Shell’s massive plastics plant in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, started operations in late 2022

From LIVING ON EARTH, National Public Radio, Air Date: Week of June 30, 2023

Shell’s massive new ethane cracker plant in western Pennsylvania is sending polluted air and strange smells into the surrounding community. But a $10 million fine pales in comparison to the roughly $100 million a day that the company made in profits in the first quarter of 2023. Reid Frazier of the Allegheny Front discusses with Host Paloma Beltran the concerns of residents and a promised economic boom that hasn’t materialized.

TRANSCRIPT ~ BELTRAN: And I’m Paloma Beltran.

Even before it came online last year, the huge plastics plant Shell built on the banks of the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania had problems with pollution. The plant is an “ethane cracker” that uses fracked gas to produce the common plastic called polyethylene, and it’s violated air quality rules and sent strange smells into the surrounding community. And although it has brought new jobs, a recent report from the nonprofit Ohio River Valley Institute suggests it hasn’t ushered in the economic boom that some anticipated. In May, Pennsylvania’s governor announced that Shell will pay a $10 million fine for its air quality violations. But that fine pales in comparison to the roughly $100 million a day that Shell made in profits in the first quarter of 2023. And the plant received a $1.65 billion tax credit over 25 years, the largest in Pennsylvania history.

BELTRAN: So, this Shell plant has been in the works for a long time. Can you describe it for us? How big is it, and how much plastic does it produce?

FRAZIER: It’s basically like a small city that they built to make plastic, there on the banks of the Ohio. At the top capacity, it will be able to make over three billion pounds of plastic every year. The greenhouse gas emissions from this facility are estimated to be the equivalent of 400 thousand cars on the road. So, it’s a pretty big greenhouse gas emitter, it’ll probably be, you know, one of the top few facilities in the state in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

BELTRAN: Wow. And in May, you reported that Shell agreed to pay a $10 million fine after emissions from the plant violated state air quality rules. What were the violations, and what will the money be used

FRAZIER: Right, so the violations were for exceeding their state permit-allowed air pollution, essentially. They were allowed to pollute about 500 tons a year of volatile organic compounds. They basically exceeded that in September of 2022, when they had a lot of flaring, there were sort of equipment malfunctions, and when those malfunctions take place, they basically flare the gas as a way to get rid of it. And so that the gas doesn’t accumulate and cause an explosion. But when you do that you get rid of a lot of the pollution, but not all of it. So, in one month, they essentially hit their 12-month quota, even before the plant had started. And they’ve exceeded similar limits for carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, in subsequent months. And they’ve had other problems with air pollution. There was a release that caused benzene and volatile organic compounds to spike a couple months ago, workers reported headaches and irritation in their eyes, according to the company. There have just been a lot of problems. So, the state rolled all of these violations together into a $10 million fine. About half of the money goes to the state and half goes to the local area municipalities and such presumably to be done in — used in a sort of environmentally friendly or civic-minded way, but we don’t actually know what the money is going to be used for.

BELTRAN: Reid, you’ve been covering this project for a long time, and you’ve spoken to lots of people in Beaver County. How have community members responded to the plant?

FRAZIER: Well, obviously, a lot of people are upset that there is this ongoing pollution problem. I think most people hope that the company will clean its act up. There is a sort of acknowledgement that when you open up a big plant like this, there’s bound to be problems as you start bringing equipment online. That having been said, I think people were surprised by how much pollution has come from this plant. Even people who were big supporters of Shell coming to Beaver County. I talked to Jack Manning, who’s a Beaver County commissioner, so it’s like the local governing board. He actually used to work in the petrochemical industry in Beaver County. He’s basically said he’s still going to be supporting Shell, but they simply have to clean their act up. And these are his words.

MANNING: Well, I’ve also told people, if you cross a line that shouldn’t be crossed, we’re going to have a different conversation. And I can’t, I can’t defend you. And right now, nobody’s crossed that

FRAZIER: Other people are more upset, parents who’ve taken their kids to school on days when there were high benzene levels, and were understandably freaked out by the smell of gasoline in their backyard. That’s what one person told me. Somebody else reported that it smelled like burning plastic. And I think more than anything, ‘Wait, is this how it’s going to be for the rest of my life, if I stay here?’ This is the thought that a lot of people are having. But if you live like five miles away, you probably don’t experience this. And, they’re glad to see that there’s a plant with 600 workers there, and maybe they have friends or relatives who are working there or worked to build it and made a lot of money in construction. During the five or six years when it was under construction, there were something like six-to-eight thousand people working on it. So, it’s a mixed bag. I think the closer you are to the plant, the more you’re, worried about it.

BELTRAN: Of course, I mean, who wants to be smelling chemicals every day in their backyard? Some fossil fuel companies are looking to increase their foothold in the plastics industry as the world moves towards cleaner sources of energy. Is that pivot happening at all in Beaver County, or in Pennsylvania more generally?

FRAZIER: That remains to be seen. I think the Shell plant itself is an example of that pivot that you just described, where oil and gas companies are trying to figure out what they’re going to do in the next few decades, if people largely give up, gas-driven cars and such. And petrochemicals are a growing business still. There were plans for more of these to be built in the greater Ohio Valley region. There was one project that was on the docket in eastern Ohio. To date, it hasn’t been built, it hasn’t been approved. We’ll see if that changes in the next few years. But it’s unclear. Five or six years ago, it was thought that there would be five or six of these plants at some point, and now we’re not sure that’s actually going to happen in this region.

