Exposed natural gas flames generate hazardous pollutants

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) in Pennsylvania, Texas & Arizona to Provide Webinar Training on “Cooking With Natural Gas”

Gas appliances generate dangerous air pollutants that deteriorate your and your family’s health. It’s important for you to know the signs & symptoms of gas appliance pollution exposure and how to properly address them.

PSR is proud to offer our new webinar “Cooking With Gas: Health Harms from Gas Stoves.” In it, you will learn the primary gas pollutants and their health effects, which populations are the most vulnerable, and the steps you, your family, and patients can take to mitigate the worst of the resulting symptoms. If you are a health professional, this webinar is also Physician CME- and Nursing CEU-accredited.

We hope to see you there and have you join us in the fight to keep fossil fuels in the ground! There are 3 upcoming opportunities to join our webinar training:

May 13 @ 1-2pm ET – Pennsylvania Health Check Up with PSR Pennsylvania;
Physician, Social Work, Pharmacy, and Nursing credits will be offered at this webinar. *Pharmacy and Nursing credits are only available for individuals with a Pennsylvania license.
Register Here

May 16 @ 8pm CT / 9pm ET – Cooking With Gas: Harms to Health from Gas Stoves; presented by Texas PSR and PSR National
Physician and Nursing credits will be offered at this webinar.
Register Here

May 18 @ 7pm PT – Cooking With Gas: Harms to Health from Gas Stoves; presented by PSR Arizona and PSR National
Physician and Nursing credits will be offered at this webinar.
Register Here

>>> Sincerely, Zach Williams, MPH, Health Educator & Campaign Coordinator, PSR

There are 90 major wildfires burning in 13 western states

From an Article by Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams, September 11, 2020

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown sounded alarm Thursday that the wildfires ravaging the west are “a bellwether of the future”—a warning that came as half a million people were forced to evacuate her state and become “temporary climate refugees.”

Thousands of firefighters in Oregon are currently battling 36 fires that have scorched nearly 900,000 acres. State officials said Thursday that 500,000 of Oregon’s 4.2 million residents have been forced to evacuate, “and that number continues to grow.”

“Half a million Oregonians are temporary climate refugees (and many of them have lost their homes for good),” author and climate activist Bill McKibben tweeted Friday.

Record wildfires have been devastating other western states as well, including California and Washington, with at least 23 people dead as a result of the blazes.

“One hundred large fires have burned more than 4.5 million acres in 12 states,” the National Interagency Fire Center announced Friday. “Evacuation orders are in place for residents near 42 large fires across the West.”

While President Donald Trump has remained silent about the fires for several weeks, climate activists have pointed to the events as further evidence lawmakers must take urgent climate action including passing the Green New Deal.

In a Thursday tweet, Brown put the wildfires in the context of the climate crisis as well. “I wish the 2020 wildfires were an anomaly—but this will not be a one-time event. Unfortunately, it is a bellwether of the future. We are seeing the devastating effects of climate change in Oregon, on the entire West Coast, and throughout the world,” he wrote.

Brown’s assessment is bolstered by a new resource from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The science group released an infographic stating that “wildfires are getting worse,” causing more damage, and are fueled by the climate crisis.

The group noted that “ecologically-sound forest and fire management could help limit fire risks” in the near-term. “But in the long-term, climate action is the best tool we have,” UCS said. “When we reduce global warming emissions, we slow the growth of climate risks, including wildfire. Until then, summers will continue getting hotter, forests will get drier, and more and more people will face the threat of wildfire.”

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Climate conditions in the western states are extreme

Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the Living

“Labor Day recognizes the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, laws, and well-being of the country.”

Source: Wikipedia on the World Wide Web, September 3, 2018

Mary G. Harris Jones (baptized 1837; died 1930), known as Mother Jones, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent organized labor representative and community organizer. She helped coordinate major strikes and cofounded the Industrial Workers of the World.

