Project will need new technology and unusual utilization of outputs

From an Essay by Betsy Lawson to Morgantown Dominion Post, August 25, 2023

As reported in The Dominion Post on Aug. 17, the governor announced a big state investment in a hydrogen plant to be built in Mason County by Fidelis New Energy of Houston. The plant, to be called Mountaineer Gigasystem, is designed to generate hydrogen to be used for energy while capturing carbon dioxide to be buried below wildlife management areas.

The impetus behind this project is the money made available by the Inflation Reduction Act, passed last year, which provides tax credits for so-called clean energy. The intention is to reduce greenhouse gases, which trap heat in our atmosphere. Sounds good, but is it really?

Hydrogen gas, which is highly explosive, is made by separating the atoms of water (H2O), which requires a lot of energy. If renewable energy is used to separate the atoms, the hydrogen is “clean.” But the Fidelis project will mostly use fracked gas, whose drilling process and pipelines to transport the gas leak a lot of methane, an 80-times more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Pumping CO2 underground, the second facet of this project, only works in very specific types of porous rock sandwiched between layers of solid rock, preventing its escape. But once the CO2 reaches the cap rock, the captured CO2 can migrate horizontally for a substantial distance. What could go wrong?

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has identified 6,500 known orphaned oil and gas wells but potentially thousands more exist that have yet to be found.  If these unplugged wells should reach into the potential carbon storage field formation, the potential for leakage into the atmosphere is enormous, defeating the purpose of carbon capture. For carbon capture and storage to make any sense in West Virginia, orphaned oil and gas wells must be properly plugged.

So far, carbon capture and storage is a new and commercially unproven technology. Chevron’s CCS project in western Australia, to date the largest in the world, is only operating at one-third capacity after six years of operation. Unexpected high pressures occurred, slowing the process.

It is known with certainty that injecting fracking waste water into porous geological formations increases pore pressure in ways that can trigger stressed fault lines to slip. This also applies to buried CO2. The result can be earthquakes. Further, when CO2 meets water, it becomes carbonic acid, a corrosive liquid. What effect will this have on underground water supplies?

Bottom line: hydrogen gas is expensive to produce, so will there even be a market for it? And, if it relies on natural gas for its creation, methane will be leaked into the atmosphere. Tying it to unproven carbon capture risks leaking more CO2 into the atmosphere via the many abandoned wells in this area.

With the state’s  $62.5 million in forgivable loans and anticipated funding from the federal government, the public investment for this project could already be at $112.5 million before ground has even been broken. Do we taxpayers want to further subsidize a project that has such an unproven and potentially risky technology and continues to add greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? This project defeats the purpose of the Inflation Reduction Act, which is meant to reduce the greenhouse gases that are warming our planet.

>>> Betsy Lawson is the Secretary of the Monongahela Group of the W.Va. Chapter of the Sierra Club.

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Mountaineer GigaSystem Project ~ Memorandum of Understanding with West Virginia Economic Development Authority. Some call this a massive giveaway to an out of state company having no established record of technological quality or concern for our communities!

Past Event ~ Zoom Meeting held on Jan. 7. 2021

Over 30 landfills in the state accept fracking waste like drill cuttings. The authors of the study followed what happens to the liquid waste from rainwater that trickles through these landfills. That liquid waste, called leachate, often goes to municipal wastewater facilities.

Sediment in waterways downstream of those facilities was higher in radium, a radioactive material found in the Marcellus shale, than sediment upstream of the plants.

“There were increases of two to four times the background level of radium in the sediment,” said Dan Bain, associate professor of geology and environmental science at the University of Pittsburgh and one of the study’s co-authors. The study appeared in the journal “Ecological Indicators.”

While landfills must test leachate for radium and other markers of oil and gas waste, wastewater treatment plants don’t. He said the state should make the treatment plants test for markers of oil and gas waste, including radioactivity, but also salts and heavy metals associated with drilling wastes, to ensure they aren’t just passing pollutants into the environment.

“We need to have a safeguard so we can say, okay, you need to do something else with that leachate,” he said. “It’s not acceptable to discharge it to waterways.”

Fracking a well in the Marcellus or Utica shale creates thousands of tons of drill cuttings — basically, dirt and rocks excavated to build the well. Those cuttings are high in naturally occurring radioactive materials. A 2011 analysis by federal scientists found liquid waste from Marcellus wells had concentrations of radium roughly 40 times what the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission classifies as “hazardous” or “radioactive” waste.

But a loophole in federal law means oil and gas waste is not considered hazardous and can be disposed of at a variety of landfills, though some states have tighter requirements.

New York state, for instance, recently tightened its requirements for fracking waste by classifying it as hazardous waste, thereby limiting the types of facilities that can accept it.

Study co-author John Stolz, director of the Center for Environmental Research and Education at Duquesne University, said this waste could accrue over time in landfills, causing problems down the road.

“They are turning these sanitary landfills into toxic waste dumps that are going to need remediation in the future because of the build-up of this material,” Stolz said.

One landfill in Westmoreland County, which has been fined by the state for sending polluted leachate to a nearby sewage treatment plant, had high levels of pollutants commonly found in oil and gas waste.

“When we analyzed the leachate from that landfill, it looks like oil and gas waste,” Stolz said. “It has all the chemistry and characteristics, including that it is radioactive, and [it] was being shipped down to the local wastewater treatment plant.”

The paper also found large data gaps in oil and gas waste reports in Pennsylvania and surrounding states. The researchers could not find reports for more than 800,000 tons of fracking waste sent to landfills in Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio.

“Reporting of [oil and gas] waste receipt in landfill reports was inconsistent and incomplete,” the study found. This could make it difficult to assess environmental impacts, Stolz said. “It’s a problem because you really need to know how much of this stuff is being taken,” Stolz said. “If there’s more and more of this waste…it’s going to be around for a long time.”

Study is ‘consistant with other literature’ ~ Nicole Deziel, Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study, said its findings were “consistent with other literature” on the impacts of fracking, such as a recent Harvard study funded by the EPA that found radioactivity of ambient particles was higher downwind of unconventional oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and her own study, funded by the EPA and National Institutes of Health, which found Pennsylvania children living near fracking sites at birth were two to three times more likely to be diagnosed at ages 2-7 with leukemia than those who did not live near oil and gas activity.

“The release of liquid and solid wastes that contain radioactive material may pose risks to public health from oil and gas, but the fate [in the environment] of these radioactive contaminants and their impact on human exposure and health is not well-understood,” Deziel said.

The industry responds ~ The oil and gas industry says it maintains strong radiation protocols with its waste and references a 2016 Pennsylvania DEP study that found “little or limited potential for radiation exposure to workers or the public” from fracking operations. But in 2021, the agency determined “additional evaluation of the potential for oil and gas-derived waste to radiologically impact landfill leachate was necessary.”

Tracy Pawelski, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Waste Industries Association, which represents the state’s landfills, said in an email that the facilities “carefully track every load of waste that is disposed of at their facility, including every load of oil and gas waste received, all of which are subject to a rigorous pre-acceptance review and approval process.”

Pawelski said the landfills also have safeguards to prevent the release of radioactive materials into the environment. After a landfill is full, it is covered with a soil cap to prevent the leaching of the materials, and there are limits to what the landfills are permitted to accept.

“Pennsylvania landfills have long been equipped with sophisticated radiation detection equipment that monitors every load of waste entering the facility,” Pawelski said. “Any load with unacceptable radiation levels, regardless of its source, are managed pursuant to radiation waste management plans approved by the DEP.”

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NOTE PAST EVENT ~ Time & Location: Jan 07, 2021, 9:30 AM on Zoom

In October 2020 Protect PT sent over 7,000 Every Door Direct Mailed surveys to residents surrounding the Westmoreland County Landfill. The response to our survey has been overwhelming. The impacts residents reported go far beyond citations the landfill has so far received from the PA DEP. Residents reported sludge on the roadways discharging into streams and rivers and other nuisances. Additionally, several residents said they have changed daily routines to avoid further contamination. It is clear that residents have been deprived of their property rights and the enjoyments and use of their property. Due to the widespread nature of these concerns and complaints with PA DEP going unanswered, we have been invited by Gerald Jackson to hold a Virtual Press Conference on January 7th, 9:30 am on ZOOM.

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

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

Sen. Kaine does his homework & presents reasoned arguments

From Senator Tim Kaine (D – VA), Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, October 13, 2022

Thank you for contacting me about energy permitting reform and the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). I appreciate hearing from you.

On Tuesday, August 16, 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. This historic legislation invests $369 billion in addressing climate change and improving domestic energy production and manufacturing, reducing carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030, and bringing an estimated $11.6 billion of investment in large-scale power generation and storage to Virginia. The Inflation Reduction Act does not fund or approve the construction of any pipeline.

As part of a bargain to ensure the passage of the historic Inflation Reduction Act, which I was proud to support as the biggest step the United States has ever taken to address climate change, Senate leadership agreed to take up separate legislation to ensure the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). If completed as proposed, the MVP would run through Craig, Franklin, Giles, Montgomery, Pittsylvania, and Roanoke counties.

For many years, I have received input from Virginians about the MVP. However, I was not consulted about this deal, and I did not support the pipeline provisions in it pertaining to the Mountain Valley Pipeline. I expressed my views publicly in the run-up to a vote on a critical government funding bill that contained this provision, and I am relieved it was ultimately stripped out due to enough other Senators joining me to oppose it.

We owe it to Virginians to ensure that any energy project that deeply affects their communities, even to the point of seizing their property, should only proceed following an orderly, fair, and transparent process overseen by energy and environmental agencies. That’s why I agree with the need to reform our broken process for permitting energy infrastructure. I am receptive to many of the permitting reform provisions in the Manchin bill, though I believe it could be significantly improved by including my legislation to improve the permitting process, the Pipeline Fairness, Transparency, and Responsible Development Act.

However, the MVP portions of this bill were unacceptable to me. Over 100 miles of this pipeline are in Virginia, but I was not included in the discussions and therefore not given an opportunity to share Virginians’ concerns. In that sense, I stood in the same position as many of my constituents who have felt ignored along the way.

Green-lighting the MVP is contrary to the spirit of permitting reform. Such a deliberate action by Congress to put its thumb on the scale and simply approve this project while shutting down opportunities for full administrative or judicial review is at odds with the bipartisan desire to have a more transparent and workable permitting process. It also contradicts a position I have publicly advocated for many years—that Congress should not be the decider of these projects, but should instead set up an effective administrative permitting system and allow it to work without legislative interference.

I also strongly objected to the highly unusual provisions to eliminate any judicial review for key parts of the MVP process and strip jurisdiction away from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for cases involving the MVP. The owners of the MVP may be dissatisfied with rulings of the Fourth Circuit; in my 18 years as a civil rights lawyer practicing in the Fourth Circuit, I wasn’t always happy with the Court’s rulings. But a litigant in federal court—rich or poor, individual or company—has appellate remedies if it disagrees with a court ruling. Allowing one party disappointed with the actions of a court to pick a different court, bypass normal administrative processes, and eliminate meaningful judicial review of its project would set a dangerous precedent that could easily lead to abuse and even corruption in the future.

I have tracked the checkered regulatory process of the MVP for many years. I have held public input sessions as far back as 2015. I wrote a 5-page letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) summarizing the key points of what I heard. I introduced bipartisan legislation with Senator Mark Warner and Congressman Morgan Griffith to improve the FERC process when it comes to issues like eminent domain, adequate public meetings and opportunities for input, compensation for crossings of the Appalachian Trail or conservation easements, and whether multiple pipelines in the same geographic region should be sited less than 100 miles from one another.

I have been doing everything I can to amplify the voices of Virginians in this process. Whether you oppose or support the pipelines, Virginians deserve to have confidence that FERC has followed a full and fair process and considered all factors. Congress should not make decisions on individual pipelines because that would inevitably lead to partisan decision-making. But Congress writes the laws that govern FERC, and I believe that if the FERC process is flawed, Congress should adjust the law to fix the flaws. This is what I have proposed to do.

I will be sure to keep your views in mind should permitting reform legislation again be considered by the full Senate. Again, thank you for contacting me on this important issue, and please continue to make your voice heard.

Sincerely, Sen. Tim Kaine, U. S. Senate, Washington, DC

The MVP is unnecessary and an insult to the environment and climate change

Letter to Editor from Jim Kotcon, Sierra Club of West Virginia, Morgantown Dominion Post, October 9, 2022

Hoppy Kercheval’s column (“Manchin’s Miscalculation,” Sept. 30) repeats claims from Sens. Manchin and Capito, who relied on industry propaganda calling for “permitting reform” and weakening the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

NEPA has, for over 50 years, required federal agencies to objectively analyze environmental impacts of proposed projects and to involve the public who will be affected by those agency decisions. This approach is both good science and good public policy. Rational decisions are best made with all the facts, and since agencies cannot be expected to know everything about the impacts of their proposals, getting input from those with expertise and interest just makes sense.

Unfortunately, this approach requires that agencies actually listen to people and consider their concerns. Agencies get into trouble when they try to rubber-stamp a decision already made, rather than objectively considering all the issues and reasonable alternatives.

The proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is a classic example of this flawed approach. Courts tend to defer to agency expertise except when the agency is so arbitrary and capricious as to violate federal law. MVP keeps losing in court, not because environmentalists are obstructionists, but because it really is a bad idea — one that violates federal laws meant to protect all of us. The federal agencies that have pushed this have generated NEPA analyses that are so obviously flawed that courts have repeatedly asked that they be redone.

The claim that MVP is needed for domestic security and to supply Europe ignores climate change and the urgent need to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. Investing billions in a project that will not be completed in time to help Ukraine, but that will be obsolete before it pays for itself, while imposing excessive environmental costs on our land and water, is exactly the kind of bad decision that NEPA is intended to prevent.

In a democracy, legitimate permitting reform would not need to rely on a bill that would arbitrarily mandate a single project and prohibit any appeal by citizens.

>>> Jim Kotcon, W.Va. Chapter of the Sierra Club, Morgantown

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See Also: Summary of the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. §4321 et seq. (1969)

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was one of the first laws ever written that establishes the broad national framework for protecting our environment. NEPA’s basic policy is to assure that all branches of government give proper consideration to the environment prior to undertaking any major federal action that significantly affects the environment.

NEPA requirements are invoked when airports, buildings, military complexes, highways, parkland purchases, and other federal activities are proposed. Environmental Assessments (EAs) and Environmental Impact Statements (EISs), which are assessments of the likelihood of impacts from alternative courses of action, are required from all Federal agencies and are the most visible NEPA requirements.

Fracking operations which take many acres are increasing in numbers

>>> From an Article by Reid Frazier, StateImpact Pennsylvania, October 1, 2022

The University of Pittsburgh and the Penna. Department of Health are no longer participating in a public forum next week to discuss a series of state-funded studies about fracking and public health. The forum will still take place on Wednesday, October 5th in Canonsburg.

The Center for Coalfield Justice, one of the environmental groups involved in the forum, said in a statement this week that Pitt and the department of health had pulled out of the public event. Both the university and the department of health were slated to take part in the event, “to explain the study process to the public and take questions from community members,” according to the center.

In a statement, Maureen Lichtveld, Dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health, said that the studies are still “ongoing” and that “no data are available to share publicly.” Licthveld said the school was “willing to answer questions from the community as the studies progress. When we are prepared to release the results of these studies, we will do so publicly in a timely manner.”

Pitt has set up a web site with more information on the studies’ methodologies.

Barry Ciccocioppo, a spokesperson for the department of health, said the agency pulled out of the event only after Pitt did. “(A)fter Pitt withdrew its participation in the meeting it became clear that the department would be unable to provide anything more than background information and an overview of what led to contracting for these two studies,” Ciccocioppo said, in an email. “We will be providing that information to the organizers before the meeting.”

Ciccocioppo said the department will try to answer questions and solicit feedback through an online questionnaire it has set up. This survey will be open for two weeks after the Oct. 5 meeting.

“Parents deserve to hear from these institutions,” said Heaven Sensky, organizing director at the Center for Coalfield Justice, in a written statement. “Participating in this public forum was the bare minimum these agencies and research institutions could do to provide information to grieving parents and concerned community members. But now, they won’t even do that.”

Sensky and three other community members have resigned from the studies’ external advisory board, over what they say are Pitt’s and the agency’s “resistance to accountability and transparency to community members.”

“It is reasonable for community residents and pediatricians like me to be concerned that fracking may be to blame for the spike in rare childhood cancers and other health impacts in Southwestern Pennsylvania,” said Ned Ketyer, one of the former advisory board members, and president of Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania. “Community members are demanding answers. Unfortunately, the decision by the PA DOH and University of Pittsburgh to withdraw their commitment and not attend the public meeting on October 5 effectively silences those important voices and keeps the community in the dark.”

The forum will include perspectives from the former external review board members. The studies in question are examining the relationship between fracking and diseases like cancer, asthma, and poor birth outcomes. The state funded the studies after pressure from families of patients of a rare cancer in Washington County.

Dozens of children and young adults have been diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma and other forms of cancer in a four-county area outside Pittsburgh, where energy companies have drilled more than 4,000 wells since 2008, according to state records. The cases were first reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Several of the cases included teenagers who died of Ewing sarcoma, who had all attended one school, Canon-McMillan High School in North Strabane Township, Washington County.

Ewing sarcoma has no known environmental cause. But the families nevertheless suspect that drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the method that energy companies use to extract natural gas from shale rock, played a role. A state study found there was no cancer cluster in Washington County, but that study did not include several newer cases of Ewing sarcoma.

In August, researchers at Yale School of Public Health found children living close to fracking sites in Pennsylvania have a higher risk for a common form of childhood cancer.

The health department says on its website that oil and gas “infrastructure may present potential exposure hazards to residents living nearby as well as to oil and gas workers.” The studies are expected to be completed by the end of the year, according to the Department of Health.

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October 5 Community Meeting Scheduled to Update Residents on PA Health & Environment Studies and to Discuss Health Impacts of Shale Gas Development

September 29, 2022 — On October 5, a public meeting in Canonsburg, PA, will offer residents an opportunity to learn more about a pair of studies being conducted by the University of Pittsburgh titled the “PA Health and Environment Studies.” The studies are exploring potential health impacts of the shale gas industry on residents of Southwestern Pennsylvania, including potential connections between this heavy industry and a spike in childhood cancers in the region.

Members of the media are invited to attend. There will also be a virtual option.

Date: Wednesday, October 5, 2022 Time: 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Place: Town Park (Yoney Pavilion), VFW 191 Drive Canonsburg, PA 15317

Attendees will hear from persons who formerly participated as members of the studies’ External Advisory Board and who will discuss the studies and help to prepare the community to understand the scope and limitations of the results. Additionally, the Environmental Health Project will present information families can use to identify impacts and protect their health. The PA Health and Environment studies are ongoing, and results will not be shared at this meeting.

Representatives of the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health had originally committed to being on hand to explain the study process and to take questions from community members. However, the agency and the school have now decided to pull out of the meeting. Meeting organizers released a separate statement on this development, which can be viewed here.

In 2019, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s administration allocated $3 million to the studies, taking action after months of impassioned pleas by the families of childhood cancer patients who live in the most heavily drilled region of the state. The studies have been underway for two years.

The studies cover the entirety of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Region, including Allegheny County, Armstrong County, Beaver County, Butler County, Fayette County, Greene County, Washington County, and Westmoreland County.

To register for either the in-person or virtual option, please follow this link:

https://secure.everyaction.com/qLXO2p_7C0uyKwJJ_e3Iag2?ms=coalition

Planning for this power plant did not involve the climate crisis

From an Article by Bob Rolley, Lock Haven Express, September 5, 2022

Renovo, Pa — Plans to build a Marcellus Shale natural gas-fired power plant here will proceed despite an Environmental Hearing Board ruling saying state-approved emission limits for sulfur dioxide (SO2) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are too high.

Some eight years in the making, Renovo Energy Center LLC proposes to build a 1,000-megawatt power plant designed to provide electricity to thousands of customers in Pennsylvania and New York.

It would be erected on 68 acres that served as a former Pennsylvania Railroad railcar repair shop and railyard.mThe firm says the project investment could top $850 million, create 700 construction jobs and upward of 30 permanent positions.

REC was granted an air quality permit by the state Department of Environmental Protection, with the plant’s emissions controls based on the best available technology. The Clean Air Council, PennFuture and Center for Biological Diversity appealed that permit approval, alleging it allows “illegal levels of air pollution.”

The Aug. 29 ruling written by Chief EHB Judge Thomas W. Renwand essentially said DEP allowed too high of emission limits without explaining “its rationale for selecting a less stringent emission limit, and that rationale must be appropriate in light of all the evidence in the record.”

Further, he wrote, DEP permit writers retain discretion to set best available control technology levels that “do not necessarily reflect the highest possible control efficiencies but, rather will allow permittees to achieve compliance on a consistent basis. The existence of a similar facility with a lower emissions limit creates an obligation for the permit applicant and permit issuer to consider and document whether the same emission level can be achieved at the (REC) proposed facility.”

“This ruling is vindication for the community,” argued Joseph Otis Minott, executive director and chief counsel of Clean Air Council. “DEP must set pollution limits to protect the public based on science and law, not on the whims of the polluter.”

The REC project has been endorsed by the local Renovo Borough Council, the Clinton County Economic Partnership and the Clinton County Commissioners.

“DEP had simply not done what the law requires to protect the community from these types of emissions,” added Jessica O’Neill, senior attorney at PennFuture. “The Board recognized this clear violation and we will continue to press the rest of our claims against this flawed permit.”

The board granted partial summary judgment on the issues of the sulfur dioxide and volatile organic compounds limits in the permits. High levels of SO2 and volatile organic compounds can cause health risks.

In its application, REC stated that “a facility with the best emissions performance for one pollutant typically cannot meet the lowest emission level for another pollutant.” Rick Franzese, REC project manager, told The Express on Sunday that, “while we’re disappointed by the ruling, we will comply with it and we look forward to commencing construction on the project in a timely manner once the appeal is resolved.”

In statements to the county commissioners during their endorsement of the project this past May, Franzese had this to say: “The REC project remains viable so long as the appeal of the project’s air permit is favorably resolved. Investor interest in the Renovo facility remains high, and increasingly so in light of current events. In particular, the war in Ukraine has highlighted the need for energy security and independence, which for the near-term in the United States can be reliably provided by domestically-sourced natural gas. Renewables, such as solar and wind, are not yet fully reliable baseload power supplies, even when augmented with the most advanced storage technology currently available.

“Increased regulation is making coal-fired generation less viable, he said, so “gas-fired plants such as Renovo are needed to replace that baseload capacity. When state-of-the-art power plants such as the REC project come online, they typically displace electricity that would otherwise have been generated by older and less efficient coal-fired and other older baseload plants with less effective pollution controls, resulting in a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions,” he added.

The groups appealing the permit disagree, with Robert Ukeiley, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, arguing that “trying to build a new methane-gas burning power plant at this point is just absurd. We need to be shifting to clean, cheap energy like solar and wind rather than dirty, expensive power plants which burn methane gas.”

XXX

Frack gas is unnatural natural gas, containing different minor and trace components

Letter to the editor by Vickie Oles, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, August 5, 2022

Residents of New Freeport, Greene County, might not agree with letter-writer Dave Callahan, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition (“Natural gas development benefits Pa. residents,” July 25, TribLIVE). Residents report shower water is oily, water smells bad and pets won’t drink the water. There are reports of “errant fracking fluid from a well site.” A microbiology professor’s testing determined the water isn’t potable. The solution? The driller and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection “are investigating.” The families received some bottled water.

Other communities are affected by gas development. Check out “Fractured: The body burden of living near fracking” from Environmental Health News.

In addition to threats to health and disruption to daily life to residents near frack sites, we all might face threats. The frack waste from wells can be toxic and radioactive. Is that what is in the residual waste trucks driving through our communities? Where is it going?

Aren’t jobs a benefit? Workers in the drilling industry have seven times the death rate of other U.S. workers on average with injury and death from road and rail accidents, machinery mishaps, toxic chemical exposure, respirable silica sand, explosions and fires.

These risks seem to outweigh any benefits. {an obvious understatement}

>>> Vickie Oles, Ligonier Township, Laurel Highlands, Westmoreland County, PA

>>>>>>>…………………>>>>>>>…………………>>>>>>>

See Also: PA-DEP Fines CNX for Well Failure Near Westmoreland County Reservoir, Reid Frazier, State Impact Penna, August 21, 2020

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has fined CNX $175,000 for allowing a gas well failure near a drinking water reservoir in Westmoreland County. A casing pipe inside the well ruptured about 5,000 feet below the surface of the Shaw 1G well on Jan. 26, 2019. The rupture sent gas and fracking fluids into nearby rock layers. The gas reached surrounding gas wells.

Fishing map of Tappan Lake, which received a $6 million upgrade

Article written by Randi Pokladnik, PhD, Tappan Lake, Uhrichsville, OH

Yellowstone National Park in Montana experienced massive flooding last week. “Water devoured roads, swept away bridges, isolated entire towns and shut down one of America’s busiest parks.” The flooding was blamed on a cool-wet spring which was equivalent to 200 percent of the normal moisture from snow melt. Warmer temperatures and more rain caused the Yellowstone River to overflow its banks with a flow of nearly 50,000 cubic feet of water per second. USGS data shows that over the past 130 years, the river only reached 32,000 cubic feet three times. This was a 1 in 500-year flood event.

Kansas is one of the major cattle-producing states in America. Farmers witnessed cattle dropping dead as heat spiked from 79 degrees on June 9th to 101 degrees on June 11th. Over 2000 cattle were lost in the intense heat wave triggered by climate change.

These recent events along with the storms that hit Ohio last week are proof that the climate is changing and severe weather will soon be the new norm. Still, politicians like Ohio CD 6 Representative, Bill Johnson, and the oil and gas industry continue to cling to the very fuel that is driving this climate crisis. It is estimated that in 2021, extreme weather caused by climate change cost US taxpayers close to $100 billion dollars.

We know from scientific studies that global methane levels have significantly increased since fracking exploded in North America. Also, low producing wells that are allowed to leak contribute to the large amounts of methane emissions in North America. Tracy Sabetta of Ohio’s Moms Clean Air Force said, “If you look at prices from 2019, there’s more than $700 million in wasted natural gas. That is enough to supply over 3.6 million homes in the U.S. annually, or to power every single home in Ohio.”

Fracking is fueling the climate crisis but this fact is ignored by many including the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District. The MWCD recently signed a lease agreement with Encino Energy to frack 7,300 acres of property at Tappan Lake in Harrison County. The deal will place $40 million dollars into the MWCD coffers. The MWCD has a long history with oil and gas extraction, leasing thousands of acres for Utica shale drilling and selling water from MWCD lakes to be used by drillers for fracking. It was once stated that the MWCD is the “number 1 beneficiary of drilling in Ohio.”

The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District includes parts or the entirety of 27 Ohio counties. All of these counties have seen some impact from oil and gas development, however, the counties of Carroll, Harrison, Belmont, Noble, and Guernsey have been significantly impacted.

The watershed made $200 million on Utica Shale wells from 2009 to 2015. Even though local citizens expressed concerns about water sales, in 2012, the MWCD sold 11 million gallons of water from Clendening Lake in Harrison County to Gulfport Energy. Water has also been sold to the oil and gas industry from Seneca Lake and Piedmont Lake.

Gordon Maupin, the President of the MWCD Board of Directors, said this recent lease agreement reflects “our desire to renew and increase our focus on improving the watershed and water quality and protecting our resource by requiring enhanced environmental protections”. Those “enhanced environmental protections” Maupin speaks of are superficial at best and include walls to block noise and visuals, some water testing and erosion protection. It is impossible to protect land, air and water from the pollution of fracking since this industry is basically exempt from all major federal environmental laws and regulations such as: Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act and Emergency Planning and Community Right-to Know Act.

Citizens living near oil and gas activities have expressed concerns about drilling operations which include: the chemicals/additives used to drill/frack, the radionuclides brought up to the surface in produced water, drilling in ecologically sensitive areas, contamination from spills, leaks, blowouts, and deliberate releases, subsurface migration of contaminants among aquifers, and increased levels of radon gas in homes near fracking.

Workers and nearby residents can be exposed to air contaminants like nitrogen oxides, benzene, ozone, toluene, methane, and fine particulate matter during the fracking process. Run-off of toxic compounds from the well pads can enter Tappan Lake, the drinking water source for Cadiz, Ohio. Should the lake become impaired, where will Cadiz get its water supply?

The U.S. EPA and Department of Energy said that an average of seven million gallons of water and over 70,000 gallons of chemicals are used for each well fracked. Over 80 percent of these compounds have never been reviewed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Many of those reviewed are known carcinogens and hormone blockers.

Accidents happen. The XTO Energy well blowout in Belmont County in February 2018 spewed out 120 tons of methane an hour for twenty days. Methane is 84 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.

You cannot claim to be a good steward of the land and ignore all the externalities visited on the landscape from fracking. I live on Tappan Lake and have seen the effects of fracking in the county. Pipelines crisscross the forested hills, fracking trucks congest the rural roadways, water is being withdrawn from local creeks, and even the night skies are obliterated by fracking flares.

I can see the new $6 million dollar Tappan Lake Marina from our boat docks and wonder how profitable that marina would be should the lake become contaminated. How much will our property values decrease? Will the fish from the lake be safe to eat if frack wastes as well as brine from fracking contaminates the watershed of the lake?

How can the MWCD justify financing improvements by allowing the fossil fuel industry to destroy the very landscape they (MWCD) are supposedly conserving? The definition of conservancy is: a body concerned with the preservation of nature, specific species or natural resources. The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District is no conservancy.