Ohio residents point out water pollution & earthquake problems

From an Article by Julie Grant, The Allegheny Front, October 5, 2018

Much of the wastewater from Pennsylvania’s fracking industry is trucked across the border to Ohio. Last year, Pennsylvania and West Virginia contributed nearly half of the more than a billion gallons of frack waste that were injected into underground wells in Ohio. Residents in at least one county say they’ve had enough.

Michelle Garman used to marvel at the 22-acres of land around her home in Vienna, Ohio, less than 10 miles from the Pennsylvania border.

“I would lean out my back window and say, ‘oh my god, I never dreamed of owning this much land’,” she said.

LISTEN: “Ohio Residents Fed Up with Fracking Wastewater”

You can see and hear the injection well from Michelle Garman’s property, less than 10 miles from the Pennsylvania border. Photo: Julie Grant

She didn’t know much about fracking then, let alone frack waste injection wells.

But she remembers News Years Eve 2011, when a 4.0-magnitude earthquake shook nearby Youngstown, Ohio. Around a dozen smaller quakes followed. The state determined that the quakes were caused by an injection well. And one in New Castle, Pennsylvania was linked to fracking as well. The well believed to have caused the Youngstown quakes has been closed permanently.

“That’s poison they’re pumping into the ground”

But Garman’s view changed in 2013 when an injection well was built on the property next door.

“Where your looking at tanks and cement and fencing, it was trees and deer and turkey. And blue jays…and I never see them anymore,” she said.

Garman describes big trucks carrying chemical-laced wastewater that squeal into the site at all hours. She can hear the pump from her yard. And Garman fears for her family.

“How does it affect our health, my son’s health?” she wondered. “I mean, it is toxic. Plain and simple, that’s poison that they’re pumping into the ground.”

Garman says her concerns didn’t get much response from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), the agency with authority over injection wells. In Ohio, there’s no local control of the oil and gas industry.

And few leaders in her town would criticize the local company, Kleese Development Associates, that built the well next to her property.

Then, in April of 2015, a waste oil spill caused a slew of dead animals and a polluted nearby wetlands. It was caused by another injection well owned by Kleese.

Garman says neighbors contacted her for help.

“People were scared,” she said. “[The were asking], ‘can I drink the water, can I bathe my children in it, can I cook with it?”

The state forced Kleese to shut down the injection well, and it’s still closed. The company could not be reached for comment.

“They don’t want it”

On a recent evening, leaders from townships in Trumbull County gathered at the gazebo in the Brookfield town square. Brookfield Township trustee Gary Lees coached people on how to send letters to their representatives in Columbus asking them to consider legislation that would stop more injection wells in Trumbull County.

Trumbull County already has 17, among the most in the state, and 6 more are in the works. In Hubbard Township, Bobcat LLC has applied to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for an injection well.

Pittsburgh-based Seneca Resources has drilled a new injection well in Brookfield Township, one of five it plans on the site. The company still needs state approval of its surface facility.

State representative Glenn Holmes says people there are fed up. He references a petition against a plan for the five injection wells by Seneca Resources.

“In a community of about 8,000 people, [we have] 5,000 signatures,” he said. “They don’t want it.”

Holmes has proposed two bills in the Ohio House of Representatives meant to rein in injection wells. One, introduced last spring, would divert more than a third of fees Ohio collects from other state’s frack waste disposal to local governments. Last year, fees for this waste brought in more than $650,000. Holmes says counties should get a cut.

“You have the truck traffic, you have the noise, and you also have the stress and the tension,” he said. “‘Is this going to cause an earthquake?’ Is my aquifer or my well going to be polluted because of this?’”

More recently, Holmes introduced another bill to stop ODNR from permitting any more injection wells in Trumbull County, capping the number of injection wells at 23 per county.

Ted Auch doesn’t think that’s a good idea. He works for the non-profit FracTracker Alliance. Auch worries that a cap per county would actually open up more of the state to injection wells, which have more than doubled in the last five years.

Auch said money from fees should be spent on inspectors.

