Patricia Espinosa as UN climate chief says decisions now will determine our future

From an Article by Abigail Adams, People Magazine Online, June 06, 2022

Now is not the time to lose focus on climate change, United Nations climate chief Patricia Espinosa says.

During an address Monday at the opening ceremony of the U.N.’s Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, the 63-year-old Mexican diplomat urged world leaders to remain focused on addressing the ongoing climate crisis despite other challenges facing populations across the globe — inducing “conflict, energy, food, and economic crises” as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.

But according to Espinosa, who will complete her second term as head of the U.N. climate office at the end of 2022, there is no time to waste with addressing climate change. “I appeal to all of you, especially in these difficult and challenging times, not to lose hope, not to lose focus, but to use our united efforts against climate change as the ultimate act of unity between nations,” she said at the event. “We must never give in to despair,” the diplomat added. “We must continue to move forward. Look at what we have accomplished in the last six years. Look at what we’ve accomplished in the last 30.”

But Espinosa also pressed world leaders to take action, and fast. Earlier in her speech, the climate chief said decisions on how to address the ongoing climate crisis are needed “now,” and that “very difficult decisions” must be made to do so. “We must understand that climate change is moving exponentially. We can no longer afford to make just incremental progress,” she said. “We must move these negotiations along more quickly. The world expects it.”

The Earth is currently about 1.1°C warmer than it was during the 19th century, according to the U.N.’s website. At this pace, the U.N. believes countries are “not on track to meet the Paris Agreement target” of preventing the global temperature from exceeding 1.5°C, which “is considered the upper limit to avoid the worst fallout from climate change.”

Over the next 10 days, Espinosa and “diplomats from around the world will try to lay the foundations” for the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 27) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which will take place in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt this November, according to the Associated Press.

At the opening press conference held later in the day, Espinosa said she believes the 10-day meeting “marks the start of a new face in the intergovernmental climate change process [and] the process of implementation.”

But “one thing is very clear” about the climate crisis, Espinosa noted: “We don’t have time” to waste. “We have a blueprint and we have a framework and we have the rules to ensure that it is transparent,” she said while addressing the media. “So I think it’s time to get on with the job.”

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See Also: Marine Life Could Experience ‘Mass Extinction’ if Humans Don’t Take ‘Rapid Action’ Against Climate Crisis

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See Also: Chevron CEO Warns Not to Count on New US Oil Refinery Even With Surging Gas Prices, Kevin Crowley & Alex Steel, Bloomberg News, June 3, 2022

(Bloomberg) — There may never be a new refinery built in the US despite surging gasoline prices, as policymakers move away from fossil fuels, according to Chevron Corp. “We haven’t had a refinery built in the United States since the 1970s, my personal view is there will never be another new refinery built in the United States,” Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth said.

Refining margins have exploded to historically high levels in recent weeks amid lower supplies from Russia and China and surging demand for gasoline and diesel around the world. “You’re looking at committing capital 10 years out, that will need decades to offer a return for shareholders, in a policy environment where governments around the world are saying: we don’t want these products,” Wirth said. “We’re receiving mixed signals in these policy discussions.”

Will a push for plastics turn Appalachia into next ‘Cancer Alley’?

From an Article by Emily Holden, The Guardian, October 11, 2019

Critics say ethane expansion will not only prolong fracking but could also trigger a public health disaster.

Construction cranes climb into the sky and sprawl across the massive petrochemical facility that will turn a byproduct of fracked gas into plastic on the banks of the Ohio River, just outside Pittsburgh. Even at a distance, from the car park of a cancer treatment centre on a nearby hilltop, Royal Dutch Shell’s 386-acre site is a behemoth. It will anchor yet more gas, plastics and chemicals infrastructure in the tristate region of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

The plant would solidify demand for fracked natural gas and the ethane that comes with it out of the ground. It would make 1.6m tons of plastic and 2.2m tons of globe-heating carbon dioxide annually – roughly the same amount the city of Pittsburgh is trying to eliminate. The facility would also release hundreds of tons of toxic compounds into the air.

As global demand for plastics grows, the buildout of this industry threatens US progress on the climate crisis and clean air.

Opponents say the vast plastics industry will prolong fracking, even after power companies shift further towards renewable power, such as solar and wind. “To me, it’s so obvious that they are trying to lock us into fossil fuels,” said Terrie Baumgardner, a member of the Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community.

At a time when scientists warn humans must stop pulling fossil fuels out of the ground and spewing plastics into the environment, natural gas drilling is booming in Appalachia and the ethane-to-plastics industry there is just getting started.

In a tall office building on a hazy Pittsburgh day, Matt Mehalik, the executive director of a public health collaboration called the Breathe Project, slammed his hand on a table. “This region has been down this path before and we should know better,” he said. “I grew up in Pittsburgh at the time the steel industry unravelled. It has taken 30 years to recover.”

Dangerous air is already present and more coming

Opposed residents have myriad concerns. The Shell ethane facility, or “cracker” plant, would use extreme heat to turn ethane into ethylene, which becomes the polyethylene in plastic bottles, bags and food packaging. It will be fed by thousands of fracking wells that dot local communities, including next to day-care facilities and school bus stops.

Pipelines run under neighbourhoods that have previously been affected by explosions and fires. Trucks overwhelm the roads.

Residents opposing the ever-growing expansion say they worry about illnesses and dozens of cases of rare cancers they never saw in generations past.

Pittsburgh already has some of the most dangerous air in America. The city received a double-F rating from the American Lung Association for smog and particle pollution from fossil fuels. And Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, has ranked in the top 2% for cancer risks from air pollution.

And a report by the Conservation Voters of Pennsylvania last year found that since 2007, companies profiting from fracking had spent nearly $70m lobbying the state government, in part to insist the method was safe.

“Fracking money has undermined the voice of the people in comparison to the voice of the desire for fracking in the region,” said Mark Dixon, a film-maker and activist.

The pro-business group the Allegheny Conference on Community Development has boasted the plastics boom could turn Appalachia into a petrochemical hub similar to the Gulf Coast. But there, Louisiana residents have long tried to draw attention to the stretch of communities between New Orleans and Baton Rouge known as “Cancer Alley”.

