PRESERVE the Blue Ridge Mountains

NOT SO FAST – Concerns Remain Over ACP & MVP Pipelines

This Article from Rick Webb, Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition, December 17, 2016

The following was published in the December 16, 2016  ABRA Update (No. 109). The National Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management have raised objections to FERC’s permitting timetable for the proposed Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley Pipelines.

In letters to FERC, the agencies state that they must follow their own review process as established by Federal law, and that any timetable is contingent upon receipt of adequate data and analysis. Both agencies raise concerns about delayed or incomplete responses to requests for key information.

The National Forest Service (NFS) has told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that it “does not concur with the permitting timetable” for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) that FERC had previously published. The request and associated comments were contained in a November 18 letter to FERC from Clyde Thompson, Forest Supervisor for the Monongahela National Forest, which was not filed in the FERC docket until December 13.

The comments point out that NFS has “its own administrative review process which must occur before the Forest Service makes a decision on the special use permit” that has been requested for the ACP, and that the procedures and associated schedule that NFS must follow are clearly established by Federal law. The comments also point out that the NFS cannot complete its review process until outstanding data and analyses from the ACP have been satisfied.

A similar position has been expressed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) regarding the permitting schedule for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). In a November 16 letter to FERC (published in the docket December 5), the BLM said it does “not concur with the permitting timetable” for the MVP. The letter specifically uses language identical to the Forest Service letter in saying: “The draft permitting timetable is incorrect because a schedule is otherwise established by federal law.” Both letters were written by the agencies in response to a November 4 email request from FERC.

This entry was posted in Environmental Review, Regulatory Compliance by Rick Webb. Bookmark the permalink.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Protesting at Wayne National Forest in Ohio

From an Article by Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com, December 15, 2016

Despite heavy opposition from public health and environmental groups, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has leased 759 acres of Ohio’s only national forest for fracking.

According to the Associated Press, oil and gas companies from Texas, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Colorado and Oklahoma forked over $1.7 million for the right to explore parts of Wayne National Forest for drilling operations. Lessees still need to obtain a permit before any drilling can start.

The online auction took place on Dec. 13 with the minimum acceptable bid for as little as $2 per acre. The Columbus Dispatch reported that offers made by the 22 registered bidders ranged from the $2 minimum to a high of $5,806.12 per acre.

Opponents of the federal auction, cited concerns over public health impacts and effects on air and water quality, and submitted more than 17,000 comments to the BLM during its 30-day comment period.

“Public lands are for the people, not for the benefit of Big Oil and Gas,” Lena Moffitt, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign, said in a statement last month. “Drilling for oil and gas means more fracking, and fracking means poisoning our air and water, and threatening the health of our communities and our environment. At a time when clean energy like solar and wind is proving to be safest, healthiest and most cost-effective way to power our country, it’s high time we recognized that we need to leave dirty fuels like coal, oil and gas in the ground.”

The BLM reportedly received 100 “valid” complaints but they were all denied by the agency on Monday and the auction moved forward.

Nathan Johnson, an Ohio Environmental Council attorney who helped file a protest on behalf of conservation groups, told the Dispatch that the BLM failed to address new information about the size of well pads and pipelines that come with large-scale fracking projects. “Once they’ve made the decision to lease, that’s the ballgame for them,” he said.

The protest letter also states that the BLM did not adequately address the potential impacts from the oil and gas leasing on threatened or endangered species, including the Indiana bat, northern long-eared bat, fanshell, pink mucket pearly mussel, sheepnose mussel and snuffbox mussel.

“The government’s plan is remarkably shortsighted in its failure to consider the full extent of fracking and wastewater disposal that could occur throughout the forest,” Wendy Park, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said. “Water quality and wildlife will suffer regardless of where these activities occur.”

Just this week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its widely anticipated final report on fracking confirming that the controversial drilling process does impact drinking water. The report is a stunning reversal of its misleading draft assessment that stated fracking has not led to “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources.”

In addition to allowing fracking on public lands, Ohio lawmakers passed House Bill 554 last week, which will freeze renewable energy mandates for another two years if Gov. John Kasich signs the bill. More than 25,000 clean energy jobs are at risk.

A two-year freeze was enacted when Gov. Kasich signed SB 310 on June 13, 2014. HB 554 now seeks to extend that freeze, making renewable energy targets voluntary for utilities. Ohio is the only state in the nation that has frozen its renewable energy mandates. 