“You can’t have your number of inspectors be static and your number of wells go up, up and away,” he explained. “That means the number of wells per inspector is going up.”

Auch warns that Ohio has become a dumping ground for other state’s fracking wastewater.

The ODNR says it has strong regulations for injection wells, but declined an interview for this story, as did the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.

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Tree of Heaven on Penn State campus

From an Article by Kara Holsopple, The Allegheny Front, August 11, 2017

There’s an invasive tree that is becoming a threat to Pennsylvania’s forests. And it’s one that you see all the time. Ailanthus altissima, better known as tree of heaven, is a tough urban tree that sprouts out of sidewalks. It also happens to be the tree from the book A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The tree came to the U.S. from China by way of England in the 1700s. And since then, it has thrived. The tree of heaven is found in 40 states, including most of Pennsylvania.

Matt Kasson is an assistant professor of forest pathology at West Virginia University. He’s been studying the tree for more than a decade, and his latest research was recently published in the journal Forests. The study was co-authored by Kristen Wickert, Eric O’Neal and Dr. Don Davis.

Kara Holsopple spoke to him about what he and his team have learned about the tree’s spread.

Kara Holsopple: Your newest research clues us into why this non-native tree has done really well. What did you find?

Matt Kasson: We’ve known for a while now that Ailanthus is pretty aggressive in colonizing the landscape. But what was unclear to us, and really the motivation behind the study, was to figure out its reproductive potential. If you drive down the highways right now you could see these brilliant red to orange colored seed clusters, prolific seed production on individual trees. But we wondered how much seed could these trees actually produce in a single year and over a lifetime.

KH: And what did you find?

MK: We found that there are some exceptionally reproductively capable individuals across the landscape. We found one tree in particular on the campus of Penn State University that routinely puts out about 700,000 seeds a year, and that’s been doing so for almost a century. So the cumulative seed production of that tree is somewhere north of 50 million seeds over its lifetime. Now that’s an exceptional tree. But we found that on average a tree that lived 40 years and was reproductively capable during that window could produce upwards of 10 million seeds.

LISTEN: “Tree of Heaven Creates Hell for Native Forests”

KH: Your study mentions viability. That’s the success of the seed once it gets into the ground if it’s going to become a tree or or not?

MK: I think viability is a really important aspect because if a tree can produce a million seeds per year, and viability is 3 percent, that’s not a lot of reproductive capacity. But if viability is north of 70 percent like we found on a few of our individuals including this 104 year old individual in Pennsylvania, the potential for producing a lot of progeny over a lifetime is exceptional.

KH: So why is this tree’s kind of super reproductive power and it’s spread a problem?

MK: It wasn’t always a problem. And I think the ways we manage land and landscapes have changed over time. Following another invasive pest, the gypsy moth, we saw widespread land clearing which really set up these forests for Ailanthus. Gypsy moth has been here since the 1800s and it started to devastate forest in Pennsylvania and throughout the Appalachian region in the late 70s to early 80s. We saw widespread salvage harvesting in the aftermath of this gypsy moth defoliation because the defoliation was so severe that it actually killed a lot of the oak trees that were occupying these ridge tops in South Central Pennsylvania and elsewhere throughout the mid-Atlantic. So one reproductively capable female tree at the edge of this clear cut seeded in the hole clear cut. And now you’re left, not with native trees regenerating, but a whole entire stand of invasive trees.

KH: Is this something that’s worrying for foresters?

MK: Absolutely. Tree of heaven, not only can outcompete native species that might seed into those same clearings, but it also produces compounds that inhibit the germination of native plants. It’s called allelopathic and what it does is it produces these compounds that make the site more suitable for itself to regenerate and less suitable for native plants. If we think about the spotted lanternfly which is a new pest that’s just been found in Pennsylvania, it actually requires Tree of Heaven to fulfill its lifecycle: It feeds on the foliage, it lays eggs on the stems, and it’s a real threat to the grape industry. Tree of heaven is pretty well established throughout most of the counties in Pennsylvania with the exception of a few of the northern tier counties. So, in that sense, it could follow tree of heaven up towards Erie and up to New York into the Finger Lakes region where it could directly threaten and impact the grape and wine industries in those regions.