The conference argues its goal is to attract business and that government regulators are responsible for keeping residents healthy. A spokesman, Philip Cynar, said: “We have to think about the holistic approach … we can do a lot more for the overall benefit of the region if we have a good economy.”

The fear of health risks is misplaced, according to Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. In consultation with US regulators, it approved Shell’s air pollution plan in 2015. Allegheny County’s health department considered the effects of the plant’s releases of benzene, toluene, hexane, formaldehyde and ammonia – which cause cancer and other serious health problems. The department found the levels would be “well below the health-based risk value” for an individual.

Shell has said it designed the facility to “obtain the lowest achievable emissions.”

Aside from air pollution, the Shell plant will be as bad for global heating as putting a further 424,000 cars on the road each year. “It’s a huge paradox,” said Grant Ervin, Pittsburgh’s chief resilience officer. Oil and gas jobs pay well, even for people straight out of high school, he said. But the climate crisis puts humans “at the precipice of a public health disaster.”

Job creation has been a priority

Republicans and Democrats have supported the Shell plant, saying it will bring work to an area that has been hit hard by a downturn in US-made steel and coal.

Shell says it will create 6,000 construction jobs in the short term and 600 over the longer term. It is unclear exactly how many will go to locals. State lawmakers offered the company a $1.65bn, 25-year tax cut, the biggest break in Pennsylvania history.

Republican legislators have proposed a package of bills to encourage the natural gas industry, including by speeding the process for permitting projects and providing huge financial incentives.

Pennsylvania’s governor, the Democrat Tom Wolf, inherited the project from a Republican predecessor and now supports it.

But the facility and others like it are antithetical to Wolf’s plans to shrink the climate footprint of Pennsylvania, the country’s fourth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide. He wants to cut carbon pollution in Pennsylvania 26% by 2025, and 80% by 2050. His Department of Environmental Protection said the state is requiring the plant to reduce its climate footprint as possible “to help ensure that economic development and environmental protection can go hand in hand.”

Pittsburgh’s mayor, the Democrat Bill Peduto, famously challenged Trump on climate change, saying Pittsburgh would abide by an international pledge to limit heat-trapping pollution, even if Trump would not. But Peduto has stayed silent about the plant.

Construction continues (temporary stop work underway)

Hailed by Barack Obama as a “bridge fuel”, natural gas has become a nightmare for climate advocates. It has spurred a transition from coal, which emits twice as much carbon dioxide. But the bridge does not seem to be ending, and the natural gas production process leaks methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

The industry has continued to build wells, plants and pipelines – about 27% of natural gas in the US comes from the Marcellus and Utica shales under Appalachia. By 2040, the area will produce 37% of the country’s natural gas, according to the data firm IHS Markit.

Appalachia has wet gas, meaning it produces both the methane mixture that is used for power and stovetops and natural gas liquids, including ethane and propane. Drillers want a local market at which to sell them all.

Of the Democratic frontrunners for president, senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have pledged to ban fracking. Joe Biden, the former vice-president, has not. But the Trump administration is supporting the build-out.

Ken Humphreys, a senior adviser for regional economic development at the US Department of Energy, said: “Broadly this is about creating the conditions for private capital to flow into the region.

Between 2018 and 2040, the US’s capacity for making ethylene and intermediate petrochemical products is expected to nearly double. The energy department argues that global demand for plastic is rising, and it will either be produced in the US or in countries with more lax environmental standards.

Humphreys said there were 7,500 businesses within 300 miles of Pittsburgh, employing 900,000 people to make products that incorporated petrochemicals – most of which came from the Gulf Coast. Producing plastic locally would be more efficient, the department said.

Rare cancers in southwestern Pennsylvania

In Washington County, Pennsylvania, south-west of Pittsburgh, fracking well pads sit alongside neighbourhoods. One, called a super-frack pad because of its dozens of wellheads, sits in a valley next to the former coal community of Marianna.

A school bus stop overlooks the site and the children who wait there each morning live in brick homes that were built for coalminers and then abandoned.

Four counties in south-western Pennsylvania have been afflicted by a rash of rare cancers, including 27 cases of Ewing sarcoma over 10 years in a population of about 750,000. The bone cancer usually occurs in children and young adults.

A retired paediatrician, Ned Ketyer, said: “Ewing sarcoma is a nightmare for the families that are given that diagnosis, and certainly for the patients and also for the physicians that diagnose it. It starts very quietly but by the time the diagnosis is made it has deepened and spread.”

There are dozens of other rare cancer cases in the area too. The Pennsylvania Department of Health studied rates of the disease in two school districts and said there was no evidence of a cluster.

But people are still worried. Last week, 50 environmental advocacy and public health groups as well as hundreds of individuals signed a letter to the Pennsylvania governor asking him to attend a public meeting to hear their health concerns. The state’s epidemiologist attended instead.

The region has a toxic legacy that predates natural gas – including hundreds of years of coal-mining and agriculture pesticide use. But Ketyer said the cancers did not begin until fracking arrived.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection found the Shell plant’s hazardous air pollutants–which cause cancer and other serious sicknesses–“will not threaten public health and safety,” spokesman Neil Shader said.

Residents also worry about gas industry accidents. One September morning in 2018, Karen Gdula awoke to an explosion and flames shooting into the air from a 24-inch pipeline buried a few houses away. Her neighbours narrowly escaped with several of their dogs, but they lost their home, another dog and four cats in the fire.

Another neighbour, who was celebrating her birthday, had trouble convincing an emergency services operator that the pipeline had exploded until the operator heard the fire roar. The flames were so hot they melted a nearby transmission tower.

A second pipeline is under construction that will cross over the one that exploded. Gdula has been working with the construction company to make it safer for the neighbourhood. “My goal is safety,” she said. “We don’t believe we can stop them but we can do what we can to be safe.”

Global climate change

Natural gas from shale – the type that is extracted with fracking – is expected to double in the US in the coming decades, mostly in the east, according to the US Energy Information Administration. And the energy department expects an enormous 20-fold surge in ethane production in the eastern US by 2025.

