Forward-Looking Infra-Red Camera (FLIR) detects infrared radiation at $3,000.

Letter from Barbara Daniels, Morgantown Dominion Post, January 20, 2020

Anyone who still believes that natural gas is a clean fuel might be surprised by the Texas Sharon FLIR videos, with commentary, showing cancer-causing VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and methane freely exiting from horizontal hydrofracturing (hhf) units.

Now a 2019 Cornell study reveals that eliminating this flood of fracked methane, a greenhouse gas at least 86 times more powerful than CO2, would keep the planet under the 2 degrees Celsius, warming limit.

Moreover, in 2016, a University of Michigan team discovered that hhf further emits significant amounts of warming ethane, which also forms lung- and crop-damaging smog. Most alarming is that cheap ethane provided by fracking feeds cracker-plant plastic production, a process so energy intensive that, cradle to grave, by 2050 plastics will emit 50 times more CO2 than all U.S. coal-fired power plants combined do in a year, according to University of Massachusetts professor, Judith Enck.

Eliminating hhf might be difficult however because, at all times, its damage is being hidden. Hhf was the apparent subject of the early 2000s secret meetings between then Vice President, Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton and the heads of energy companies. These meetings resulted in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which exempted hhf (fracking) and its wastes from the Safe Drinking Water Act, along with six other federal safeguards.

Why were these meetings held in secret, and why does hhf need exemptions from seven major environmental laws? After compiling over 1,600 reports, the Nobel-Prize-winning Physicians for Social Responsibility and others have concluded hhf cannot be regulated to safety.

Besides uncontrollable air pollution, the below-ground effects are unpredictable and it generates unmanageable amounts of toxic, radioactive waste.

For these and other reasons, 11 nations, three U.S. states and Quebec have banned hhf. They petitioned, used media such as Facebook and newspapers and contacted legislators. In view of hhf‘s extraordinary hazards, we might wish to do the same.

Call our state’s Legislature’s switchboard at 304-347-4836, and Congress’ switchboard at 202- 225-3121.

Barbara Daniels, Concerned Citizen, Richwood, WV

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

See also: The Fracking Industry’s Flaring Problem May Be Worse Than We Thought | DeSmog, Justin Mikulka, January 29, 2019

Natural Gas Compressor Station, Accident, MD

Accident Compressor Station Title V permit hearing set for April 26, 2017 at 6 PM

From an Announcement by Engage Mountain Maryland, The Garrett County Republican, April 19, 2017

The air quality permit to operate the Texas Eastern Transmission facilities at Accident will be the subject of a public hearing on Wednesday, April 26, 6:00 PM at the Garrett College Career Technology Training Center, 116 Industrial Park Drive in Accident.

Every five years the facility’s air quality permit goes through the renewal process, and the public may make comments related to air quality concerns. The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) will accept oral or written comments at the hearing, or within five days after the hearing, until May 1, 2017.

The Accident facilities were the focus of two community meetings held in Fall 2015, sponsored by Engage Mountain Maryland. At the first meeting, citizens were given the opportunity to ask questions about operations at the facility, including air quality monitoring, and to hear about MDE and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regulations pertaining to the “Accident Dome.” The next meeting featured public health presentations about compressor stations, air emissions and noise.

Based on uncertainty about the duration and extent of emissions at the facility, Citizen Shale submitted an application to the national non-profit organization, Earthworks, for GasFinder FLIR (Forward Looking InfraRed) imagery of gas emissions from the Texas Eastern Transmission facilities at Accident.

FLIR images documented that air emissions of concern were observed when the compressors were operating.  These results were shared with the Garrett County Commissioners, acting in their capacity as the Board of Health, October 2016.

Additionally, the Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration will provide an overview of federal safety regulations of transmission pipelines as well as an update of investigations of the Aliso Canyon, California underground gas storage facility leak and the Delmont, PA pipeline explosion.  The Delmont pipeline has the same operator as the Texas Eastern transmission pipeline at Accident — formerly, Spectra Energy. In February of this year, Canada’s Enbridge purchased Houston-based Spectra Energy.

MDE’s public hearing is not an informational meeting. Questions raised as part of formal testimony will be addressed in a written Response to Comments document after the close of the comment period, according to MDE’s notice.

See also:  Health Risks from Compressor Stations

Upper Image from FLIR Camera

Group Documenting Marcellus Gas Well Leaks

From an Article by Dan Heyman, WV Public News Service, May 16, 2016

Charleston, WV– Armed with a specialized thermal imaging camera, a group is traveling in the West Virginia Marcellus fields this week documenting natural gas leaks and pollution.

Nadia Steinzor, eastern program coordinator for Earthworks, says the environmental group bought a forward looking infrared camera (FLIR) because most gas industry leaks of methane and volatile organic compounds can’t be seen with the naked eye.

Steinzor says people who live down wind of leaks have a tough time getting their health issues taken seriously.

“The same complaints all across the country of headaches, nausea, dizziness – and yet they’ve been dismissed as just anecdotal information,” she points out. “We purchased this camera in order to make invisible pollution visible.”

Oil and gas drillers defend their industry as much cleaner than many other kinds of energy production, and say reports of air pollution are often exaggerated.

Steinzor says residents interested in having facilities near them examined can get in touch with the team via the invisible air pollution page at earthworksaction.org.

Last week the Obama administration finalized the first ever rules on oil and gas industry methane leaks. The regulations aim to reduce those emissions by more than 40 percent over the next decade.

Steinzor says the drilling companies will be pushed into doing a better job of dealing with the kind of leaks Earthworks is documenting.

“That final rule is going to go a long way toward requiring operators to do leak detection and repair,” she stresses. “They are themselves going to have to go out and inspect their own operations and then take action.”

Criticism of the new methane rules has been muted. Steinzor says that’s probably because estimates from the EPA and others say the regulations will end up saving the industry more money than they cost.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Huge methane cloud via IR camera

Watch 50,000 Kilograms of Methane Per Hour Gush From a Busted Pipe

<< Infrared footage shows what a Los Angeles community has been living for nearly two months >>

From an Article by Laura Bliss, L. A. City Lab, December 9, 2015

What does a pipe spewing 50,000 kilograms of methane per hour look like? You’d never know, as the highly flammable gas is invisible to the naked eye. But in the northern San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, where a ruptured pipe has been pluming natural gas for nearly two months, residents finally have their chance to see.

The video was captured by the environmental nonprofit Earthworks, whose staffers took infrared cameras to the hills outside the natural gas storage field where the broken line sits. Owned by the Southern California Gas Company, the field is about a mile away from homes in the 30,000-person community of Porter Ranch. Since the break was first reported on October 23, residents have endured nausea, headaches and nosebleeds from chemicals added to the gas to give it a smell.

The utility has unable to repair the pipe, and has said it will be months before it’s fixed. State air quality regulators recently estimated that the rupture is releasing about 50,000 kilograms of methane per hour.

Hundreds of Porter Ranch families have been relocated to hotels by the gas company, and about 2,000 more are seeking such accommodations. Public health officials say that methane itself is not too risky in the short term, given that it’s rising into the atmosphere. But the longer the leak lasts, the greater the risk to humans becomes, as there are trace amounts of more harmful gases mixed in with the methane.

The city attorney of Los Angeles announced Monday that he was suing the gas company over how they’ve handled the leak. Porter Ranch residents have also served the utility with a class action lawsuit, which the video was made to support, according to KPCC.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net