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St. Cyprian’s Church in Perry hosts anti-fracking event

Tawana Roberts, The News Herald. One event in Perry, Ohio hosted on the National Day of Action, highlights catholic involvement in the anti-fracking movement. 
Pope Francis spreads a universal message that everyone should be good stewards of the planet, and that was at the forefront of discussion for a National Day of Action event.
The event was held at St. Cyprian’s Church in Perry on June 7 and was coordinated by Buckeye Forest Council, The Center for Health, Environment and Justice, Faith Communities Together for a Sustainable Future, Frackfree America National Coalition, Network for Oil & Gas Accountability & Protection and the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association.
Frack-free Lake County Coordinator Dan Phillips said their goal is to raise awareness about environmental concerns specifically fracking.
Fracking is a drilling technique that involves pumping millions of gallons of water, mixed with chemicals, into a well. Because of the high volume of fluid and pressure, the waste surfaces up from the ground. Fracking waste contains carcinogenic, radioactive and toxic materials, Phillips said in a previous interview.

The National Day of Action event highlighted Pope Francis mission of accountability to the earth while educating the community on the effects of toxic frack waste.

Phillips added that there is no local or state control over this issue.
Meanwhile, frackjng remains a controversial topic among various organizations.
According to energytomorrow.org, hydraulic fracturing or fracking technology has a strong environmental track record and is employed under close supervision by state, local and federal regulators.
Proponents also suggests that fracking produces oil and natural gas in places where conventional technologies are ineffective and boosts local economies by generating royalty payments On the other hand, Phillips expressed concern about the long-term and local effects of fracking.
“There are injection wells in Leroy Township near my home,” he said. “We are only trying to protect our health.”
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Activists target fracking waste on Tuesday’s action day

Bob Downing, Akron Beacon Journal. In Ohio, environmental agencies including CHEJ are organizing educational events in order to inspire a change in the fracking industry. These events will be held on the National Day of Action on Tuesday, June 7th.
From a Thursday press release:

Groups Call for a Halt to Toxic Fracking Waste and Man-made Earthquakes in a National Day of Action to be held on Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Ohio, June 2, 2016 – Even though unconventional fracking currently appears to be experiencing a shale bust, the toxic fracking waste problem is still here and getting worse as millions of gallons and tons of fracking waste is constantly being created, according to groups organizing a National Day of Action to be held on June 7, 2016.
       On June 7th, groups and concerned citizens in about twelve states will call for a halt to toxic fracking waste and related man-made earthquakes in an event titled “Freedom From Toxic Fracking Waste and Earthquakes: National Day of Action.”
       One of the major concerns the groups want to address is:
Where is all of the fracking waste going when there is no good or safe way to handle it that effectively protects public health, safety, and well-being?
       On Tuesday, June 7, 2016, a national coalition of local coordinators and groups will hold rallies or actions throughout the day to shine light on the numerous problems associated with toxic, radioactive fracking waste and its “disposal,” including its links to earthquakes, spills, and leaks.  They say the pollution risks to water, air, and land due to toxic fracking waste are unacceptable. Events being planned include a tour of waste sites, “toxic tea parties,” rallies, and presentations.
      “We know there are injection and disposal wells being permitted in rural and residential areas way too close to homes and communities. This is not progress. Such toxic waste operations, located anywhere, pose unacceptable levels of risks including spills, decreased property values, man-made earthquakes, lightning-related explosions, and pollution of drinking water, air, and soil.  It’s time for industry and government to own up to the fact that unacceptable impacts are occurring related to fracking waste. You cannot regulate earthquakes, for example. The only real answer to this huge fracking waste problem is to stop this madness and really protect public health, safety, and well-being, “said Teresa Mills of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ), founded by Lois Gibbs of Love Canal renown.
       The groups say, contrary to some reports that may seek to minimize the induced seismicity problem, man-made earthquakes are not necessarily small. Scientists have linked a magnitude 5.6 quake in Prague, Oklahoma in 2011 to waste injection.  A Canadian earthquake of magnitude 4.4 was reported as being “triggered by fluid injection during hydraulic fracturing,” according to a CBC News report by Betsy Trumpener (8/27/2015, “Fracking triggered 2014 earthquake in northeastern B.C.”).
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fracking-triggered-2014-earthquake-in-northeastern-b-c-1.3203944
        The June 7th National Day of Action is being coordinated by Buckeye Forest Council (BFC), The Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ), Faith Communities Together for a Sustainable Future (FaCT), Frackfree America National Coalition (FANC), Network for Oil & Gas Accountability & Protection, (NEOGAP) and the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA).
       Coordinators say there is still time for more individuals or groups to get involved in the events planned for June 7, 2016, by contacting Frackfree America National Coalition at:
234-201-8007 or by e-mail at frackfreeamerica@gmail.com
       More information about the June 7, 2016 National Day of Action can be found at the following website address and Facebook Event page:
       http://www.frackfreeamerica.org/national-day-of-action—details-and-updates
       https://www.facebook.com/events/1759007060997808/
       For media inquiries or for more information on fracking and related processes, toxic fracking waste, or how to coordinate or participate in a local rally or action, contact us by phone at 234-201-8007 or by e-mail atfrackfreeamerica@gmail.com .