BELTRAN: In some ways, the world seems to be moving away from plastics. U.N. negotiators recently held talks over a potential treaty to address plastic pollution. But this plant is built to produce 3.5 billion pounds of polyethylene per year. What might that mean for pollution in Beaver County and

FRAZIER: We don’t know where this plastic is going to end up. It could end up overseas, actually. It could end up in North America, as plastic bottles or medical equipment or parts that go into vehicles, even electric vehicles. But we don’t know, that kind of information is not something that Shell is required to tell local regulators and local communities. But we do know that it’s likely that this plastic will be sent on railcars around the country. They have a massive rail yard with hopper cars, where they can just dump the nurdles, which are the little plastic beads. That’s the form that they produce. And so it seems pretty certain that there will be some rail activity related to these nurdles, and that they’ll basically go elsewhere.

BELTRAN: And we should mention that this plant is located barely a half hour’s drive from East Palestine, Ohio, where a freight train derailed in February and caused a toxic chemical spill. Has this shaped the way Beaver County residents are thinking about this ethane cracker?

FRAZIER: Definitely. The Shell plant, every few weeks, would flare up, or there would be gases, or they would have an exceedance of their pollution limits. And at the same time, you have this national calamity going on about 15 miles away. And the communities around the plant are also in — downwind of that East Palestine fallout. So, it’s kind of hard to escape, if you’re living there, all of this pollution.

BELTRAN: Do regulators or environmental groups have plans to address the plant’s pollution moving forward?

FRAZIER: I think the state has set up some guideposts for Shell. They have to submit plans for how they’re going to do certain things at the plant to prevent continued releases of these pollutants. But there’s no guarantee that this kind of thing won’t keep happening, and that Shell won’t keep paying fines when it does. You know, there’s a lawsuit that has been launched from environmental groups to kind of get the plant to stop polluting, and we’ll see where that goes. These groups can push on the regulator, and the regulator can push on the company, but it’s really up to the company to perform, get its processes in line with environmental regulations. The best people can do now is hope that that happens.

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See Also: Pennsylvania is just the latest sacrifice zone for the plastics industry, Kristina Marusic, Sierra Club, September 15, 2022

Shell ranks in the top 10 among the 90 companies that are responsible for two-thirds of historic greenhouse gas emissions. Its Potter Township (BeaverCounty) cracker plant is expected to emit up to 2.25 million tons of climate-warming gases annually, equivalent to approximately 430,000 extra cars on the road.

On June 8, 2023, hundreds of frontline and Appalachian climate activists rallied at the White House against the Mountain Valley Pipeline

From the Article by Ivy Main, Power for the People VA, June 29, 2023

The folly of building the Mountain Valley Pipeline should be obvious to anyone who hasn’t already committed billions of dollars to the project!

This spring’s passage of federal legislation raising the debt ceiling came with one provision that clean energy advocates had fought hard against: it sweeps away several legal challenges to the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that have stalled completion for more than four years. The pipeline is supposed to carry methane gas from the fracking fields of West Virginia into Virginia to connect to an existing interstate pipeline here, and getting it built has long been a priority of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.

Manchin surely believes he notched a victory with the inclusion of this provision in must-pass legislation. And in one respect, he’s right. Pipeline opponents aren’t conceding defeat, but stopping the MVP in court just got a heck of a lot harder.

Whether the pipeline’s developers should be celebrating is another matter. The wisdom of building a new methane gas pipeline was questionable nine years ago when the MVP was conceived. Today, with the U.S. transitioning away from fossil fuels, the folly of building new gas infrastructure should be obvious to anyone who hasn’t already committed billions of dollars to the project.

Dominion Energy figured this out three years ago when it dropped plans to develop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Dominion is a big energy conglomerate and had other projects to pursue. Canceling the Atlantic Coast Pipeline saved it billions of dollars that it is now investing in offshore wind and other renewable energy assets.

MVP’s two largest minority partners are also diversified companies with other options. NextEra Energy, which owns a 31% share in the partnership through its subsidiary Next Energy Resources, wrote off the value of its investment in MVP in 2021 and 2022, saying it planned to “reevaluate its investment in the Mountain Valley Pipeline.”

A NextEra spokesperson did not answer my question about what the company plans to do about MVP now. But if a picture is worth a thousand words, take a look at NextEra Energy Resources’ homepage. MVP isn’t mentioned anywhere on the website, which is largely a celebration of the company’s renewable energy assets.

The third-largest stakeholder in the MVP is Consolidated Edison, with an initial 12.5% stake. In 2019 it exercised an option to cap its investment in MVP, and in 2020 it wrote down the value of its investment by almost half. ConEd CEO John McAvoy told investors that year the company would no longer invest in gas transmission projects and “certainly would” consider selling its stake in MVP.

“We made those investments five to seven years ago,” he said, “and at that time we — and frankly many others — viewed natural gas as having a fairly large role in the transition to the clean energy economy. That view has largely changed, and natural gas, while it can provide emissions reductions, is no longer … part of the longer-term view.”

Unfortunately, these views aren’t shared by MVP’s majority owner and operator. Equitrans Midstream is solely a pipeline and gas storage company, having been spun off from a larger corporation, EQT, in 2018. MVP is its key to growth. The exit door may be wide open, but Equitrans doesn’t want to leave because it has nowhere to go.

That doesn’t mean it makes sense to stay, either. Many a gambler has learned the hard way that continuing to feed coins into a slot machine does not make it more likely to disgorge the jackpot.

And really, if there ever was a jackpot for MVP, it is gone by now. In 2015, EQT saw an opportunity to undercut the price charged by existing pipelines to ship gas to an energy-hungry Southeast. Today, though, demand for methane gas has cooled in the face of cheap wind and solar, while MVP’s costs have ballooned to $6.6 billion from the initial projection of $3.25 billion. Analysts say MVP’s competitive advantage has evaporated, and its prospects for profitability look grim.

Equitrans maintains that there is still a pressing need for its pipeline, but demand has always been hypothetical. From the very beginning, the partnership seemingly indulged in “build it and they will come” magical thinking.

