Promises! Promises! Promises!

‘G-35-D posted on the website Monday, January 30, 2017’

From an Article by Ken Ward, Jr., Charleston Gazette-Mail, February 11, 2017

During a series of interviews before he left the WV-DEP last month, Randy Huffman talked about his belief that the agency needed to continue to do more to help address the on-the-ground effects of the natural gas boom on residents in those communities — and about how the standard agency inspectors should apply to what is acceptable for industry to do really wasn’t that complicated.

“When we run into issues out there that are subjective in the regulatory world, like the noise and light and mud on the road, the degree of a lot of that is subjective,” Huffman said. “I tell my folks there’s an easy standard here. The easiest one is to say if you lived in that house, how would you do it? Use your mother, if your mother lived in that house.

“If you approached every person who had an issue out there with an activity that we regulate, if you approached them with the same sensitivity you would if it were your mother, because that is somebody’s mother, and they don’t need to be subjected to these kinds of inconveniences and nuisances in their lives. I have this notion that we need to be very sensitive to that.”

In late December, Huffman’s WV-DEP had put out for public comment a revised version of the general permit, this time called G35-D. The new version was simply to include the changes the air board had ordered the WV-DEP to make. Because those didn’t include the noise and light language the board had upheld, citizen groups didn’t really pay much attention to the issue.

Huffman’s last day on the job was January 13, the Friday before Justice’s inauguration, on January 16. The Justice transition team announced Caperton’s appointment on Jan. 13. Austin Caperton visited the WV-DEP office and Huffman introduced him to some of the senior staff.

January 23, a week after the inauguration, was the final day of the public comment period on the revisions to the general permit.

That day, Blankenship sent the DEP a letter on behalf of the oil and gas association. Among other things, Blankenship urged the DEP to reverse itself and get rid of the noise and light language. The letter raised the same issues the industry group brought up in its appeal before the air board.

“The West Virginia Division of Air Quality has no authority to regulate noise and light, and it cannot impose limitations in the Draft General Permit that purport to regulate noise and light,” Blankenship wrote. “Even if it could, the prohibition of a ‘nuisance’ and ‘unreasonable noise and light’ is too vague to enforce, as it gives the permittee no guidance as to what constitutes permitted behavior. This section should be eliminated from the General Permit.”

Four days later, on the morning of January 27, it was the end of Caperton’s second week on the job at the DEP. Before noon, he fired Radcliff from the agency’s environmental advocate office and also dismissed Kelley Gillenwater, DEP communications director.

Later in the day, Durham signed the revised general permit, but not before removing the noise and light language. In a letter to Blankenship, the DEP said it was now the agency’s opinion that state law “does not require this permit condition” and therefore it was removed.

At 5:07 p.m. that Friday, Durham sent an email to Caperton and to DEP general counsel Kristin Boggs. “DAQ removed the noise and light provision contained in section 3.2.8 and issued the Natural Gas Compressor general permit G35-D today. It will be posted on the website Monday (1/30/17).”

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-   See the full Article at: http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/20170211/dep-eliminates-protections-for-noise-light-from-natural-gas-facilities#sthash.vwRK3CSU.dpuf 

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Noise Pollution from Oil and Gas Development May Harm Human Health

 Press Release, PSE Healthy Energy, December 9, 2016

 Modern oil and gas development techniques such as directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” produce noise at levels that may increase the risk of adverse effects on human health, including sleep disturbance, cardiovascular disease and other conditions that are negatively impacted by stress, according to a study by authors at the nonprofit science and policy research institute, PSE Healthy Energy and West Virginia University. It is the first peer-reviewed study to analyze the potential public health impacts of ambient noise related to fracking operations.

“People living near oil and gas development may bring up concerns like air pollution, traffic and groundwater safety, but many also complain about noise,” said Jake Hays, Director of the Environmental Health Program at PSE Healthy Energy, and lead author of the paper, which was published December 9 in Science of the Total Environment. ”But until now, most of the research relevant to public health has focused on the impacts of air and water pollution,” Hays said.