Jones worked as a teacher and dressmaker, but after her husband and four children all died of yellow fever in 1867 and her dress shop was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, she began working as an organizer for the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers union. From 1897, at about 60 years of age, she was known as Mother Jones. In 1902, she was called “the most dangerous woman in America” for her success in organizing mine workers and their families against the mine owners. In 1903, to protest the lax enforcement of the child labor laws in the Pennsylvania mines and silk mills, she organized a children’s march from Philadelphia to the home of President Theodore Roosevelt in New York.

Important achievements despite prison sentences

During the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek strike of 1912 in West Virginia, Mary Jones arrived in June 1912, speaking and organizing despite a shooting war between United Mine Workers members and the private army of the mine owners. Martial law in the area was declared and rescinded twice before Jones was arrested on 13 February 1913 and brought before a military court. Accused of conspiring to commit murder among other charges, she refused to recognize the legitimacy of her court-martial. She was sentenced to twenty years in the state penitentiary. During house arrest at Mrs. Carney’s Boarding House, she acquired a dangerous case of pneumonia.

After 85 days of confinement, her release coincided with Indiana Senator John W. Kern’s initiation of a Senate investigation into the conditions in the local coal mines. Mary Lee Settle describes Jones at this time in her 1978 novel The Scapegoat. Several months later, she helped organize coal miners in Colorado. Once again she was arrested, served some time in prison, and was escorted from the state in the months prior to the Ludlow Massacre. After the massacre, she was invited to meet face-to-face with the owner of the Ludlow mine, John D. Rockefeller Jr. The meeting prompted Rockefeller to visit the Colorado mines and introduce long-sought reforms.

Oklahoma energy companies want earthquake lawsuit dismissed

From an Article of the Associated Press, June 3, 2016

Oklahoma City (AP) — Three Oklahoma energy companies want a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit demanding they reduce injection volumes at wastewater disposal wells that could be triggering earthquakes.

The lawsuit was filed in February by members of the Oklahoma Sierra Club. It asks that Devon Energy Corp., Chesapeake Energy Corp. and New Dominion LLC reduce production waste at wells.

But the companies say in legal filings that the Oklahoma Corporation Commission is already taking action to reduce volumes of wastewater in disposal wells, The Oklahoman reported Friday (http://bit.ly/22COFoL ).

The commission has issued a series of voluntary directives covering more than 600 disposal wells. In addition, the Coordinating Council on Seismic Activity brings together regulators, researchers and energy industry representatives to respond to seismicity.

“Through the efforts of the governor, the state Legislature, the OCC and other state agencies, Oklahoma is in the midst of implementing a coherent, well-coordinated and comprehensive public policy to address seismicity,” Chesapeake Energy said in a court filing.

While the three companies were responsible for about two-thirds of the wastewater injected in 2014, they said any injunction against them wouldn’t cover other operators who might also be contributing to induced seismicity.

The companies also said anybody with concerns should go through the OCC to modify injection well permits.

In response, the Sierra Club said it had no issues with the state’s response, but believes more could be done. It said commission action hasn’t stopped the earthquakes, with more than 300 recorded since the beginning of the year with magnitude greater than 3.0.

The group said it hasn’t had any opportunity to oppose permits because all the volume reductions so far have been voluntary.

“The OCC has not yet issued a mandatory order to reduce injection,” the Sierra Club said. “In addition, the voluntary directives issued to date have not stopped the earthquakes, or even reduced their frequency or intensity.”

In its answer to the lawsuit, Devon disclosed it is selling some disposal wells as part of a previously announced $200 million deal to sell noncore assets in Oklahoma’s Mississippian formation. White Star Petroleum LLC, formerly American Energy-Woodford LLC, is the buyer.

——  See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Federico Pena, formerly Secretary of Energy, speaks up in Colorado

Former Secretary of Energy Speaks Out Against Fracking

From an Article by Gary Wockner, EcoWatch.com, December 8, 2014

Dear Former Secretary of Energy Federico Peña,

Thank you for speaking out against fracking, fossil fuels and climate change! I read your lengthy interview on the topic posted on the Boulder, Colorado, Daily Camera news site here. As a former U.S. Secretary of Energy, you are in a unique position to speak out and make a difference on this extremely important issue.