Getting a permit to build from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission requires that pipeline developers have their customers lined up ahead of time in order to demonstrate a “need” for the project. Even in 2015 there were not enough customers clamoring for MVP’s services, so the partners named themselves as the buyers for more than half of the pipeline’s capacity. FERC’s approach to permitting allows this self-dealing, though the commission has been heavily criticized for it.

Obviously, Equitrans was never going to be a customer; it isn’t in the business of generating power or selling gas at retail. Its field of dreams assumed demand for gas would grow, customers would be clamoring for pipeline capacity, and Equitrans would be able sell its share of the capacity and just reap the profits from owning the pipeline.

It’s hard to imagine that happening now. Economics had already started to favor wind and solar over fossil fuels when the MVP broke ground. Total natural gas consumption has been mostly flat nationwide since 2018, and the Energy Information Agency (EIA) projects it will decline steadily for the next decade. EIA also projects that more than half of all new electric generating capacity this year will be solar, with natural gas additions down to a mere 14%. Here in Virginia, methane gas burned by electric utilities has declined from a high in 2020.

The future will only get brighter for renewables and dimmer for gas. In 2020, Virginia committed to a zero-carbon energy future, and in 2022 Congress passed the strongest set of clean energy incentives in history. Betting on fossil fuels in today’s environment makes no sense.

Sure, Governor Youngkin is doing his level best to throw a wrench in the works, and Dominion Energy Virginia just proposed building a 1,000-megawatt gas combustion turbine, citing growing demand from data centers and electric vehicles. Misguided as that proposal is, it doesn’t signal good times ahead for the gas industry. Combustion turbines are not baseload plants; they run only when demand exceeds other sources of supply. Dominion has no plans to build new baseload gas plants.

MVP knows finding customers in Virginia will be hard. Before litigation and permit denials put construction on hold in 2018, the partnership had proposed an extension of the pipeline into North Carolina, perhaps hoping for better pickings in Duke Energy territory. Now that MVP has the congressional seal of approval, it is seeking to revive the proposed Southgate Extension, to the dismay of North Carolina activists. Yet economics don’t favor gas over solar there, either.

The liquefied natural gas export market has also been floated as a potential source of growth, but critics say the lack of liquefied natural gas terminal capacity prevents that from happening.

It’s time to stop this travesty. Equitrans claims MVP is 94% complete, but opponents say the true figure is more like 56%, with many of the most difficult segments (like stream crossings) still to be tackled. Those are also the most environmentally sensitive parts of the line. Pulling the plug on MVP now would avoid not only the cost of completing the pipeline, but also the cost of fixing leaks, erosion damage and other problems critics believe are inevitable given the terrain and geology.

That would be a much better result for everyone concerned than completing the pipeline to serve a market that doesn’t exist – a Pyrrhic victory if there ever was one.

>>> This article was originally published in the Virginia Mercury on June 28, 2023.

One of the rallies over the last eight years opposing the 42” MVP ….

From the Article by Maury Johnson (Monroe County, WV), Common Dreams, 4/26/23

Secretary Granholm’s letter cheerleading the Mountain Valley Pipeline came the day after she promised to meet with me, a landowner impacted by Senator Manchin’s pet fossil fuel project.

I am saddened by the depths that proponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) will go to advance a false narrative and spread inaccuracies. This time it is Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm who on Friday, April 21, 2023 wrote a cheerleader’s letter rooting for the MVP, Joe Manchin’s pet project. It is very ironic and even a bit disturbing that she wrote this letter one day after she appeared before the Senate Energy Committee and the very next day after she told me personally that she (or her staff) would meet with me in the next week or two.

I am currently in Washington, D.C. where I attended the Senate Energy Committee meeting on Thursday, April 20. I spoke to the Secretary at the conclusion of the hearing and asked her to meet with me. She indicated that a meeting could be arranged this week or next. But in what appears to be a hastily prepared letter — even possibly dictated by the fossil fuel lobby — she expressed her desire to exert political pressure on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and other federal agencies.

The Secretary apparently decided that she did not need to talk to those most affected by the project or even entertain an opposing viewpoint. Like many agencies, she did not talk with or listen to any affected landowner and totally continued to perpetrate the social, racial, and environmental injustice concerns that President Joe Biden had just a few hours before expressed that his administration would take seriously.

You can’t have it both ways: You either listen to impacted communities or you don’t. This letter appears to be written to appease Senator Manchin and others in the MVP camp. It is also strange that this letter was filed just before Equitrans Midstream Corporation — the company behind the pipeline — had its shareholder meeting on Monday morning, April 24.

You can’t have it both ways: You either listen to impacted communities or you don’t.

The MVP project is not necessary to support the nation’s energy security and energy supply. Just because they say it is so, doesn’t make it true. It actually would do just the opposite. It would lock us into decades of methane and carbon pollution that the nation or the planet can ill afford. As the lead federal agency for the project under the FAST-41 framework, I feel that the FERC has failed in its regulatory duty to be an independent agency by submitting to inappropriate industry-generated political pressure similar to that which is reflected in Secretary Granholm’s letter. It appears to me to be an attempt to intimidate the commission.

In a letter I just completed and sent to the FERC, I requested that they do their job and follow their charter as an independent agency: to evaluate all projects on their merits and with regard to their impact on climate change and to resist the political pressure placed on them by politicians like Senator Manchin, who would build more pipelines, mine more coal, drill for more oil and gas, despite the fact that it would put us on a fast track to total environment destruction.

I do not believe that the MVP project would help ensure the “reliable delivery of energy that heats homes and businesses, and powers electric generators that support the reliability of the electric system,” despite what Secretary Granholm may state in her letter. This is a 42-inch diameter interstate transmission line which is most likely slated to transmit gas for export.

