Plastic waste on beach in Panama, Central America

>>> From an Article by Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch.com, January 18, 2022

PHOTO ~ Plastic pollution in Panama, an example of the conditions around the Earth.

Humanity is currently releasing more chemical and plastic pollution into the environment than Earth can support.

That’s the conclusion of a first-of-its-kind study published in Environmental Science and Technology on Tuesday, January 18, which argues that the planetary boundary for novel entities has been exceeded by human activity. The researchers defined “novel entities” as manufactured chemicals that do not appear naturally in large quantities and have the potential to disrupt Earth’s systems.

“There has been a 50-fold increase in the production of chemicals since 1950. This is projected to triple again by 2050,” study co-author Patricia Villarubia-Gómez from the Stockholm Resilience Centre(SRC) at Stockholm University said in a press release emailed to EcoWatch. “The pace that societies are producing and releasing new chemicals and other novel entities into the environment is not consistent with staying within a safe operating space for humanity.”

In 2009, a team of researchers identified nine planetary boundaries that have led to a stable Earth for the last 10,000 years. These include greenhouse gas emissions, the ozone layer, forests, freshwater and biodiversity. The new research builds on this foundation by quantifying the planetary boundary for novel entities.

The researchers concluded that the boundary had been breached because production and release of plastics and other chemicals now surpasses the ability of governments to assess and monitor these pollutants.

“For a long time, people have known that chemical pollution is a bad thing,” study co-author Dr. Sarah Cornell of the SRC told The Guardian. “But they haven’t been thinking about it at the global level. This work brings chemical pollution, especially plastics, into the story of how people are changing the planet.”

Scientists have previously concluded that humanity has exceeded the planetary boundaries for global heating, biodiversity loss, habitat loss and nitrogen and phosphorous pollution. The researchers noted that there are around 350,000 different types of manufactured chemicals on the global market, with almost 70,000 introduced in the last decade. Among them are plastics, pesticides, industrial chemicals and pharmaceutical products.

Plastics are especially concerning, the study authors said. They now weigh more than double the mass of living animals and around 80 percent of all the plastics ever produced persist in the environment instead of being properly recycled. Further, plastics are made up of more than 10,000 other chemicals that can enter the environment in new combinations when they degrade.

In order to address the risk posed by plastics and other chemical pollutants, the study authors argued that it is important to curb their production and release into the environment.

“We need to be working towards implementing a fixed cap on chemical production and release,” study co-author Bethanie Carney Almroth from the University of Gothenburg said in the press release.

They also supported calls for a circular economy. “That means changing materials and products so they can be reused not wasted, designing chemicals and products for recycling, and much better screening of chemicals for their safety and sustainability along their whole impact pathway in the Earth system,” Villarubia Gómez said in the press release.

Trash island in the Caribbean

From the Report of Minderoo Foundation, May 18, 2021

The contribution of individual plastic producers to the plastic waste crisis has been exposed for the first time, as a new report shows that just 20 companies produce over 50 per cent of all single-use plastic. Top financial institutions enabling plastic waste generation were also identified.

Analysis released today reveals the source and true scale of the global plastic waste crisis. It shows just 20 companies – supported by a small group of financial backers – are responsible for producing over 50 per cent of ‘throwaway’ single-use plastic that ends up as waste worldwide1. Published by Minderoo Foundation, the ‘Plastic Waste Makers Index’ has been developed with partners including Wood Mackenzie, and experts from the London School of Economics and Stockholm Environment Institute among others.

Made almost exclusively from fossil fuels, single-use plastics are the most commonly discarded type of plastic, too frequently becoming pollution. Environmental campaigners have previously placed the blame for plastic waste at the feet of packaged goods brands such as PepsiCo and Coca-Cola.

But now a small group of petrochemical companies who manufacture ‘polymers’ – the building block of plastics – is revealed as the source of the crisis:
>>> Twenty companies are the source of half of all single-use plastic thrown away globally.
>>> ExxonMobil tops the list – contributing 5.9 million tonnes to global plastic waste – closely followed by US chemicals company Dow and China’s Sinopec.
>>> One hundred companies are behind 90 per cent of global single-use plastic production.