Former Secretary of Energy Federico Peña was interviewed by Boulder, Colorado’s Daily Camera and spoke out against fracking, fossil fuels and climate change. Photo credit: Daily Camera

However, I am compelled to point out what I believe are problems with your approach to the topic. You make two important statements in the interview that are at the center of my critique. First, you state:

“There are some who would say we shouldn’t allow fracking altogether, we shouldn’t allow any more drilling altogether, because it pollutes the air, it’s a fossil fuel, we ought to get out of it. Well, that would be terrific if we could do it in about 40 or 50 years, if we plan for it, if it’s done in a strategic and methodical fashion.”

And then about climate change, you state:

“I think as a nation and as a planet, we’re going to figure this out. And it may take a crisis, it may take some real soil erosion, it may take some coasts being wiped out around the world. It might take some parts of our country. We’ve got islands off the Florida coast that are worried about this kind of thing. But at some point I think most people will finally come to their senses and begin to take action. Now, the longer we wait, the more dramatic the action’s going to be. No question about that.”

As a climate change activist and a person who wants to protect human and non-human life on our planet, I am unwilling to accept that we have to wait to act aggressively on climate change until “coasts are being wiped out around the world.” Further, my understanding of the best available science is that we have to transition off of fossil fuels much faster than “40 or 50 years.”

I appreciate that you support Obama’s efforts so far, and the efforts of the United Nations so far, but the scientific consensus is that neither of those efforts will happen fast enough to keep coasts from being wiped out. Further, in the interview you state that the transition needs to happen more slowly:

“But if we do it in a very methodical way, so that you don’t disrupt the economy, you don’t disrupt the investments that people have made, that companies have made, there is a way for us to begin to invest in cleaner, alternative fuels over a period of years and then gradually phase out our over-dependence on fossil fuels.”

You certainly realize that “wiping out coasts” will disrupt the economy and disrupt investments? Take a look at this infographic about the social and economic costs of Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. As one example, Katrina cost the economy $123 billion and Sandy cost $60 billion. Other hurricanes and typhoons around the planet have been even more costly in terms of human lives. Also, take a look at this document put out by the White House that indicates that a 20-year delay of action on climate change could cost the world economy between $1 trillion and $4.7 trillion.

I strongly encourage you to continue speaking out against fracking, fossil fuels and climate change. We need leaders like you who were in very powerful positions in previous administrations to be the “outside game” to push the American people and the U.S. government in the right direction. We also need leaders like you to drill down on the facts and point out actual costs to the economy and human life of inaction.

Respectfully, Gary Wockner, PhD, environmental activist.

See also:

Scientists Warn Leaders at Lima Climate Talks: Ocean Warming Drives Record Temperatures

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Fracking Quotes from Two Worlds

Quotations collected by S. Tom Bond, Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

There’s no reason to think there will be any adverse environmental impact,” said Matt Pitzarella of Range Resources, about a proposal that “involves the beneficial use of vertical drill cutting from natural gas wells as an aggregate in a stabilized soil pavement for construction of Marcellus and Utica Shale well pads and access roads.

“As the citizens illustrate, development of the natural gas industry in the Commonwealth unquestionably has and will have a lasting, and undeniably detrimental, impact on the quality of these core aspects [life, health, and liberty: surface and ground water, ambient air, etc.] of Pennsylvania’s environment, which are part of the public trust.” Opinion 117

“By any responsible account, the exploitation of the Marcellus Shale Formation will produce a detrimental effect on the environment, on the people, their children, and future generations, and potentially on the public purse, perhaps rivaling the environmental effects of coal extraction.” Opinion 118

Decisions of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Middle District, December 19, 2013, concerning Act 13 — “natural resources are practically limitless” – Alec Epstein, to the Ohio Oil and Gas Association

“Making fracking safe is simply not possible, not with the prsent technology, nor with the inadequate regulations being proposed” – Louis Assstadt, former executive vice president of Mobile Oil

