Contamination At 3,900 Fracking Spill Sites In N. Dakota Alone 

From an Article by Sami Grove, PopularResistance.Org, May 6, 2016

There’s no doubt that fracking has provided a boost to the North Dakota economy in recent years, but at what cost? New research from Duke University scientists has mapped 3,900 fracking spill sites in North Dakota, analyzing both water and soil around these locations and finding significant, persistent pollution levels that could have serious implications for human and environmental health alike.

Researchers found high levels of ammonium, selenium, lead and other toxic contaminants as well as high salt levels and radium, a naturally occurring radioactive element. And the problem appears to be persistent—pollutant levels regularly exceeded federal safety limits for safe drinking water or aquatic health, and at one site at least, the researchers were still able to detect high levels of contaminants in spill water four years after the spill occurred. This problem is apparently exacerbated by the fact that, unlike oil, many of the inorganic chemicals found in the wastewater are resistant to biodegradation, creating a long-term legacy of contamination.

Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, suggests these findings present a new picture of the potential downsides of fracking when wastewater is not safely managed:

“Until now, research in many regions of the nation has shown that contamination from fracking has been fairly sporadic and inconsistent. In North Dakota, however, we find it is widespread and persistent, with clear evidence of direct water contamination from fracking. The magnitude of oil drilling in North Dakota is overwhelming. More than 9,700 wells have been drilled there in the past decade. This massive development has led to more than 3,900 brine spills, mostly coming from faulty pipes built to transport fracked wells’ flowback water from on-site holding containers to nearby injection wells where it will be disposed underground.”

Assessing the full scope of contamination is also hindered, say researchers, by the fact that many smaller spills have occurred on tribal lands where monitoring is either insufficient or non-existent.

Once again, the true cost of gas proves a lot higher than what we’re paying for it.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

These secret trains keep rumbling thru ...

Hard Look at Oil on Rail Tanker Cars

Investigative reporter Marcus Stern of Inside Climate News was interviewed on NPR’ Fresh Air, on Wednesday, February 24, 2014. Here is the audio recording of that broadcast. If you listen to this thru, you will be shocked! He discusses the crude oil train wrecks in Quebec, Alabama, North Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia, the latter on February 16th.

Duane Nichols, www.FrackCheckWV.net

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Bomb Train Traffic is up 4000 % …… With Explosive Results!

What do Quebec, Alabama, North Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia all have in common?

These were all sites where trains carrying fracked crude oil derailed and exploded over the last two years, with the derailment in West Virginia occurring just last week.

The derailments, explosions, fires, and oil spills in these locations killed 47 people, threatened the lives and safety of entire communities, and led to the evacuations of many thousands of people, while polluting waterways and poisoning drinking-water supplies.

Ribbons of railroads lace most of our country, running through our cities and towns and over or next to our nation’s waterways, making it very likely that one of these bomb trains is rolling through or near your neighborhood right now.

Fracking has caused a 4000% increase in crude-by-rail transport. And 85% of the railcars the industry uses are outdated and unsafe DOT-111’s that cause the lighter, more volatile fracked Bakken crude oil to explode and burn in an accident.

Adding to this growing threat is the fact that the rail industry is looking to double the speed at which these trains travel, from 30 mph to 60 mph. But the train that derailed, exploded, and spilled thousands of gallons of oil into Virginia’s James River was only traveling at 24 mph!

These bomb trains are disasters waiting to happen that must be stopped now!

And that’s why I’m writing and asking for your help today. Please help Waterkeeper Alliance fight these bomb trains and other frontline threats to our public health, communities, waterways, and environment. Please help us STOP these deadly bomb trains.

Thank you in advance for your passion and generosity!

Sincerely, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President, Waterkeeper Alliance

Debating the validity of climate change is a waste of time.
… … …  Debating what to do is not !

Editorial, Houston Chronicle, May 19, 2014

The recent report on climate change from the U.N.-chartered Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a sober reminder that what we as individuals happen to “believe” about global warming – unless we happen to be climate scientists – has absolutely no bearing on whether the phenomenon is a vast hoax perpetrated by 99 percent of the scientific community or a looming crisis that, as the report underscores, will affect everybody on this planet.

Skepticism on most issues is, indeed, healthy, but in any number of areas, whether it’s relying on M.D. Anderson for cancer treatment or a Texas A&M-trained civil engineering fund to erect bridges and skyscrapers, we have to trust the experts. So it is with measuring and assessing the evidence of climate disruption. As conservative columnist Michael Gerson pointed out in the Washington Post recently, “Our intuitions are useless here.”

The report from the scientists, economists and other experts on the IPCC panel is about as sobering as it can get. The panel warned that the planet is indeed warming, that humans are primarily responsible and that we are not anywhere near prepared for the dire consequences.

What’s coming if we can’t or won’t change our ways are low-lying island nations disappearing, coastal cities going the way of Venice (at best), abnormal weather patterns and growing seasons and tropical pathogens migrating into formerly temperate zones.

In Texas and elsewhere, change already is upon us. We’re seeing increased rates of water loss, depleting water resources, increased wildfires and the spread of invasive species. Our grandchildren and their children will see a rise in sea level from 1 to 4 feet by the end of the century.

“Climate change is no longer a future issue,” Katherine Hayanoe, director of Texas Tech’s Climate Change Science Center, told the Chronicle recently. “For the United States as a whole, climate change will affect our lives through its impacts on our health, our water resources, our food, our natural environment and our economy.”
Debating the validity of climate change – or whether we believe in climate change – is a waste of time; debating what to do in response is anything but a waste.