Infrastructure such as MVP destroys communities, pollutes water, harms our environment, and has no role to play in the clean energy transition. Unproven technologies such as “carbon capture” facilitated by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act are not something you should rely on to fix our climate emergency. With the severe problems we are facing, these proposals are too little, too late.

No new pipeline infrastructure is needed. The rapid growth of hydrogen as an emissions-free fuel is also a misnomer, especially if the hydrogen is produced as a byproduct of more drilling. The transport of carbon dioxide through a pipeline might be the most dangerous thing we could ever do. I believe Secretary Granholm herself knows better than what she stated in her April 21 letter.

As extreme weather events continue to put strain on the U.S. energy system, we must quickly transition to green energy and continuing to build pipelines cannot be part of that transition. The MVP project would, if completed, lock us into decades of climate-busting greenhouse gas emissions as it destroys communities and property across its entire route.

The MVP project would, if completed, lock us into decades of climate-busting greenhouse gas emissions as it destroys communities and property across its entire route.

Now here is the hardly disguised, hard-hitting core message embedded in a (not so funny part of) Granholm’s letter: “While the Department takes no position regarding the outstanding agency actions required under federal or state law related to the construction of the MVP project, nor on any pending litigation, we submit the view that the MVP project will enhance the Nation’s critical infrastructure for energy and national security. We appreciate the Commission’s prompt actions to fulfill its regulatory responsibilities regarding natural gas infrastructure under the Natural Gas Act, and the interagency coordination it provides as the lead federal agency for the project under FAST-41. We look forward to continuing to work with FERC to ensure consumers have access to reliable, cost-effective, and clean energy.”

That was a very strong armed tactic, if I ever saw one. I believe it is totally inappropriate to write such a letter, especially when just one day before she said she would meet with me and the president issued the Executive Order Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All on the morning before she wrote her letter to the FERC. The president said all executive branch agencies have a duty to pursue environmental justice. Apparently Secretary Granholm did not get the message.

Meanwhile, I am still in Washington D.C. waiting to hear from Secretary Granholm. Personally, I don’t understand her rush to write her letter cheering for the MVP. It is also typical of how most government leaders have treated landowners and other citizens in the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Maury Johnson inspected a section of the plastic coated pipe here

Fracking waste disposal in Guernsey County, OH. (These activities are known risks of creating earthquakes.)

Environmental Essay by Lisa C. Lieb, Revelator Voices, March 27, 2023

Let’s Protect This Place: A region historically plagued by industrial pollution is overwhelmed with unconventional oil and gas development. The Allegheny Plateau is a lower-lying portion of the Appalachian Mountain Range that extends from southern and central New York to northern and western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, northern and western West Virginia, and eastern Kentucky.

Why it matters: The plateau consists of areas of gently sloping hills in the north and west of the region as well as rugged valleys in the south and east. It overlies the Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale, sedimentary rock formations. The region is rich in natural resources, including hardwoods, iron ore, silica, coal, oil and natural gas.

The abundance of these resources supported development in the region and were integral to the local steel, glass, rail and extraction industries.

Prior to widespread logging between 1890 and 1920, the area hosted old-growth forests containing red spruce, eastern white pine, eastern hemlock, sugar maple, black oak, white oak, yellow birch and American beech.

But the forest’s makeup is now different, favoring oaks, maples, hickories, American beech and yellow birch. Though fragmented and much less mature than the old-growth forests, today’s forests continue to play a vital role in ecosystems, serving as habitats for the federally endangered Indiana bat as well as locally endangered or at-risk species such as little brown bats, northern flying squirrels and blackpoll warblers.

The region hosts the Ohio River watershed and confluence, the Allegheny National Forest in New York and Pennsylvania, and the Wayne National Forest in Ohio.

The threat: Unconventional oil and gas development has boomed in the region over the past decade. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the Marcellus and Utica shale plays contain approximately 214 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas, making the Allegheny Plateau a lucrative location for hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”

Already more than 13,000 unconventional wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania. Fracking itself is a resource intense process, requiring between 2 and 20 million gallons of water per well. A 2014 study estimated that in Pennsylvania, 80% of the water used for fracking comes from streams, rivers, and lakes, thus potentially altering water temperature and levels of dissolved oxygen. This water is combined with sand and a mixture of hazardous chemicals, which may include methanol, ethylene glycol and propargyl alcohol.

Between 20-25% of the water that is injected into the well returns to the surface. This flowback water often has higher salinity and has been known to contain barium, arsenic, benzene and radium. While recycling of flowback is becoming more common, other methods of disposal include underground injection, application to road surfaces, treatment at public waste facilities, and discharging it onto rivers, streams and lakes.

Near fracking sites in West Virginia, elevated levels of barium and strontium were found in feathers of Louisiana waterthrushes, native songbirds who make their home in brooks and wooded swamps. In northwestern Pennsylvania, crayfish and brook trout living in fracked streams were found to have increased levels of mercury. Fish diversity is also reduced in streams that have been fracked.

Fracking consumes land, too. Each fracking well requires 3-7 acres. In Pennsylvania over 700,000 acres of state forest land are leased or available for gas production. Well pads, pipelines and other fracking infrastructure fragment forests, alter their ecology, and reduce biodiversity. Appalachian azure butterflies and federally threatened northern wild monkshood — purple-flowering herbaceous perennials found in New York and Ohio — are both sensitive to forest fragmentation.

In addition to the direct impacts of fracking, the availability of natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays attracts petrochemical development to the region. Shell Polymers Monaca initiated operations in November 2022 at a newly constructed 386-acre petrochemical complex in southwestern Pennsylvania, along the Ohio River.

The plant manufactures virgin polyethylene pellets, which will be largely be used for production of single-use plastic products. In addition to releasing hazardous air pollutants, volatile organic compounds and particulate matter, this ethane “cracker” plant will emit 2.2 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.