“Water quality is going to improve as a result of [hydrofracking]” – Tom Shepstone of Energy in Depth

“I think the positive response to the exploitation of natural gas lies in a combination of wishful thinking and intimidation “– Natural gas is not the bridge to clean energy; it’s the road to more climate change”- Naomi Oreskes. author, published by the Council of Canadian Academies

“With the return of affordable natural gas and natural gas liquids … is probably the single greatest opportunity we have to restore the middle class in America” — Peter Molinaro said at the Consumer Energy Alliance’s Pennsylvania Energy and Manufacturing Summit.

“As usual in such articles, global warming is not mentioned, and it is claimed export of LNG won’t raise prices in the U. S. The article also says photovoltaic shouldn’t get government support ‘because it is a mature technology” — This ignores the $XXXX subsidy of the hydrocarbon industries.” John Deutsch, Proessor of Chemstry at MIT and former director of energy research and Undersecretary at the U. S. Department of Energy

“There is a huge source of natural gas underneath the state parks, that is the state’s. I don’t believe in just leaving it there” — Tom Corbett, Governor of Pennsylvania

“What they sell to the American public is: ‘We don’t want dependency on foreign oil’” said former Marine Sergeant Barton. “It’s like: ‘We don’t need to be dependent on foreign oil, look what happened in Iraq. So let’s drill here.’ But they’re not [saying] that it’s the same companies, or it’s the same pockets, or the same politicians, or lobbyists. That’s the conversation no one’s having.” Barton is a worker in the Bakken fracked oil field in North Dakota.

Climate scientists say America’s oil and gas boom is having unintended consequences, not just for the climate or the local environment in energy producing regions, but for America’s global role in tackling climate change. “As we produce more, we burn more, and we send more CO2 per person into the atmosphere than almost any other country” — said Susan Brantley, geosciences professor and director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute at Pennsylvania State University. “We are blanketing our world with greenhouse gas, warming the planet.”

Blast At Pump Kills Va. Worker  — Blue Racer facility near Caldwell in Ohio erupts in fire Wednesday

From an Article by Casey Junkins, Wheeling Intelligencer, November 14, 2014

CALDWELL, OHIO – A Wednesday evening blast and resulting fire at a Blue Racer Midstream natural gas processing station near Caldwell in Noble County in Ohio killed 48-year-old Norman Butler, a contract worker from Virginia. Blue Racer spokeswoman said Butler was working on a natural gas liquids pump that moves that condensate into a gathering pipeline. Condensate is considered a light oil with a consistency similar to gasoline.

Blue Racer is a partnership of Dominion Resources and Caiman Energy. Through its vast and expanding network of pipelines, processing stations and compressors, the company moves natural gas. The pipeline into which the Noble County condensate is pumped leads to the giant Natrium plant along the Ohio River in Marshall County.

The Noble County Blue Racer site is adjacent to a Consol Energy natural gas well pad. Consol is Blue Racer’s “customer,” as the condensate Blue Racer processes comes from Consol’s well. The accident happened at the processing station.

There were no other injuries to Blue Racer or Consol Energy employees or contractors. The Noble County Sheriff’s Office arrived on the scene immediately following the incident along with local fire departments, the Noble County Emergency Management Agency and the state Fire Marshal.

All production wells and pipelines nearby are shut down while an investigation takes place. The Noble County Sheriff said officials remained on the scene to fully extinguish and contain the fire Thursday. He also asked for a “no fly zone” in the area of the fire as a precautionary matter.

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Fracking blast kills one Halliburton worker, injures 2 in Weld County, Colorado

From an Article by Jesse Paul & Mark Jaffe, Denver Post, November 13, 2014

MEAD, COLORADO — One worker was killed and two were seriously injured Thursday when a frozen, high pressure water line ruptured at a Weld County oil well site. The workers were trying to thaw the line when the accident occurred, officials said.