Scientists say to avoid catastrophe from rising temperatures, people must rapidly reduce their emissions from fossil fuels to net zero by 2050.

The world is already 1C hotter than before industrialisation, and it is on track to warm an additional 2C – worsening extreme weather and poverty and leading to rapidly rising seas.

The Center for International Environmental Law, a pro-environment group, estimates that by 2050 climate-harming emissions from the production and incineration of plastics could reach 56 gigatons per year, or 10-13% of the budget allowed for keeping temperatures from rising more than 1.5C.

There is no way of knowing how much a plastics hub in Appalachia will exacerbate global warming and offset the work of states and cities trying to cut heat-trapping emissions. The ethane boom will, however, stretch beyond western Pennsylvania into Ohio and West Virginia.

In nearby Barnesville, Jill Hunkler said she was driven from her home by fracking. As gas wells were constructed around her, Hunkler said she started to experience headaches, breathing problems, burning eyes and a metallic taste in her mouth.

Hunkler counts 78 producing wells within five miles of her house, according to data from FracTracker. “There’s just no respect for the local community’s health,” she claimed.

Bev Reed, a nursing graduate and intern at the Sierra Club, a grassroots environmental organisation, said the community had no say over whether the facility was built.

“We already know it’s not sustainable and that Appalachia has been pillaged and plundered and raped for pretty much as long as its existed,” Reed said. “We’ve seen enough and we deserve better.”

…… Support the Guardian newspaper for its detailed investigative reporting, as it only takes a minute. Thank you.

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See also: The Ohio River Defines the Borders of Five States—But Its Pollution Doesn’t Stop at State Lines, Susan Cosier, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), August 21, 2019

In a move that could open the door to industrial waste and interstate squabbles, the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission is making its water quality standards voluntary.

[The Ohio River consistently is ranked as the most polluted in the country, with an estimated 30 million pounds of toxic chemicals illegally dumped into its waters each year.] dgn

CDC, state officials investigating multiple cases of rare cancer in southwestern Pa.

From an Article by David Templeton & Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 28, 2019

Many in the Canon-McMillan School District first learned about Ewing sarcoma, a rare childhood bone cancer, when Luke Blanock of the village of Cecil was diagnosed on Dec. 5, 2014.

The media did stories about the community rallying around the smart, handsome teenager and his family, then returned on Feb. 19, 2016, to cover Mr. Blanock — pale, thin and having just been told he had only two weeks to live — when he married his high school girlfriend, Natalie Britvich.

He rebounded a bit and even played a round of golf before succumbing nearly six months later on Aug. 7, from multiple tumors of the brain, spine, skull, jaw and pelvis. He was only 19.

But, as it turns out, the Ewing sarcoma scare within Canon-McMillan’s boundaries in eastern Washington County neither began nor ended with Luke Blanock.

In fact, six cases of Ewing sarcoma have been diagnosed within the school district since 2008, including two cases in the past nine months.

And only now is it being disclosed that twice that number of Ewing cases have occurred in southeastern Westmoreland County since 2011.

Only 200 to 250 cases of Ewing sarcoma — a rare cancer of the bone or nearby soft tissue — occur each year in the United States. The National Cancer Institute said the incidence for all ages is one case per million but up to 10 cases per million among those in the 10-to-19 age group.

Based on a report by a concerned resident and St. Vincent College researchers about the Ewing cases in Westmoreland County, the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched a study to determine whether these cases constitute a cluster. The state now has expanded the investigation to include the Canon-McMillan School District and Washington County.

Nate Wardle, health department spokesman, said it received more than a dozen phone calls within the last month from residents of Washington and Westmoreland counties about the Ewing sarcoma cases, and several more called this week.

Ewing Sarcoma Canon Cases mount up

The string of Ewing cases in Canon-McMillan began with the mid-2008 diagnosis of Curtis Valent, a Cecil Township resident who graduated from Bishop Canevin High School. He died on Jan. 2, 2011, at age 23, according to his obituary. His parents could not be reached for comment.

Late in 2008, Alyssa Chambers, then an 18-year-old Canon-McMillan senior living in northern Cecil Township, was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma and survived. She later became an oncology nurse at UPMC Shadyside.

Kyle Deliere, who lived about a mile from Mr. Blanock in the village of Cecil, was diagnosed with Ewing next, on Oct. 30, 2011. He lost weight, had night sweats and fevers, and developed large tumors on his hip, femur and lungs. The 11-letter high school athlete who wrestled for the University of Pittsburgh died on Nov. 15, 2013, at age 27.

Then in June 2018, David Cobb, 37 at the time, and also living in Cecil Township, was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma and now is undergoing rounds of chemotherapy.

Compounding this cancer conundrum and fueling concern, Mitchell Barton, a 21-year-old Canon-McMillan graduate now working as a technician in a local box factory, posted news on Facebook of his Dec. 27, 2018, Ewing diagnosis.

He and Mr. Blanock played baseball together in high school. Mr. Barton, now undergoing chemotherapy, still lives at home in North Strabane, where fracked natural gas wells surround him. For that reason, environmental issues crossed his mind from the moment of diagnosis.

“I worked at a golf course for four years and was exposed to a lot of chemicals, weed killers and things like that,” he said. “Our house also is in a valley surrounded by four gas wells. I heard about natural gas and my mom is concerned about methane [natural gas].”

In addition to the Ewing cases, a 14-year-old girl from Cecil Township died of astrocytoma, a brain and spinal cord cancer, in February, and as many as seven current students and two preschoolers in the Canon-McMillan School District have other types of cancer.

Those nine consist of two cases of osteosarcoma (bone); one liposarcoma (joint); one rhabdomyosarcoma (also joint); a Wilms (kidney) tumor in a child whose family has moved from the district; one liver cancer; two cases of leukemia (blood); and a 2-year-old with cancer that the parent declined to identify.

In another case, a 21-year-old Canon-McMillan graduate of North Strabane was diagnosed in early January with leukemia.