Fracking technologies have unlocked oil and gas deposits from formations like shale and tight sands that previously were not considered economically viable. But the environmental and public health effects of such operations are still emerging. To understand whether noise from fracking might impact the health of surrounding communities, PSE Healthy Energy researchers gathered all available data and measurements of noise levels at oil and gas operations and compared the information to established health-based standards from the World Health Organization and other groups.

They found that noise from fracking operations may contribute to adverse health outcomes in three categories:

• Annoyance: Sustained noise may produce a host of negative responses such as feelings of anger, anxiety, helplessness, distraction, and exhaustion, and may predict future psychological distress.
• Sleep Disturbance: Awakening and changes in sleep state have after-effects that include drowsiness, cognitive impairment and long-term chronic sleep disturbance.
• Cardiovascular Health: Studies have found positive correlations between chronic noise exposure and elevated blood pressure, hypertension, and heart disease.

Environmental noise is a well-documented public health hazard. Numerous large-scale epidemiological studies have linked noise to adverse health outcomes including diabetes, depression, birth complications and cognitive impairment in children. Noise exposure, like other health threats, may disproportionately impact vulnerable populations such as children, the elderly, and people with chronic illnesses.

High-decibel sounds are not the only culprits; low-level sustained noises can disturb sleep and concentration and cause stress.

“Oil and gas operations produce a complex symphony of noise types, including intermittent and continuous sounds and varying intensities,” said PSE Healthy Energy Executive Director Seth Shonkoff, who is also a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management and an affiliate of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. For example, compressor stations produce a low rumble; drilling a horizontal well is a loud process that can take four to five weeks 24 hours per day to complete; and using large volumes of water at high pressure results in pump- and fluid-handling noise. 

Compound or synergistic effects also may be at play, Shonkoff said. For example, noise reduction technology may lower negative impacts, and synergistic effects of noise and air pollution may create a new health threat or amplify an existing one.

Researchers note that data collection methodologies varied across public and private entities and types of drilling operations, requiring some estimates in the data. They say additional research is needed to determine the level of risk to communities living near oil and gas operations.

However, initial evidence suggests that policies and mitigation techniques are warranted to limit human exposure to unsafe noise levels from fracking. Policies can specify setbacks from residents and communities – in particular vulnerable populations such as schools and hospitals – noise mitigation techniques such as perimeter sound walls, and location siting decisions that make use of natural noise barriers like hills and trees.

Michael McCawley, the Interim Chair of the Occupational and Environmental Health Department at West Virginia University, was also a coauthor on the study, titled “Public health implications of environmental noise associated with unconventional oil and gas development.”

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PSE (Physicians, Scientists and Engineers) for Healthy Energy is a nonprofit research institute dedicated to supplying evidence-based scientific and technical information on the public health, environmental and climate dimensions of energy production and use. We are the only interdisciplinary collaboration of physicians, scientists and engineers focused specifically on health and sustainability at the intersection of energy science and policy. Visit us at psehealthyenergy.org and follow us on Twitter @PhySciEng.

More & More Solar Panels

From an Article by Pilita Clark, The Financial Times, September 1, 2016

Wind and solar farms have always had faithful adherents in the environmental movement but now more than 3,500 churches have turned their back on fossil fuels to embrace renewable energy.

Churches from a range of denominations have either made such a switch or registered their interest in doing so, but Roman Catholics have proved especially keen, according to figures from religious charities released on Thursday.

Nearly 2,000 Roman Catholic parishes have forsaken conventional energy in favour of green electricity in 16 dioceses, the charities said. Some made the decision after Pope Francis issued an encyclical last year urging the world to cut its dependence on fossil fuels.

“Pope Francis challenges us all to ‘care for our common home’, and by adopting renewable energy we will directly help people threatened, and already most severely affected, by climate change,” said John Arnold, Bishop of Salford, one of the 16 dioceses to have switched.

“There are many ways in which we may respond to the threat and the reality of climate change and adopting renewable energy for our church buildings must be a priority.”

In some cases, churches had banded together to use their collective buying power to secure green energy tariffs from companies that bought or produced at least 80 per cent of their electricity from renewable sources, said Tim Gee, campaigns leader at Christian Aid.