The Anadarko Petroleum Corp. well was being hydraulically fractured, or fracked, by the Halliburton Co. and the workers were Halliburton employees. Anadarko said it was suspending all fracking operations in the area pending a review of the accident.

The area has been the scene of drilling since at least 1979, but this year Anadarko has sunk at least nine, deep horizontal wells, according to state records. Each of those wells has to be fracked by pumping a mixture of water, sand and trace chemicals into the well at high pressure to crack rock and release oil.

Thomas Sedlmayr, 48, was airlifted to Denver Health and Grant Casey, 28, was taken by ambulance to the Medical Center of the Rockies in Loveland. The name of the dead worker has not been released.

Weld County Sheriff’s Office deputies are investigating the accident. The death and injuries appeared to be caused by a high-pressure water valve that ruptured, said agency spokesman Sean Standridge, the office’s spokesman. Firefighters also responded to the accident.

The workers were trying to warm the pipe, which had frozen, when it ruptured, Standridge said.  The temperature was about 10 degrees at the time, but overnight temperatures were well below zero. The water pressure was estimated at between 2,500 and 3,500 pounds per square inch.  Dozens of people work at the site, which is about two hundred yards long.

Investigators with the federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration in Denver were notified of the accident at about 11:30 a.m. Thursday, said Herb Gibson, OSHA area director. Two investigators are at the Mead area site looking into the accident, Gibson said. “It’s a dangerous industry,” Gibson said. “This is a tragic situation.”

The oil and gas industry in 2012 had a fatality rate of about 25 per 100,000 workers — higher than construction, manufacturing, or agriculture, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Between 2007 and 2011 there were 19 oil and gas field fatalities in Colorado, according to federal data.

In 2012, a 60-year-old worker died in another Weld County drilling accident that occurred when pressurized gas was released as workers prepared an Encana Corp. Davis well pad to begin pumping. In October a worker was killed on a drilling rig in Garfield County.

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Reported Gas Well Explosion in Lewis County, WV

ORIGINAL: 10/31/14 –  WDTV – 5 News has received viewer concerns about an incident at a gas well in the area, Friday. Lewis County 911 says that EMS crews and the Walkersville Fire Department responded to a well site in Walkersville around 3:30 p.m. No word on any injuries or on what happened.

UPDATE: 11/01/14 –  Lewis County 911 officials said this reported incident was a gas well explosion. There’s no reports yet if anyone was injured or what caused it.

NOTE: An unconfirmed report indicates that a 16 year old on an ATV was injured or killed as a result of an explosion at a conventional gas well site.

<<<   See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net >>>

Mayfly on Fishing Rod

Mayflies, wastewater and the health of our natural water sources

From an Article by David Katz, Preserve the Beartooth Front, May 26, 2014

The life of the mayfly is one of nature’s amazing stories. They spend their first three years under water in the larval stage, and then emerge for a quick but eventful run as adults, with wings and reproductive organs but no way to ingest food, bite or sting. In the 24 hours or so they spend in adulthood, they become what one zoologist calls “little flying sex machines.” Their sole purpose is to reproduce.

What does that have to do with oil and gas drilling?

Potentially a lot. A recent study by the Stroud Water Research Center found that even highly-diluted levels of fracking wastewater, as low as 0.25% over a period of 20-30 days, could have a deadly effect on an insect known for its fragile beauty and long-considered a key indicator of stream health.

According to Senior Research Scientist John Jackson, who led the study, “Mayflies are a very reliable indicator of whether a stream is healthy or not healthy. When it comes to streams, we want to see vibrant communities of mayfly species there. So their conspicuous absence in a stream tells us something isn’t right. It’s not an environment where they are thriving.”

Key results of the study, which looked at mayflies, water fleas and fathead minnows:

• • Half the mayflies across three species studied died after 20-30 day exposures to concentrations of less than 0.5% produced water.
  • Among the mayflies that survived to reach the adult stage, development time slowed, indicating they were stressed.
  • Reproduction rate was significantly reduced in two of three species and somewhat reduced in the third, mostly because mortality increased and development time slowed.
  • The water flea was less sensitive than mayflies to produced water, but the fathead minnow was more sensitive than mayflies.