KH: How can you get rid of them? Can you cut them down? What are some of the ways that you can remove them?

MK: I’ve been working on biological control using native fungi to kill Tree of Heaven in these forest settings for about a decade now. But there’s still plenty of stands of Atlantis that haven’t been controlled. And until they’re removed, whether it be through biological control or chemical applications or mechanical removal, they’re going to continue to be under-productive forests that supplant native species and prevent future generations of native forested stands from establishing.

KH: Tree of Heaven is commonly thought of as an urban tree. How did they move into the forest?

MK: That’s a good question. For a long time it just kind of hung out in Philadelphia and New York is kind of a botanical oddity passed around among early botanists and then seed producing trees were established and soon seedlings were available through a lot of the nursery trade and followed the railroad corridors east and west. We noticed a huge spike in the spread of tree of heaven in Pennsylvania following the completion of the Horseshoe Curve which connected the east and western part of the state.

Tree of heaven moved along those transportation corridors much like they move along our interstate highways now. But as to how they got in the forest, with building of roads and things like that, we see movement of invasive species whether it be through gravel or just that there’s a lot of exposed soil which allows prolific seed producing species to establish.

There was a recent study done out of Penn State that showed that these Marcellus shale well sites are now being taken over by a number of invasive plant species. We predict that tree of heaven will follow suit because it does occur up in those northern tier counties but they’re not really widespread as of yet. But with all this new road building and road construction to support the gas industry, I think we’ll see a lot more spread of these invasive species that are common throughout the the southern part of the state.

>>> Matt Kasson is an assistant professor of forest pathology at West Virginia University.

Colorful Tree of Heaven seed pod

Acosta Deep Mine, Jennerstown, PA, for metallurgical coal

FACT CHECK: Is President Trump Correct That Coal Mines Are Opening?

From an Article by Reid Frazier of the Allegheny Front, National Public Radio, June 2, 2017

As he announced his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, President Trump said he was putting American jobs ahead of the needs and desires of other countries.

“I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” he said Thursday. Trump said the agreement was “very unfair” for the U.S., especially the U.S. coal industry. And he alluded to some recent good news for the battered industry: the development of new mines.

The Claim

“The mines are starting to open up, having a big opening in two weeks. Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, so many places. A big opening of a brand-new mine. It’s unheard of. For many, many years that hasn’t happened. They asked me if I’d go. I’m going to try.”

Short Answer

Yes, mines are beginning to open up, including a new one in Pennsylvania. But that doesn’t reverse the overall decline of the coal mining industry from its glory days.

Long Answer

The coal mines that are opening up produce a special kind of coal used in steelmaking and are opening largely because of events unrelated to federal policy, experts say. The market for the kind of coal used in electricity — the biggest use for coal — remains down relative to where it was several years ago.

In other words, the industry has rebounded slightly after years of layoffs and closures caused mainly by competition from cheap natural gas. And a handful of new mines in Wyoming, Alabama, Pennsylvania and West Virginia are either opening or slated to open in the next few years.

The coal mine Trump referred to is the Acosta Deep Mine in Jennerstown, Pa., about an hour east of Pittsburgh. It is scheduled to have an opening ceremony next week, but there’s no word yet on whether the president will be there for the ribbon-cutting.

“We’re staffing up,” George Dethlefsen, CEO of Corsa Coal Corp., which owns the mine, told Bloomberg in February. The mine plans to employ about 70 people.

Betty Rhoads, the owner of the nearby Coal Miner’s Cafe, in Jennerstown, says she has seen an uptick in business from miners at the mine since last year. “You’ll see a group of 12 or 20 of them come in and have a big breakfast after their shift is over,” she says. “It helps the cook get paid. It helps the waitress get paid. It helps us pay our electric bills.”