A number had saved money but in certain instances this was because the churches had not switched suppliers in a long time, he said.

“The very cheapest electricity supplier is still fossil fuels,” he said, but the churches had still been able to obtain the cheapest available renewable energy tariffs.

The overriding reason for acting, he added, was to send a message to governments and investors that there needed to be a shift away from fossil fuels if the world were to avoid dangerous levels of climate change.

“There really is a wave of enthusiasm for it,” Mr Gee said. “It’s relatively recent and it’s really sped up in the last year.” Some synagogues and mosques had also made the shift, he said.

Some of the companies benefiting from the churches’ shift are smaller green energy groups such as Ecotricity and Good Energy rather than the larger “big six” suppliers.

At least 100 Quaker meeting houses have switched to renewables by dealing directly with seven-year-old Good Energy.

The move is part of a wider trend, according to the Energy UK trade association, which represents the big six companies as well as smaller groups. “There is a real and increasing demand in the market for an energy supply contract which is based on more renewable sources,” a spokesman said.

Christian Aid and the other charities that have collected data on churches are switching to green energy have not yet calculated the financial impact of their move on more established energy companies. “It’s certainly millions that have been shifted,” said Mr Gee.

More than 900 Salvation Army buildings have switched to renewable energy suppliers, according to the charities’ data.

Nearly 700 churches from several denominations have individually signed up for green power tariffs through the Big Church Switch website, which offers a simple way for churches to shift to green tariffs.

Nicholas Holtam, the Bishop of Salisbury and the Church of England’s lead bishop on the environment, said the churches’ move was a response to a complex environmental crisis.

“It is important that Christians rediscover older traditions of a godly relationship of humanity to the wider created order,” he said. “One simple thing we can do in response to such a crisis is to switch to using clean energy in our homes, communities, schools and places of worship.”

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​Churches put their faith in renewable energy

From an Article by Gemma Childe,  The Acre News, April 7, 2016

 The Big Church Switch, facilitated by Christian Aid and Tearfund, is inviting hundreds of thousands of worshippers to switch energy suppliers and urging their churches to follow suit.

It aims to offer Christians who are concerned about climate change a practical way to support clean energy. The project will pool the buying power of thousands of individuals to leverage green deals with energy providers. A new website www.bigchurchswitch.org.uk provides information for those considering making the switch, to make it as easy as possible.

The Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Rev Nicholas Holtam, who leads on environmental issues for the Church of England, said, “The Big Church Switch is a simple, practical, good idea. It supports the move to renewable energy. If Lent is about renewing our lives in response to the love of God here is a way to follow. You can do it, and so will I.”

Ben Niblett, Tearfund senior campaigner added: “Switching is a great way for Christians to love our neighbours and show the government we want more action on climate change, like investment in clean, renewable energy.

“Christians care about our neighbours in the UK and around the world being hit by climate change – we’re seeing more floods, more droughts, and more people going hungry – so we think this will strike a chord.”

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net

Concerned About Climate Change

A 22-year old Activist Reflects on Suing the State over Climate Change

From an Article by Kara Holsopple, The Allegheny Front, August 18, 2016

When she was just 16, Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania’s Ashley Funk was already up to big things—most notably, suing the state over its handling of climate change. The case was part of a national effort by Our Children’s Trust to get young people to demand their governments protect their generation from the threat of climate change. In Funk’s case, it focused on a part of the Pennsylvania constitution called the Environmental Rights Amendment—which required the state to secure a healthy, clean environment for generations to come. That, Funk argued, meant the state had an obligation to do more to combat climate change. Though the case has taken many twists and turns in the past six years, just last month, a court ruled that Funk and her co-plaintiffs can’t compel Pennsylvania to take any further action beyond what regulators are required to do under existing climate and pollution laws. But Funk says that’s not the end of the fight. And recently, we caught up with Funk, now 22, to talk about the case and her own future as an environmental activist.

The Allegheny Front: So what was your reaction to the court’s decision?