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Legal News Line Environmental coalition sues EPA over wastewater guidelines

Sean Fowler, Legal News Line. A number of environmental groups, including CHEJ, discussed their concerns and the purpose for the lawsuit against the EPA. 
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – A coalition of environmental groups has filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colombia, seeking to force it to revise and publish new guidelines for the handling of oil and gas waste, in particular wastewater associated with the oil mining method known as fracking.
One industry attorney called the suit an unnecessary effort to hamper energy production methods with which the groups don’t agree.
“The case is really about generating publicity and propaganda for the environmental NGO community who wants to attack at every turn responsible, domestic energy production,” Michael Mills, an attorney for the firm Stoel Rives LLP, told Legal Newsline.
The coalition (consisting of the Environmental Integrity Project, Natural Resources Defense Council, Earthworks, Responsible Drilling Alliance, San Juan Citizens Alliance, West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization, and the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice) has a few primary complaints.
The first concern is that wastewater produced by methods of oil and gas extraction, such as fracking, could get back into the primary water table, contaminating drinking water. Mills, however, says that the current guidelines prevent that from being a concern.
“If the operations are conducted correctly, there should be no risk of ‘danger’ or harm because wastewater injection does not enter drinking water supplies,” Mills said. “Produced water is injected into exempt aquifers, and so there is no harm to human health or the environment. The produced water is going back to where it came from.”
The groups are also concerned that injecting this water back into the ground can increase seismic stress and possibly cause an increase in earthquakes. Mills said that this determination is inconclusive at best, citing that the United States Geological Survey has only just begun studying the issue, and the increase in seismic stress currently tends to seem to be the exception, rather than the rule.
Another complaint regards the regulations that govern the disposal of this wastewater. The groups allege that, while current laws state the policies must be reviewed and updated every three years, the EPA last did so in 1988.
Mills, however, stresses that the law the groups are referring to states the policies must only be reviewed. Updating the policies is only necessary is a problem is found and needs to be fixed.
“(The) RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) requires that the EPA review the regulations every three years, but only requires revision where necessary,” Mills said. “The EPA does not have to revise (its) rules every three years.”
While the groups may have serious concerns they hope are addressed, in the end Mills sees this as a frivolous lawsuit that won’t go far.
“By bringing lawsuits, like this one, that have no merit in regulatory policy or scientific fact, the plaintiffs are hoping that the public will believe the allegations,” he said. “Their objective by and large is simply filing the action and reaping the headlines it may bring. I don’t see this case doing more than that.”