Another concentration of cases: The worries about Ewing and other forms of childhood cancer go well beyond the Canon-McMillan School District. In Westmoreland County, 12 cases of Ewing sarcoma were found to be diagnosed from 2011 through early 2018.

Maureen Grace, a Westmoreland County lawyer and teacher, began compiling a list upon hearing of one case after another in areas southeast of Greensburg. “All that I can say is that I saw beautiful children and families suffering. I asked myself, ‘What if this happened to a child in my family?’ Every child, every parent and anyone who cares about children has the right to clean, healthy, safe air, water and surroundings for their babies, little ones and teenagers to grow and become adults. I don’t know if we have this environment right now,” Ms. Grace said.

“Our children are our most precious resource. If we don’t investigate this to the very best of our abilities, who are we as a culture or community?” she added. “We need to do better for our little ones who look to us for the answers. We need to protect them above all else.”

So determined, she sought help from two St. Vincent College researchers — Elaine Bennett, professor of anthropology and public health, and Cynthia Walter, a now-retired professor of ecology and toxicology — who recruited students to help verify cases, analyze results and write a report. Ms. Grace also received help through the Healthy Child/Healthy World Organization. The research team, known as the Westmoreland County Pa. Ewing Sarcoma Project, submitted its report to the state health department and CDC in December 2017.

Working quietly, Ms. Grace finally responded to longstanding inquiries from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and stepped forward with Ms. Walter, who holds a doctorate in biology, to publicize their results. Ms. Grace said she initially documented eight pediatric Ewing cases and the health department now has expanded that total to 12, when cases involving young adults were included.

Confirming a cluster requires meeting a high statistical and analytical bar, including identifying a pollution or chemical exposure linked to that cancer, according to a Pitt biostatistician. That presents a problem because Ewing sarcoma has no known cause. What could be the cause?

The Westmoreland project presented the state with a long list of possible pollution sources, including countywide shale gas drilling and fracking operations and a Penn Township landfill that has accepted thousands of tons of radioactive drill cuttings from gas well sites. The project’s report also makes a case for how pollution exposure could lead to Ewing.

But Ms. Grace said she and the team don’t yet know if fracking, water or air pollution, or pollution from old industry, among other sources of pollution and contamination, are responsible. “We don’t want our aim to stray from seeking a scientific cause and solution,” she said.

The health department said it is reviewing cancer statistics for Washington County and for the Canon-McMillan School District, where it is only aware of four cases but has yet to incorporate 2018 cancer data into its review. In the past decade, two additional Ewing sarcoma cases have occurred in Washington County — one in Charleroi and another in or near Bentleyville — with at least two cases each in Greene and Fayette counties.

The health department also said it has been working with researchers to separately evaluate and monitor Westmoreland County statistics. Even with 12 Ewing cases, the department does not see a statistically significant excessive number in Westmoreland County, Mr. Wardle said, adding that that finding has been shared with concerned residents of the county. “But we will continue to monitor the number of cases in the area.”

He said the department is doing the statistical evaluation of the Ewing cases in Washington County and now has included all childhood cancers in the study, including those identified by the Post-Gazette.

The Ewing family of sarcoma is not one of the common cancers the department reports on annually, he said. Most cases occur in teens when they experience growth spurts, and science is limited as to what causes it.

The concerned citizens who recently called the health department wanted to know if the cancer cases are related to environmental factors, including radiation, Mr. Wardle said. Washington County has historic radiation issues related to a uranium mill tailings disposal site in North Strabane, near Canonsburg, where the U.S. Department of Energy continues to report background or below background levels of radiation.

Another concern is the widespread drilling and fracking of more than 1,000 shale gas wells, which produce waste water with radioactive components, among other pollutants. The first experimental well in southwestern Pennsylvania was fracked in 2005 in Cecil Township. The township now sits downwind from a phalanx of compressor stations and a hilltop cryogenics plant, a major source of pollution.

Academic studies done in Pennsylvania and Colorado have found higher rates of childhood cancers in areas where fracking is occurring but with no links to Ewing sarcoma.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition, the trade organization representing the shale gas industry in Pennsylvania, issued a statement citing a review of medical data by the American Cancer Society that found “no known lifestyle-related or environmental causes of Ewing tumors ….”

In a statement, David Spigelmyer, coalition president, said attempts to link the incidence of Ewing sarcoma and other childhood cancers to the shale gas drilling industry were without scientific or medical support.

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See also: Study Finds Higher Risk of Brain Tumors in Appalachia, January 17, 2019

Diesel fuel fire on well pad destroys 8 trucks, etc.

From an Article by Kathie Warco, Washington (PA) Observer Reporter, June 28, 2018

The director of Washington County’s Department of Public Safety is praising the quick reaction of the first firefighters on the scene of a fire at a CNX well pad Wednesday night on Newland School Road in East Finley Township.

Crews from numerous departments were called about 10:10 p.m. to the Morris 31 pad, with the first fire truck arriving five minutes later, said Jeff Yates, county public safety director.

Yates said a worker was refueling frack trucks with high-pressure pumps when there was an ignition and fire. Seven of the frack trucks caught fire and were destroyed, along with the truck being used for refueling and a man lift, Yates said. There also was some damage to an acid tanker.

“When the fire started, the well crew shut the wells off and went to the muster point, where they were all present and accounted for,” Yates said. “Most well sites have a primary and secondary spot where they meet during an emergency. They practice this.”

“The firefighters did a great job stopping the fire quickly and keeping it away from the well pad,” Yates said. “The well pad was never in danger.” Yates said crews from West Finley and Morris Township fire departments were the first to arrive.

“It was a big ball of fire,” said Steve Emery, West Finley fire chief, of the scene as he and his crews were the first to arrive at the scene. “When we got there, there were four or five trucks on fire. Then there were explosions from tires and maybe some tanks.”

Emery said it is a major loss. “We are probably talking a million dollars,” the fire chief said.

About 4,000 gallons of diesel fuel ignited, said Lauren Fraley, DEP community relations coordinator. The DEP team did not observe runoff or fluids leaving the site, she added.

