Thirty Eight (38) Conservation Groups Object to GreenHunter Barge Activities

For Immediate Release: February 18, 2015.  Contact: Teresa Mills, 614-507-5651 tmills@chej.org, or  Robin Blakeman, 304-840-4877 rbrobinjh@gmail.com

Columbus, OH — Citing serious public health and safety concerns, environmental and community groups opposed to barging of fracking waste sent a letter to the U.S. Coast Guard requesting that the agency immediately initiate investigative action related to GreenHunter, LLC to determine the true contents of waste that GreenHunter, LLC may be transporting by barge on inland waterways, including the Ohio River and the Mississippi River, both, sources of drinking water for millions of people.

The letter of February 17, addressed to Captain Richard Timme, also requests the Coast Guard to issue a “cease and desist” order to GreenHunter, LLC to stop transporting any “oilfield wastes” while the Coast Guard makes its determination of what exactly is being shipped by the company. Additionally, the groups’ letter requests the Coast Guard to initiate an “enforcement penalty proceeding” if, indeed, the Coast Guard finds GreenHunter in violation regarding possible shipments of “shale gas extraction wastewater,” or SGEWW.

For the past two years, GreenHunter, LLC has been seeking U.S. Coast Guard permission to transport fracking waste on the Ohio River or other inland waterways.

The group’s letter references a statement by Kirk Trosclair, COO of GreenHunter to the Wheeling Intelligencer (2/6/15), “GreenHunter Water will continue to transport ‘oilfield waste’ until such time as the Coast Guard ultimately decides on the proper definition of ‘shale gas extraction waste water’ and the rules under which such waste water can be transported. Once these rules are finalized, GreenHunter will comply with these rules and regulations.”

The group reads Trosclair’s statement that GreenHunter ‘will continue to transport’ to mean that the company is actively shipping drilling wastes now, with impunity and without legal authority.”

Currently, fracking waste has too many legal exemptions, trade secrets, and euphemisms associated with it making it difficult to ascertain the precise components of the fracking waste. This in itself makes this situation not your typical shipment for transport down the Ohio River. Obviously, the Coast Guard needs to know exactly what substances are being transported on the waterways so that they can protect the public interest.

Dr. Randi Pokladnik says she “is concerned with the ability of local public drinking water systems to remove the numerous aromatic organic, carcinogenic and endocrine disrupting chemicals contained in wastes from shale gas extraction.”

“Just the thought of toxic and potentially radioactive unconventional gas well waste being shipped by barge on the Ohio River sickens me” says Robin Blakeman, organizer with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition in Huntington, WV. “I, and three generations of my entire immediate family get our tap water from the Huntington, WV intakes. I am appalled that a company like Green Hunter would try to subvert the Coast Guard’s authority and may already be shipping this noxious substance by barge, as well as by truck near the river’s edge. I hope the Coast Guard and the US EPA will do everything in their power to fully investigate Green Hunter’s operations and stop them from any activity which endangers our tap water!”

One only needs to consider the recent events of Charleston and Fayette County, West Virginia and Toledo, Ohio to grasp the enormity of the consequences of losing – even temporarily – a source of drinking water.

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