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Category: News Archive
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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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.”
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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.”
[Major EPA fracking study cites pollution risk but sees no ‘systemic’ damage so far]
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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Categories
Clean water crisis threatens US
The 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
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
DUKEVILLE, 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
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.
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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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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, 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.
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JEFFERSON-An Ashe County Planning Board meeting turned testy at times last week as board members sparred with a local environmental activist and some made plain their views on Ashe County’s Board of Commissioners.
“I may no longer be on the planning board after this but I am appalled at our commissioners that would listen to the complaints of a few and take away from the many, listen to their friends and ‘not in my backyard…and tell the world that if we don’t like where you’re putting your business, or we don’t like the kind of business you’ve got, we don’t want you in Ashe County,” Darrell Hamilton, an Ashe County Planning Board Member, said.
By the end of the 90-minute session, however, the group acquiesced to the wishes of county leaders and stiffened certain provisions of a new draft ordinance that will regulate high impact industries like a proposed asphalt plant in Glendale Springs.
How’d we get here?
Thursday’s action ultimately stems from an application filed by Appalachian Materials nine months ago. The company requested permission to build an asphalt plant in Glendale Springs in late June of 2015.
The proposal stated the plant would sit on a 30-acre land parcel on Glendale School Road next to an existing rock quarry owned and operated by Radford Quarries.
Local environmental advocates campaigned against the plant for months and asked the Ashe County Board of Commissioners to approve a temporary moratorium on polluting industries, a move which commissioners unanimously approved on Oct. 19.
That measure placed a six month hold on the construction of the Glendale Springs plant until April 19, 2016. Commissioners also reserved the right to renew the moratorium for an additional six months, if necessary, at that time.
In the interim, commissioners instructed the planning board to review and update the county’s polluting industries ordinance. The High Impact Land Use Ordinance was the result of those discussions.
Not good enough?
When that ordinance was finally presented to county commissioners on March 7, however, commissioners told members of the planning board the ordinance needed more fine tuning.
The new ordinance, crafted by the planning board with the help of similar ordinances across the state, breaks down polluting industries into two categories. Class I includes asphalt plants, incinerators, quarries, stone crushing operations, concrete mixing plants, pulp mills, chip mills and saw mills. Class II includes chemical manufacturers, chemical storage, explosives manufacturers and warehouses, fuel storage centers and medical waste disposal centers.
Commissioners voted 5-0 that the proposed setbacks for Class I facilities under the proposed ordinance should be increased from 1,000 to 2,500 feet and from 500 feet to 1,000 feet for Class II facilities.
Ashe County Commissioner Gary Roark said on March 7, he will not vote for the proposed HILUO as it stands and expressed his overall disapproval of locating another asphalt plant in the county.
“I have no intention of padding the wallet of someone (asphalt plant) outside of Ashe County,” said Roark. “We already have an asphalt plant in county and others within striking distance of U.S. 421.”
Back and forth
That’s an attitude Ashe County Planning Board Member Arvill Scott said he takes issue with.
Scott said he was insulted by the county’s board of commissioners and said the High Impact ordinance was never designed to single out asphalt plant operators.
“That would be singling out one industry,” Scott said. “There are many industries that have a high impact on the citizens of Ashe County. We’ve included them on this as a ‘high impact’ and it keeps returning to the asphalt plant.”
Scott also spoke directly to Lou Zeller, Executive Director of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, and accused Zeller and company of spreading fear about the proposed plant throughout the community.
Zeller fired back that comments made by Scott and Hamilton were nonsense and that the protests sounded like “petulant teenagers” who refuse to do their schoolwork.
A rubber stamp?
Ultimately, planning board members are appointed and serve at the pleasure of the Ashe County Board of Commissioners.
As an advisory committee the group has the authority to draft proposed ordinances – like it did with the first version of the High Impact Land Use Ordinance – but commissioners ultimately have the authority to accept or reject the planning board’s recommendation, tweak its proposal in any way the commission sees fit or draft its own language, a point Hamilton highlighted.
“If the only real changes commissioners requested is about the setbacks – they want tighter setbacks – I don’t see why they didn’t just make that change themselves or tell (Ashe County Planning Director) Adam Stumb to do that,” Hamilton said. “I’m not sure why we need to approve that.”
Ashe County Planning Board Director Gene Hafer also said that whatever setbacks the commissioners ultimately approve can’t be so restrictive as to prohibit any “High Impact” industry from opening shop in Ashe County.
Planning Board Members decided by a 3-0 vote – Planning Board Member Priscilla Cox was absent from the meeting and Scott abstained – to approve the commissioners request for greater setbacks.
Reach Adam Orr at 336-489-3058 or Twitter.com/AdamROrr.
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Categories
‘Humans of Frome’: Dawn Chapman
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“For this issue I have invented the first Humans of Frome Award – Mother of the Year and this year the award goes to Dawn Chapman,” says Ciara.
“Dawn is a busy production manager at a local engineering company, a job which she loves and finds professionally fulfilling, she is also the kind of mother who is an inspiration to us all.”
‘My mother said to me, If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope. Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.’
“I think of these words spoken by Picasso when I chat with Dillon Chapman about his plans for the future and his forthcoming GCSE options. At the age of 13 he is definite that he wants to study business and plans to set up a business making specialised wheelchairs and developing bespoke properties to accommodate people with mobility difficulties. It’s extraordinary that any young lad of 13 has such a fully formed plan, but this guy is no ordinary chap. Already, he has raised an astounding £89,000 through presentations and talks that he gives on behalf of the likes of the ‘Make A Wish Foundation’’ and other charities.
“Dillon’s mum Dawn, listens in to our conversation with a smile, her eyes twinkling with an enormous sense of love and pride in her teenage son. She interjects that Dillon started giving talks when he was just seven years old when they attended a fundraising night in a prestigious London Hotel. Imagine her pride when her young seven year-old firecracker of a son volunteered himself to stand on the stage and speak to the hundreds of well-heeled guests. He blew them away that night with his insightful and eloquent speech and the rest as they say is history.
“The Chapman family history is a rich and complex one; you don’t get to the age of 13 and have such fully formed ideas on the future without some real life experiences of your own.
“Some readers may already be familiar with Dillon’s story, he is a well known and liked face about town and even further afield these days since the BBC documentary ‘The Boy Who Wants His Leg Cut Off’ aired last year. Dillon suffers from an aggressive form of neurofibromatosis, a disease that causes tumours to form in his nervous system. His leg had grown out of proportion to his tiny frame and following 11 years of agonising pain, a long list of operations, interventions and mobility issues, this mature 11 year old decided to fight for amputation. The documentary follows the Chapman family on their journey to battle the establishment to allow this unprecedented amputation to be carried out.
“I’m delighted to say that the family won their battle and Dillon’s left leg was amputated last year, heralding a vastly improved new lease of life for this brave young man.
“Dawn laughs and explains that he missed only two days of school (as the operation took place over a school break). When she phoned the school to inform them that he would be coming back sooner than expected, they, of course were surprised but not overly as everyone who knows this family are always prepared to be amazed.
“Dawn says that Dillon’s words at the time were, ‘I’ve not had brain surgery, I’ve just had my leg off.’ They laugh together, something that they do frequently during our mid morning meeting at the barbers where Dillon is getting a very smart short back and sides.
“I watched the documentary with great interest, also following progress on Dawn’s Facebook page where she replied to every one of the well-wishers who had taken the time to get in touch, and one thing was becoming blatantly obvious….this powerhouse of a woman, this rock of a mother is someone with enormous emotional intelligence. I was curious to speak with her, and to understand how someone remains so strong through the weight of such enormous challenges.
“Dawn tells me that minutes after Dillon’s birth she turned to Mark her husband and told him that she was scared. She was scared of the enormity of motherhood, frightened of making the wrong choices, and fully aware that from that moment onward they were responsible for this little bundle and who he would go on to be in the world. When they discovered the magnitude of Dillon’s NF she says that they turned to one another and said, ‘Bring it on.’ She adds that they made a pact to never lie to their son, to involve him in everything, to help him to understand his condition and to support him in making his own decisions as he grew up. It took a moment for me to consider these wise, well informed decisions that Dawn and Mark made so long ago, how did two new parents know how to deal with the weight of their new and unexpected life-changing situation.
“Where does such a level of emotional intelligence come from? Dawn smiles when I ask and she sits back on the white leather sofa, in the warm barbershop salon on Selwood Road and with the spring sun lighting her soft red hair like a halo around her she grins and says, ‘sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to really know who you are.’
“She goes on to reveal that as a young girl, the 7th child in seven years, she was faced with many challenges but that she was very blessed with a family who had the ability to really love. Dawn lost a sister when she was 11 years old, her sister had physical disabilities to contend with.
“Dawn talks fondly of how her mother guided her through some of the unkind things that people might say when they were out and about in town. Telling the tale of how her sister asked why people stared at her so much, she remembers with fondness her mother’s reply, ‘Sure you are so beautiful they had to look at you twice.’
“Her sister died at home one day which was a huge shock to the whole family and a loss that they never really quite recovered from. Five years later, her beloved father died and her 45 year-old widowed mother continued with the task of guiding her large family through those difficult years. Sounds as though, there’s another exceptional mother in this story to celebrate.
“I walked away from our meeting with my head held high, enjoying the warmth of the spring sunshine on my face and the radiating warmth in my heart. A mere hour in the company of this woman and her ‘chip off the old block’ of a son and I feel like I can take on the world.
“The legacy of a brief morning interlude is an overwhelming feeling of happiness and the reminder that life is too short, you should love every minute and to remember you are blessed for however long you have someone in your life, so be sure to enjoy them. Live every minute as though its your last and you won’t go wrong.
“Happy Mother’s Day Dawn, Dillon is a credit to you.”
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