Public information meeting on proposed NIOSH research mine

From an Article by Heather Niday, Allegheny Mountain Radio, March 13, 2021

Representatives of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health [NIOSH] and its parent organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were the hosts for an open house at the Linwood public library near Snowshoe on March 6th to answer questions about a proposed underground testing lab and research center near Mace on the Pocahontas-Randolph county line. The proposed 460 acre site which borders US Route 219 is owned by the Consortium for Silver Creek Group. The West Virginia Secretary of State’s office identifies David. L. Litsey, a Snowshoe area homeowner as the owner of the consortium.

A cross section of people attended the 3 hour open house including local residents, business owners and county government officials. The Mace site would replace the Lake Lynn Experimental Mine, an underground chamber in a limestone quarry located in Fairchance, Pennsylvania. That site was operated by NIOSH from 1982 until 2012 when the property owner declined to sell or extend the lease on the property. A Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the Mace site was posted online in February. Sam Tarr of the Office of Safety, Security and Asset Management for the CDC explained what they were looking for from the public meeting.

“The whole Environmental Impact Statement process is public involvement so we go out and do due diligence to understand what impacts it may have,” said Tarr. “But it also gives the community, you guys live here daily, an opportunity to come and bring forward anything that maybe we’d overlooked; more importantly than overlooked that we’re just unaware of.”

Jeff Welsh, Associate Director of Science for the CDC/NIOSH said the Mace site would be used for research similar to that performed at the Lake Lynn site. “What we did there is a lot of our explosion research and what that is, is looking at ways of preventing explosions from happening,” he said.

Many folks have questions about locating a facility in the Karst limestone that is so much a part of the Pocahontas county geology, but Welsh said it’s not really a factor. “It doesn’t have an effect,” Welch said. “What we want to create is just like what an underground mine would look like so we can do experiments in full scale.

Pocahontas County Commissioner Walt Helmick spoke in favor of the project. “I think it’s a project that fits Pocahontas County,” he said. “It’s a project that doesn’t have as far as I’m concerned any significant environmental issues and we’ll find out all those things, but no, I tend to be in favorite of it.” Helmick said he’d also like to have more information about the potential economic impact the site could have on the county.

The project would potentially affect five federally listed species at the site through habitat loss or disruption including Northern Long-eared and Indiana Bats and the Cheat Mountain Salamander. NIOSH says that consultation with the US Fish and Wildlife service under section 7 of the Endangered Species Act is ongoing.

Autumn Crowe, Staff Scientist with West Virginia Rivers, says it’s difficult to form an opinion about the project because she said the DEIS is deficient. “I really feel like they need more information in order to make the conclusion that there will be no impacts to ground water,” said Crowe. “A lot of people are concerned about the well water and the springs; that’s their main source of drinking water. We want to make sure their concerns are addressed for this project and right now I’m not seeing that those concerns can be alleviated because there’s not enough information to conclude that there’s no impacts to the ground water.”

Crowe said they are also concerned about discrepancies between the DEIS and the WV Division of Natural Resources regarding caves on the proposed site. She said the WV DNR has commented that there are caves on the site, but the DEIS states there are no caves. As for sinkholes, a feature that can be found in Karst, the DEIS states that no sinkholes were found during a survey of the site, but Crowe said only about 10 percent of the property was surveyed. She said they would prefer to have a more detailed terrain survey done on the entire site to look for possible sinkholes.

Copies of the Draft EIS can be obtained at:

>>> Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov (reference Docket No. CDC-2018-0057).

>>> Linwood Community Library, 72 Snowshoe Drive, Slatyfork, West Virginia 26291.

>>> By written request (electronic copies only) to: cdc-macewv-eis@cdc.gov.

Frack Worker Risk Warnings

OSHA Cites Antero Contractor After West Virginia Worker’s Death

From an Article by Jamison Cocklin, Natural Gas Intelligence, June 2, 2015

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited a contractor that worked at an Antero Resources Corp. well site in Tyler County, WV, where a worker was killed last year when he was struck by a front-end loader.

Based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada,  Precision Drilling LP was cited for failure to provide a workplace “free from recognized hazards,” according to OSHA. The agency discovered the violations during an investigation after Ryan Dunn, 29, of Jackson County, WV was killed on site in November. The agency said Dunn was “struck by or caught between hazard from a front-end loader” as it was moving pipe, equipment and other supplies.

It was discovered that the equipment was being operated with “restricted rear visibility” in reverse and lacked a left-side rear-view mirror. In addition to that citation, OSHA also found that Precision failed to provide fall protection on site with an unguarded hole near a mud tank. The company was also cited for failing to provide or require its workers to wear respirators near the mud tank.