According to the IPCC report, emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases grew faster between 2000 and 2010 than over the previous three decades. That disturbing statistic is despite real progress being made in some parts of the world. In Germany, for example, Chancellor Angela Merkel has laid out a plan to fill more than 40 percent of her nation’s energy needs from renewable sources. The United States has reduced its carbon emissions by nearly 10 percent since 2005, in part because of stricter automobile fuel economy standards but also because of the lingering recession. Progress, though, pales in contrast to the increase in emissions by China and other rapidly industrializing countries.

We know what needs to be done, but if we can’t summon the political will and the sense of worldwide urgency to implement some kind of carbon tax or to develop new technologies that limit future carbon emissions, then we need to begin preparing for the worst. That means reassessing where we live and where we build, how we feed ourselves, how much water we use, among numerous other major adjustments. Gondolas in Kemah, anyone?

NOTE: The question at the end of the above editorial asks whether Texans will welcome sea level rise, given that Clear Lake will rise into the streets of Kemah, a lakeside community near Houston and the Gulf of Mexico.

CLEAR LAKE in Greater Houston & Gulf of Mexico

Dust on WV Well Pad

Charleston Gazette Editorial: “Horror of silicosis”

Editorial from the Charleston Gazette, March 19, 2014

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Choking, wheezing sickness and death among U.S. workers who breathe rock dust has declined greatly during the past half-century – but a disturbing number of blue-collar laborers still suffer agonizing silicosis.

The menace is expected to worsen because large amounts of “frac sand” are used at Marcellus Shale horizontal gas wells. The sand is mixed with liquids and pumped into deep strata, to prevent fractures from closing after high pressure splits them. Workers on the surface can encounter clouds of tiny silica particles. West Virginia is up to its neck in the Marcellus boom, and thus at risk.

Currently, Washington hearings are being held on proposed new rules to cut allowable silica exposure in half. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration says the reduction would save 700 America worker lives per year and prevent 1,600 new cases of silicosis.

Naturally, industry opposes this lifesaving change, claiming that it would be too expensive. But as environmental reporter Ken Ward Jr., pointed out, the crackdown would cost $637 million per year across America – yet it would save an estimated $5.3 billion in medical and other expenses.

U.S. silica rules haven’t been changed since 1971. Since then, more medical research has linked silica to cancer and made other ominous discoveries. We hope the new health reform is enacted.

Silicosis carries a tragic echo in West Virginia because hundreds of workers died of it when the Hawks Nest tunnel was drilled near Gauley Bridge during the Great Depression. Now, that sad episode seems long ago. But Steve White of the Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation told Ward:

“People think those bad old days are over, but the facts are, construction workers still get exposed to silica when they drill rock, cut concrete, brick and stone, and many other tasks.”

Many West Virginians gladly accept hard-hat jobs offered by industry. But they shouldn’t sicken and die from dust at the workplace. The tough new OSHA rules are humane and cost-effective. They should be imposed.

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Industry Comments: Limit on silica would hurt fracking industry

From an Article by Katherine Lymn, Jamestown ND Sun, March 19, 2014

DICKINSON, N.D. — A proposed lower limit of silica exposure from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would drastically affect the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, industry, a trade group said. The American Petroleum Institute (API) is one of about 80 organizations and industry groups that will speak in Washington, D.C., at hearings stretching from Tuesday through April 4. The hearings are part of the rulemaking process before a rule is made final.

OSHA has proposed cutting the limit of exposure to silica to 50 micrograms of respirable crystalline silica per cubic meter of air as averaged over an eight-hour day. The inhalation of crystalline silica particles can cause silicosis, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and kidney disease, according to OSHA.

Currently, OSHA enforces 40-year-old permissible exposure limits, or PELs, for silica in general industry, construction and shipyards. It estimates the proposed rule, if implemented, would save 700 lives and prevent 1,600 cases of silicosis a year. But industry groups say the rule is not well-researched and that the health effects aren’t sufficiently proven to warrant the new limit.

Exposure to silica is common in construction — airborne silica dust occurs with cutting, sawing, drilling and crushing of concrete, brick and block — and about 1.85 million of the 2.2 million workers exposed to respirable crystalline silica are in the construction trade, OSHA estimates. The rest are exposed through general industry, including about 25,000 in the oil and gas industry. More than 16,000 of those workers are currently exposed above the proposed levels.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed its own comments, charging OSHA with building its rule on “a chain of assumptions.” It urged OSHA to withdraw the proposal because employers won’t be able to keep up with the costs not applicable to foreign competitors, chamber spokeswoman Blair Latoff Holmes said in a statement.

Frac site workers are exposed to high concentrations of respirable silica dust as they work with fracturing fluids, according to OSHA. Sources of exposure on the frac jobs include dust ejected from thief hatches on sand movers, released from conveyor belts under the movers, dust generated by truck traffic and created as the sand is dropped into or agitated in the blender hopper, OSHA said in its analysis.

One fracking services company with a large presence in North Dakota, Sandbox Logistics, is testifying in support of the rule because it would be good for business — its product would bring companies in compliance with the proposed rule, spokesman Cameron Oren said. The sandboxes are a gravity-fed way to transport frac sand that nearly eliminate the dust associated with blowing off sand from a trailer to a storage vessel on-site.

OSHA estimated based on its research that 88 percent of frac workers would require more controls to comply with the proposed rule. It recommends compliance through “local exhaust ventilation” systems on thief hatches and conveyors, adding a water misting system and providing operator booths for the most exposed workers.

Submitted by: Duane Nichols, www.FrackCheckWV.net