The plant’s existence will also fuel fracking in the region; it is anticipated that it will require between 100 and 200 new wells each year in order to supply natural gas for its productions. Other petrochemical companies, including Exxon, PTT Global and Odebrecht, have reportedly been considering building similar complexes in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

My place in this place: I was born and raised in the area, and my family’s roots in southwestern Pennsylvania go back several generations. Some of my most cherished memories involve Pennsylvania’s forests, rivers and streams. As a child I loved my family’s summer pilgrimages to our cabin, a rustic building that had been converted from a one-room schoolhouse in the Pennsylvania Wilds. At “camp” we fished for yellow perch, smallmouth bass and walleye in the Sinnemahoning Creek and caught crayfish by hand. We sunned ourselves on the rocks along the river bank when the water was warm. In the evenings we walked on quiet, narrow roads in hopes of spotting an eastern elk in a grassy field.

I now live in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, one mile from the Shell cracker plant. I can observe the plant’s flaring from my kitchen window, which often creates an ominous orange glow in the night sky. To me the plant doesn’t symbolize job creation or a rebounding local economy, despite the assertions of local and state politicians. I see the plant as the perpetuation of a hopeless dependence on fossil fuels and corporate profit at the expense of ecological integrity. I worry that fracking and an associated petrochemical buildout will destroy already fragile ecosystems throughout my home in the Allegheny Plateau.

Who’s protecting it now: There are a variety of environmental groups located in the region. No Petro PA is an organization that resists fracking and pipeline development in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. More locally the Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community in western Pennsylvania opposes fracking and seeks to protect local community members from its harmful effects.

With the rise of the Shell cracker plant, the group also formed Eyes on Shell, a community organization that aims to hold Shell accountable for its activity and advocates for the surrounding communities’ health and safety. These are just three of the many grassroots organizations working to protect the air, soil, water, wildlife and communities in the region.

The national organization, FracTracker, also provides extensive data on oil and natural gas wells, pipelines, legislation and environmental health.

What this place needs: Ideally Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia will follow in the footsteps of New York and institute a ban on fracking in light of the environmental and health risks associated with unconventional gas and oil development. However, given their strong ties to the fossil fuel industry, it is unlikely that this will occur. Banning fracking on public land in the region, such as in state forests and county parks, in a practical first step in combatting forest fragmentation and pollution.

At a regional level, regulations should be put in place to protect the water quality of the Ohio River. The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission, a multistate organization working with the federal government, could ban fracking in the Ohio River Basin in order to protect the river and its watershed. The Delaware River Basin Commission has successfully prohibited fracking within the Delaware River Basin; the rules developed by the commission could be adapted for use by the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission.

Additional government oversight would help to protect water quality in the region. Presently fracking is exempt from the Safe Water Drinking Act and therefore isn’t regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Ending this exemption could increase water quality and safety within the Allegheny Plateau.

Increased transparency from oil and gas companies is also required to protect the region’s water. As of July 2022, California is the only state in the country that requires full public disclosure of all chemicals used in fracking. Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio must implement policies that require full public disclosure of chemicals used in all phases of the fracking process.

“White Lung” like Black Lung is a debilitating (permanent) condition

From the Message by Patricia Popple, Frac Sand Sentinel # 428, January 30, 2023

Doug Wood, who lives with his wife, Dawn, in Michigan, just south and west of Detroit, is besiged with a continually developing silica mine right next door to his home. Silica dust is carcinogenic and has known to be so for many years. It settles in the deep lung and in other body parts, unable to be released in anyway due to the small glasslike particulates that are a part of the geological formation.

While Michigan may have a standard set for respirable crystalline silica dust, it seems there is no enforcement by state protection agencies in residential areas. Who is responsible? Doug and his wife have worked endlessly it seems to get someone in the regulatory agencies and mining industry, to install air quality monitoring, and yet nothing has been achieved. Neighbors seem to be unconcerned about the presence of a mining operation that continues to spew dangerous dust into the air without concern for the residential areas that exist around the silica mine. There are other problems also associated with this operation including truck traffic and noise, but the dust produced is horrific and dangerous.

While it could take 20 years for silicosis to develop in the deep lung, it could take less. The glass like particulates don’t seem to be much different than asbestos which is also a known carcinogen.

Take a look at the video at the site and see for yourself the problems that the Wood family members are dealing with. They need help and support from the state and neighbors and Michigan’s protective agencies and organizations to spread this information and their concerns and more than that, take action.

Fractracker has played a role in the production of this video, and there are other videos in this series about the problems faced when regulatory agencies aren’t much concerned about the health, safety, and welfare of people and their offspring living near silica or other mines that bring the potential for grave health conditions to a neighborhood. Also, look for them on YouTube.

Please click on the video link here:
https://youtu.be/T6PSl9Cdhvw

I know that Wisconsinites are aware what the Wood Family is facing, but there are others of you in other locations who may be in similar situations. The industry must tighten its regulations, states and local governmental officials and groups much enforce. Residents and others must get involved by speaking out and by attending meetings of local and state agencies who can make a difference through rules, comprehensive plans, ordinances, zoning, and action.

>>> And by the way, register to VOTE in your communities at upcoming primary and general elections. It is critical that everyone get to the polls or participate in voting via absentee ballot. You can make a difference by researching candidates who are responsive to people facing environmental and health issues in your communties across the nation. Make a difference by exercising your right at your nearest voting location. VOTE!

>>> Welcome to the Frac Sand Sentinel, a newsletter highlighting resource links, news media accounts, blog posts, correspondence, observations and opinions gathered regarding local actions on, and impacts of, the developing frac sand mining and processing industries.

Join CCAN's Virtual Night of Action to STOP Manchin's Dirty Deal!