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 U. S. Forest Service says no drilling on 40,000 acres in the Wyoming Range

By Christine Peterson, Casper Star Tribune, December 16, 2016

Oil and gas drilling will not be allowed in almost 40,000 acres of the Bridger-Teton National Forest, the U.S. Forest Service announced Friday, ending more than a decade of limbo for conservation groups and energy companies.

The Forest Service said the outcome was based on more than 62,000 comments on four possible options.

“What really came through was sense of place and what the Wyoming Range embodied in terms of the landscape and how people derive their economic welfare from it,” said Mary Cernicek, spokeswoman for the Bridger-Teton forest, citing varying uses in the area from ranching to outfitting, hunting and tourism.

The 30 leases were a holdover from when Congress passed the Wyoming Range Legacy Act in 2009, which protected 1.2 million acres from development. Stretching across the eastern side of the Wyoming Range, the oil and gas leases were never allowed to be developed, nor were they conserved as part of the broader tract of land.

Outdoor groups like the National Outdoor Leadership School, the Wyoming Wildlife Federation and Trout Unlimited worked for years to remove the acres from leasing. They hailed the final decision as a victory for outdoor recreation and the environment.

“After 10 years of standing up for the Wyoming Range and after two incredible success stories, this is the happy ending we’d hoped for,” said Mike Burd, spokesman for Citizens for the Wyoming Range and Green River trona miner. “Responsible energy development means some places, like the Wyoming Range, should be managed for wildlife, hunting, fishing and recreation, not oil and gas.”

The decision was disappointing, however, for oil companies who planned to drill in the leases.

Peter Wold is president of Wold Oil Properties — one of six companies with leases in the area — and has been waiting since 2006 for the opportunity to develop them. He said his company could have drilled underground from existing leases resulting in no surface occupancy.

“The whole thing has been a frustrating experience,” Wold said. “They took our money and have not issued the leases. It’s hard for me to understand particularly because we’ve said we would have no surface impact on forest lands.”

Wold’s leases were on the very edge of the area that could have been drilled, said Aaron Bannon, environmental stewardship and sustainability director for the National Outdoor Leadership School. Some of the other leases were in the heart of the forest in the middle of where NOLS runs two-week outdoor courses for 14- and 15-year-olds.

“There was a decent potential if the decision wasn’t what it is, we could see some pretty significant oil and gas development right on our operating area,” he said.

Trout Unlimited, which fought against the leases citing areas of native cutthroat trout habitat, applauded the Forest Service’s decision.

“There is a time and a place in Wyoming for oil and gas development, but the Wyoming Range isn’t one of those places,” said Tasha Sorensen, Wyoming field representative for Trout Unlimited. “Maintaining access to intact natural landscapes in Wyoming is essential to maintaining our sporting heritage and outdoor recreation businesses.”

The decision by the Forest Service is final and will be signed by USDA Undersecretary Robert Bonnie in 30 days.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Wayne National Forest in Ohio River Valley at center of debate

From an Article in the Wheeling Intelligencer, December 12, 2016

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A national forest in Ohio has closed its offices to the public through Tuesday, the day it auctions 1,600 acres of park land for fracking, in anticipation of extended public protests.

About 50 people demonstrated against the auction at Wayne National Forest headquarters in Nelsonville on Saturday. The Center for Biological Diversity says environmentalists and Native American groups participated. Similar protests have occurred in downtown Columbus.

Opponents also delivered more than 99,000 petition signatures to the U.S. Department of the Interior to stop Tuesday’s auction. A similar plan to lease fracking sites in the forest was dropped in 2011 after public outcry.

Opponents argue allowing fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, in the park will harm water systems and wildlife and destroy the park’s scenic beauty.

A Bureau of Land Management study found the high-pressure oil-and-gas drilling technique would have no significant environmental impact and would not violate any known environmental protection requirements or local, state, federal or tribal laws.
Drilling opponents dispute the bureau’s findings, which they say were based on a limited, outdated review. They’d like to see a new round of environmental analysis.
“They’re trying to cram everything into this outdated, 10-year-old bottle,” said Nathan Johnson, a natural resources attorney for the Ohio Environmental Council. “It’s inexcusable.”

In defending the process, U.S. Forest Service Eastern Region planning director Tony Erba said, “At the end of the day, it is a federal official’s decision to be made.”
A 30-day comment period was opened after the auction was announced in October. The newspaper reports the Bureau of Land Management is wading through 105 comments and expects to post complete responses to each by the end of Monday.