OSHA issued the citations in mid-May and proposed a penalty of $13,550. Precision was given an opportunity to contest the violations by the end of the month, but it is unclear whether they did. The company has not commented about the incident or OSHA’s findings.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin is soon expected to issue an executive order detailing requirements for a study to ensure better safety at oil and gas drilling sites after an increase in fatal accidents over the last decade with the rise in unconventional drilling in the state.

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OSHA Issues Alert on Non-Silica Fracking Hazards

Submitted by Jackson Lewis P.C., National Law Review, January 29, 2015

OSHA has issued an advisory on non-silica health and safety hazards in the hydraulic fracking industry.

OSHA said the purpose of its 41-page document, Hydraulic Fracturing and Flowback Hazards Other than Respirable Silica, is to inform employers and workers about the known hazards that result from hydraulic fracturing and flowback and to offer ways to reduce exposure to these hazards. It leaves discussion of silica-related hazards to publications previously released, including a joint OSHA-NIOSH hazard alert and an OSHA “infosheet.”

The agency makes clear the document does not impose additional legal or compliance obligations on employers beyond existing OSHA standards, regulations, and OSH Act’s general duty clause.

“Fracking” is a process that blasts through underground formations to release oil and natural gas. Flowback, the flow of fluids and hydrocarbons back out of the formations fractured by chemical- and sand-containing fluids, is part of the process. According to OSHA, some 35,000 wells are hydraulically fractured in the United States every year. Fracking is classified as a subsector of the oil and gas extraction industry. The industry experiences a higher fatality rate than most of U.S. general industry; however, no information is publicly available on worker injuries, illnesses, or fatalities connected specifically with fracking or flowback operations.

The OSHA publication, considered a guidance document by the agency, breaks down the fracking operation into three other hazard areas in addition to flowback: (1) transport, rig-up, and rig-down; (2) mixing and injection; and (3) pressure pumping. Each section of the publication on hazard areas includes a comprehensive set of hazard- reduction recommendations.

For instance, the flowback section explains that fluids and materials flowing back at very high pressures from the well may contain debris such as rocks and mud, plugs and other parts, toxic chemicals, oil, water, and sand. A variety of prevention strategies to deal with these pressures and with potentially flammable atmospheres are listed. A separate section suggests ways to prevent exposure to hydrogen sulfide and volatile organic chemicals. A lengthy matrix in an appendix breaks down the job of hydraulic fracking into its multiple steps with their associated hazards.

In an introductory section, OSHA offers pre-job planning advice that includes giving workers stop-work authority if unsafe conditions or practices exist. The agency also advises that “before beginning work, personnel should receive instruction in hazard recognition and safe work practices to reduce the chance of injury on the job site.” OSHA urges employers to develop injury and illness prevention programs.

Finally, a section is dedicated to worker rights, including the right to report injuries or raise safety and health concerns, along with a statement that employees have recourse to OSHA in the event of retaliation.

The full report is entitled “Hydraulic Fracturing and Flowback Hazards Other than Respirable Silica,” U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA 3763-12 2014.

See also the following OSHA reports on “silica sand” exposures to workers:

Silica: Silica Exposure during Hydraulic Fracturing InfoSheet, (OSHA 3622 – 2012) (English: PDF)

Silica: OSHA/NIOSH Hazard Alert – Worker Exposure to Silica during Hydraulic Fracturing, OSHA 3566 – 2012) (English: HTML PDF )

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

According to reporter Alex Wayne of Business Week, fracking sand dust from the hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas is one of the most dangerous threats to workers on wellpads reports a government safety researcher. Eric Esswein, an industrial hygienist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) says that over 75% of air samples show high dust levels. The particles in sand dust created during the fracking process can lodge in the lungs and cause potentially fatal silicosis, he said at a conference sponsored by the Institute of Medicine on April 30^th.

Esswein, whose agency is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said his team spent about 225 hours visiting 11 well sites in Colorado, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Texas and North Dakota in 2010 and 2011, with the consent of drilling companies, to examine safety practices. He took air samples from workers and near wellheads, to test for contaminants, and found elevated levels of silica most places. In about one-third of the samples, he said, silica levels were more than 10 times recommendations.

Workers were careful while handling dangerous chemicals and generally knew what to do in the event of emergencies, he said. “There’s a big focus on safety” at well sites, Esswein said. “There isn’t as much emphasis on health. We call it big ‘S’ and little ‘H.’” Esswein said he didn’t know whether the sand dust may be harmful to local residents because his team didn’t take measurements at the edges of well sites. He plans to publish data from his survey in trade and scientific journals this year.

However, according to Steve Everley of Energy In Depth, “When it comes to claims that hydraulic fracturing is causing people to get sick more frequently or more severely, the data simply do not support that conclusion.” His group advocates for drilling-friendly policies on behalf of gas companies including Chesapeake Energy. Workers at gas wells are generally safer than in other businesses, Everley said, pointing to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data that show the incidence of non-fatal injuries in the oil and gas extraction industry is less than half the national average.