Close to 60 per cent of the commercial finance funding single-use production comes from just 20 global banks. A total of US$30 billion of loans from these institutions – including Barclays, HSBC and Bank of America among others – has gone to the sector since 2011.

Twenty asset managers – led by US companies Vanguard Group, BlackRock and Capital Group – hold over US$300 billion worth of shares in the parent companies of single-use plastic polymer producers. Of this, US$10 billion is directly linked to single-use polymer production.

“The plastification of our oceans and the warming of our planet are amongst the greatest threats humanity and nature have ever confronted,” explains Dr Andrew Forrest AO, Chairman and Co-Founder, Minderoo Foundation. “Global efforts will not be enough to reverse this crisis unless government, business and financial leaders act in our children’s and grandchildren’s interests.

“This means: stop making new plastic and start using recycled plastic waste, it means re-allocate capital from virgin producers to those using recycled materials, and importantly, it means redesign plastic so it does no harm and is compostable, so like every other element, it returns to its original molecules, not nano-plastics. And we must act now. Because while we bicker, the oceans are getting trashed with plastic and the environment is getting destroyed by global warming,” Dr Forrest said.

“Tracing the root causes of the plastic waste crisis empowers us to help solve it,” adds Al Gore, former US Vice President. “The trajectories of the climate crisis and the plastic waste crisis are strikingly similar and increasingly intertwined. As awareness of the toll of plastic pollution has grown, the petrochemical industry has told us it’s our own fault and has directed attention toward behavior change from end-users of these products, rather than addressing the problem at its source.”

Minderoo Foundation, author of the report, is calling for:
>>> Petrochemicals companies to be required to disclose their ‘plastic waste footprint’ and commit to transitioning away from fossil fuels towards circular models of plastic production;
>>> Banks and investors to shift capital, investments and finance away from companies producing new fossil-fuel-based virgin plastic production, to companies using recycled plastic feedstocks.

Scale of Inaction and Growing Crisis — The report also lays bare the scale of inaction by plastic producers and how they are compounding the existing throwaway plastic waste crisis:
>>> A 30 per cent increase in global throwaway plastic production is projected over the next five years;
>>> This growth in production will lead to an extra three trillion items of throwaway plastic waste by 2025 alone;
>>> Recycled plastic or feedstocks account for no more than 2 per cent of global single-use plastic production, meaning 98 per cent of these plastics are produced from fuels;
>>> Plastic producers score woefully in a best practice assessment of the move to circular-based forms of production necessary in addressing the crisis;
>>> The global economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic pushed down the price of oil, making fossil-fuel-based single-use plastics even more financially attractive.

“Our reliance on oil and gas is not only fuelling climate change, but as the primary material used in the production of throwaway plastics is also devastating our oceans,” explains Sam Fankhauser, Professor of Climate Change Economics and Policy at the Smith School, University of Oxford and Former Director, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics.

“It is critically important petrochemical companies move towards circular-economy-based alternatives if we are going to successfully tackle these interlinked crises. The benefits on offer are transformative and hugely beneficial not only for our environment and ecosystems, but also the communities living with the realities of plastic pollution.”

“This is the first-time the financial and material flows of single-use plastic production have been mapped globally and traced back to their source,” said Toby Gardner, Senior Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute. “Revealing the sheer scale of the global crisis we have on our hands, its critical we break the pattern of inaction. You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Building on the analysis published today, this is why it is so important the small group of companies and banks that dominate global production of throwaway plastics begin to disclose their own data.”

More than 130 million metric tonnes of single-use plastic ended up as waste in 2019 – almost all of which is burned, buried in landfill, or discarded directly into the environment. Nineteen pre cent of this waste – some 25 million metric tonnes – became pollution, dumped in oceans or on land3. This is equivalent to the weight of over 23,000 blue whales, signifying the scale of the crisis, which is already having devastating ecological, social and environmental consequences.