DEP staff returned Thursday to gather information on the cause and to get estimates on the volume of material lost, Fraley added. She said they will also be getting information on remediation by CNX and how they prevent similar incidents in the future. She also said the actual wells were not compromised.

Also assisting were members of the county’s public safety department, along with firefighters from Claysville, West Alexander, Lone Pine and Amwell, Canton, Hanover and South Strabane townships in Washington County. Also responding were firefighters from Richhill and Morris Township in Greene County and Dallas Pike in West Virginia.

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Consol, CNX and affiliates donate property for bat conservation area in Greene County

From an Article by Bob Niedbala, Washington (PA) Observer Reporter, July 22, 2018

Consol Energy, CNX Resources and affiliated companies have donated more than 1,500 acres of property in Richhill Township to the PA Game Commission to expand existing state game lands and develop a bat conservation area.

About 1,236 of the 1,536 acres of land adjoin State Game Lands 302 in the northwestern corner of Greene County. The properties are bisected by Consol Energy’s overland coal conveyor belt that runs between Crabapple and Enon and are known as an Indiana bat habitat, according to the game commission. The remaining 300 acres are just southeast of the game lands.

As part of the transaction, the companies also agreed to donate $580,000 to the commission for a stewardship fund for the perpetual management of the land, including payment in lieu of taxes on the property.

“The companies are glad to be part of such an important project and be afforded the opportunity to provide a perpetual conservation area in Greene County,” Consol spokesman Zackery Smith said in an email explaining the donation.

“The combined coordination with the local, state and federal agencies was focused on a common goal: to protect our threatened and endangered species and allow for future public enjoyment of natural areas within our beautiful state,” he said.

The transaction is a good deal for the game commission, said Dennis Neideigh, game commission chief of real estate. The commission “looked at it from the perspective of future hunting opportunities and wildlife management,” he said. With the acquisition, “about 1,500 acres will be open to public hunting and wildlife management,” he said.The area is also known to be an Indiana bat roosting and foraging area, Neideigh said. It’s management as a bat conservation area coincides well with the game commission’s roll in managing wildlife.What the commission is always looking to expand games lands where it is possible.

Example of Drilling Mud Spill for Pipeline

From an Article by Joe Fisher and Maya Weber, Platts News Service, August 9, 2017

Houston — Energy Transfer Partners’ beleaguered Rover Pipeline natural gas project is expected to be in service by the end of November or early December, with full commercial service in January, company executives said Wednesday.

>>> Phase 1A of Rover — from Cadiz to Defiance, Ohio — is nearly done, with completion expected by the company in the coming days, executives said during a second-quarter earnings conference call. When finished, Rover will seek US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission permission to place those facilities into service.

>>> Phase 1B is awaiting FERC approval for one directional drill. With that approval in hand, the drill should be completed in about 40 days, and in-service authorization will be sought immediately after that, executives said.

>>> Rover Phase 2 is held up at FERC as well.

“Assuming quick resolution by FERC regarding Phase 2, we expect to be in service by the end of November or early December with full commercial service in January,” Energy Transfer CFO Tom Long said.

Rover has faced regulatory setbacks after drilling releases into Ohio wetlands and demolition of a farmhouse that had been eligible for listing on a national historic registry. FERC initiated investigations related to both matters and ordered a stop to some directional drilling. The Ohio EPA has also proposed fines related to environmental mishaps and ordered remediation. And West Virginia regulators last month halted some operations in light of erosion and runoff problems.

Any signoff to bring parts of the project into service will require first satisfying FERC. The agency on July 12 gave Rover a substantial list of environmental restoration work it would require before allowing Mainline A of the project to enter service.

In addition, FERC has said that prior to authorizing future HDDs, commission staff “anticipates the development of a set of protocols to prevent future drilling and mud contamination.”

Cleanups to ‘resolve themselves pretty quickly’

Matt Ramsey, Energy Transfer’s chief operating officer, said Rover has been working with Ohio EPA and fully complying with its order for a cleanup project at the Tuscarawas River where an inadvertent release of drilling mud occurred. Cleanup is expected to be completed by mid-August, he said.

“Those issues are going to resolve themselves pretty quickly,” Ramsey said.

The drilling mud discharge contained diesel fuel of an unknown origin.

Energy Transfer maintains it does not know where the diesel could have come from. ETP executives do not expect FERC’s investigation into the matter to hold up bringing Rover into service, they said Wednesday.

In one positive development for the Rover project Wednesday, West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection lifted a cease and desist order it had issued in mid-July halting work on two supply laterals and a compressor station in Doddridge and Tyler counties. An inspection Wednesday determined that violations had been corrected, the DEP said. The agency had previously flagged failures to maintain erosion control devices needed to keep sediment out of waterways.

Energy Transfer recently announced the sale of a large stake in Rover to private equity firm Blackstone for $1.57 billion. Closing of the deal is not dependent upon the full in-service of Rover, executives said. Closing with Blackstone is expected in October.

Construction of the Rover-related Revolution project is expected to be completed during the fourth quarter, executives said Wednesday. The Revolution Pipeline originates in Butler County, Pennsylvania, and will extend to ETP’s Revolution Plant, a new cryogenic gas processing plant in Western Pennsylvania.

Mariner 2 Drill Approvals

Energy Transfer’s Mariner East 2 NGL pipeline project also has been bedeviled by regulatory and/or environmental issues. According to Long on Wednesday, about 80% of the pipeline has been strung and more than 70% has been welded. More than half of the pipeline has been lowered into its trench and backfilled.

Long said Wednesday that a halt on horizontal directional drilling in Pennsylvania instituted in July had been partially resolved.

“Over the last several days, the [Pennsylvania Environmental] Hearing Board has authorized ME2 to proceed with 16 drill locations,” he said. “We are working for approval to complete the remaining drills,” he said of the 39 drill sites where works remains stopped.

Mariner East 2 is expected to be in service during the fourth quarter, according to Energy Transfer.

