study, the authors made clear that the study can’t pinpoint the specific reason why pregnant women living near the most active wells had the worst pregnancy outcomes. But Schwartz pointed out that every step of the drilling process has an environmental impact. “When the well pads are created, diesel equipment is used to clear acres of land, transport equipment and drill the wells themselves. Drilling down thousands of feet and then horizontally many more thousands of feet requires heavy equipment to break up the shale where the gas sits. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) then involves injecting millions of liters of water mixed with chemicals and sand to fracture the shale. The fluids are then pumped back to the surface. The gas itself also releases pollutants.” Schwartz also noted that living near fracking well results in increased noise, road traffic and other changes that can increase maternal stress levels.

“Now that we know this is happening we’d like to figure out why,” Schwartz says. “Is it air quality? Is it the stress? They’re the two leading candidates in our minds at this point.”

As with many other environmental and public health risks, the more we look, the more we find. We already know that fracking contributes to the impact of climate change because of the large amount of methane that’s released. It’s beginning to look more and more like it also has serious effects on the health of the people who live nearby.

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Backyard Talk

By: Katie O’Brien


Congratulations New York! The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued their Findings Statement on June 29, 2015, bringing their seven-year review of fracking to an end. This is big news because the state sits on 12 million acres of Marcellus shale. This formation of rock has natural gas reserves that have put states such as Pennsylvania and West Virginia on the energy production map. New York is the first state with significant potential to produce major natural-gas resources that has banned fracking.



It wasn’t easy for New York to achieve this ban. Although there are many known and unknown health effects of fracking, the industry yields high profits which allows some people to see a pay raise instead of the threat that stands before them. Energy companies and some local communities fought the ban. Some NY towns even threatened secession. Many people in those communities were hoping to lease their land to energy companies and reap the economic benefits. Some states are even banning fracking bans. In May, both Oklahoma and Texas signed bills that prohibit towns from banning oil and gas operations. According to the National Law Review, Oklahoma’s ban was signed even amid “warning from the state’s own government that a recent dramatic spike in earthquakes is linked to wastewater injection”, which is a main process of fracking. Against all the odds, New York won the right to protect their communities from the aftermath of fracking.

The state of New York reviewed the process and health repercussions of fracking for seven years. New York DEC commissioner Joe Marten said based on the Findings Statement, “prohibiting high-volume hydraulic fracturing is the only reasonable alternative. High-volume hydraulic fracturing poses significant adverse impacts to land, air, water, natural resources and potential significant public health impacts that cannot be adequately mitigated. This decision is consistent with DEC’s mission to conserve, improve and protect our state’s natural resources, and to enhance the health, safety and welfare of the people of the state.”

The DEC’s Findings statement is based on a lengthy report about the fracking process that began in 2009. The DEC has been working on the statement since December 2014, when Marten stated that too little was known about the health impacts of fracking to support the ban. The statement concluded that there are no alternatives to the environmental and health risks that fracking causes. Because of this, New York joins Vermont in outlawing the risky practice.

Opponents of the ban are expected to file lawsuits, and although the fracking ban can be rescinded, Earthjustice, the attorneys representing the case, guarantee “to stand alongside the state in any legal challenge”. This is a big win for both the state of New York and the environmental justice community as a whole.

Click here to view the DEC’s full Findings Statement.


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Backyard Talk

EPA Takes Baby Steps in Acknowledging Fracking Dangers

The US EPA released a draft Assessment of the Potential Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas on Drinking Water Resources earlier this month. Although still only a draft, the document marks a noticeable shift in how EPA views fracking – from basically denying that fracking posed any risk to drinking water and human health, to acknowledging that, “there are above and below ground mechanisms by which hydraulic fracturing activities have the potential to impact drinking water resources”. I, for one, cannot believe that EPA had the guts to do this.