Waste Per Person — The analysis shows which countries are the biggest contributors to the throwaway plastics crisis. Australia and the United States respectively produce the greatest amounts of single-use plastic waste per head of pollution, at more than 50 kg per person per year. In comparison, the average person in China – the largest producer of single-use plastic by volume – produces 18 kg of single-use plastic waste per year; in India that figure is as low as 4 kg per year.

The Plastic Waste-Makers Index is a project of Minderoo Foundation’s No Plastic Waste initiative, which aims to create a world without plastic pollution – a truly circular plastics economy, where fossil fuels are no longer used to produce plastics.

There is a wonderful world to be found after plastics

From the letter of Michelle Chan, Friends of the Earth, March 22, 2021

It’s the public health and environmental crisis that not enough people are talking about: PLASTIC.

Plastic will soon outweigh all the fish in the sea. It fills our rivers and oceans, chokes wildlife, permeates our drinking water and our food, and persists in the environment for centuries.

Discarded plastics don’t just disappear. They break down into smaller and smaller pieces, turning into microplastics that contaminate our water, soil, and the food we eat. Can we count on you to act now to stop plastics from overrunning our environment?

Scientists estimate that there are already 51 trillion pieces of plastic in our oceans. That’s 51 trillion deadly hazards that cause harm to ocean organisms — from the smallest of corals to the largest of whales.

In 2020, over 11 million metric tons of plastic was dumped in the ocean. If this trajectory is allowed to continue, by 2040, 29 million metric tons of plastic will be dumped annually.

One plastic bag, or bottle cap, or fishing net, can suffocate, strangle, or starve its helpless victim. After their bodies decompose, the plastic is released back into the environment where it can kill again — because plastics do not break down.

700 known marine species have been killed by either plastic entanglement or ingestion of plastic — resulting in over a million animal deaths every year.

Sea turtles, dolphins, seals, fish, and sea birds are all at risk if something isn’t done soon to address the plastic crisis. So, let’s take action to protect our vulnerable wildlife from deadly plastic hazards.

The world is facing an indisputable plastic pollution crisis. But it doesn’t end there: the plastics crisis is also linked to the climate crisis. More than 99% of plastic is made from fossil fuels, and one of the main ingredients is a byproduct of natural gas. The fracking boom is fueling an unprecedented surge in plastic production as well.

In fact, because of fracking, the fossil fuel industry plans to increase plastic production by 40% over the next decade. This not only means more fracking pollution, but also an explosion of new toxic petrochemical plants. These plants would be devastating to the health of millions of primarily low-income, Black, and brown Americans along the Gulf Coast and in Appalachia.

Here’s the dirty truth behind their actions: The fossil fuel industry is using plastics as their “get out of jail free” card. With the public demanding a shift away from burning oil and gas for energy or fuel, the industry wants to maximize plastic consumption, including unnecessary single-use plastics.

In short, this industry is destroying our planet with plastic pollution, harming the health of frontline communities, and pushing us further to climate catastrophe. It’s beyond outrageous.

That’s why Friends of the Earth is supporting The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, which holds corporations and plastic producers accountable for the plastic pollution crisis. We are also working to push the Biden Administration to enact the Presidential Plastics Action Plan, a comprehensive set of Presidential actions to tackle the crisis with or without Congress. And we’re pushing Congress and the Biden administration to stop giving the fracking industry special treatment as a “clean energy” version of fossil fuels.

As the fossil fuel industry doubles down on plastic as the new frontier for petrochemical production, we must do everything in our power to shape a new future — A future that isn’t bought and shaped by the richest and most powerful industries in the world. A future with a sustainable economy that doesn’t leave anybody behind.

Help us win a plastic-pollution-free future. Support Friends of the Earth with a donation today.

Plastics are choking off our planet EARTH

Thank you, Michelle Chan,
VP of Programs, Friends of the Earth

NOTE: Friends of the Earth
1101 15th Street NW, 11th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20005

Families with children are caught up in these sacrifice zones

Article by Kristina Marusic, Reporter, Environmental Health News, March 1, 2021

This is part 4 of our 4-part series, “Fractured,” an investigation of fracking chemicals in the air, water, and people of western Pennsylvania.