The 33 parcels up for auction lie in the far eastern section of the forest. The online sale Tuesday allows for exploration. Companies would have to file separately for a drilling application.

Protester Elizabeth Bowlen, of Columbus, told the paper she grew up near Marietta and spent time hiking, kayaking and camping in the national forest.
“A lot of people view national forests as protected for us and for biodiversity. I feel that is being threatened,” she said. “People are really shocked.”
Congressman Bill Johnson, a Marietta Republican, said the forest is different things to different people.

“It is my hope that this exhaustive review process continues to strike the appropriate balance between the legacy of energy production and recreation activities frequently enjoyed by many,” he said.

Peter Ross in Vancouver, BC

A ‘smog’ of plastics may be killing our oceans

From an Article by Daphne Branham, Vancouver Sun, September 6, 2016

ABOARD THE AKADEMIK SERGEY VAVILOV — The biggest problem in the world’s oceans isn’t swirling, Texas-sized islands of discarded plastic. It’s the small stuff; the little bits you can’t see that are congregating in gyres where ocean currents converge.

If it were only big, visible chunks of floating plastic, the fix would be simple. Send some people in boats with big nets and scoops and collect it. Unfortunately, it’s way more complicated than that and it’s why Marcus Eriksen is trying to change the narrative by using a different analogy — smog in the oceans.

Eriksen is one of the authors of the peer-reviewed study that estimated there are 244,000 tonnes of plastic in the world’s oceans. Of that, 92 per cent of the pieces are five millimetres or smaller, which works out to an estimated 5.25 trillion tiny pieces. Some microplastics absorb toxins such as PCBs, DDT, other pesticides, flame-retardants and oil from vehicles. Others release toxins as they degrade.

As for microfibres, a study published this summer by researchers at Southampton Solent University found that as many as 2,000 fibres from fleece and polyester fabrics are released during a single washing cycle. Almost all of those find their way through municipal sewage systems to the sea.

A couple of years ago, the Great Lakes were described as being awash in microfibres with bits found enmeshed in the gastrointestinal tracts of some fish and fish-eating birds like cormorants.

And there’s growing evidence of microplastics in the Arctic Ocean. “Polar sea ice is becoming a major sink for microplastic contamination,” according to a 2014 study. “And, as the ice melts, these microplastics can be released into the environment.” The study was cited by the Canadian government last year when it added microbeads to its list of toxic substances in 2015.

What no one knows is the extent of microplastics in the Arctic or where they come from. It’s why Eriksen, founder of The 5 Gyres Institute, and Eric Solomon, the Vancouver Aquarium’s head of Arctic programs, were sampling water during a 12-day trip through the Northwest Passage.

Because of the focus on plastics, everyone on the expedition looked for bigger plastic pieces while we were ashore on desolate, unpopulated islands. All sorts of stuff was found — shopping bags, rope, gun shell casings, plastic-coated wire and smaller, unidentifiable pieces.

But it was the micro-bits that were the real target. Eriksen and 5 Gyres “citizen scientists” dragged a 60-centimetre wide Manta trawl behind a Zodiac at about two knots for 30 minutes.

Solomon and the aquarium’s volunteers took some sediment samples as well as numerous samples from 3.5 metres below the surface. “It’s not sexy stuff,” admitted Solomon. “It’s basically just sieving sea water.”

Several times a day, a pail full of water was poured through a metal sieve, which filtered out anything larger than 63 microns. (A micron is one one-thousandth of a millimetre.)

Both sampling methods yielded a few bits visible to the eye. One water sample viewed under a microscope had copepods (small crustaceans), translucent marine snails, phytoplankton, thin strands of fibres and a pinkish piece that looked like a granite rock.

“I’m really curious about the coloured bits,” Solomon said. “The blue pieces are the question marks for me. They have a square-ish base that comes up (under the microscope) rough, jagged with reflective flecks.” Neither Solomon nor Eriksen was making any guesses about whether any of what they found is plastic. That requires further study.

The aquarium’s samples will be handed over to Peter Ross, head of the Ocean Pollution Research Program, to do the toxicology work. The aquarium’s lab is the only one in Canada with a $300,000 Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer, which will eventually not only identify plastic, but determine exactly which of 5,000 varieties of plastic it is.

