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FrackFree Mahoning Valley schedules April 26 media event

FrackFree Mahoning Valley schedules April 26 media event

By BOB DOWNING Published: April 26, 2016

From a Monday press release:

Frackfree Mahoning Valley (FMV) Will Hold A Tuesday, April 26, 2016, 1:15 PM Press Conference in Youngstown’s Mill Creek Park To React to Comments Made By Ohio Department of Natural Resources Officials Regarding Utica Shale Fracking, And To Present Recently Received Troubling Documents Regarding Spills in Mahoning County:

Geology Professor, Dr. Ray Beiersdorfer and Concerned Citizens of Vienna and Mahoning County Will Speak Briefly To Provide Updated Local, Man-made Earthquake And Fracking Waste Injection Well Information, And To Answer Media Questions

All Media Are Invited To Attend

Youngstown, Ohio, April 25, 2016 – Concerned citizens of Frackfree Mahoning Valley (FMV) will hold a press conference in Youngstown, Ohio, on the public sidewalk in front of Mill Creek Park’s “D.D. and Velma Davis Education & Visitor Center” in Fellows Riverside Gardens on Tuesday, April 26, 2016, at 1:15 PM, to give their reaction to statements made by Ohio Department of Natural Resources(ODNR) officials at an event to be held at Mill Creek Park on Tuesday. (The address of Fellows Riverside Gardens is 123 McKinley Avenue, Youngstown, Ohio, 44509.)
At their press conference, FMV will distribute and discuss troubling, newly received Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) well inspection documents.  Speakers will provide recent information and concerns about local fracking waste injection wells and the potential for more injection-well related, man-made earthquakes and their risks to public health, safety and well-being.
Teresa Mills of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ) recently received the ODNR documents (copies of which will be distributed at the press conference) as part of an Ohio Open Records request.
According to the Vindicator, ODNR Chief Simmers will address “… recent advancements in the regulation and production of the Utica Shale.”  (Vindicator, 4/10/16, “ODNR official at event”) http://www.vindy.com/news/2016/apr/10/odnr-official-at-event/
Frackfree Mahoning Valley says ODNR promotes unconventional fracking, a process which results in the constant creation of millions of gallons of toxic fracking waste. There is no good or safe solution to the problem of where all of this waste will go.  This enormous waste problem cannot be ignored especially considering our local history of negative impacts that have already occurred in Youngstown and the surrounding area. FMV points out that we are situated in an area of known seismic activity, therefore, injection wells must be stopped.
On Tuesday, FMV will call for ODNR to deny an injection permit for a recently drilled Vienna injection well near a family home and the Youngstown-Warren Regional airport. The group says two Weathersfield/Niles injection wells already linked to earthquakes must remain shut down.
Frackfree Mahoning Valley says that they do not have confidence in ODNR fracking or injection well regulations, especially in light of local and national spills, man-made earthquakes, and air, water, and soil pollution. They do not trust so-called “advancements” in regulations to protect public health, safety, and well-being, since, even though there were allegedly “strict” regulations already in place, they failed to prevent the 2015 Vienna injection well fiasco where extensive water contamination still occurred despite rules and regulations.
Furthermore, local fracking and injection well – related earthquakes still occurred with regulations already in place. Regulations failed to prevent man-made earthquakes in Weathersfield/Niles, Youngstown, and Poland Township. FMV wonders whether the injection wells in North Lima, also too near homes, will be the next to trigger earthquakes.  Obviously, earthquakes cannot be regulated. It is wrong for regulators to pretend that they can control earthquakes. Injection must stop.
FMV says the unprecedented increase in induced seismicity in Oklahoma could be a preview of what might happen locally if Ohio regulators stay on their current path, i.e., permitting more and more injection wells, which is making Ohio essentially a toxic fracking waste dump and risking more water contamination and earthquakes. This is unacceptable.
Geologist Ray Beiersdorfer, Ph.D., Professor of Geology at Youngstown State University, will give a brief statement at the press conference and address any media questions. Concerned citizens of Mahoning County and Vienna, Ohio, will give brief presentations and be available for any media questions afterward.
Copies of documents will be provided for media.
All media are invited to attend.
For more information, please see:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/protect-youngstown/notes-for-april-26/1055807957799473
and:
Frackfree Mahoning Valley:     http://frackfreemahoning.blogspot.com/
For media inquiries or more information, please contact Frackfree Mahoning Valley at:
234-201-0402   or  e-mail:  frackfreemahoning@gmail.com
Read the release on Ohio.com.