WESTMORELAND COUNTY, Pa.—On a balmy evening in September of 2019, eight women gathered around a conference table in a small office about 25 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. A statewide network of fracking and conventional wells, pipelines, and petrochemical plants is closing in on their communities.

As a mother of four and the outreach coordinator for the nonprofit organization hosting this event, Ann LeCuyer was comfortable telling people what to do. She’d spent the last four years helping the group, Protect PT (short for Protect Penn-Trafford), work to keep fracking out of the small municipalities of Penn Township, Trafford, and surrounding neighborhoods.

In that time, Ann and her boss, Protect PT co-founder and executive director Gillian Graber, had compiled thousands of documents detailing the oil and gas industry’s plans in the region. They’d invited all of the group’s several dozen members to their office to learn how to access them—but only women showed up. “This is pretty typical for us, actually” said Gillian, a middle-aged mom of two with chocolate-brown hair and a no-nonsense demeanor.

“I think it’s because we’re moms, so we have more at stake when it comes to our children and grandchildren,” she told Environmental Health News (EHN), noting that every member in attendance had kids and half also had grandkids. “My husband is on the board and we do have some very passionate male members. But it tends to be the women who consistently show up.”

The group chattered and laughed through the presentation until Ann pulled up a map of the planned route for the Mariner East 2 Pipeline, sending a brief hush through the room. “It’s so close to my house!” someone exclaimed. “Look, I’m in the blast zone and I didn’t even know until now.”

Mariner East 2 is one of three pipelines (along with Mariner East 1 and Mariner East 2X) being constructed to carry highly flammable natural gas liquids—liquid components of natural gas that have been separated out—350 miles from the Utica and Marcellus Shale plays in eastern Ohio, the northern panhandle of West Virginia, and across Pennsylvania to processing facilities at Philadelphia ports. From there, the end products will be carried overseas by ship for use in plastics production. (Ethane, a byproduct of fracking, is used to manufacture plastics.)

The project is orchestrated by Sunoco’s parent company Energy Transfer LP, which also owns the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. The Mariner East pipeline projects have been rife with accidents, spills, and controversy, in part because Pennsylvania doesn’t have a state agency that oversees the placement of such pipelines. The planned route runs across people’s yards and within a half mile of 23 public schools and 17 private schools, which worries residents due to the company’s safety record: Between 2002 and the end of 2017, Energy Transfer LP pipelines experienced a leak or an accident every 11 days on average.

Pipeline construction in Pennsylvania has already resulted in sinkholes, polluted waterways on public land, and an explosion in a town 35 miles west of Pittsburgh that destroyed a house. At least 25 other sites along the proposed pipeline route have been identified as being at risk for similar accidents. The Pennsylvania Utility Commission is fighting in court to keep its calculations on potential damage if such accidents occured secret, even though a recent investigation by Spotlight PA found many communities in the “blast zone”—the areas adjacent to the pipeline that could be engulfed in flames in the event of a pipeline explosion—lack adequate emergency response plans.

Gillian told the group that they planned to canvas in the blast zone nearby to inform residents they’d be at risk if the pipeline is completed. “Oh, we’re canvassing, ladies!” chirped the oldest of the group, a spry 81-year-old. “If we can stop the pipeline, we can stop the well pads. I’m getting my muckboots out!”

Gillian initially started Protect PT in 2015 because she wanted to stop a fracking well proposal about a quarter of a mile from her house in neighboring Penn Township. So far, her efforts have been successful—the well, which is owned by Apex Energy, received a permit from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in 2018, but has yet to be drilled in part because of Protect PT lawsuits.

But that fracking well victory is overshadowed by a vast industrial infrastructure in the state and the region that goes well beyond unconventional drilling.

In the summer of 2019, EHN collected air, water, and urine samples from five households in southwestern Pennsylvania, including Ann and Gillian’s families, and had them analyzed for chemicals associated with fracking. EHN included Ann and Gillian’s families because they live further away from fracking wells than the families we looked at in Washington County. However, despite their relative distance from fracking wells, we found they also faced above average levels of exposure to numerous chemicals associated with pollution from the oil and gas industry.