Don’t get me wrong; the draft assessment still makes a weak statement with regards to the real impacts of fracking on drinking water. However, the statement carries major credibility and importance due to the fact that the draft assessment is the most comprehensive review of literature on the potential impacts of fracking on drinking water to date, having examined nearly 1,000 different science and engineering journals, federal and state government reports, nongovernmental organization reports, industry publications, and federal and state datasets.

Although EPA states that there is no evidence that fracking activities have led to “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States”, they clearly acknowledge that they have the ability to do so at the local level. This is a bit obvious, since we are not experiencing massive water shortages or national pandemics due to fracking (at least not yet), yet it is well documented that millions of people across the nation have experienced water contamination due to fracking activities in their local environments. Therefore, if we take EPA’s statement into perspective, they are effectively saying that fracking can and has affected local drinking water sources across the country.

This is heresy for industry, and the full wrath of their criticism is sure to fall on EPA in the coming weeks. During the document’s public comment period, the oil and gas industry will move mountains to ensure that EPA’s modest claims attributing fault to fracking for drinking water contamination are removed from the final document.

As an idealist, I have hope that EPA will withstand the storm and stand up for what the science has revealed. However, in all likelihood, the billions of dollars at the disposal of industry will ensure that EPA softens their already weak stance or retracts it altogether.

My hope is that environmental organizations and the public at large fight this and tell EPA not to be bullied by corporate interests. Public comments on the draft assessment are open until August 28, so we can all weight in on the fight. EPA is taking baby steps towards finally accepting that fracking has huge inherent dangers to public health and this is among the first of these steps. It falls to us to take EPA’s hand and help it learn to walk.

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Backyard Talk

NIMBY Versus NIMIC

Not In My Backyard vs Not In My Insurance Company

For many decades community leaders were called NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) when opposing a facility that would cause environmental and public health damages. They were told that they were reacting emotionally, stifling progress and or the waste/facility needs to go somewhere. Or local leaders hurting the economy, we need the jobs and so stop complaining about public health hazards or environmental destruction that community leaders are being just selfish.

There were full out attacks on innocent people trying to find a way to protect themselves from environmental chemicals and to convince corporations to look beyond the dinosaur aged technology and moved to other safer ways to provide the same goods or services.

Today the insurance agencies are working hard to stop, “to exclude” coverage from earthquakes in Pennsylvania caused by fracking. NIMIC stands for Not In My Insurance Company. The contrast in reactions from the public is striking with the exception of the State of Pennsylvania Insurance Department (PID) who is opposing such exclusions. Those with money and don’t live near such destructive practices say the insurance industry must protect themselves from huge liabilities. It make sense that they would want to create an exclusion in their policies.

Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. has become the first major insurance company to say it won’t cover damage related to a gas drilling process that blasts chemical-laden water deep into the ground. Their memo reads: “After months of research and discussion, we have determined that the exposures presented by hydraulic fracturing are too great to ignore. Risks involved with hydraulic fracturing are now prohibited for General Liability, Commercial Auto, Motor Truck Cargo, Auto Physical Damage and Public Auto (insurance) coverage.”

Yet when innocent people with no stake in the leasing or process say it is too great of a risk to frack in or around our community they are dismissed as NIMBYs. The insurance industry did their studies assessed the risks and said no. Community leaders including the community in TX who banned the process entirely from their borders. State legislation was introduced to allow local bans on fracking only to be overturned by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott who signed a law that prohibits bans of hydraulic fracturing altogether and makes it much harder for municipal and county governments to control where oil and gas wells can be drilled.

This is a blatant contradiction that once again demonstrates the bias against the American People and for the corporate polluters and their associated family of corporations. There was no law passed that says insurance companies must provide coverage for associated damages from earthquakes, poisoned water, air and public health impacts. Maybe just maybe we should make a rule, decision or law that says if an insurance company does their risk assessment and finds that the risks are too great for them to participate or provide coverage then the facility, process . . . thing cannot move forward at any costs.

Since the majority of our stae and federal health departments or departments of environmental regulations can’t ever find a risk they can’t explain away, then we should follow the risk assessments of the Lloyd’s of London. If Lloyd’s of London says it’s too risky then it is. A simple way to protect the American People.