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News Archive

Clean water crisis threatens US

UnknownThe United States is on the verge of a national crisis that could mean the end of clean, cheap water.

Hundreds of cities and towns are at risk of sudden and severe shortages, either because available water is not safe to drink or because there simply isn’t enough of it.
The situation has grown so dire the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence now ranks water scarcity as a major threat to national security alongside terrorism.The problem is being felt most acutely in the West, where drought conditions and increased water use have helped turn lush agricultural areas to dust.
But dangers also lurk underground, in antiquated water systems that are increasingly likely to break down or spread contaminants like lead.
The crisis gripping Flint, Mich., where the water supply has been rendered undrinkable, is just a preview of what’s to come in towns and cities nationwide, some warn.
“We are billions of dollars behind where we could and should be,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), who spent 12 years on a municipal water board before running for state office. “People in the clean-water world would tell you they’ve been shouting about this for a long time.”
“For much of the U.S., most people don’t perceive any shortage,” he added. “But we’re going to talk a lot about shortages now.”
Read more from the Hill
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News Archive

A year of fear and distrust in Dukeville

unknownDUKEVILLE, North Carolina — Deborah Graham’s life changed on April 18, 2015, with the arrival of a letter.
Graham was in the kitchen, pouring a cup of coffee. Her husband, Marcelle, opened a large certified envelope just dropped off by the mail carrier.
“The North Carolina Division of Public Health recommends that your well water not be used for drinking and cooking,” the letter said.
“What did you just say?” Graham asked, incredulous.
“The water’s contaminated,” her husband replied.
Graham’s eyes flew to her kitchen faucet. She thought about the coffee she’d just swallowed. The food she’d cooked and sent over to her church. The two children she’d raised in this house.
She dumped the rest of her coffee down the sink.
The ordinary routines of the Graham household had been disrupted by vanadium, which can cause nausea, diarrhea and cramps. In animal studies, vanadium has caused decreased red blood cell counts, elevated blood pressure and neurological effects.
While the element is found in Earth’s crust, it’s also one of several metals found in coal ash—the toxic leftover waste from burning coal.
State officials had discovered vanadium in the Graham’s well water at an estimated concentration of 14 parts per billion, more than 45 times the state screening level of 0.3 ppb—a threshold set by health officials to warn well owners of potential risks.
And the Grahams weren’t alone. Laboratory tests showed 74 wells in the tiny Dukeville community in Salisbury, North Carolina, exceeded state or federal thresholds. Across the state, 424 households received similar do-not-drink notifications, Department of Environmental Quality Assistant Secretary Tom Reeder said in January.
Most letters cited either vanadium or hexavalent chromium, the chemical compound made famous by activist Erin Brockovich, who discovered it had tainted water in Hinkley, California. Hexavalent chromium is carcinogenic when inhaled or swallowed in drinking water, and another metal often found in coal ash.
Read more from Environmental Health News

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Media Releases

EPA Administrator Meets with Just Moms STL, Says She Will Investigate Relocation Option

EPA Administrator Meets with Just Moms STL, Says She Will Investigate Relocation Option
 
March 30, 2016
Immediate Release
Karen Nickel 314- 229-4896
Dawn Chapman 314-566-9762
Karen Nickel and Dawn Chapman, Co-Founders of Just Moms STL met with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy this afternoon to discuss relocation of the families who live near the burning Bridgeton Superfund site.
Both women explained the dire and urgent need for families to have the option to leave the area with their homes purchased. They stated that the fire is closer than anticipated and is frightening local families.  They are concerned about what will happen if the fire reaches the Manhattan Project radioactive wastes. St. Louis county officials are preparing to assist residents and schools to shelter in place in the event of a nuclear plume.  Local schools have sent letters to parents, asking them to provide extra doses of medication that students need on a daily basis.
 