From the Appeal of Grace Tuttle, Protect Our Water—Heritage—Rights, December 7, 2022

Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, released the full text of the Building American Energy Security Act of 2022. He also urged his colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support amending the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to include this comprehensive, bipartisan permitting reform and complete the critical Mountain Valley Pipeline.

“Failing to pass the bipartisan, comprehensive energy permitting reform that our country desperately needs is not an acceptable option. As our energy security becomes more threatened every day, Americans are demanding Congress put politics aside and act on commonsense solutions to solve the issues facing us. The Senate must vote to amend the NDAA to ensure the comprehensive, bipartisan permitting reform our country desperately needs is included,” said Chairman Manchin.

To read the Building American Energy Security Act of 2022 in full, click here.

To read a summary of the changes, click here.

CCAN Event: RSVP:
https://act.chesapeakeclimate.org/page/46961/data/1

Description: Join CCAN’s Virtual Night of Action to STOP Manchin’s Dirty Deal!

It’s time. Our senators need to hear from us. We will not stand for Manchin’s dirty deal. We can’t make policy with backroom negotiations that exclude impacted communities. We can’t keep feeding our addiction to fossil fuels.

Our goal is to get 150 residents to email their senator in one night to stop the dirty deal.

6:00-6:15 Latest policy update, Q&A
6:15-6:30 Outreach to personal VA friends and family
6:30-7:00 Textbank with CCAN

>> Grace Tuttle, Development & Programs Coordinator
Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR)

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P.S. The members of the US Congress need to hear from you. Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) is trying to include his Dirty Deal – to roll back bedrock environmental protections and force the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline – in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). We can only block this if enough Senators stand up and promise to vote against the NDAA if it includes the Dirty Deal.

Priority List:
Senator Kaine (202) 224-4024
Senator Warner (202) 224-2023
Senator Carper (202) 224-2441
Senator Schumer (202) 224-6542
Senator Schatz (202) 224-3934
Senator Murray (202) 224-2621
Senator Reed (202) 224-4642
Senator Leahy (202) 224-4242
Senator Warnock (202) 224-3643

Fracking is a big deal where ever it occurs AND chemical spill$ can occur!!!

From an Article by Reid Frazier, Allegheny Front, November 17, 2022

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has fined the natural gas drilling company CNX some $200,000 for spilling natural gas production fluids at well sites in Greene County, Pennsylvania.

The spills took place between 2019 and 2021, all in Richhill Township. (Greene County is in the extreme southwest corner of Pennsylvania bordering West Virginia on the south and west.)

The largest spill took place on September 18, 2019, in which approximately 40 barrels, or 1,680 gallons, of production fluid leaked out of a containment structure and spilled on the ground at CNX RHL 71 and RHL 87 well site.

The PA-DEP said the company tried to make repairs to the containment and remove fluids from the site. But CNX “postponed full remediation nearly 70 days due to its ongoing hydraulic fracturing activities,” according to a PA-DEP press release. In total, the company had to remove nearly 1,400 tons of contaminated soil at the site.

Another spill occurred at the site on January 23, 2021, in which 420 gallons of fluid discharged onto the ground due to an “equipment failure.” Another spill of 40 gallons occurred three months later.

A smaller incident occurred in December 2019, in which 30 gallons of fluid leaked out of containment and into a sediment basin at the company’s RHL 4 well pad. According to the PA-DEP, “CNX postponed removal of contaminated soil until hydraulic fracturing was completed, and the discharge continued for days.”

The company ended up removing nearly 2,000 tons of contaminated soil from the site.

“Delays like these are unacceptable. PA-DEP expects, and the regulations require, prompt reporting and cleanup of spills and that operators will take measures to prevent future incidents,” said PA-DEP southwest district oil and gas manager Dan Counahan, in a statement.

Production fluids are a byproduct of the drilling and fracking process in oil and gas production. They can contain high levels of naturally-occurring metals, radioactive materials, and salts, but also can contain fracking chemicals. The fluid is too toxic for disposal in municipal wastewater facilities and is typically disposed of in deep injection wells.

The company paid two fines, of $125,000 and $75,000, for the violations. The money will go toward the state’s fund to plug abandoned oil and gas wells.

>> This story is produced in partnership with StateImpact Pennsylvania, a collaboration among The Allegheny Front, WPSU, WITF and WHYY to cover the commonwealth’s energy economy.

The Halliburton Exclusions have exempted Drilling & Fracking for far too long

​——→ Check out the schedule and events here​

Speakers from the following Groups: Beyond Petrochemicals Campaign, Beyond Plastics, Beyond Extreme Energy, Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, Communitopia, Concerned Citizens of Navarro County, Damascus Citizens for Sustainability(DCS), Earth Dog Films, Fracking the System, Earthworks, Environmental Health News, FracTracker Alliance, Keep It Wild, Lisa Johnson and Associates, OJI:SDA’ Sustainable Indigenous Futures, Ohio River Valley Institute, Park Foundation, Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania, Property Rights and Pipeline Center, ReImagine Appalachia, Sierra Club, The Natural History Museum, Yale School of Public Health and Yale Cancer Center

Topics / Presentations: Precautionary approach to fighting oil & gas; Playing the long game: Overcoming defeat and setting new goals in the oil & gas fight; Telling the truth about plastic pollution;Pushing back against the Bitcoin Empire in Texas; “We Refuse to Die” – On our exhibition, movement building, and media campaign to stop the petrochemical expansion; Stopping gas exports to protect public health and avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis!; Shared Prosperity in the Ohio River Valley; Using maps to inspire action; Journalism on plastic, toxic chemicals, and oil & gas pollution; Victory against the Epiphany Allegheny corporation and the ongoing battle against the Northern Access Pipeline in NY; Building power across labor, environmental advocates, faith leaders, and racial justice leaders in Appalachia; The Beyond Petrochemicals Campaign; Colorado’s oil and gas wars – Upcoming documentary film; FLIR Cameras – Making the invisible visible; Skill building for grassroots organizers; Legal advocacy for fracking victims and learning industry tactics; Getting a statewide fracking ban on the ballot in Michigan; Protecting landowners’ rights against pipeline development; and Addressing the Health Impacts of Fracking

Full details and guest speaker profiles are underway and will be added soon!