While Project PT and similar groups target new pipelines, or plastics plants, or fracking wells in court — or just the court of public opinion — it has become a game of whack-a-mole in a state where oil and gas production, infrastructure, and transportation are so ubiquitous.

“It’s just alarming to think that with all the stuff that we’re doing to be careful, we’re still being exposed to all these chemicals,” Gillian told EHN.

>>>>>……….>>>>>……….>>>>>……….>>>>>

See also: Fractured: FAQs page, Douglas Fischer, February 25, 2021

“We found alarming exposures to likely fracking pollution. But that’s just the beginning of the story.”

Mothers are increasingly concerned about how fracking affects children

From a Series by Kristina Marusic, Reporter, EHN, March 1, 2021

This is part 1 of our 4-part series, “Fractured,” an investigation of fracking chemicals in the air, water, and people of western Pennsylvania. We tested families in fracking country for harmful chemicals and revealed unexplained exposures, sick children, and a family’s “dream life” upended.

WASHINGTON COUNTY, Pa.—In the summer of 2019, 13-year-old Gunnar Bjornson spent most days banging on his drums, playing video games, antagonizing his siblings, wandering outdoors, and scrounging for junk food in his home’s mostly healthy kitchen.

Gunnar is tan and blond with bright blue eyes and all the charisma required to survive being the younger of two middle children in a big family. He’s the household entertainer, constantly cracking jokes and falling into contagious giggling fits.

Gunnar lives with his mom, dad, older brothers and younger sister about 35 miles south of Pittsburgh in the aptly-named community of Scenery Hill, where narrow country roads wind through shady woods that open up onto hilltop vistas of rolling fields. The hills are peppered with farmhouses, fruit orchards, and fields of corn and squash. The roadsides are punctuated by little white churches, farm stands, and dirt driveways marked with hand-painted signs like “The Jones’s” and “Hidden Family Farm.”

Scenery Hill is in Washington County, the most heavily fracked county in Pennsylvania, with about 1,584 wells in its 861 square miles, so the idyllic country roads are also flanked with signs directing oil and gas well traffic: “No well traffic beyond this point,” “Staging area —->,” “Truck traffic: No engine breaks,” and ads that read, “We buy mineral rights!”

August 19, 2019, was a typical day for Gunnar—he played drums, took the dog outside, and argued and joked with his siblings. But unbeknownst to him and his family, Gunnar had a number of harmful chemicals coursing through his body.

A urine sample taken from Gunnar that day contained 11 harmful industrial chemicals, including benzene, toluene, naphthalene, and lesser-known chemicals linked to a range of health effects including respiratory and gastrointestinal problems, skin and eye irritation, organ damage, reproductive harm, and increased cancer risk.

These chemicals are found in things like gasoline, pesticides, industrial solvents and glues, varnishes, paints, car exhaust, industrial emissions, and tobacco smoke. They’re also commonly detected in air emissions from fracking wells.

Fracking, another name for hydraulic fracturing, is the process of extracting oil and gas from the Earth by drilling deep wells and injecting liquid at high pressure. Over the last decade, fracking has transformed the U.S. energy industry—total crude oil production more than doubled from 2010 to 2020, and natural gas, once in short supply, is now so over-abundant it’s exported overseas. But in that same time period, concerns about the health effects of fracking have escalated.

In Texas, researchers found that babies born near frequent flaring—the burning off of excess natural gas from fracking wells—are 50 percent more likely to be premature. In Colorado, the state Department of Health found that people living near fracking sites face elevated risk of nosebleeds, headaches, breathing trouble, and dizziness. In Pennsylvania, researchers found that people living near fracking face increased rates of infant mortality, depression, and hospitalizations for skin and urinary issues.

Studies of fracking communities throughout the country have found that living near fracking wells increases the risk of premature births, high-risk pregnancies, asthma, migraines, fatigue, nasal and sinus symptoms, skin disorders and heart failure; and laboratory studies have linked chemicals used in fracking fluid to endocrine disruption—which can cause hormone imbalance, reproductive harm, early puberty, brain and behavior problems, improper immune function, and cancer.

