WV Residents Concerned About Pipelines --- www.pipelineupdate.org

From: Rick Webb, Nelson County, VA
Sent: August 22, 2016
To: Pipeline Contacts and Affected Persons
Subject: Guidance for Monitoring Water Supplies Threatened by Pipeline Development

The Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance (ABRA) has released a report for landowners and water providers concerned about the potential impacts of pipeline development on water supplies:
GUIDANCE FOR MONITORING EFFECTS OF GAS PIPELINE DEVELOPMENT ON SURFACE WATER AND GROUNDWATER SUPPLIES

The report was prepared by Downstream Strategies, a West Virginia-based environmental consulting firm. Funding was provided by ABRA member groups and individual contributors.

Although the developers of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) and Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) indicate that they will monitor the quality and quantity of water supply springs and wells, the information they have provided about monitoring plans and acceptance of responsibility for water supply damage is incomplete.

The new report provides information concerning:
• Risks, potential impacts, and other water supply issues related to pipeline development;
• Collection of the data that will be needed to hold pipeline developers responsible for harm to water supplies;
• Methods for establishing baseline information on water quantity and quality and for long-term monitoring to detect change; and
• Laboratories and consultants that can conduct monitoring and analysis.

For landowners, the guide describes a tiered approach to water supply monitoring that incorporates collection of defensible data by water resource professionals and landowner collection of screening or early-detection data.

For water providers, a primary benefit of the guide is to document likely contaminants and the potential impacts to source water from pipeline development that may affect their treatment processes or finished (post-treatment) drinking water distributed to customers.
Although some of the information in this report is specific to the MVP and ACP pipelines, the guidelines for monitoring water resources is applicable to any landowners and water providers who may be impacted by pipeline development.

ABRA is a coalition of 50 organizations concerned about the natural gas pipeline that Dominion Resources and its partner companies have proposed to build through portions of West Virginia and Virginia.
Organizational contributors to the water supply monitoring guidance project include:  Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition, Cowpasture River Preservation Association, Friends of Nelson, Greenbrier River Watershed Association, Highlanders for Responsible Development, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, and West Virginia Rivers Coalition.

Rick Webb, Coordinator
Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition
rwebb.dpmc@gmail.com
540-468-2881 h, 540-290-0913 c

Widespread Flooding Disrupts Many Communities

Are West Virginia’s Floods The Result Of Climate Change?

From an Article by Ken Silverstein, Forbes Magazine, June 30, 2016

For a state that has been racked with recession and unemployment, the flash floods that have ravaged West Virginia don’t help much. But the key question to ask — no matter how unpleasant — is whether the coal sector there shares some of the blame.

At issue is the concept of climate change and whether the warmer atmosphere is holding more water and therefore intensifying the storms. To that end, West Virginia’s prime industry has been coal, a fuel that when burned is responsible for a third of all human-induced carbon emissions.

Even more, the surface mining that has occurred is lopping off whole mountaintops and removing the vegetation, leaving the landscape vulnerable to erosion. The water running off the mountain is thus more rapid, adding to the problem of flash flooding, says Kathleen Miller, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., in a phone interview.

“The climate is highly variable and you can’t attribute specific events to climate change,” adds Dr. Miller. “But when you look long term, many environmental changes are all pointing in the same direction and supporting the conclusion that global climate change is underway: melting sea ice, melting glaciers and rising sea levels. “It is the weight of the evidence that must be considered.”

Photo in original article:  WV State Trooper C.S. Hartman, left, and Bridgeport WV, fireman, Ryan Moran, wade through flooded streets as they search homes in Rainelle. A rainstorm that seemed no big deal at first turned into a catastrophe for the small town in West Virginia, trapping dozens of people whose screams would echo all night.

As for the storms and the resulting floods in West Virginia, at least 25 people have died while thousands of homes have been destroyed. It’s the third worst flood in state history, with the worst one occurring in 1972 — a rainfall so hard that a dam built over a coal slurry pond had dislodged and ravaged the community of Buffalo Creek, WV,  killing hundreds.

One of the hardest hit areas of the 2016 flood is Greenbrier County, where the famed Greenbrier Resort is located and where the New Orleans Saints have training camp. The amount of rain that occurred last week is said to be a once-in-a-thousand year event. Is it because of climate change?

According to Kevin Trenberth, distinguished senior scientist at the Center for Atmospheric Research, there is about 10 percent more moisture in the atmosphere since 1970. That immediately increases precipitation by 10 percent.