The company has been in talks with potential partners that would provide capital for Mariner East 2 through a joint venture. Mackie McCrea, ETP’s chief commercial officer, said the company prefers a partner in the project that would bring long-term demand charges or long-term purchases.

Energy Transfer has been working on extending and restructuring “the vast majority” of agreements related to Mariner East 2. Rover is key to Mariner East 2 as well as the Revolution project, executives said.

The company is looking forward to a stronger balance sheet as these and other projects come online and begin generating revenue, and leverage comes down, executives said. Once earnings catch up with three years’ worth of project funding, its equity overhang will go away and there will be a “totally different balance sheet,” Long said.

During the second quarter, Energy Transfer Partners net income was $292 million, and adjusted EBITDA was $1.6 billion. Adjusted EBITDA increased $229 million compared to the year-ago quarter, “reflecting significantly higher results from the midstream and crude oil transportation and services segments,” the company said.

Senator is On The Job

“Time to Wake Up” — Now Over 100 Speeches on the Floor of the US Senate

From an Article by Katie Valentine, Think Progress, May 18, 2015

For climate activists — or really anyone who thinks climate change is a problem — there’s a lot to love about Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. The two-term Democratic Senator from Rhode Island is a climate change champion in Congress, introducing legislation aimed at slowing the planet’s warming, calling out colleagues who deny the problem exists, and, for nearly the past three years, giving weekly, impassioned speeches on the Senate floor on the need to act on climate change.

On Monday (May 25th), Whitehouse will give his 100th floor speech on climate change. As Agence France-Presse reports, Whitehouse usually gives these speeches to an empty or near-empty room, accompanied by a green sign warning his colleagues that it’s “Time To Wake Up.”

Few of Whitehouse’s colleagues have taken his pleas for action to heart. More than 56 percent of Republicans in the 114th Congress deny or question that climate change exists and is caused by humans, and some members of Congress, such as Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), openly mock the idea that climate change is posing a problem.

So far, this hasn’t deterred Whitehouse, however. “If I look back 20 years from now and I can’t say I did everything possible, I’ll never be able to live with myself,” he told Morning Consult about his weekly speeches.

Whitehouse said he had something specific planned for his 100th speech, which he’s set to give around 6:15 p.m. Monday, but said he was “not going to ruin the surprise.” Until then, here are six of the greatest moments from Whitehouse’s past floor speeches on climate change:

‘They’re Not Gynecologists, Either’

In early 2014, a pattern emerged among some politicians who were asked whether or not they accepted that climate change was happening: instead of answering definitively one way or another, they skirted the question, saying simply “I’m not a scientist.”

Whitehouse lambasted this response in November, noting that the lawmakers who have used the excuse — including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House speaker John Boehner (R-OH), and Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) — were “not gynecologists, either, but many have no hesitation about trying to regulate that area.”

“Say you’re not a scientist. Isn’t the responsible thing to sound out scientific opinion?” Whitehouse asked on the Senate floor. “Scientific opinion about climate change is now firmly settled. Climate change is caused by the massive carbon pollution we have unleashed.”

‘You Can Believe NASA….Or You Can Believe The Senator With The Snowball’

In Feburary, Sen. Whitehouse hit back against Sen. Inhofe’s speech in which the Republican senator brought a snowball to Senate floor in an attempt to show that, despite NASA and NOAA finding that 2014 was the warmest year on record, it was “unseasonably cold” in D.C.

In his brief speech — which wasn’t technically part of his 99 “It’s Time To Wake Up” speeches on climate but which still addressed climate change — Whitehouse referenced the multitude of groups that acknowledge climate change, including an corporate interests, “every major American scientific society,” the U.S. Navy, and Pope Francis.

He also explained that the polar vortex was responsible for bringing cold air down to D.C. that week — an event that doesn’t disprove the earth’s greater warming trend that is “beyond legitimate dispute” among scientists.

‘The Oceans Are Warning Us And We Still Do Not Listen’

Whitehouse doesn’t just focus on political fights in his speeches, however. As a Senator from Rhode Island, Whitehouse has been particularly keen on spreading the word about climate change and ocean acidification’s impact on the world’s oceans. In one of his latest speeches on ocean acidification and warming, Whitehouse spoke of the oceans’ mass absorption of carbon dioxide and the impact that has on marine life, and on the fishermen that depend on it.

“I’ve had fishermen back home tell me they’re catching fish their fathers and grandfathers never saw come up in their nets,” Whitehouse said.

Warmer temperatures “make oxygen less soluble in water,” Whitehouse said. “Do we tell the fish to hold their breath while we wait to wake up?” Also, “From coast to coast, and pole to pole, the oceans are warning us, and we still do not listen,” he continued.

‘[Mitch McConnell’s] Own State Recognizes Climate Change As A Problem’

In March, Senate Majority Leader McConnell issued a statement warning other states not to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule on carbon pollution from power plants.

But Whitehouse, in an April speech, singled out McConnell’s state of Kentucky for its statements on climate change. Whitehouse said that the state of Kentucky — along with several cities, Kentucky-based scientists, and Kentucky publications — have warned about the impacts climate change will likely have on the state, including increased migration from coastal states.

“Before our distinguished majority leader, the senior senator from Kentucky, asks all other states to throw in the towel on conforming to the U.S. government’s plan for dealing with carbon pollution, I would ask that he acknowledge that his own state recognizes climate change as a problem,” he said.

‘The Clearer The Science Becomes, The Harder The Polluters Fight’

In his 98th “Time To Wake Up” speech on climate chage, Whitehouse compared the tactics of the oil industry in sowing doubt on climate change to those of the tobacco industry, which in the 1950s and 1960s sought to spread doubt that smoking caused cancer. Action on climate change is a “business risk” for the fossil fuel industry, and that risk is similar to the risk felt by the tobacco industry if the public believed cigarettes caused cancer, Whitehouse said.

“The fossil fuel industry is engaged in a massive effort to deny climate science and deceive the American public,” he said. “They’ve been at it for years, and the clearer the science becomes, the harder the polluters fight.”

See also: Senate Floor Charts of Senator Whitehouse

Diesel Fuel Tanker Fire near Penna.

