ONLINE MEETING SERIES from Marcellus Outreach Butler (MOB), Penna.

Duane Nichols — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 07:06:02 +0000

Area of Concern — Marcellus Outreach Butler (County) PA

Gas drilling activity near Knoch School Campus and Saxonburg

Fracking and Community Health Webinar Series, Parts 1 – 3

August 15, 22, & 29 — Register free for each session below

On September 15. 2011, South Butler School Board approved a gas lease with Phillips Exploration, a part of XTO and a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil. The School District joined with privately owned property to form a 640 acre “pool” or drilling unit. Since then, the area has become inundated with gas wells and related infrastructure. Marcellus Outreach Butler asked then – and asks still, “What are the risks and impacts of placing such fracking activity so close to human habitats, especially a school campus?”

Join MOB for a series of online meetings to discuss these concerns about the intensive drilling near Knoch Schools Campus and Saxonburg.

Register below for each program by 6:30 PM on the day of the program and we’ll send you the link to join the Zoom online meeting.

PART 1, Aug. 15, 7 PM: Overview of the area, including drone footage, and Dr. Ned Ketyer who will review the health risks and impacts fracking and related activity pose to those who live in close proximity.
Register HERE .

PART 2, Aug. 22, 7 PM: Dr. John Stolz on Radioactive Fracking Waste and Sanitary Landfill. Register HERE.

PART 3, Aug. 29, 7 PM: EHP’s Sarah Rankin and Nathan Deron on potential impacts of fracking. Register HERE.

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THE PRESENTERS ARE DESCRIBED BELOW:

PART 1, Saturday, August 15, 7 PM

Ned Ketyer, M.D., F.A.A.P., ecketyer@gmail.com

Dr. Ned Ketyer is a Pittsburgh-area pediatrician with special interests in developmental pediatrics, preventative medicine, and environmental health. After his pediatric residency at Pittsburgh’s Children’s Hospital, Dr. Ketyer practiced general pediatrics for 26 years. Although retired from patient care, he writes and edits his practice’s popular blog, The PediaBlog, and remains a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Environmental Health. He is a consultant for the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project bringing attention to the health impacts of shale gas development, a board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility – Pennsylvania, and a Climate Reality Project Leader.

In all these roles, Dr. Ketyer connects the vast petrochemical “clusterfrack” underway in SW Pennsylvania with local and regional health impacts, and the global ecological and public health catastrophes resulting from plastic pollution and climate change that threaten the health and well-being of all passengers on this shining ball of blue.

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PART 2, Saturday, August 22, 7 PM

John Stolz, Director, Center for Environmental Research and Education, & Professor, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Duquesne University

Dr. Stolz studies the microbial metabolism of metals and metalloids, microbial communities in hypersaline environments, and water quality. He has published 95 peer-reviewed articles, 37 book chapters, and author/edited two books. He is currently co-authoring/editing a book on the “Environmental Impacts of Unconventional Oil and Gas Reserves Development” for Cambridge University Press.

Most recently, Dr. Stolz has been looking at sanitary landfills in Pennsylvania and New York that have been allowed to take both solid and liquid waste from oil and gas operations. The leachate is now contaminated with toxins and radioactivity. Dr. Stolz will present the results of his investigation and the questionable ways in which the industry, with the help of legislators and regulators, are using to dispose of their wastes.

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PART 3, Saturday, August 29, 7 PM

Sarah Rankin, MPH, BSN, RN, Public Health Nurse,
and Nathan Deron, MSPPM-DA, Environmental Data

The Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project (EHP) is a nonprofit public health organization that assists and supports residents of Southwestern Pennsylvania and beyond who believe their health has been, or could be, impacted by shale gas development (or fracking).

Sarah and Nathan will review the literature and EHP’s findings about potential health impacts of fracking. They will also discuss how a community science air monitoring project can measure the pollution that communities face.

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See also: Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking – Physicians for Social Responsibility, June 19, 2019

Is Drilling the Cause Of Off-Color Water in Butler County, PA

Duane Nichols — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 18:12:11 +0000

: Residents Carry Water

Contaminated Water Not Fit to Drink

From the article by Kevin Begos, Associated Press, March 10, 2013

What causes clear, fresh country well water to turn orange or black, or smell so bad that it’s undrinkable? Residents of a western Pennsylvania community have been trying for more than a year to get that question answered in their quest to get clean water back.

Some of them say the water was spoiled by drilling deep underground for natural gas. Others point to pollution from old coal mines. They’ve also been told it could even be a baffling mix of natural and manmade reasons that change the water over time, like the leaves change on trees. But no one knows for sure, and they say the uncertainty is maddening.

In late 2011, the drinking water for about a dozen residents in the Woodlands, a rural community about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, began to change. At first, the families blamed gas drilling, or fracking, being done 2000 feet away. But state tests showed the water wasn’t contaminated by drilling, and even more confusingly, many of their neighbors reported no problems.

Last summer the U.S. EPA sent a letter to one resident, Janet McIntyre, saying the agency agreed with the state finding, since most of the chemicals found in the water could have occurred naturally. McIntyre wasn’t satisfied, noting that the EPA “never set foot on my property to test the water themselves.” The EPA didn’t respond to a request for comment on why the agency didn’t retest the water.

Still, the residents with water problems were hopeful that the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry was looking at the issue. But last month the agency said it is not actively investigating complaints from this area. “I’m just very, very frustrated,” McIntyre said.

So was John Stolz. He’s the director of the Duquesne University Center for Environmental Research in Pittsburgh. Stolz said state and federal agencies failed to do detailed reviews, so a Duquesne team has been monitoring water quality and surveying households in the Woodlands, in what is one of the most in-depth surveys of alleged impacts of gas drilling in the nation. With funding from two foundations, a team has regularly tested area water for more than a year. “We’ll see black water, we’ll see orange water, there’s often times an odor,” Stolz said.

Overall, about 50 out of the 150 households in the community have complaints. “There are certain areas that clearly don’t have any problems,” Stoltz said. And, he added, a well that has bad water one month may be clear the next, and a few homeowners even say that their well water improved after gas drilling began.

Even in areas with no nearby oil and gas drilling, the water quality in some aquifers changes naturally, groundwater experts say. “It varies even within the same aquifer. It can vary from the top of the aquifer to the bottom, and from one side to the next,” said Mike Paque, executive director of the Oklahoma-based Ground Water Protection Council.

The wells themselves may be causing the problem, too. Stoltz said the depths vary from 90 feet to 900 feet deep, with an average of about 130 feet. Pennsylvania is one of the only states with no standards for rural water well construction, meaning multiple other factors could be contributing to the problems.

Others say the cause could be old coal mines or old oil and gas wells that date back to the 1800s. Shafts from old mines lie under the region, said Butler County commissioner William L. McCarrier, who worked as a water well driller in the area during the 1970s. Those can fill with water, and that water then gets contaminated.

Frack Check WV » Butler County

ONLINE MEETING SERIES from Marcellus Outreach Butler (MOB), Penna.

Is Drilling the Cause Of Off-Color Water in Butler County, PA