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Media Releases

25 Organizations Petition EPA Fracking Waste Disposal Program


NEWS RELEASE


For Immediate Release:  April 29, 2015

For additional information, contact Teresa Mills, Center for Health, Environment and Justice at:

(614)-539-1471

TWENTY-FIVE OHIO CITIZEN GROUPS PETITION U.S. EPA

FOR DRASTIC REFORM OF OHIO’S

FRACKING WASTE DISPOSAL PROGRAM


75% of Ohio’s Disposal Wells for Fracking Waste are in Low-Income Appalachian

Areas That Receive “Comically Inadequate” Public Participation Opportunities and No Meaningful Enforcement

COLUMBUS:  A large coalition of Ohio environmental and community groups sent a detailed, fifteen page demand to U.S. EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice today documenting that Ohio’s program for approving “injection” wells that dispose of highly contaminated wastewater from oil and natural gas “fracking wells” has an overwhelmingly disparate impact on low-income Ohioans in violation of a federal directive requiring that such impacts be identified and given specific safeguards.  74.9% of the 237 active injection wells in Ohio are concentrated in the state’s 32 officially recognized “Appalachian” counties due to their low-income status where just 17.4% of all Ohioans live.  Injection wells disposed of over 1 billion, 46 million gallons of highly toxic fracking wastes in 2014 deep underground where it is supposed to be isolated from drinking water – but the serious problems in the program detailed in the letter place the injection well program’s claims to safety into deep doubt.

The groups charge that Ohio’s injection well regulator, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (“ODNR”), is a “captive regulator” controlled by Ohio’s politically potent oil and gas industry and has neither the effective public input nor reliable enforcement programs that states with disparate impacts on low-income communities are required to have under a 1994 Executive Order signed by Bill Clinton addressing “Environmental Justice.”  The groups document that the Ohio program has not been updated since it was established in 1983 and has not been changed to address either the rapid growth in waste volume since fracking became common or the requirements of the 1994 Environmental Justice Order despite the obvious disparate impact.

The Environmental Justice Executive Order is enforced by U.S. EPA’s Washington DC-based Office of Environmental Justice where the demand letter was sent.  The injection well program is the only component of oil and gas production where federal oversight exists through the U.S. EPA.  The Executive Order requires that all federal agencies address “disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects” of federal programs “on minority and low-income populations in the United States” through insuring 1) full access to relevant information, 2) meaningful opportunities for public participation in the permitting process, and 3) effective enforcement.

The groups list evidence that ODNR fails badly in all three areas.  It calls ODNR’s current public participation policies established in 1983 “comical but for the profound injustice they cause” due to eight separate defects including that the Department provides only fifteen days to comment on these complicated deep well proposals, routinely refuses to hold public meetings to discuss the permitting process and respond to public concerns, and even claims that citizens have no right to contest its injection well siting decisions in court.  Citizens making public records requests to ODNR routinely wait over two months for a response.  ODNR’s enforcement program is virtually non-existent with not a single fine collected and only a single example where ODNR authorized the state Attorney General to take an injection well to court.  When ODNR inspects injection wells, many violations are ignored while those cited are seldom followed up on to insure compliance.  The injection well program is severely understaffed with only four dedicated inspectors, most of whose time is spent insuring that the wells receive their permission to operate.

For proof of ODNR’s “regulatory capture,” the groups point to the disclosure in February, 2014, of a “communications plan” prepared by ODNR to promote fracking in state parks that proposed aggressively partnering with the oil and gas industry and its lobbyists to overcome resistance from what the Department scornfully called “eco-left pressure groups” which included many of the nation’s most respected environmental groups and even two state legislators.