“We have enough evidence at this point that these health impacts should be of serious concern to policymakers interested in protecting public health,” Irena Gorski Steiner, an environmental epidemiology doctoral candidate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Environmental Health News (EHN).

EHN has reported on this increasing evidence of fracking’s impacts on human health for years. But we saw a gap in the science—almost no one was checking to see if harmful fracking chemicals were actually in the bodies of people living near wells. In 2019, EHN collected urine samples, along with air and water samples, from five families in southwestern Pennsylvania, including the Bower-Bjornsons, and had them analyzed for chemicals associated with fracking.

>>>>>>>…….>>>>>>>…….>>>>>>>

“Fractured” …… Watch a webinar with reporter Kristina Marusic about reporting by the Environmental Health Network

Good regulations or a full ban on fracking needed to “halt the harm”

From Ryan Clover, Halt the Harm Network, February 27, 2021

I wanted to make sure you heard about this before Monday, so sending this out on the weekend. Kristina Marusic, a reporter with Environmental Health News is dropping a major story about fracking and children’s health that is two years in the making.

In 2019, Environmental Health Sciences, a nonpartisan news and science organization, tested the air, water and urine of several families living in and around fracking operations in Southwestern Pennsylvania. The results of this groundbreaking study, being released on Monday, March 1, are breathtaking.

At 1:00 PM she’ll be giving a presentation along with EHN director Douglas Fischer to share the report. Click here to RSVP for the webinar.​

Do you or a loved one live near fracking operations? Do you know what’s in the air and water, and what may be migrating into your body – or the body of your children?

​In 2019, Environmental Health Sciences, a nonpartisan news and science organization, tested the air, water and urine of several families living in and around fracking operations in Southwestern Pennsylvania. The results of this groundbreaking study, released on Monday, March 1, are breathtaking.

We’re hosting a special webinar to go along with the report’s release. More details coming soon, but for now you can sign-up here and, mark your calendar for 1:00 PM on Monday, March 1st.

Join EHS director Douglas Fischer, reporter Kristina Marusic for a brief presentation and discussion on how EHS conducted the study, what the organization found, what to do next, and why we need more biomonitoring like this.

Here’s the link again, https://www.crowdcast.io/e/fracking-and-personal​

Thanks, Ryan Clover,
Halt the Harm Network

>>>>>…..>>>>>…..>>>>>…..>>>>>…..>>>>>

​Supporting Your Fight Against The Gas Industry — Join The Discussion:

https://www.thecampaignnetwork.org​

Halt the Harm Network, 5335 Wisconsin Ave NW,
Suite 440, Washington, District of Columbia 20015

Above ground storage tanks need rules & regulations

Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC) Action Alert, February 19, 2021

Action Alert Comments. … be sure to respond as soon as possible!

The WV Legislature and industry lobbyists have brought back the bill for exemptions to the Aboveground Storage Tank Act as HB 2598, reintroduced this week and expected to make the House Energy and Manufacturing Committee agenda on Tuesday morning, February 23.

Long story short, the bill would deregulate certain aboveground tanks that store hazardous oil and gas waste near public drinking water intakes. For a deeper dive and more information check out West Virginia Rivers’ Fact Sheet.

We need you to take action before the House committee meets at 9 a.m. on Tuesday!

WV Rivers has set up a tool to send all committee members an email, and we suggest also pairing that with a phone call to both the Committee and its Delegates. If you aren’t already on your cell phone, make the switch now so you can just click to dial!

Here’s the example script:

“Hello, my name is _________ and I’m calling to ask you to please say no to HB 2598. All citizens deserve access to safe, clean drinking water, and HB 2598 exempts certain oil and gas tanks closest to our public drinking water intakes from the Aboveground Storage Tank Act, which requires regular inspections and crisis response plans.

Please say no to HB 2598.“

And below is who you can call on the House of Delegates Energy and Manufacturing Committee:

There are a lot of them. We suggest prioritizing delegates from your district or close-by, followed by the chairs and vice chairs.