Ashley Funk: I was very disappointed. There was a recent victory in the state of Washington where the court essentially said that regulators in the state need to make regulations to [curb] climate change in order to meet the constitutional rights of these young people who were filing the suit. That was a big victory, and I thought we would at least proceed with our case. So I was, like, ‘Really, Pennsylvania?’—because I was riding the wave of these other victories and I thought it would have influence. But when I looked into the decision that the court released, I was a lot more excited to push our case forward with an appeal, because they did make some rulings that do help our case.

AF: Tell us more about that.

Funk: While they ruled that we need to be realistic with an Environmental Rights Amendment, they did determine that we have standing—which means that we are affected by climate change and had a right to be suing. And they also ruled that the court had jurisdiction over the case—so they are the ones that should be deciding this in the end. So even though they didn’t allow the case to proceed, those are two big rulings in our favor that we can use as we move forward to appeal.

AF: Governor Tom Wolf has said that the state is going to move ahead with the federal Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon emissions, even though that’s been stalled by the Supreme Court. Does that have any bearing on your case?

Funk: Not necessarily. Again, what we want is for Pennsylvania itself to have a yardstick for saying whether or not they’re doing enough. By law, we think that we need to do that because the constitution says that they need to secure a healthy, clean environment for generations to come. So we want to have it—in law—what they need to do. And so even if they are using the Clean Power Plan, we want the state to have its own law, in case anything happens to the Clean Power Plan—which is possible. We want to have a law within Pennsylvania to push them to act on climate change no matter what is happening on a federal level.

We’re not telling them to establish a law right now to limit carbon emissions as a result of this ruling. But what we’re asking is that they actually look into whether Pennsylvania is doing enough to mitigate climate change in its neck of the woods. In our petition for rulemaking, they essentially said that Pennsylvania was doing enough. But they can’t tell us the numbers, they can’t tell us why, they can’t tell us how much they’re actually reducing their carbon footprint. And that’s what we want, because we don’t think Pennsylvania is doing enough. And if they establish these limits saying Pennsylvania needs to do ‘this’ every year in order to play its part in combating climate change, then the law would have to adjust to meet that.

AF: So you’re appealing, but even if the lawsuit doesn’t ultimately succeed, do you feel like it has made a difference?

Funk: I think our case definitely made a difference because we moved all the way to a hearing in front of the Environmental Quality Board. And the Environmental Quality Board essentially put the obligation on the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to ask them, ‘Are you doing enough?’ and ‘Prove it to us.’ So the DEP had to have people, for like three months, compiling this report—their argument—explaining why they were doing enough. In the end, they argued they were doing enough: They pulled it back to, in my opinion, an outdated climate action plan that Pennsylvania had established. But I think that process of having to go through their records and having a team of people working on whether or not the DEP was addressing climate change—that action itself is valuable. It’s making people in the DEP question their actions.

I also think it has been really powerful getting these younger people on board to fight for their legal rights for climate change. For me, I have a much more nuanced understanding of the legal system and how my constitutional rights can be used to establish legislation. And I think I’ll carry that forward for the rest of my environmental career.

AF: So what’s next for you? How does this case change what you want to focus on going forward?

Funk: I’m very interested in local community development. In particular, I’m interested in water infrastructure for small communities. I plan on moving forward with rural development [work], and I especially want to do this in southwestern Pennsylvania: diversifying economies, making it so that people don’t have to rely on things like natural gas or coal to support their economies. At the same time, local community development work is slow and on the ground. And I don’t always feel like I’m making these big strides to combat climate change. So I want to be working on a bigger scale because it’s an issue that’s so pressing. We’re already seeing the effects of climate change so significantly. West Virginia just experienced severe flooding and that can also impact our communities in southwestern Pennsylvania. And the lawsuit has given me an opportunity to work on a state and national scale while I’m doing the local work. So I want to continue to do it for as long as the case survives. It’s like kids versus global warming. But I’ve been doing this since I was 16, and now I’m 22. So I’m not so much a kid anymore.

LISTEN: Ashley Funk on Her Landmark Climate Change Lawsuit – Audio Player in Original Article

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Ashley Funk just graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in environmental studies and is now finishing an engineering degree at Olin College in Massachusetts. For more on Funk’s story, check out WBEZ’s profile “Coming Home to Coal Country.”

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

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