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The 2015 volume of liquid drilling wastes going into Ohio’s injection wells keeps growing

Bob Downing, Akron Beacon Journal. Teresa Mills, one of CHEJ’s own, provided vital data for recording the amount and impact of liquid drilling wastes being injected underground in Ohio.  
Ohio is continuing to rewrite the record book for liquid drilling wastes being injected into underground rock formations: The 2015 injection total keeps ­growing.
That’s because additional fees are being paid in 2016 by waste haulers to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Oil and Gas Resource Management.
That 2015 volume was reported as 28.8 million 42-gallon barrels in March. Now it is up to 31.4 million barrels, as of May 20.
That’s enough to fill nearly 2,000 Olympic-size swimming pools with the salty wastes from shale drilling.
That means that Ohio’s injection volume in 2015 grew by nearly 42.8 percent from 2014. The earlier reported percent was 27.2 percent.
In 2014, 22.0 million barrels were disposed of in Ohio’s injection wells. That total was 16.3 million barrels in 2013.
The updated totals include 16.6 million gallons from Ohio and 14.8 million gallons from other states.
Injecting the wastes has been linked to small earthquakes in Ohio and other states, and critics say injecting wastes into underground rock formations poses a threat to groundwater.
Industry and state officials say injection wells are a safe disposal method and the growing volume of waste is simply evidence of the Utica and Marcellus shale booms in Ohio and surrounding states.
The new data come from Columbus activist Teresa Mills with the Virginia-based Center for Health, Environment and Justice — who regularly analyzes state financial data to determine the injection volumes. ODNR does not release injection volumes but has never disputed Mills’ totals.
Athens County is No. 1 with 4 million barrels injected in 2015. Second is Coshocton County with 3.7 million barrels and third is Guernsey County with 3.0 million barrels.
The rest of Top 10 counties are: Tuscarawas, 2.9 million, Muskingum, 2.8 million; Washington, 2.6 million; Portage, 2.1 million; Trumbull, 2.0 million; Meigs, 1.6 million and Ashtabula, 1.3 million. Stark County is No. 12 with 577,369 barrels.
The drilling of new wells in Ohio’s Utica Shale has slowed because of low commodity prices, but production from already drilled wells is continuing to grow and that’s what has triggered the big increase in Ohio drilling wastes, state officials said.
Such a big increase in Ohio injection volumes is troubling to activists and local communities, Mills said.
Efforts by Northeast Ohio county commissioners and the grass-roots Concerned Citizens Ohio in 2015 to win support for a proposed statewide moratorium on new injection wells failed because of lack of support.
Ohio has 214 active injection wells. Much of the out-of-state liquids coming into Ohio originate in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Ohio can do little to block out-of-state wastes because they are protected as interstate commerce by the U.S. Constitution.
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Environmental groups sue EPA, seek stricter rules over fracking waste linked to earthquakes

Brady Dennis, Washington Post. A coalition of environmental advocacy groups, including CHEJ, sued the EPA for stricter fracking waste rules. 
A collection of environmental advocacy groups on Wednesday sued the Environmental Protection Agency, saying the government has failed to adequately regulate the disposal of waste generated by oil and gas drilling.
In particular, the lawsuit seeks to force the agency to impose stricter rules on the disposal of wastewater, including that from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The wastewater is typically pumped into underground wells — a practice that has been linked to a growing number of earthquakes inOklahoma, Colorado, Ohio and other states. The groups argue that the EPA has neglected to revise its existing rules for nearly three decades, despite acknowledging in the late 1980s that stricter requirements were needed for the handling of oil and gas drilling waste.
“These rules are almost 30 years overdue,” said Adam Kron, a senior attorney at the Environmental Integrity Project, which filed the lawsuit in a D.C. federal court along with a half dozen other advocacy groups. Hesaid that despite the millions of gallons of wastewater and hundreds of tons of solid waste that a drilling well can produce each year, the EPA has kept in place vague, inadequate regulations. “It’s definitely a more waste-intensive industry than ever before. If new rules were needed in 1988, they are certainly needed now.”