“But that process then releases latent heat into the storm and can invigorate the storm so that the net increase in precipitation is up to 20 percent,” he says, meaning that rainfall can be double the resident moisture in the atmosphere.

In the Northeastern region that includes West Virginia, rainfall in the most extreme precipitation events has increased by 73 percent from 1958 to 2012, says the Third U.S. Climate Assessment — a problem particularly acute for the coal-producing state, which has water running off of mountains and into the townships below.

To be sure, some scientists point out that the aberrant weather patterns may not be the result of climate change. Rich Muller, a climate scientist from the University of California at Berkeley, who was hired by the Koch brothers, concludes that rising temperatures are the result of burning fossil fuels. But he says that at least hurricanes and tornados have actually decreased with time.

Specifically, he told this writer in an earlier talk that from 1750 to the present, global temperatures have risen by 1.5 degrees Celsius — directly tied to the excessive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. He said that his models indicate that temperatures will continue to rise into the future.

“Global warming is real and it is caused by humans … But climate change is not contributing to more intense tornados and hurricanes,” Muller says.  To be clear, 17 of the warmest years on record have occurred in the last 18 years, says Dr. Miller, with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. And 2015 was, in fact, the hottest ever.

One of things that the climate skeptics will point to, she notes, is that a short-term trend can indicate a “warming pause.” But she emphasizes that short-term trend calculations can be manipulated by selecting an unusually warm starting point. The longer-term trend paints a different picture:

>>> It’s difficult news for a state like West Virginia to absorb— one that has built an economy on a fuel that is responsible for a third of all man-made heat-trapping emissions. What is the leadership to do?

>>> It must stop with the politics and look instead to science. Just as businesses consider “what if” scenarios when they look forward, responsible leaders must do the same.

>>> As for West Virginia, it must wean itself from coal and rapidly diversify from both an environmental and economic standpoint.

See also: Local Flood Report from WV Public Radio

This guy knows his stuff and his ants!

In his latest book, Pulitzer Prize–winning scientist Edward O. Wilson argues for a bold step in conservation

From an Article by Dean Kuipers, Outside Magazine (March 2016), February 23, 2016

Photo: E.O. Wilson in the ant collection room at Harvard University.

Few people know more about biodiversity than Edward O. Wilson. The 86-year-old Harvard biologist and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner helped popularize the term in a groundbreaking 1988 report of the same name. So when he argues in his new book, Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life ($26, Liveright), that species loss is a critical threat and that we need to turn fully half the planet’s land surface into biodiversity reserves, it’s more than an idle thought experiment.

“To let things continue at the present rate, we could easily be down to half the species left on earth,” Wilson told me from his home in Lexington, Massachusetts. “We could lose millions just in the next few decades.”

Like many scientists, Wilson believes that the planet is currently experiencing a “sixth extinction,” during which species are disappearing as much as 1,000 times faster than they did before humans were around. And we have yet to even encounter the vast majority of life-forms among us. We’ve named approximately two million species, but the best estimates are that another 6.7 million, give or take a million, have yet to be discovered.

Slowing the rate of extinction has long been a crusade for Wilson. More than ten years ago he calculated that, in order to stop or significantly slow species loss, 50 percent of the earth’s land must be protected. (Currently, only 15 percent is formally preserved.) “The only way we’re going to save the situation is by radical means,” he says.

His Half-Earth proposal is certainly that. Many of the world’s preeminent naturalists helped him compile a list of areas with high biodiversity—not just the rainforests of the Congo and the Amazon, but also little-known spots like the church forests of Ethiopia and the just-opening wildlands of Myanmar.

Safeguarding an additional 35 percent of the earth comes with logistical challenges: Would people in preservation areas be relocated, or would they be allowed to stay? Would governments agree to such protections? Oddly, Wilson skips over these issues and instead spends a portion of the book criticizing “new conservationists,” a small group of individuals who believe that smart economic development rather than high fences is the best strategy to preserve what’s left of the wild.

Wilson lambasts people like Peter Kareiva, current director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, who has advocated higher living standards as a way to save nature. Fearing a loss of emphasis on the nonhuman, Wilson uses his book as a club in this internecine fight. “I do believe they are dangerous,” he says. “I had to come down pretty hard on them.”