The spokespeople for Just Moms STL explained that under the Superfund Authority Administrator McCarthy has the authority to move families immediately. Just Moms pleaded with her to begin by moving Spanish Village closest to the site, the mobile home park and then downwind.

“Administrator McCarthy said she is going to see how the EPA might be able to relocate people near the smoldering and radioactive landfill,” said Karen Nickel, co-founder of Just Moms STL. “We hope that Administrator McCarthy will move people immediately.”
 
 The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a new report on the extent of radioactive wastes at the smoldering West Lake Landfill in St. Louis County. The report shows the newly discovered radioactivity is closer to the ongoing smoldering fire than previously known. The EPA has so far refused, for over one year, requests by local residents to test the entire North Quarry as a grid for radioactivity.
Attorney General Koster has publicly supported the federal, bipartisan legislation that will put the Army Corps of Engineers’ specialized nuclear waste cleanup program in charge at the West Lake Landfill. The Corps’ Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) is currently in charge of all the ongoing radioactive cleanup sites in the metro St. Louis area.
Karen Nickel and Dawn Chapman of Just Moms also had a meeting with the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), which advises President Obama on environmental policy and helps steer his environmental priorities.  Nickel and Chapman pressed on the need for immediate action.

Lois Gibbs of the Center for Health Environment and Justice, Ed Smith of Missouri Coalition on the Environment and Chuck Stiles, the Assistant Director of the Teamsters Union Solid Waste & Recycling Division were also in the CEQ meeting. Along with supporting the need to relocate families exposed to toxins, Mr. Stiles raise labor aspects to this crisis that are yet unaddressed.

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Media Releases

Worried Moms from Flint and St. Louis To Blast EPA

 

Contacts:

Lois Gibbs 703-627-9483, lgibbs@chej.org,

New Internal EPA Memo & Policy Stresses Public Health

Worried Moms from Flint, Love Canal & St. Louis Decry Agency’s “Failure”

“Kids are suffering from leaded water & threatened by toxic fires”

WHAT:           Press conference featuring Missouri and Michigan moms

WHEN:          Tuesday, February 9, 2016 at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST)

LOCATION:  National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, Washington, DC 20045 and by phone:  Dial In:   641-715-3580  PIN:  808-997

WHO: Dawn Chapman, co-founder, Just Moms STL, Karen Nickel, co-founder, Just Moms STL, Melissa Mays, Water You Fight For (by phone from Flint, MI), Lois Gibbs, Founder, Center for Health, Environment and Justice, Ed Smith, Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Gail Thackery, Franciscan Sisters of Mary

Details:  A coalition of moms from Michigan and Missouri will hold a press conference to address EPA’s failure to act on what they say are serious threats to public health in both communities.
Flint, Michigan is reeling from ongoing lead and toxic chemicals in its drinking water. EPA senior managers reacted to alarms sounded by its own staff by downplaying the risks and hiding the warnings about the lead levels from the public, according to local activists.
In Bridgeton, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis), families live near a radioactive Superfund landfill with an underground fire that is threatening to move toward the illegally dumped nuclear wastes from the Manhattan Project. The nuclear wastes are adjacent to an underground fire at a neighboring landfill. The Bridgeton/West Lake landfill site is owned by the Republic Services waste corporation, and activists say that workers there have no protection from either the radioactive wastes or the toxic emissions emitted by the landfill and chronic long term exposure is unknown.
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has refused for over two years to meet with the Just Moms St. Louis community group.  She has released a new formal policy on “substantial health risks”.
At the press conference, leaders from both the Just Moms St. Louis and the Flint-based Water You Fighting For community groups will discuss the environmental and public health catastrophes in both communities, and EPA’s responses to date. They will also ask EPA Administrator McCarthy to meet with the Just Moms St. Louis members who traveled here to request that the EPA act on its authority under the Superfund Act to move families away from the landfill, as the agency has done previously with Love Canal and other communities.