In addition, the groups want the EPA to ban the practice of dumping fracking wastewater on fields and roads, where it potentially could pollute drinking water sources. They also want the agency to require that ponds and landfills where drilling and fracking waste are dumped be built to certain specifications and adequately lined to prevent leaks. The lawsuit asks the court to set strict deadlines for the EPA to adopt updated rules.
“Waste from the oil and gas industry is very often toxic and should be treated that way,” Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement Wednesday. “Right now, companies can get rid of their toxic mess in any number of dangerous ways, from spraying it on icy roads, to sending it to landfills with our everyday household trash, to injecting it underground where it can endanger drinking water and trigger earthquakes. EPA must step in and protect our communities and drinking water from the carcinogens, radioactive material and other dangerous substances that go hand-in-hand with oil and gas waste.”
Last year, the EPA concluded a years-long review of U.S. fracking operations practices, saying it had found no evidence of widespread damage to drinking water supplies. But the agency did warn about the potential for contamination from the controversial technique, which played a major role in the oil and gas production boom in the United States in recent years.
Fracking involves the injection of liquids into underground rock layers at high pressure to extract oil and gas trapped inside. But scientists also have linked the deep wastewater disposal wells associated with the practice to the startling increase in seismic activity across the central United States in recent years, particularly in Oklahoma. There, oil companies and their representatives have largely denied responsibility for the quakes, or suggested that the links are greatly exaggerated.
“It’s hard to deny that in certain geographic locations with certain geologic circumstances, we’ve had some problems with some wastewater wells,” A.J. Ferate, vice president of regulatory affairs for the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association, told the Post last year. But “to make a blanket assertion that wastewater wells are always the cause, I don’t know that I can agree with that.”

According to the EPA, an estimated 2 billion gallons of wastewater are injected each day into tens of thousands of underground wells operating around the country. Most oil and gas injection wells are located in Texas, California, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

States themselves are primarily responsible for the oversight of the majority of natural gas and oil development.
An EPA spokeswoman said Wednesday the agency would not comment on pending litigation.
The groups behind the federal suit originally filed a notice of their intent to sue EPA last August, saying they would move forward unless the agency took action on the issue.
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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.”
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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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How Pope Francis helped awaken a deep religious tradition for care for the environment

Mark Stoll, Washington Post.
Stoll recently wrote a column about the Pope’s support for environmental issues and the Catholic tradition for environmental justice, citing CHEJ’s founder Lois Gibbs as “the first Catholic to become nationally known for environmental activism.”
Just about every person who led and shaped the American conservation and early environmental movements grew up Protestant. What irony, then, that the one person who has done more to get people talking about the environment than anyone in decades is the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis.
Every pope since Paul VI has addressed environmental issues, but Francis’s encyclical this summer made many people aware for the first time of a Catholic concern for the environment. Even dedicated environmentalists might have a hard time naming a major Catholic environmentalist.
The average person could probably more easily name the seven Catholic Republican presidential candidates, who deny or downplay environmental problems like climate change.
Up through the 19th century, Protestant ministers wrote most of the great works about nature as the creation of God. The pantheon of great heroes of environmentalism is thoroughly Protestant — Henry David Thoreau, Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, David Brower, Rachel Carson, Edward Abbey. Exceptions have generally been Jewish, like Paul Ehrlich or Michael Pollan.
Francis’s encyclical framed global warming and environmental issues in a very Catholic way, in terms of their injustice to the poor. Since Vatican II in the 1960s, the Catholic Church has made social justice central to its teaching. It’s no accident, then, that the environmental justice movement is exactly where Catholics have participated most enthusiastically in American environmentalism.
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Pope Francis is actually bringing America’s environmentalism movement to its religious and moral roots]
The deeply devout Cesar Chavez might be said to have been the first major Catholic environmental leader in the late 1960s and 1970s, when his farm worker movement protested workers’ exposure to agricultural chemicals.
But the first Catholic to become nationally known for environmental activism was Lois Gibbs. Developers had built Love Canal, her neighborhood in Niagara Falls, N.Y., on top of 20,000 tons of buried toxic waste. Horrific health problems, especially for children, finally made headlines in 1978.
 