Kareiva, for his part, admires the Half-Earth idea. “Wilson has been a crusader for biodiversity unlike any other scientist,” he says. But he thinks the antagonism is misplaced. “If you sat us in a room and put a map in front of us and asked us what do we want the world to look like in 2050, we might end up with very similar maps.”

Indeed, in the second to last chapter of Half-Earth, Wilson makes the case for smart and fast development. Human population, he believes, will peak at around 11 billion near the end of the current century. (It now stands at 7.3 billion.) Technology will help transform the global economy from extensive (requiring large amounts of money, people, and natural resources) to intensive (boosting both productivity and efficiency). And energy production will continue to become less connected to fossil fuels. In short, over the coming decades, humanity will achieve a smaller footprint and leave room for other species. It’s the kind of argument a new conservationist might make.

“We’re finally seeing conservation starting to get more on point,” says Michael Shellenberger, president of the Breakthrough Institute, which has rattled mainstream environmentalism in part by arguing that it needs to embrace “ecomodernist” development to fix the planet. Shellenberger has his own critique of Wilson: “He doesn’t address the dirty, bloody work of conservation on the ground.”

Nor did he intend to. Half-Earth is less detailed plan than aspirational goal. Wilson is leaving it up to us to figure out how to do it, and after looking at the technological and economic trends, he believes we will. “The reason is that we are thinking organisms trying to understand how the world works,” he writes. “We will come awake.”

Wherever Wilson presents this idea, he is wildly cheered. He considers that evidence of a generation prepared to make tough decisions. “Many young people see in this something worthwhile to dedicate themselves to,” says Wilson. “This book is saying we don’t have to yield. We don’t have to plant the white flag and start setting ourselves up for the 
destruction of the living world.”

Earth, Protected

Though the book doesn’t include a comprehensive map of proposed sanctuaries, Outside assembled an approximate guide to the best places in the biosphere, according to Wilson 
and other scientists. —Nicola Payne

Homeland Security

The redwood forests of California, the South’s longleaf pine savanna, and the Madrean pine oak woodlands of the mountainous Southwest are crucial North American ecosystems.

Under Siege

The Amazon River basin, the forests of the Congo basin, and the church forests of Ethiopia have faced unrelenting decimation by human hands in recent years.

Hot Spots

Wilson and others believe that certain countries possess such rich biodiversity that the majority of their land is worthy of study and protection. These include Bhutan, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Myanmar, Madagascar, New Guinea, and South Africa.

Fragmented & Over-Developed Landscape

TITLE: Oil and gas development transforms landscapes

From a Report by Brady Allred, et al., The University of Montana, April 29, 2015

Researchers have conducted the first-ever broad-scale scientific assessment of how oil and gas development transforms landscapes across the US and Canada. A landscape transformed by broad-scale vegetation loss and fragmentation from oil and gas development is shown in the photo.

But what are the ecological consequences of this accelerated drilling activity? Researchers at the University of Montana have conducted the first-ever broad-scale scientific assessment of how oil and gas development transforms landscapes across the U.S. and Canada.

Their work was published April 24 in an article titled “Ecosystem services lost to oil and gas in North America” in Science. The article concludes that oil and gas development creates significant vegetation loss of rangelands and croplands across broad swaths of central North America.

Lead author Brady Allred said, “There are two important things here: First, we examine all of central North America, from the south coast of Texas to northern Alberta. When we look at this continental scale picture, we see impacts and degradation that are missed when focusing only at a local scale. Second, we see how present policies may potentially compromise future ecosystem integrity over vast areas.”

Allred and co-authors estimated that from 2000 to 2012 oil and gas development removed large amounts of rangeland vegetation, culminating at a rate per year of more than half of the annual grazing on U.S. public lands. Vegetation removed by this development on croplands is equivalent to 120.2 million bushels of wheat, approximately 13 percent of all wheat exported by the U.S. in 2013.

Fragmentation and loss of habitat also disrupts wildlife migration routes, alters wildlife behavior and assists new disruptive invasive plant species. Co-author Dave Naugle highlights the complexity of the issue: “We’ve known about the impacts of oil and gas development for years, but we now have scientific data from a broad regional scale that tells us we need to act now to balance these competing land uses.”

Furthermore, nearly half of wells drilled are in extreme- or high-water-stress regions. High-volume hydraulic fracturing uses 2 million to 13 million gallons of water per well, intensifying competition among agriculture, aquatic ecosystems and municipalities for water resources.