But before that, the samples will be rinsed again and the bits from each sample counted and measured. Sediments will be removed using a technology Ross and his team have developed using canola oil to emulsify with the sediments, leaving the plastic floating on the top.

Other samples with phyto- or zooplanktons will be put on glass-coated polypropylene well plates, immersed in nitric acid, covered and heated until the tissues have dissolved.

Only then will the samples be put through the spectrometer where an infrared beam strikes a crystal that Ross says “excites” the electrons. Because each kind of plastic has a unique signature, the response conveyed back to the spectrometer can be identified within 20 seconds.

Why this matters is because if scientists can identify specific kinds of plastics concentrated in specific areas, they can begin to determine where they’re coming from and what can be done to stop it. 

How big is the problem?

When Ross and his team sampled the water off the B.C. coast a couple of years ago, the results were astounding. One of every 34 copepods and one of every 17 euphausiids contained microplastics or fibres.

Based on their findings, they estimate that juvenile salmon in the Strait of Georgia may ingest two to seven microplastic particles each day, while returning adult salmon take in up to 91 particles. Extrapolating from that, the researchers concluded humpback whales could scoop up more than 300,000 plastic bits daily.

Their study, published in Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology last year, was described as “the first indisputable evidence that species at the bottom of the food web are mistaking plastic for food.”

Others have studied fish and bivalves sold in markets in several different countries. As Eriksen said, “If you eat oysters, you’re likely feeding on your own fleece.”

Microplastics include everything from tire dust to fibres from dryer exhaust; from broken down bits of plastic bottles, Styrofoam containers and other packaging to microbeads intentionally added to cosmetic products. Global plastics production went from 202 million tonnes in 2002 to 299 million tonnes in 2013. By 2030, it’s forecast to reach 600 million tonnes and double that by 2050.

What is the majority of all that plastic used for? Packaging, according to the U.S. Plastics Industry Trade Association’s 2015 global trends report. That’s followed by vehicle production and medical uses. Eriksen says the plastics come from three sources. One is unavoidable catastrophic events like Japan’s 2011 tsunami that washed 16.2 million tonnes of debris into the ocean.

Another is poor product design including the proliferation of single-use products. Some of this can be blamed on our demand for convenience. Think of single-serve coffee pods; frozen foods in ‘stand-up-straight’ plastic bags that can’t be recycled; individual cleaning wipes; and over-packaged, small items from memory cards to mascara.

Finally, there’s poor waste management. It ranges from nonexistent in developing countries to inefficient and insufficient in wealthy countries where even massive landfills and incinerators don’t seem capable of dealing with what’s thrown into them.

Even with good intentions, progress is slow. Statistics Canada reports 92 per cent of Canadians have access to recycling and 98 per cent use at least one recycling program (bottles, plastics, paper, etc.). But total residential waste disposal continues to grow.

We need to start making choices about what we buy. But we also have to decide who ought to pay the lion’s share of the fundamental switch away from being a throwaway society. Will it be producers or consumers?

Microplastics are everywhere, so there’s no time to waste. Because as we nibble away at the problem, microplastics and nanofibres are being gobbled up by almost everything along the food chain. Including us.

What are microplastics and where do they come from?

Microplastics are synthetic polymer particles. While there is no agreed-upon scientific definition of their size, Canada has accepted the United Nations’ Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection’s recommended range of between five millimetres and one nanometre (one-billionth of a metre) in size.

Some microplastics are manufactured specifically for use in personal care products (toothpaste, face cleansers, anti-aging creams, shaving creams, eyeshadow, baby products, sunscreen, lipstick), industrial cleaning products, printer toners, anti-slip products and medical applications.

Peer-reviewed research indicates that the number of microbeads in personal care products varies from 137,000 to 2.8 million in a 150 ml bottle. Used on a daily basis, a single application of some products could result in as many as 94,500 microbeads released into the household waste water stream.

A voluntary survey of the Canadian Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association’s members found that they produced an annual total volume of microbeads ranging from 30 kilograms to 68,000 kilograms per year. Other microplastics are by-products of bags, bottles, and fishing line that are breaking down while microfibres slough off synthetic and fleece clothing when it is laundered.

As some microplastics break down, they release chemicals. Others are stable, but attract other toxins. They enter the food chain either because they float and are eaten by birds and other species in the open ocean (pelagic) or they sink and are eaten by bottom feeders.

Peter Ross shows a sample of microplastics and microfibers in the Vancouver Aquarium lab in British Columbia, Canada: