Category: News Archive

Josh Peterson, MSR News Online. Members of the community that rally behind the movement of moms, aptly called JustMomsSTL, a group that CHEJ works very closely with, feel prisoners of their own homes. This is because some of them live within a half mile radius away from toxic waste. Their has been an ongoing investigation for a resolution involving the EPA and community representatives. Here’s a bit about how they feel it’s gone so far. 
Residents of this community near Ferguson — site of 2014’s police-involved shooting death of teenager Michael Brown — have complained for years about lung troubles caused by toxic fumes tied to radioactive waste linked to the atomic bombs that flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Missouri’s Department of Health and Senior Services will release a study in June to gauge these concerns.
Many here call this step positive, small and too late. A slow-moving, subterranean landfill fire that began in 2010, could boost the site’s toxic-gas emissions.
Some locals have been diagnosed with cancer, which they connect to nuclear waste illegally dumped at the West Lake Landfill by the Cotter Corporation in 1973. This radioactive refuse is from World War II’s top-secret Manhattan Project.
Paul Berry III, a local African American small business owner running for the U.S. House as a Republican, has long raised awareness about the toxic waste. “I take issue with President Obama and his focus on the Iran nuclear deal while we have nuclear waste sitting derelict in my community less than two miles away,” said Berry, who grew up in the area. “How are we going to be a steward for nuclear waste when we’re not even taking care of business in my backyard?” Thanks to these conditions, residents who seek government-assisted relocation feel abandoned. Lengthy fights over who ultimately should control the site have slowed cleanup efforts.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reportedly investigating the issue following a September 2014 study by Missouri’s health department. It found that between 1996 and 2011 the ZIP codes around the landfill included statistically significant higher incidences of leukemia, plus cancers of the colon, prostate, kidney, bladder and brain.
“[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”][The] recent study by St. Louis County is actually the first time that a government entity has asked people if they feel ill,” said Laura Barrett, executive director for the Center for Health, Environment and Justice.
“This is a hot mess,” said Dawn Chapman, a local mother and co-founder of Just Moms STL, a nonprofit organization made up of local mothers who worry that these radioactive materials are sickening their families. When Chapman bought a home in nearby Maryland Heights in 2005, she says she was never warned that her family would live near a radioactive waste site. She discovered their close proximity just three years ago when her family began experiencing what she called a “horrible odor” emanating from the site.
A 1988 Nuclear Regulatory Commission study revealed that its inspectors discovered in 1974 that the Cotter Corporation — which agreed to buy the atomic refuse from the federal government and dispose of it — mixed this waste with 39,000 tons of topsoil. Cotter illegally covered the West Lake Landfill with this irradiated earth in 1973, according to the nuclear agency’s report.
“It’s not in barrels. Some of it’s mixed in the soil and the garbage,” said Chapman. “Some of it’s just lying on the surface for over 40 years, and none of us knew about this.”
Chapman, who lives with her husband and their three special needs children, described the odor as a burning-electrical smell mixed with trash and petroleum. Two of her kids suffer developmental problems, Chapman said. She personally complains of breathing difficulties.
“I’m 35 and have never had an issue in my life,” said Chapman. “These past couple of years, I’ve found myself using and borrowing other people’s inhalers.”
Some, however, consider these fears overblown. Low-level radiation “is generally a health benefit,” said Dr. Jerry Cuttler, a scientist with more than 50 years of experience with nuclear radiation and an adviser to the New York-based American Council on Science and Health. “The natural radon level in an open area is very low. To find a harmful radon level, you would need to go into a uranium mine that has no forced ventilation.”
Despite ordering landfill owner Republic Services to build a barrier between the fire and the toxic waste, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency denies residents are at risk. St. Louis County, on the other hand, published a 2014 shelter-in-place plan due to concerns that the fire could reach and burn the toxic waste, increase pollution and hurt residents. The fire is expected to smolder until 2024.
This plan dismays Chapman, whose home is located several miles from the landfill. Some locals live within half a mile of the site, and the odor penetrates their residences, according to Chapman.
“What are those people supposed to do?” said Chapman. “A lot of people here feel like they’re prisoners in their own homes.”
Thanks to Josh Peterson and Urban News Source for sharing this story with us.
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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.

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.”
To read the original article, click here.

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.
To read the original article click here. 

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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