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Environmental advocate: Keystone landfill expansion debate is nationally important

Kyle Wind, Scranton Times-Tribune. 
Friends of Lackawanna hold an panel discussion on the expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill with the help of CHEJ.
Keystone Sanitary Landfill’s expansion proposal has national importance because its approval could affect how the Eastern Seaboard disposes of garbage in the coming decades, an environmental activist said Monday.
“I think this is a really important fight at a national level because we have to stop this foolish burying of waste and thinking somehow it has just gone somewhere else,” Lois Gibbs told 400-plus people at a Friends of Lackawanna forum on Pennsylvania’s trash disposal policy.
Ms. Gibbs founded the Love Canal Homeowners’ Association in 1978 amid the Upstate New York environmental crisis that became the catalyst for national legislation known as the Superfund Act. She founded the Center for Health, Environment & Justice in 1981 and continued her activism over the decades, which includes working with groups fighting against landfills.
“This is the largest landfill I have seen in my 37 years,” Ms. Gibbs said, eliciting reactions from hundreds of attendees ranging from murmurs to exclamations. “I cannot imagine what it’s going to look like with a 50-year permit. … I’ve never seen a 50-year permit.”
Keystone officials have cited their environmental record and say they believe the Dunmore and Throop operation is part of the way forward, but Ms. Gibbs sees expansions like Keystone’s plan as ensuring it remains cheaper to send trash to places like Northeast Pennsylvania rather than come up with better solutions.
Keystone consultant Al Magnotta attended the forum and described it as well-conducted and informative — but also felt it’s not quite that simple.
The average American generates 4.3 pounds of waste per day, according to Duke University’s Center for Sustainability and Commerce.
“At this time, there’s no other financially feasible disposal option available,” Mr. Magnotta said. “Thus, the way I see it, the solid waste disposal sites must be environmentally responsible and protect the health and safety of the public. That is the goal the owners of Keystone Sanitary Landfill have assigned me, and I intend to do my best to achieve it.”
Friends of Lackawanna, the grass-roots group that opposes Keystone’s expansion, organized the event to discuss why Pennsylvania is one of the country’s leading garbage importers and how the state can be a catalyst for better public policy.
Along with Ms. Gibbs, speakers included Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Casey; state Sen. John Blake, D-22, Archbald; John Quigley, secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection; and Stephen Lester, science director of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice.
*video*
Mr. Casey talked about his proposed TRASH Act that so far hasn’t made it past the committee level. The legislation would allow states to set minimum environmental standards for trash coming from other states and allow states to charge a premium for accepting garbage through community impact fees.
Mr. Blake discussed the process of getting the health study surrounding Keystone’s proposal by the state Department of Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Mr. Quigley assured him DEP won’t make a decision on the expansion until study’s results are in, Mr. Blake said.
“We can’t expect decisions to be made by a regulatory authority without full information,” Mr. Blake said. “I am looking at writing legislation … to see if in fact we should make this a requirement going forward. It really ought to be every time a landfill starts or a landfill expands.”
Contact the writer:
kwind@timesshamrock.com,
@kwindTT on Twitter
 
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Attorney Pat Clark, Friends of Lackawanna, and Corbett event on March 21, 2016

Attorney Pat Clark, Friends of Lackawanna, talks to Corbett about an event on March 21, 2016 titled “Let’s Talk Trash” at the Radisson in Scranton
To watch the video, click here.