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Media Releases

“Just Moms STL” activist group visits state offices, demand action on West Lake

“Just Moms STL” activist group visits state offices, demand action on West Lake
“Be Superhero for Superfund” Local Group will urge Congressional Reps 
Will give cupcakes, toot birthday horns to celebrate 35th anniversary of Superfund on Dec 11th
WHAT: The St. Louis based activist group “Just Moms STL” will give cupcakes Congressman Clay, Congresswoman Wagner, Senator Blunt, and Senator McCaskill wearing birthday hats and tooting birthday horns.  They will also thank the representatives for the work they have done on the West Lake Landfill, including the recent introduction of a bi-partisan bill to move West Lake from EPA to Army Corp of Engineers.  They will urge the reinstatement of the “Polluter Pays” Fee and the passage of the West Lake bill.
WHEN: Wednesday, December 9, 2015, 10 AM – 12 PM
WHERE:
1) 10:00 am Office of Representative Wagner—301 Sovereign Court, Suite 201, Ballwin, MO
2) 10:30 am Office of Senator Roy Blunt—7700 Bonhomme, #315 Clayton, MO
3) 11:00 am Office of Senator Claire McCaskill—5850 Delmar Blvd, Ste. A St. Louis, MO
4) 11:45 am Office of Congressman William “Lacy” Clay— 6830 Gravois St. Louis, MO
Details:  The theme of the action is Superheroes with the tagline “Make Superfund Super Again!” The action will celebrate the 35th birthday of the Superfund Law on Friday Dec. 11th.

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Media Releases

New Study Shows EPA Mismanaging Toxic Clean-Up

It Also Shows More Sites are ID’d but Funding is Stagnant
Fewer Clean-Ups are Being Started and Each One Takes Longer
Groups say “Polluter Pay” Fee Must be Reinstated & Increased
Love Canal Pioneer Says Some Sites are Still Waiting for Clean-Up More Than 25 Years Later
URL to embargoed study:  https://chej.org/superfund35-resources This page is password protected. The password is: access2015   Study Embargoed Until:  Wed, Dec. 9, 2015 at 12:01am
WHAT:  On a call-in news conference, a veteran activist known as the “Mother of the Superfund” will present a new study documenting failures of the once-highly-touted program and recommending substantial reforms including the re-establishment of “Polluter Pay” fee.
Speakers on the call include: Leading the call is Lois Gibbs, the pioneer who won the historic clean-up of Love Canal and founded the Center for Health, Environment and Justice. Also involved are Stephen Lester of CHEJ and Dawn Chapman of Just Moms STL (and the leader of the pending campaign to block an underground fire near a toxic waste dump in Missouri).
Gibbs will also discuss nation-wide Superfund action/protests in 29 cities planned for Wed 12/9.
ALSO TODAY:  7:00 Tuesday 12/8 U.N. Style Human rights tribunal with 5 jurists, including Lois Gibbs and public testimony from 35 participants including Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Just Moms STL and MO Jobs with Justice on health, economic, environmental effects of West Lake Landfill,  Graphic Arts Banquet Hall, 105 Progress Parkway 63043.
WHEN:            Tuesday, December 8, 2015 at 1:00 pm (EST), 12:00 pm (CST)
To Call In:       641-715-3580  808-997
DETAILS:      The 35th anniversary of Superfund is Friday, Dec. 11th
CHEJ says that EPA head Gina McCarthy is slowing down sorely-needed clean-ups and has gutted any citizen appeals.
CHEJ mentors the movement to build healthier communities by empowering people to prevent harm in as many ways, and for as many people, as possible. We believe this can happen when people and groups have the power to play an integral role in promoting human health and environmental integrity. Visit our website: https://chej.org/.

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Media Releases

Veteran St. Louis Activist Threatens to Sue EPA

Veteran St. Louis Activist Threatens to Sue EPA 
Our group and others are filing a legal notice with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today demanding immediate action to stop oil and gas companies from dumping drilling and fracking waste in ways that threaten public health and the environment. We’ll like file a federal lawsuit in 60 days.
Statement of Laura Barrett of St. Louis, Executive Director, Center for Health, Environment and Justice
“Our group, CHEJ, and others are filing a legal notice today with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency demanding immediate action to stop oil and gas companies from dumping drilling and fracking waste in ways that threaten public health and the environment. We’ll likely file a federal lawsuit in 60 days.
The oil and gas industry is growing by leaps and bounds.  EPA must do its job and update and enforce these vital regulations. Our water and air are threatened by toxic waste from the improper storage of fracking wastes while corporate polluters are allowed to run wild. Homes, small businesses, and low income and indigenous communities are being laid to waste by an industry that is virtually unregulated.”
More information is available here.