Happy dialing, and stay warm out there!

-– Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition —

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Chair: Del. Bill Anderson: 304-340-3186; Vice Chair: Del. John R. Kelly: 304-340-3394

Minority Chair: Del. Ed Evans: 304-673-2969; Minority Vice Chair: Del. Dave Pethel: 304-775-5472

Gov. Justice has a secret MOU in his pocket!

From an Article by Troy N. Miller, Truthout*  Op-Ed, November 28, 2017

The Trump administration wants to allow China to invest more than $80 billion in West Virginia’s gas fields. Whether it grows West Virginia’s economy or not, investors will expect returns.

One full year after getting elected, there is no denying that Trump is doing important things to support West Virginia’s long-standing regime of fossil fuel feudalism — by any economic manipulation necessary.

But even as Trump’s administration scraps Obama-era regulations and shoves the costs of business onto West Virginia’s families, coal and nuclear are still struggling to stay competitive with other sources of energy (such as unsubsidized renewables).

The administration’s solution to that reality reeks of big government cronyism: Make the federal government pay higher rates to those sources so that those sources can continue to operate, even though they’re uncompetitive.

But the big news recently is the administration’s plan to bolster the natural gas industry through a deal with China. Instead of tough trade talks with China involving new hefty tariffs or value-added taxes, the Trump administration, with Gov. Jim Justice, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and Sen. Joe Manchin’s cheerleading, wants to allow China to invest more than $80 billion in West Virginia’s gas fields.

It’s a huge number for a state with an annual GDP closer to $75 billion — but it’s important to remember that this is an investment, not a grant.

Yes, that’s money coming into our economy. And that money may cause the economy to swell — but there’s little chance it will cause the economy to grow.

The fundamental issue here is that investors, foreign or domestic, expect returns. And they expect those returns whether West Virginia’s economy grows or not.

It’s all but guaranteed that more money will leave the state than will come in over the next 20 years. The question is, will we tax that wealth before it leaves the state? Will we tax it enough to pay for the clean up, when we reach the 21st year? Will we tax this investment enough to rebuild our roads and bridges? To bolster our public education? To rebuild when the next floods happen?

Is there any stipulation on this proposed deal that would require China Energy to hire locally? Is there any stipulation that they’ll build their machinery locally? That they’ll use local vendors?

Or will they do like they’ve done in regions of Africa and other resource-rich regions around the world, and bring in their own workers to work their equipment — while dictating the terms of agreements to any local vendors they do business with?

Is there any stipulation that these firms keep our waterways clean, our roads safe and that they act as good members of the community?

Seems unlikely, since those stipulations don’t seem to apply even to the fossil fuel firms that currently operate in West Virginia — the ones based out of Oklahoma or North Dakota, or anywhere but West Virginia.

But it’s tough to know. As far as I’ve been able to find, the text of this deal has not been made public.

Foreign investments have always been part of a “race to the bottom” strategy — whether it’s the US investing in South Asia and Mexico, Germany investing in South America, or China investing in Africa and West Virginia.

Like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown, the financial elites who have benefited from the last 40 years of international trade (including the current president) want us to believe without question that this agreement will ultimately be different for West Virginia’s working families.

But this agreement seems to follow a very basic economic model, one older than the United States itself.

1.) We’ll produce the natural gas for Chinese firms.

2.) The Chinese firms will produce the valuable finished goods (probably plastics).

3.) They’ll sell those goods back to us at a massive mark-up.

And based on history, what will West Virginia have to show once the gas is harvested and the profits funneled out?

Toxic groundwater, more abandoned factories and a new generation of citizens to foot the bill for this deal’s true costs to West Virginia’s communities and to the environment.

* – Originally from Wheeling, West Virginia, Troy N. Miller is a writer and radio producer living in Washington, DC.

Note: >>> Support from readers provides Truthout with vital funds to keep investigating what mainstream media won’t cover. Fund more stories like this by donating now!