The mine, as are many of the others slated to open, will produce metallurgical coal, a special type of coal that is used in steelmaking. This is different from “steam” coal, which is used to generate electricity. “Met” coal makes up about 15 percent of worldwide coal production, according to the International Energy Agency.

The Acosta Deep Mine is one of a handful of metallurgical coal mines opening up around the country to take advantage of very high prices for metallurgical coal, says Art Sullivan, a mining consultant and former coal miner in Washington, Pa. He says the uptick in met coal is related to events oversees that have little to do with U.S. policy or politics.

One of these factors is that Australia, the far and away leader in metallurgical coal, has experienced disruptions to its supply chain. There have been problems with rail transport of coal, and Cyclone Debbie further hurt the coal industry there, Sullivan says. Those disruptions, combined with greater-than-expected demand for steel in China — the world’s leading steelmaker — caused prices of this special coal to soar to $300 per ton, triple the price of met coal from three years ago.

“With the disruptions in Australia and continuing high level of demand in China, there has been this upsurge in the U.S. with the planning, development and production from metallurgical coal mines,” Sullivan says.

James Stevenson, director of the coal team at IHS Markit, says the metallurgical coal boom has helped the coal industry rebound. The rest of the coal industry has also benefited from higher natural gas prices.

“I think that the broad-brush characteristic is that things have really improved from the bottom,” Stevenson says. “We really saw the bottom of the U.S. coal market in early 2016.” Since then, the industry has picked up a bit. Several large coal companies have begun to emerge from bankruptcy, buoying the industry.

Still, despite this uptick, the industry isn’t going back to its glory days of a few years ago, regardless of Trump’s pro-coal policies, Stevenson says. He expects natural gas prices to fall and the shortage of met coal to ease. “The direction is downward,” Stevenson says.

“There’s not a whole lot a government can do to change economics, so we don’t really expect a whole lot of change to the coal demand outlook from what any administration really can do,” he says. “Most analysts would agree [Trump's pro-coal policies] are probably a case of slowing the decline [rather than generating] any real upside.”

Coal production reached a 30-year low in 2015, and the number of U.S. coal miners fell from 90,000 in 2012 to 50,000 in 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of U.S. coal mines dropped from 1,831 in 2006 to 1,159 in 2015, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Overall, coal industry analysts say this rebound will pick the industry up, but not to the levels seen at its height around 2011. Blame fracking.

“Natural gas is the big reason why coal use for electric power has declined,” says Jay Apt, a professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. Apt says natural gas from the fracking boom has replaced coal on the electric grid; natural gas recently overtook coal as the largest source of electricity in the country.

A recent Columbia University study found that regulations accounted for 3.5 percent of coal’s decline, while competition from natural gas accounted for around 49 percent.

Trump’s pro-coal policies certainly won’t hurt the industry, but the broad trends pushing the industry down are likely to continue, experts say. It’s simple economics.

The Blue-Green Future is Bright

“Mother Jones would be so happy to see this, in my opinion.”

“Yes, I agree!”

BlueGreen Alliance Unites Labor and . . . Environmentalists

Broadcast From The Allegheny Front, www.AlleghenyFront.org, September 4, 2015

As some traditional blue-collar jobs like those in the coal industry are being lost, labor unions are regrouping and finding new allies—like environmentalists. Kim Glas is helping the two communities find common ground. She’s the new executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a partnership of 10 labor unions and five national environmental groups that pushes for green job growth. Recently, Kara Holsopple spoke with Kim Glas about how the labor and environmental movements are finding new ways to work together. Here are some highlights from the interview:

On the importance of labor and environmental groups working together

“I think that the labor and environmental movements aren’t movements that have naturally worked together until recently. And the vision of the BlueGreen Alliance—which was started by Leo Gerard, the President of the United Steelworkers, and the Sierra Club—was to really bring a collaboration between the labor constituencies and the environmental community; figuring out ways to push a common agenda: How do we address climate change [in a way] that actually creates jobs here in this country and provides opportunities for our workforce. Whether you’re addressing carbon mitigation, fuel efficiency in the auto sector, there are a variety of ways you can see an economy moving forward that addresses our environmental concerns, but also our economic ones.”