“We need a policy framework that quantifies and weighs major tradeoffs at large scales because current policy does not address both assessment and future mitigation adequately,” said co-author Julia Haggerty of Montana State University.

“Satellite technologies now can provide annual acre-by-acre information for land managers on oil-and-gas-driven land-use changes,” said Steve Running, a co-author and UM Regents Professor of Ecology. “We must have policies that ensure reclamation of this land after production has ended. Otherwise, by 2050, tens of millions of acres of land will be permanently degraded.”

The authors assessed the ecosystem services lost by using high-resolution satellite measurements of vegetation growth based on methods developed by co-author W. Kolby Smith and previous groundbreaking research by Running. Terrestrial plant production is the foundation of the biospheric carbon cycle and the basis for a multitude of critical ecosystem services.

>>> Brady Allred is assistant professor of rangeland ecology at UM’s College of Forestry and Conservation. Additional co-authors are W. Kolby Smith, a recent UM doctoral student now at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota; Dirac Twidwell from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; and Samuel Fuhlendorf from Oklahoma State University <<<

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Photo Displays of Mountain Destruction

WV Mountain Party:  “Resolution to Ban Extreme Extraction”

From Tom Rhule, Mountain Party of WV, October 26, 2014

On September 30, 2014, a quorum of the State Executive Council for the Mountain Party of West Virginia passed the following Resolution to ban extreme extraction by unanimous vote*:

WHEREAS in the wake of the West Virginia American Water Crisis the pollution in streams, rivers, and other source waters from the mountain top removal of coal and associated operations, as well as the high pressure high volume hydrofracking of the Marcellus have caused the serious decline of public health and the economies of communities across the State; and

WHEREAS WV Lawmakers continue to allow the injection of coal prep slurry into abandoned coal mines despite the mounting evidence that doing so has poisoned the source waters for a number of our rural communities; and

WHEREAS there is official government documentation that the State of West Virginia has improperly permitted wastewater containing toxic amounts of radium along with other hazardous waste byproducts from horizontally hydrofracking the Marcellus to be injected into Class II underground wells; and,

WHEREAS Class II underground injection wells were never designed for hazardous wastes and therefore are insufficient to properly sequester such wastes from our drinking water sources; and,

WHEREAS there are currently over seven hundred Class II underground injection wells as documented by the EPA within the borders of our State; and,

WHEREAS since 2007, improperly marked tanker trucks are known to have dumped hazardous Marcellus drilling waste fluid onto roadways, into rural streams, rivers, and abandoned coal mines within the borders of our State; and,

WHEREAS in 2011 it was reported to the Joint Legislative Oversight Commission on State Water Resources that many millions of gallons of the waters of the State were being diverted for use to high pressure horizontally hydrofrack the Marcellus, but 62 percent of which is not being properly accounted for by that industry; and,

WHEREAS in Sept. of 2011, when passing into law governor Tomblin’s Horizontal Well Act (H.B. 401), WV Lawmakers wrongfully assigned the WV Department of Environmental Protection to measure, regulate and report on the radioactive waste byproducts produced by high pressure horizontal hydrofracking, and,

Whereas the aforementioned HB 401 remains in direct conflict with West Virginia Code of State Regulations §64-23-16, the proper title being “Radiation Safety Requirements for Technologically Enhanced Radioactive Materials (TENORM),” which mandates all oversight and regulatory authority including measurement, storage, and disposal for such radioactive waste to West Virginia’s Department of Health and Human Resources where that agency’s health experts must be mandated to be properly trained to protect West Virginia’s citizens and their future generations from the ravages caused by the mishandling of TENORM; and,

WHEREAS during the last regular session of year 2013,, WV lawmakers passed Senate Bill 243 to amend governor Tomblin’s Horizontal Well Act which now grants drilling companies the right to keep from public scrutiny the countless proprietary chemicals which are known to be used during the hydraulic fracturing process; and,

Whereas SB 243 now enacted essentially prevents well owners and public water providers from knowing which particular chemicals may be in their source waters thus preventing proper monitoring against contamination; and,

WHEREAS by 2014, numerous water wells both private and publicly owned are now known to have been compromised by the careless mishandling of toxic chemicals and associated waste byproducts of high pressure high volume horizontal hydrofracking operations across the State; and,

WHEREAS the Bill of Rights to the West Virginia Constitution prominently places the health, safety and welfare of the People of the State above all corporate right to profit from the aforementioned fossil fuel industries as they are presently permitted by State and Federal regulators and their respective governments:

BE IT RESOLVED that we, the Citizens of the Great State of West Virginia and members of the Mountain Party call for the ban of all surface mine and high pressure horizontal hydrofracking operations within our borders because every chemical associated with these extraction industries must be safely handled, properly identified, registered, prominently labeled, and regulations enforced. This moratorium resolution shall include every chemical substance, whether used or produced, organic or inorganic, in every phase of each industrial process including mixing. use. storage, transport and disposal.