Diesel fuel tanker truck fire shuts down I-79 near Star City Exit

From an Article of the Morgantown Dominion Post, May 9, 2015

Morgantown, WV — A tanker-truck fire Friday afternoon, May 8, on Interstate 79 sent the vehicle’s driver to the hospital with serious burns — and put up a column of roiling, black smoke that could be seen miles away. Authorities said the 26-year-old man, whose name was not released, was flown by HealthNet helicopter to a Pittsburgh hospital for his injuries.

According to initial reports, he was found sprawled in a ditch about 200 yards from his ruined truck. Star City Volunteer Fire Chief Kris Osecky didn’t know about that, though. “Honestly, I’m not sure if he got out himself or if somebody pulled him out,” the chief said. What he did know was his fire crew and the other companies from  Cassville, Westover and Granville that responded had a blaze that could have turned into even more of a calamity.

The truck, which was traveling south into West Virginia, came to rest in the median strip about a mile before Star City Exit 155. Passing motorists made their first calls to MECCA 911, Monongalia County’s emergency dispatch center, at about 2:10 PM. Fire trucks and ambulances had to thread through stalled traffic that snarled both the northbound and southbound lanes of the highway.

For whatever reason, Osecky said, the truck became engulfed. As the flames shot up, the 4,000 gallons of diesel fuel the truck was carrying began pouring into the median and over a nearby embankment. The charred metal was right next to a storm drain in the median.

After he found out the driver was in the air and on his way to the hospital, and after he saw that the flames were being contained, Osecky said he started paying attention to the spilled fuel soaking into the ground near that drain.

Hazardous material crews from Monongalia County and the West Virginia State Police were also on the scene, along with inspectors from the state Department of Environmental Protection (WV-DEP). One DEP inspector was in a boat on the nearby Monongahela River, checking for any fuel runoff into that body of water and any other neighboring streams.

Coen Oil, the Washington PA energy company that owns the truck and employs the driver who was hurt, was also sending its own crews for cleanup. Firefighters were at the scene until 8:30 p.m.

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Oil Spills into Scott’s Run Creek After I-79 Tanker Truck Accident

From an Article by Megan Hudock, WBOY News 12, May 8, 2015

A tanker truck overturned on Interstate 79 on Friday afternoon, backing up traffic for several hours near mile marker 156. After the truck overturned, there were some concerned residents in Osage. Some oil leaked into the Scott’s Run Creek.

“The smell came first, then Charlie, my next door neighbor, came over and got me and said come down here and I want you to look at the Creek. I walked down to his place behind his house and Jesus Criminy, it’s a mess,” said Larry Taylor, Osage Resident.

Residents along the creek are concerned for their health. As soon as the Osage area is entered, fumes from the spill can immediately be detected. There are also several patches of oil through the stream.

“It’s affecting my lungs, it’s affecting it real bad, and I can feel it too, I can feel my chest tightening up,” said Taylor. The residents feel that they are being ignored out in Osage. Their hope is to have the creek water cleaned up before it affects the wildlife in there.

“It’s like we’ve just been lost up here, no one wants to help us. It’s been like this for years. Everytime we ask the county commissioners for help they always give us the run around or something,” said Taylor.

The residents live just yards from the creek and are constantly breathing in the fumes. Some are evacuating while others are deciding to stay. “I’m going to stay here at home tonight, I’m going to take my chances here tonight. Nobody ever officially came out and said what we smell, don’t know if it was something dangerous or it could have just been some pancake syrup or something,” said Willy Campbell, Osage Resident.

“I just hope they get down here and help us,” said Charles Coulter.

P. S. See a video of the crash scene and fire here.

Conaway Lake on Tyler County road

W.Va. wildlife land fracking could yield $6M, royalties

From an Article by the Associated Press, Huntington Herald Dispatch, November 21, 2014

Charleston, WV — A company has bid $6.2 million plus royalties to drill for natural gas and oil under state wildlife conservation land in Tyler County. Denver-based Antero Resources is offering to pay more than $12,000 an acre for fracking rights under Conaway Run Wildlife Management Area, state Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette said.

The bid includes a 20-percent royalty on what’s extracted, and the lease would likely last three years. The bid on the 518-acre wildlife area’s oil and natural gas rights was unveiled Friday in Charleston. The land is used for hunting, fishing and camping, and includes a 100-yard rifle range.

It’s the second time West Virginia has offered to let companies drill horizontally under its land. Leasing the land for the technique called hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, is a new venture for West Virginia, and officials think it could produce plenty of money during uncertain budget times.

In West Virginia’s first try at fracking leases, officials opened bids for 22 miles of state land under the Ohio River in September. Six miles are under contract negotiations and another 11 miles are out for bid or will be shortly. Seven additional miles are being considered for bid openings.

Environmental groups cautioned Gov. Early Ray Tomblin to reconsider the Ohio River leases, since they would allow drilling beneath a river that provides drinking water to millions of people. Burdette said the drilling would occur about a mile under the river. State environmental regulators would still have to approve permits for the operations. All drilling equipment would need to be off-site of the state lands, Burdette added.

Other properties the state is thinking about leasing rights for include: 131 acres under Fish Creek in Marshall County; Jug Wildlife Management Area in Tyler County; and 24 acres in Doddridge County.

No fracking contracts have yet been finalized, however. All the money from the state’s fracking leases would go back into Division of Natural Resources needs, like upgrades at state parks.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Marcellus Well Pad During Fracking

New study shows gas workers could be exposed to dangerous levels of benzene

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From an Article by Susan Phillips, NPR StateImpact-PA, August 28, 2014

A new study out this month reveals unconventional oil and natural gas workers could be exposed to dangerous levels of benzene, putting them at a higher risk for blood cancers like leukemia. Benzene is a known carcinogen that is present in fracking flowback water. It’s also found in gasoline, cigarette smoke and in chemical manufacturing. As a known carcinogen, benzene exposures in the workplace are limited by federal regulations under OSHA. But some oil and gas production activities are exempt from those standards.