The mayfly in Montana
Montana contains 109 species of mayflies. The scientific order name is Ephemeroptera, Greek for “brief adult life.” The French call the aquatic insects éphémères, or “one-day flies.” Montana Outdoors describes them as “looking like miniature angels when flying and, with their delicate upturned wings, tiny sailboats when floating on the water.” They are an essential part of the food chain that keeps our natural water vital.

The mayfly hatch begins in March each year with the blue winged olive mayfly, a creature so prolific that it hatches three times a year, continues throughout the summer, and closes in October.

This study is a reminder of how vulnerable our natural water is. Very low levels of contamination from fracking wastewater can kill off the mayflies and ruin the health of our streams and rivers. We need to take responsibility as a community to make sure our water is protected. We can’t expect anyone will do it for us.

I’ll leave you with this lovely scene from A River Runs Through It, in which the Craig Scheffer character says they’re biting on “Bunyan Bug Stonefly #2.” I can’t really tell the difference between mayflies and stoneflies. Perhaps you can.

Debating the validity of climate change is a waste of time.
… … …  Debating what to do is not !

Editorial, Houston Chronicle, May 19, 2014

The recent report on climate change from the U.N.-chartered Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a sober reminder that what we as individuals happen to “believe” about global warming – unless we happen to be climate scientists – has absolutely no bearing on whether the phenomenon is a vast hoax perpetrated by 99 percent of the scientific community or a looming crisis that, as the report underscores, will affect everybody on this planet.

Skepticism on most issues is, indeed, healthy, but in any number of areas, whether it’s relying on M.D. Anderson for cancer treatment or a Texas A&M-trained civil engineering fund to erect bridges and skyscrapers, we have to trust the experts. So it is with measuring and assessing the evidence of climate disruption. As conservative columnist Michael Gerson pointed out in the Washington Post recently, “Our intuitions are useless here.”

The report from the scientists, economists and other experts on the IPCC panel is about as sobering as it can get. The panel warned that the planet is indeed warming, that humans are primarily responsible and that we are not anywhere near prepared for the dire consequences.

What’s coming if we can’t or won’t change our ways are low-lying island nations disappearing, coastal cities going the way of Venice (at best), abnormal weather patterns and growing seasons and tropical pathogens migrating into formerly temperate zones.

In Texas and elsewhere, change already is upon us. We’re seeing increased rates of water loss, depleting water resources, increased wildfires and the spread of invasive species. Our grandchildren and their children will see a rise in sea level from 1 to 4 feet by the end of the century.

“Climate change is no longer a future issue,” Katherine Hayanoe, director of Texas Tech’s Climate Change Science Center, told the Chronicle recently. “For the United States as a whole, climate change will affect our lives through its impacts on our health, our water resources, our food, our natural environment and our economy.”
Debating the validity of climate change – or whether we believe in climate change – is a waste of time; debating what to do in response is anything but a waste.

According to the IPCC report, emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases grew faster between 2000 and 2010 than over the previous three decades. That disturbing statistic is despite real progress being made in some parts of the world. In Germany, for example, Chancellor Angela Merkel has laid out a plan to fill more than 40 percent of her nation’s energy needs from renewable sources. The United States has reduced its carbon emissions by nearly 10 percent since 2005, in part because of stricter automobile fuel economy standards but also because of the lingering recession. Progress, though, pales in contrast to the increase in emissions by China and other rapidly industrializing countries.

We know what needs to be done, but if we can’t summon the political will and the sense of worldwide urgency to implement some kind of carbon tax or to develop new technologies that limit future carbon emissions, then we need to begin preparing for the worst. That means reassessing where we live and where we build, how we feed ourselves, how much water we use, among numerous other major adjustments. Gondolas in Kemah, anyone?

NOTE: The question at the end of the above editorial asks whether Texans will welcome sea level rise, given that Clear Lake will rise into the streets of Kemah, a lakeside community near Houston and the Gulf of Mexico.