At the conclusion of the summit you’re invited to participate in a National Strategy call to discuss what is next and needed for the anti-fracking movement to be successful. Please participate and share what you’re working on with others.

Please register and invite your colleagues at https://lu.ma/2022-network-summit

Sincerely, Ryan Clover, Halt the Harm Network

Northwestern West Virginia is of primary interest for natural gas development

ATTN: Wade Stansberry, Environmental Resources Specialist, Office of Oil and Gas, WV. Department of Environmental Protection, 601 57th Street, SE, Charleston WV

Re: Permit Number: 061-01914, Well Number: Dolls Run 1H, County: Monongalia, Operator: Northeast Natural Energy

For many years, two separate households of friends who live in Cassville have told me how the noise coming from the Boggess and Lemley fracking well pads made it impossible for them to get a good night’s sleep or to function fully. I have often heard the noise from the Boggess well pad while walking along Sugar Grove Road, several miles away.

So it was with alarm that I saw the permit application for a fracking pad that will be 1.4 miles from our home, situated on a ridge top where the sound will travel directly down Dents Run, along Mel Brand Road and Gallus Road, where we live. We work from home so will be subject to the noise 24/7.

A study done by the WVU School of Public Health (May 28, 2013) for the WVDEP, as requested by the WV State Code: Chapter 22-6A-12(e) regarding the impacts of noise, light, dust and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) generated by the drilling of horizontal wells inconclusively said: Due to the transient nature and/or frequency of sound, the agency recognizes that noises may be perceived as a nuisance, even though measurements indicate no harm.

The noise tests were done between July and October, 2012, when leaves on the trees will dampen noise. Clearly the noise will be worse during the six months when leaves are not on the trees. The acoustics of our valley are such that we could hear our neighbor, whose house was about 200 yards away, when she was talking on her front porch.

An official chart may say that noise levels are within safe decibel levels, but our perception of it could be quite different, depending on many factors. How will this be addressed?

Given how many people live in the Cassville, Sugar Grove and New Hill area, a lot of people will have their health, sleep and ability to function adversely impacted by the constant noise. New Hill has a high density of housing. What noise abatement procedures will be put in place? I saw no mention of this in the permit application.

Further, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX) and other toxic hydrocarbons, such as formaldehyde, released from oil and gas operations and equipment can lead to health impacts ranging from irritation of eyes, nose, mouth and throat to aggravated asthma and other respiratory conditions, blood disorders, harm to developing fetuses, immune system-related diseases, and cancer (e.g., leukemia, non-Hodgkins lymphoma and Ewing Sarcoma).

A study commissioned by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection found that, at many sites, a 625-feet distance from oil and gas activity—above the distances set by many states—still resulted in benzene concentrations above levels the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers “the minimum risk level for no health effects.” At least one of the BTEX compounds was found at all of the seven drilling sites examined. from: West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Air Quality, “Air, Noise, and Light Monitoring Results For Assessing Environmental Impacts of Horizontal Gas Well Drilling Operations (ETD‐10 Project),” Charleston, WV.

Today, October 5, a community meeting in Canonsburg, PA is scheduled to update residents on PA Health & Environment Studies and to discuss health impacts of shale gas development. Residents are concerned that fracking may be to blame for the spike in rare childhood cancers and other health impacts in Southwestern Pennsylvania. According to the maps provided in the NNE permit application, we will be down wind of the well pad. While we are just beyond the one-mile radius, how can we know that a strong wind won’t carry VOCs over our house?

More importantly, it should be obvious that a warming climate is a threat to everyone on earth. How much money must we spend on the enormous damage done by hurricanes and wildfires, which have all gotten bigger and more frequent as a result of putting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Natural gas may be cleaner to burn than coal but extracting it is much dirtier. Investment in clean energy is the only viable way forward.

In 2012-14, we got a front row seat to a strip mine directly across our fence line and were subjected to blasting, dust and back-up beeping noise. I documented at least 139 times that our house was shaken by blasts from the Bucy 1, 2 and 3 strip mines. Bucy 3 Mine, in front of our house, is still sitting there, abandoned. Why do we have to keep fighting theses battles? Why do so many people have to pay the price so that a handful of people can make money?

Why does this new well pad have to be placed on a ridge top where it will have maximum impact in all directions? I request that this permit be denied, based on how many people will be negatively impacted by the noise and pollution. I would also request written notice of the permit decision.

Sincerely, Betsy Lawson, Monongalia County, WV

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See Also: A Guide to Every Permitted Natural Gas Well in West Virginia by Al Shaw (ProPublica) and Kate Mishkin (Charleston Gazette-Mail), March 6, 2019

Public interest (free) webinar to protect the public health (click to expand)

Following the presentations, Dr. Ned Ketyer, Medical Advisor for the Environmental Health Project (EHP), will moderate a discussion.

Webinar ~ PFAS & Health Impacts — Wednesday, October 19th, 7:00 to 8:30 PM EDT

For more information and to register for this webinar go here ~

https://www.environmentalhealthproject.org/event-details/pfas-and-health-impacts-what-frontline-communities-need-to-know

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See where toxic PFAS have been used in Pennsylvania fracking wells

From an Article by Kristina Marusic, Environmental Health News, October 13, 2022

PITTSBURGH — Toxic “forever chemicals”, also known as PFAS, have been used in at least eight oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania, but the exact location of those wells has never been publicly disclosed — until now.