On challenges faced by workers in the changing energy economy

“In Pennsylvania, workers in the coal industry have lost their jobs as the energy transformation has hit Pennsylvania and other states. And the BlueGreen Alliance has strongly committed to working on a just transition for these workers. And when I’m talking about a just transition, it’s not, ‘here’s an unemployment check.’ This is really about trying to get workers who are highly skilled, highly paid, who work in impacted industries, into other industries and highly skilled, highly paid jobs. Unfortunately, for workers impacted in the coal industry, who make a family-sustaining wage, looking at solar and wind—those industries pay less at this time. And that’s something that the BlueGreen Alliance has been working on: How to create jobs in those industries that also produce family-sustaining wages.”

“We were very pleased when the [Obama] administration announced the POWER Plus program, which ensures security for workers who may be losing their pensions if they are employed in the coal industry, and [for] certain communities that have been impacted by a coal-fired power plant closing down. But the issue is that Congress has not allocated the full funding necessary to make sure this program is fully realized.”

On the importance of government support for green industries

“There definitely has to be buy-in on both the federal and state level. Congress has not extended the wind-production tax credits and that has led to uncertainty in the market. And as wind manufacturers are looking for opportunities to expand, they’re looking for leadership coming out of the U.S. Congress to ensure that these types of tax credits are extended and that there is reliability and certainty in the marketplace. That’s not a partisan issue. That’s just the reality of trying to ensure the renewable energy sector also has opportunities to grow and expand, which has been successful in the past.”

To read more, visit  bluegreenalliance.org.

Dr. Steven Moffic: Physicians for Social Responsibility

Doctor: Climate Instability Shakes Mental Health

From the Allegheny Front (Environmental Radio), Pittsburgh, PA, August 1, 2014

For psychiatric doctor Steven Moffic, the health risks from climate instability and other abrupt environmental shifts include post-traumatic stress disorder, drug abuse, autism, and something called “solastalgia.”

“It’s sort of a corollary of nostalgia,” Moffic says.”But it’s this kind of environmental grief where where you live gets changed, against your will, obviously. You can’t leave, and you feel this sadness for what you’ve lost right in front of you…I think we’re seeing that in Appalachia now with the coal mining—mountaintop stripping, the same kind of thing.”

Moffic is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine & Family and Community Psychiatry at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He was in Pittsburgh this week to join the Physicians for Social Responsibility in supporting the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rules for cutting emissions from coal-fired power plants. The EPA’s move is meant to curtail warming global temperatures.

And while many medical professionals have drawn connections between climate change and physical illnesses, research about mental health issues has not been as prominently reported.

“I think it’s because mental health gets short-shrifted in health care generally, so it gets short-shrifted when we talk about climate change, too. You know, we don’t have enough mental health care in the country,” Moffic says. “But I think the mental health risks of continuing climate change are probably even more extensive than health. They potentially affect so many people.”

Here are some of the studies that Moffic cites as “emerging climate change manifestations and their psychiatric implications.”

• Linear increase in violence, especially in warm climates and the inner city
• Increase in alcohol and substance abuse
• Increase in attempted and completed suicides
• Increase in heat strokes from psychiatric medication side effects
• Post-traumatic Stress Disorders and other disorders increase after environmental disasters, more so if those traumas are felt to be manmade
• Climate refugees with added loss and cultural bereavement
• Group conflict and competition for resources
• New syndrome of solastalgia
• Mental problems from mountaintop removal coal mining in central Appalachia

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About The Allegheny Front

The Allegheny Front is an award-winning public radio program covering environmental issues in Western Pennsylvania, airing on WESA in Pittsburgh and on stations throughout the region. The Allegheny Front began in 1991 in Pittsburgh. Named after the major southeast- or east-facing escarpment in the Allegheny Mountains, the program provides environmental news, events and interviews with people active in the local environmental community.