The National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH) worked with industry to measure chemical exposures of workers who monitor flowback fluid at well sites in Colorado and Wyoming. A summary of the peer-reviewed article was published online this month on a CDC website. In several cases benzene exposures were found to be above safe levels.

The study is unusual in that it did not simply rely on air samples. The researchers also took urine samples from workers, linking the exposure to absorption of the toxin in their bodies. One of the limits of the study includes the small sample size, only six sites in two states.

Dr. Bernard Goldstein from the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health says the study is the first of its kind. Goldstein did not contribute to the study’s research, but he has conducted his own research on benzene. And he’s treated patients exposed to the carcinogen. “These workers are at higher risk for leukemia,” said Goldstein. “The longer, the more frequently they do this, the more likely they are to get leukemia particularly if the levels are high.”

The study looked at workers who use a gauge to measure the amount of flowback water that returns after a frack job is initiated. A spokeswoman for NIOSH says none of their studies draw any conclusions about exposures to nearby residents, but focus specifically on workers.

But Dr. Goldstein says it shows that there could be potential risks to residents as well. “We’re not acting in a way to protect the public who are at high risk,” said Goldstein. “And we can’t even tell you who is at high risk. Yet we’re rushing ahead in a situation where all of the data are telling us that there are risks.” He urges a similar study should take place in Pennsylvania.

“These are the kind of studies that should be done,” said Goldstein. “It should have been done a long time before this. They’re first being done now. They must be done in Pennsylvania.”

A spokeswoman for an industry group says there is always room for improvement if toxic exposures exist. “[The study represents] a small sample size,” said Katie Brown with the group Energy In Depth. “It is limited in that respect. I think that’s the whole reason for this partnership is to study it and see how [drillers] can improve.”

Authors of the NIOSH benzene study said that more research with larger sample sizes should be done, especially since there was so much variation in the levels observed at different times and well sites. The researchers also listed a number of recommendations for industry to take to reduce benzene levels on the job site. These include changing tank gauging procedures, training workers, limiting exposure times, carrying gas monitors, using respiratory and hand protection, and monitoring exposure levels.

From: "NO Fracking Western Maryland"

Drilling-wary Maryland is one of several East Coast states considering whether to open their lands to fracking as public health concerns

From an Article by Zahra Hirji, InsideClimate News, August 21, 2014

A state-commissioned report found that air emissions trump water pollution and drilling-induced earthquakes as a top public health threat posed by future fracking projects in Maryland.

For nearly a year, experts at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health examined past research into the link between oil and gas activity and health. The findings, released Monday, stand in stark contrast to public concern in heavy-drilling states such as Maryland’s neighbor Pennsylvania. Those concerns have tended to focus on tainted water, not air.

And in some major fracking states, including Texas, residents have been vocal about air concerns, but their complaints have largely been ignored, as an eight-month joint investigation by InsideClimate News and the Center for Public Integrity revealed.

According to the Maryland study’s principal investigator, Donald Milton, existing data show a clear trend: oil and gas activity can spew significant levels of toxic chemicals into the air—and that pollution consistently makes people sick.

“We think [the state] should pay a lot of attention to air pollution,” said Milton, who is director of the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health and a UMD professor of epidemiology, biostatistics, and medicine. Although water pollution is also a concern, Milton told InsideClimate News that there’s not enough data on how likely dirty water is to sicken people, nor how strong those health effects would be.

The 173-page peer-reviewed report ranked the severity of more than a half dozen potential health impacts of fracking; air quality got a “high” threat ranking, whereas water pollution ranked “moderately high” threat and earthquakes “low.” The report also recommended regulations such as setback rules and extensive monitoring that match some of the strictest in the industry.

Peer reviewer Clifford Mitchell, who is director of the Environmental Health Bureau at the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, raised questions about the effectiveness of the ranking scheme in his public comments.

“A 10 percent increase in cancer is a higher public health impact than a 10 percent increase in eczema. But both of these are the same likelihood of a public health impact” and treated similarly in the study, Mitchell said.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) is still reviewing the report and was unable to comment, company spokesman Zach Cikanek wrote in an email to InsideClimate News.

Based on a preliminary review of the report, secretaries from Maryland’s Department of Environment, Department of Natural Resources and Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said in a joint statement, “We believe it is important to note that it is largely based on information on natural gas development in areas where the pace of gas development was rapid and intense and without stringent regulations and government oversight.”

Maryland is one of several East Coast states, including New York and North Carolina, considering whether to open their lands to fracking, a controversial practice that involves injecting a mix of chemicals, water and sand underground to blast open bedrock and extract oil and gas.

Maryland’s western corner overlies the Marcellus Shale, the same bedrock formation that has yielded significant oil and gas finds in Pennsylvania. Geologists don’t know exactly the extent of the reserves underneath Maryland’s Allegany and Garrett counties, two of the state’s poorest counties with relatively high unemployment rates, but drillers have been eyeing the area since 2006.

Supporters of fracking in Maryland—and across the U.S.—tout its economic benefits, such as job opportunities and tax revenue from the oil and gas industry. Opponents say fracking can be harmful to the environment and public health, as is echoed in this recent report.

In 2011, Democrat Gov. Martin O’Malley signed an executive order that outlined a state plan for fracking impacts and rules. This recent state-funded study is part of that mandate.

In the report, the researchers used publicly available data to rank the likelihood of negative health effects in western Maryland for eight categories of hazards associated with drilling: air quality, water issues, earthquakes, occupational health, healthcare infrastructure, community demographics, cumulative exposures to multiple hazards, and noise.

The four categories that ranked as “high” threats included air quality, occupational health, healthcare infrastructure, and community demographics.

Based on the rankings, the research team proposed dozens of related rules, including a 2,000-foot setback for drilling activities from populated areas. If Maryland approved that measure, it would have one of the nation’s strictest setbacks.

The researchers strongly urged air monitoring ahead of any drilling activity to establish a baseline of air quality levels, and continued air monitoring after drilling and production begin. Moreover, the public health experts stressed the importance of companies making their data easily accessible to the public.

The public has until October 3rd to comment on the Maryland report.