CLEAR LAKE in Greater Houston & Gulf of Mexico

Encana Oil & Gas frack site

Colorado First State to Clamp Down on Fracking Methane Pollution

From the Article by Jennifer Oldham, Bloomberg News, February 23, 2014

Colorado regulators approved groundbreaking controls on emissions from oil and natural gas operations after an unusual coalition of energy companies and environmentalists agreed on measures to counter worsening smog.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Noble Energy Inc., and Encana Corp., among the state’s largest oil and gas producers, worked with the Environmental Defense Fund to craft regulations approved yesterday by the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission that would fix persistent leaks from tanks and pipes.

Emissions from oil and gas operations contribute to thickening smog that exceeds federal ozone guidelines along Denver’s picturesque backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. Such pollution includes methane, a source of climate-changing greenhouse gas. The haze prompted Governor John Hickenlooper to ask energy companies and environmentalists to come together to write the first-of-their-kind rules.

“This is a model for the country,” said Dan Grossman, the defense fund’s Rocky Mountain regional director. “We’ve got this simmering battle between the oil and gas industry and neighborhoods throughout the state that are being faced with development. That degree of acrimony is pushing the industry and policy makers to look for ways to get some wins.”

Drilling in Colorado, North Dakota, Montana, Pennsylvania and Ohio that is fueling the nation’s energy boom is also moving closer to communities, forcing state regulators to address complaints of noise and traffic and concerns about potential contamination risks to air and water. Citing these worries, five Colorado communities voted to restrict a drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Under Pressure

To appease residents, state lawmakers are looking for measures that allow them to monitor and control drilling activities while still reaping millions in taxes from increased energy production. Over the course of a year, the new regulations will remove enough volatile organic compounds from the air to equal those emitted by every car and truck in the state, backers said.

The Air Quality Control Commission approved the rules 8 to 1 yesterday after five days of hearings, rejecting revisions that would have exempted smaller wells and applied the regulations only to operators in areas that routinely violate federal air quality standards.

Unusual Approach

Air quality rules in other states are often driven by regulatory agencies, which highlights the unusual collaboration between environmentalists and energy companies on Colorado’s measures governing methane emissions, Curtis Rueter, a Denver-based development manager at Noble Energy, said in a telephone interview.

“This is the right thing to do for our business,” he said. “We want to find the leaks and fix them because that will reduce our emissions and the rules provide guidance and technology for us to do that.” The air pollution mandate divided powerful energy interests, environmental groups and lawmakers as some energy companies resisted the new rules.

Increased drilling in Colorado is likely to be an issue in the gubernatorial campaign this year. Fracking opponents say Hickenlooper, a former oil company geologist, is too cozy with the industry. His Republican challengers say regulations such as those requiring companies to test groundwater and disclose chemicals used in fracking — which the governor hails as among the toughest in the nation — restrict production.

Emissions during oil and gas operations represent the state’s largest source of volatile organic compounds that contribute to the formation of ozone, a ground-level pollutant linked to respiratory problems and decreased crop yields. Parts of Colorado violate national air quality standards for ozone.

Methane Effect

The mandates are also the first attempt by a state to regulate methane emissions from fracking. The main component of natural gas, methane is 20 times more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Infrared cameras show that methane and other gases escape during operations that pushed Colorado’s 2012 oil production to the highest in 55 years. The state is the U.S.’s sixth-largest producer of natural gas and ninth-biggest oil producer.

“This is a national issue that a lot of states that have significant oil and gas emissions are struggling with,” said Garry Kaufman, deputy director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Air Pollution Control Division, in testimony during the hearings.

The regulations require companies to install equipment to minimize leakage of toxic gases and to control or capture 95 percent of emissions. Energy producers would be required to routinely inspect well sites for leaks, as often as once a month, depending on how much oil or gas a well produces. When leaks are discovered, they must be fixed within 15 days.