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Backyard Talk

DuPont Chemical potentially facing charges and Keystone XL on the ropes again

One of the most leading chemical companies in the United States, Dupont, is in legal crosshairs for allegedly exposing workers at a Houston area Pesticide plant with dangerous fumes  for numerous years. This comes in the wake of the death of four employees who died on Nov. 15th of last year from exposure to the chemical methyl mercaptan.

Acording to the Washington Post, “Based on state records and the company’s own disclosures, the newspaper concluded that workers could have been exposed to the gas far above the levels deemed acceptable by OHSA since 2008. As much as 600 parts per million of the gas an hour could have filled a poorly ventilated room, but federal guidelines say workers shouldn’t be exposed to more than an average of 10 ppm per day of the gas, which is used to manufacture insecticide and fungicide.”

DuPont, as of now, has declined to comment on the news.

Meanwhile Keystone XL is potential facing a lawsuit from Nebraska farmers. Ranchers in Nebraska whose property lies in the path of the pipeline have come out in a video declaration on Youtube from lawyers representing landowners.

According to the Gaurdian, “The threat of a new lawsuit, delivered in a video ultimatum from the ranchers’ lawyers, is almost certain to extend the saga of the Keystone XL in Nebraska – and in Washington, where open debate was scheduled to begin in the Senate on Monday afternoon ahead of an expected veto threat from Barack Obama.”

Its seems the winds have changed in regards to Keystone since the past few years when it seemed its construction was almost certain, now it’s fighting for a mere chance.

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Backyard Talk

Kids Tuna Surprise

Tuna it turns out is still filled with toxic mercury.  A recent article focused on studies that underscore health risks for children consuming the mercury-tainted tuna  fish. Inquirer GreenSpace Columnist writes that “Based on two recent reports, Adam Finkel, a University of Pennsylvania professor who is also a national expert on human health-risk assessment, fears many of the nation’s kids are eating too much tuna – aided and abetted by being offered it at school.

Tuna has a lot going for it. It’s popular and cheap, loaded with protein and low in fat. And federal health guidelines are simple and direct: We should eat more seafood. But tuna also is the biggest source of mercury in the American diet.

Mercury is emitted by coal-fired power plants and other industries. It gets into waterways, then into fish, accumulating as it moves up the food chain to top predators such as tuna. Mercury can harm memory, intelligence, and hand-eye coordination, so federal guidelines advise limited consumption for young children and women who are or may become pregnant. Note: Albacore tuna has more mercury than light tuna.

But the guideline is broad. And a report issued in September by the Mercury Policy Project, a Vermont nonprofit, found that mercury levels in institutional-size cans of tuna, the kind used in schools, vary widely.

The report, “Tuna Surprise,” tested 59 samples of institutional tuna from 11 states. The author, environmental health expert Edward Groth, found that children eating the same amount of tuna from different sources could get mercury doses that vary by tenfold. Tuna from Latin America has more mercury than tuna from the United States and Asia…..Finkel considers tuna “a needless risk” and says the smaller the child, the less tuna he or she should eat. Groth’s report recommends that children weighing less than 55 pounds eat tuna no more than once a month.

Even in schools where tuna is served sparingly, the problem is the unusual kid who loves it and eats it at every opportunity, Groth and Finkel say. Adam Finkel, a Penn expert on human health-risk assessment, recommends parents ask their school district these questions:

How often is tuna served? Worst is if it’s on a salad bar every day, so a kid who loves it can load up, Finkel says.

What kind is it? Chunk light has less mercury than albacore.

Where is it from? The “Tuna Surprise” report found that tuna from Latin America has more mercury than tuna from the United States and Asia.

The FDA’s information page on mercury and fish: http://alturl.com/fbo2r

The EPA’s information page: http://alturl.com/an7wy

“Tuna Surprise” Report: http://alturl.com/m2emc