“With ODNR, it’s everything for the oil and gas industry and nothing for the public. They act just as biased toward the industry as their own secret communications plan revealed them to be,” says Teresa Mills of Citizens for Health, Environmental and Justice who coordinated the letter’s release.  “They treat Appalachian Ohio as the fracking industry’s dumping ground whose people are too poor to resist taking the lion’s share of Ohio’s waste and that from surrounding states.”

The groups also take U.S. EPA to task for its inadequate oversight role over ODNR.  The last oversight report in 2009 was virtually a cut and paste of the previous 2005 report with no mention of ODNR’s severe staff deficiencies or lack of enforcement.  The groups also believe U.S. EPA is just as apathetic toward the public as ODNR citing a 2013 episode where, after ODNR refused to hold public meetings, Ohio’s citizens groups held their own to take testimony; the results were sent to U.S. EPA – who never responded.

The groups have asked U.S. EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice to conduct an investigation of both ODNR’s and U.S. EPA’s injection well programs to determine how they should be reformed to satisfy the 1994 Executive Order and to order that the necessary reforms be implemented to insure that the concerns and health of Appalachian Ohioans are taken into account in the injection well program.  “The industry has effectively blocked all reform in Ohio and in Washington DC,” concluded Ms. Mills.  “This petition is about the only step left to instill some basic fairness into this miserably corrupt system.”

See attached letter.Tejada 4-27-15

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Backyard Talk

Fracking and Common Sense

Does fracking really have the potential to contaminate our country’s drinking water supply? Can a process that occurs thousands of feet below the surface really affect it? The gas and oil industry has spent millions and millions of dollars to convince regulators and the American public that fracking is safer than a Volvo. And although their millions have largely succeeded in raising debate on the issue, it only takes some common sense to see how drinking water can be contaminated by this process. Here are only a few (of the probably thousands) of the ways in which drinking water contamination may happen:

  1. 1. Fracking Fluid: Fracking fluid is a toxic soup of different chemicals that together act to prime and dissolve the shale, as well as force gas/oil towards the surface. Oil and gas companies have kept the exact contents of the fracking fluid they use a secret, claiming that it is confidential business information. However, a new ruling in the state of California has pushed companies to reveal over 200 distinct chemicals used in fracking fluids. Many of these chemicals are known carcinogens and neurotoxins such as toluene and formaldehyde. Workers can easily be exposed to these chemicals and communities surrounding drilling sites are at risk from accidental spills.
  2. Drilling: Fracking pipelines dig down to depths of over 10,000 ft. belowground. All throughout, they are encased by rings of cement or other similar materials to prevent chemicals from seeping into the drill-hole’s surrounding. How the heck can you fully encase a 10,000-foot hole that is barely a foot in diameter in cement? It’s like inserting a 10-foot paper straw into beach sand and expecting it not to break along the way. The simple logistics of it mean that there are bound to be cracks and other imperfections that will inevitably allow fracking fluid and collected gases to leech out into the surroundings. In fact, a study published by experts from Duke, Stanford, Dartmouth and the University of Rochester found direct evidence that linked groundwater contamination to faulty casings in gas wells. Other reports estimate that between 5-7% of new gas wells leak due to structural deficiencies, and that number skyrockets to 30-50% as they age.
  3. Wastewater: Wastewater, or “produced water” as the industry calls it, is the byproduct of fracking. It contains the mix of chemicals found in fracking fluid as well as other naturally occurring contaminants from groundwater that are washed out of the fracked shale. This wastewater is then either re-injected into the ground to help force more oil to the surface, heated to make steam and injected to soften heavy oil deposits, stored in surface reservoirs, or most of it is injected underground. Here is where it does it’s damage. Trucks carrying wastewater oftentimes leak it out as they transport it, storage ponds are notoriously porous and injection wells suffer from the same structural problems as gas wells. In short, wastewater will likely find it’s way out and into our groundwater reserves.

There are many, many more ways in which groundwater may be contaminated by fracking. The vast amounts of money spent by industry have led some people to believe the lie that it is a safe and clean technology, but we only need to use our common sense to see just how it can take away one of our most prized resources.