‘Industry Concern’

There is “industry concern that the proposed rules may be a foregone political conclusion,” wrote lawyers representing the company, which operates 800 wells in the state that produce $120 million in royalties and property and severance taxes, “the 10 month stakeholder process appears to have been subverted at the final hour.”

Chevron and members of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association and the Colorado Petroleum Association calculated that costs to comply with the rules would be almost double what state regulators projected. The Air Pollution Control Division estimated costs at $40 million, while industry economists said they would be $100 million.

“These rules cost more than all prior oil and gas measures combined,” testified John Jacus, an attorney with Davis, Graham & Stubbs LLP who represents trade groups and other energy companies, during the hearings. “The rules have not been property evaluated by the division for their cost, both indirect and direct, and their cost to implement.”

Training Personnel

Companies supporting the rules said while they need time to invest in expensive equipment and to hire and train personnel on new systems, they are willing to shoulder the costs. “We estimate it’s going to cost Noble Energy $3 million dollars a year to comply with this rule,” testified Brian Lockard, the company’s director of environmental, health, safety and regulatory, at the hearing.  “That’s a heavy lift,” he added, saying cost estimates are based on a voluntary monitoring program the company’s been using. “We project we’re going to have to hire 16 additional people.”

Noble runs about 8,000 wells in the Denver-Julesburg Basin, where it plans to invest $12 billion over the next five years. Noble and Anadarko undertake 80 percent of all operations in the basin. Anadarko operates about 5,000 wells there and expects to invest $2 billion in the region this year.

Anadarko said the emissions mandates are necessary to ensure the companies’ investments pay off.  “We all live here, we all have families here and work here and we want to have clean air,” Korby Bracken, Anadarko’s Rockies’ environmental health and safety director, said in a telephone interview. “This provides us an additional piece to talk with community members about what oil and gas companies are doing to make sure we’re protecting the environment.”

Susan Nagel, Ph.D, University of Missouri School of Medicine

Colorado Study Links Fracking Chemicals and Hormone Disruption

Article By Sarah Matheson, Epoch Times, December 16, 2013

High levels of hormone-disrupting chemicals have been found in water samples near fracking sites in Colorado, according to research accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s journal Endocrinology.

The chemicals “could raise the risk of reproductive, metabolic, neurological and other diseases, especially in children who are exposed to EDCs [endocrine-disrupting chemicals],” said one of the study’s authors, Susan Nagel, of the University of Missouri School of Medicine.

Researchers took surface and ground water samples from sites with drilling spills or accidents in Garfield County, Colo. The area has more than 10,000 natural gas wells. Researchers also looked at control samples from sites without spills in Garfield County, as well samples from Boone County, Missouri.

The water samples from drilling sites had higher levels of EDC activity that could interfere with the body’s response to the reproductive hormone estrogen, and androgens, a class of hormones that includes testosterone.

Drilling site water samples had moderate to high levels of the hormone-disrupting chemical. Water samples from the Colorado River, which is the drainage basin for the natural gas drilling sites, had moderate levels.

Researchers found little EDC activity in the water samples from the sites with little drilling.

“Fracking is exempt from federal regulations to protect water quality, but spills associated with natural gas drilling can contaminate surface, ground, and drinking water,” Nagel said.

Researchers looked at 12 suspected endocrine-disrupting chemicals used in fracking. They measured the chemicals’ ability to mimic, or block, the effect of the body’s male and female reproductive hormones.

“More than 700 chemicals are used in the fracking process, and many of them disturb hormone function,” Nagel said.

Research has linked EDC exposure to infertility, cancer and birth defects.

“With fracking on the rise, populations may face greater health risks from increased endocrine-disrupting chemical exposure,” Nagel said.

EDCs can also be found in manufactured products, certain foods, air, water, and soil.

Other authors of the study include: C.D. Kassotis, J.W. Davis and A.M. Hormann of the University of Missouri, and D.E. Tillitt of the U.S. Geological Survey. The study, “Estrogen and Androgen Receptor Activities of Hydraulic Fracturing Chemicals and Surface and Ground Water in a Drilling-Dense Region,” was published online on December 16, 2013.