Be it further resolved that the Mountain Party believes that the long term negative economic and environmental consequences of the aforementioned extreme extraction fossil fuel industry techniques dwarf the short term economic benefits to the Great State of West Virginia, and that all political and legal means must be implemented to protect the health, safety, and welfare of her Citizens.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

*After the above Resolution to ban extreme extraction was passed, the following informational paragraph was proposed to be appropriately inserted in accordance with the timeline of the Resolution:

Whereas, in 2009, tests by the State of New York of 24 samples of Marcellus flowback from West Virginia and Pennsylvania hydrofracked wells revealed the presence in toxic quantities of 4-nitroquinoline 1-oxide, one of the most cancer-causing toxins known to man, for which the State of WV has not, and is not currently testing in any drinking water source; and, …

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Contact:  Tom Rhule,  Communications Director,  at:  mountainpartywv@gmail.com

Ormet property above Hannibal on the Ohio River has been leased. How much gas will come from under the River in WV?

Letter to the Editor, Wheeling Intelligencer & News-Register, August 3, 2014

“Deforestation greater threat than coal fired power plants.” Now, who do you think is so environmentally concerned? Take a guess. How about David McKinley? You probably know him as a commentator columnist for the “Wheeling Republican News Register.”

I think he also moonlights as U.S. congressman whose main assignment is to follow orders and the wishes of Grover Norquist. Stand up as fast as you can to say no to anything and everything proposed by the elected president of the U.S.A. He has a 100 percent record on that.

You know if he can convince you to vote for him a time or two more, you will be paying him millions in retirement money. Well, you know he said he was “very concerned” about the burden of retirement benefits for police, firemen and civil servants.

You know, I am pretty sure you can teach an organization how to stand up and say NO and he or she would work for bananas. Mr. McKinley’s concern for the Amazon is admirable but his support, defense and promotion for the mountaintop valley fill coal removal process is double the destruction.

If deforestation of the Amazon would stop today, the forest would begin recovery immediately. The environmental terrorism mountaintop removal will take 100, perhaps 1,000 years to recover to virgin conditions.

Maybe Mike Myer, nature lover and editor of the Wheeling Republican News Register, could shed some light on this situation. Maybe he could tell you that for every one job that is created by mountaintop removal terrorism, six jobs in West Virginia traditional coal mining and supporting jobs are lost. Maybe he could tell you 100 percent of mountaintop coal is for foreign export. And not one pound for producing electric power for West Virginia or reducing its cost. Maybe he could at least print a before and after photo of the mountaintop-valley fill (mining) that is going on at this moment.

Maybe television could do a special on the process.

You know, if ever there is a high court of environmental holocaust or environmental terrorism they would all say they were just following orders. Except David McKinley would just say NO (out of habit) and charge you 12 bananas. Mike Myer would try to blame Obama.

Now let me tell you their latest snow job they have in store for your mountaineers: How great a thing it is for Marcellus/Utica gas wells and facilities in Ohio on the banks of the Ohio River.

Guess what: The West Virginia border is the western shore of the Ohio River. The billions of dollars in lease agreements and royalties may be trillions and it’s your money, West Virginia. Twenty-two million dollars lease and royalties to Ormet for Marcellus/Utica shale gas and you have got to be kidding.

All the resources beneath the Ohio River are yours, West Virginia. This would include the largely untapped hydro power of the Ohio River. Discounted electric power for towns and cities in West Virginia along the Ohio River. Why and who could object to the power shipped out of state and a deep discount to West Virginia industries and businesses?

Have you ever questioned why West Virginia gas leases are $25 to maybe $4,000? If you look across the Ohio River to Ohio, they are $4,000 to possibly $17,000 per acre. Could it be that the politically wise West Virginian that Mike Myer is always speaking of can figure that one out?

Ronald Kwiatkoski, McMechen, Marshall County, WV