Experts say it’s possible that communities where PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) have been used by the oil and gas industry could face contamination of soil, groundwater and drinking water — and that contamination could be widespread.

The chemicals don’t break down naturally, so they linger in the environment and human bodies. Exposure is linked to health problems including kidney and testicular cancer, liver and thyroid problems, reproductive problems, lowered vaccine efficacy in children and increased risk of birth defects, among others.

Last year, a report by the environmental health advocacy group Physicians for Social Responsibility revealed that PFAS have been used in hydraulic fracturing and other types of oil and gas extraction across the U.S. for at least a decade, and an EHN investigation published in August documented PFAS contamination in one Pennsylvania fracking community resident’s drinking water.

A 2021 op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer revealed that the chemicals were used in at least eight wells in Pennsylvania, but did not disclose the location of the wells. Physicians for Social Responsibility recently published a new report on the use of PFAS in Ohio oil and gas wells. In a footnote, that report listed the location for all eight Pennsylvania wells where well operators reported using PFAS in public fracking chemical disclosures.

The Pennsylvania wells where PFAS have been used are located in the following communities:

>> Chippewa Township, Beaver County (population 7,953)
>> Donegal Township, Washington County (population 2,192)
>> Independence Township, Washington County (two wells) (population 1,515)
>> Pulaski Township, Lawrence County (three wells) (population 3,102)
>>West Finley Township, Washington County (population 813)

The operators for all eight wells reported using polytetrafluoroethylene, or PTFE, which is a type of PFAS marketed as Teflon, in fracking fluid. PFAS may also be used during other phases of oil and gas extraction that don’t require any kind of public disclosure. It’s likely that the chemicals have been used in additional Pennsylvania oil and gas wells, but a lack of transparency makes it impossible to know.

PFAS are likely being used in oil and gas wells throughout the country, but little research exists on how widespread the practice is and whether it’s causing drinking water contamination. Most existing research on PFAS has focused on other sources of the chemicals, like firefighting foam used at airports and military bases and industrial emissions. Investigations have found drinking water contamination in communities across the country.

“It’s critical for state regulators to start looking for these contaminants in people’s drinking water near these oil and gas sites,” Dusty Horwitt, a co-author of Physicians for Social Responsibility’s reports on PFAS, told EHN.

Jamar Thrasher — press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, which is responsible for overseeing the oil and gas industry — told EHN the agency investigates spills and releases at well sites and documents its investigations, but “absent a spill or release on the surface or below surface, there is no reason to conclude that well site fluids (whether including PFAS compounds or not) would have reached nearby soils or drinking water.”

PFAS use at oil and gas wells nationwide ~ At the national level, Physicians for Social Responsibility has reported that PFAS or substances that could break down into PFAS have been used in more than 1,200 fracking wells in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas and Wyoming, and that this number likely represents only a fraction of potentially contaminated sites.

The organization’s recent report on the use of PFAS in Ohio oil and gas wells found that the chemicals have been used in at least 101 fracking wells in eight counties in the state since 2013.

That number might represent just a fraction of the actual wells where the chemicals were used, according to the report, because oil and gas companies withheld the identity of at least one trade secret chemical in more than 2,100 oil and gas wells during the same period.

“We’ve seen a similar phenomenon in other states, but this is a huge number of trade secret chemicals and surfactants being used in Ohio,” Horwitt said. “That means use of PFAS and other dangerous chemicals in Ohio may be much greater than what’s been publicly reported.”

The organization published a similar report on Colorado in January, which found that PFAS were used in nearly 300 oil and gas wells in the state between 2011 and 2021. That report was influential in state regulators’ decision to ban the use of PFAS in oil and gas wells.

“It’s impossible to know how widespread PFAS contamination from oil and gas wells might be at this point,” Horwitt said. “We need more transparency before we can begin to address this issue.”

A dangerous waste stream ~ Waste from the Pennsylvania drill sites, including fracking fluid, drill cuttings and soil, may also have been contaminated by PTFE. Waste from each well site was sent to various secondary locations for disposal or reuse including other fracking wells, injection wells, sewage treatment facilities and landfills.

“These chemicals are very persistent, so it’s entirely possible that those disposal sites could also be contaminated with PFAS,” Horwitt said.

And because Pennsylvania doesn’t require complete public disclosure of all the chemicals used by the oil and gas industry, these eight wells and the locations where waste from them was disposed could represent just a fraction of the oil and gas wells throughout the state where PFAS have been used or disposed of.

Thrasher said there is no plan at this time to test any additional oil and gas wastewater disposal sites, but added “PFAS is an emerging issue and we will continue to explore the prevalence of PFAS in our environment. Our focus at this time remains on our efforts on the rulemaking to establish enforceable PFAS standards in drinking water.”

PFAS are a subset of many substances associated with health problems that are generated by the oil and gas industry.

How PA’s fracking communities can protect themselves from PFAS ~ On Wednesday, Oct. 19, the Environmental Health Project, an environmental health advocacy nonprofit, will host a free webinar about PFAS and health specifically for fracking communities.

Tasha Stoiber, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization that has spent years mapping PFAS contamination across the U.S., will speak at the event.

“In communities where we know there’s significant PFAS contamination either from a specific industry or point source, drinking water is a primary concern,” Stoiber told EHN. “Reverse osmosis and activated carbon filters are both effective at reducing PFAS in drinking water at home.”

Stoiber and Horwitt both said that regulatory agencies like the Pennsylvania DEP should test soil, groundwater and drinking water for PFAS in communities where we know the chemicals have been used in oil and gas extraction.

In Pennsylvania, that would mean specifically testing for PTFE and its breakdown products. Residents of these communities can contact the DEP to report potential PFAS contamination and request testing.

Stoiber said Pennsylvania residents should also ask their elected officials to consider phasing out the use of PFAS by the oil and gas industry.