Sixteen Fire Companies Respond to Well Pad Fire

Fire erupts at Marcellus Shale pad in Somerset Township, Washington County, PA

From an Article by Scott Beveridge, Washington PA Observer-Reporter, January 1, 2017

BENTLEYVILLE – A large fire sent a thick black plume of smoke into the sky Sunday at a Marcellus Shale natural gas pad in Somerset Township of Washington County, PA.

Pennsylvania Fire Commissioner Tim Solobay said the 4 p.m. blaze compromised four pumper trucks used in the well fracturing process at Rice Energy’s Papa Bear site at 78 Lusk Road.

“They had it under control within an hour,” said Solobay, who responded to the fire.  He said the fire didn’t ignite any natural gas and no one was injured during the incident.

Pennsylvania Fire Commissioner Tim Solobay discussed the fire Sunday at the Rice Energy Papa Bear Marcellus Shale natural gas pad in Somerset Township. As many as 16 fire departments responded to the fire, which remained under investigation Sunday night, Solobay said.

The Ellsworth, Valley Inn and Fallowfield Township fire departments were among the first to be called to the scene, Solobay said. The other fire departments were needed for their tanker trucks to bring water to the fire scene.

Some nearby residents “self-evacuated” after seeing the fire, which may have been sparked by a malfunction in a hydraulic line, Solobay said.

He said all of the foam used to douse the blaze by the Washington County Public Safety Department appeared to have been contained at the site.  PA-DEP workers would remain there to inspect the area to determine if anything was contaminated during the fire.

Don Bialosky, an emergency response manager at the state Department of Environmental Protection in Pittsburgh, said the fire appeared to have been an accident.

Southpointe-based Rice Energy spokeswoman Kimberly Price said all of the employees at the pad were accounted for, before she deferred additional comment on the fire to Solobay and Bialosky.

>  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >  >

 See also the Article in the Comments below.  Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax the fella behind the tree!

Also endrocrine disruption chemicals

Yale researchers have unpacked “the most expansive review of carcinogenicity of hydraulic fracturing-related chemicals in the published literature.”

From an Article by Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com, October 26, 2016

Yet another study has determined that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, might be a major public health threat. In one of the most exhaustive reviews to date, researchers from the Yale School of Public Health have confirmed that many of the chemicals involved and released by the controversial drilling process can be linked to cancer.

“Previous studies have examined the carcinogenicity of more selective lists of chemicals,” lead author Nicole Deziel, Ph.D., assistant professor explained to the school. “To our knowledge, our analysis represents the most expansive review of carcinogenicity of hydraulic fracturing-related chemicals in the published literature.”

For the study, published in Science of the Total Environment, the researchers assessed the carcinogenicity of 1,177 water pollutants and 143 air pollutants released by the fracking process and from fracking wastewater. They found that 55 unique chemicals could be classified as known, probable or possible human carcinogens. They also specifically identified 20 compounds that had evidence of leukemia/lymphoma risk.

One of the scarier parts from this study is that the researchers could not completely unpack the health hazards of fracking’s entire chemical cocktail. More than 80 percent of the chemicals lacked sufficient data on cancer-causing potential, “highlighting an important knowledge gap,” the school noted.

The unconventional drilling rush in the U.S. has expanded to as many as 30 states, spelling major consequences to the air we breathe and the water we drink. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2013 that more than 15 million Americans lived within a mile of a well.

The biggest concern is for people and especially children with fracking operations right in their backyards. In fact, Environment America found that more than 650,000 kindergarten through 12th grade children in nine states attend school within one mile of a fracked oil or gas well.

“Because children are a particularly vulnerable population, research efforts should first be directed toward investigating whether exposure to hydraulic fracturing is associated with an increased risk,” Deziel said.

Per the study, “Childhood leukemia in particular is a public health concern related to [unconventional oil and gas] development, and it may be an early indicator of exposure to environmental carcinogens due to the relatively short disease latency and vulnerability of the exposed population.”

According to the school, the researchers are now taking air and water samples in a community living near a fracking operation. They are testing for the presence of known and suspected carcinogens and will determine whether these people have been exposed to these compounds, and if so, at what concentrations.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net