Fracking fumes linked to resident asthma

Bolstered by New Proof of Asthma Link, Anti-Fracking Groups Plan March at DNC

From an Article by Nika Knight, Common Dreams, July 19, 2016

Summary — Our country’s leaders ‘must take a hard look at the data, acknowledge the harms of drilling and fracking, and stop it before other people become ill’

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have conclusively shown that living close to fracking operations significantly increases asthma sufferers’ risks of attacks, adding urgency to the battle against fracking within the Democratic Party as it prepares to convene in Philadelphia next week.

“Fracking threatens the basic necessities of life: our food, our water, our air.”
—Karuna Jaggar, Breast Cancer Action

The study, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, looked at 35,000 medical records in Pennsylvania from 2005 to 2012. The state has long been host to a controversial fracking boom, and many have clamored for politicians to pay attention to the industry’s irreversible damage to the land and human health.

“This study’s findings confirm what we have known for years—that fracking is an inherently hazardous process that threatens human health and safety every day. More than 17 million Americans live within a mile of a fracking site, and they are all at risk,” said Wenonah Hauter, founder and executive director of Food and Water Watch.

Indeed, this latest research joins more than 480 peer-reviewed studies that have shown increased health risks and harm from the fracking industry, noted Larysa Dyrszka, a medical doctor and co-founder of Concerned Health Professionals of New York, during a press call Tuesday.

These results were thus “alarming but not surprising,” Dyrszka said.

Locally and nationwide, leaders “must take a hard look at the data, acknowledge the harms of drilling and fracking, and stop it before other people become ill,” Dyrszka added.

And so a large coalition of groups—including environmentalists, labor organizers, peace activists, protesters against nuclear power and “free trade” agreements, public health advocates, and representatives from local communities—are preparing a massive “March for a Clean Energy Revolution” to converge on the eve of the Democratic National Convention on July 24. Organizers predict that thousands will participate.

“As the national spotlight shines on Pennsylvania, it’s important to recognize that this state is one of the most fracked in the U.S. and has faced some of the most devastating impacts,” said Hauter.

And fracking is “not just a threat to the millions who live within one mile of an active well—the majority of whom are people of color,” said Karuna Jaggar, executive director of public health advocacy group Breast Cancer Action, pointing out that dangerous chemicals used in fracking seep into soil, taint water supplies, and are dispersed by the wind.

“Fracking threatens the basic necessities of life: our food, our water, our air,” Jaggar said. “For women’s health advocates and environmental activists alike, the time to act is now.”

“Climate change discriminates. It impacts poor communities and communities of color, and those are the communities with fewest resources to recover.”
—Jon Forster, AFSCME

Russell Greene, a prominent climate activist behind the declaration of a climate emergency that was included in the Democratic Party platform earlier this month, argued that the declaration is “a moment for us to build upon,” and hopes the march will provoke real, tangible action from Democratic leaders.

Labor, too, is joining the battle: “Unions are deeply concerned with environmental justice,” said Jon Forster, vice president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) District Council 37, based in New York City.

“Climate change discriminates. It impacts poor communities and communities of color, and those are the communities with fewest resources to recover,” Forster said, adding that the march next week will push “against the unbridled greed that is leading to this disaster.”

Margaret Flowers, an organizer with the anti-”free trade” advocacy group Stop the TPP, explained that her organization is taking part in the march to raise awareness of the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s (TPP) Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) process in which corporations are able to sue countries in private tribunals for passing laws they dislike. The ISDS provision will have “a chilling affect on [climate] laws,” Flowers argued.

Stop the TPP is also staging a “No Lame Duck Uprising” during the march, Flowers said, to protest President Obama’s plan to submit the TPP for congressional approval after the November election.

The Democratic Party platform committee refused to include language against the TPP in the platform, angering many activists. “Our message is that the TPP represents climate catastrophe,” Flowers explained.

“We cannot stand by and accept a political system in which both candidates support the toxic fracking industry, and one candidate freely uses violent racialized language against immigrant communities.”
—Shane Davis, anti-fracking activist

Meanwhile, fracktivists also took their fight to the Republican National Convention (RNC) currently happening in Cleveland, scaling the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on Tuesday morning to hang a banner demanding the RNC not “Trump” local communities.

“We must remember that fracking often targets low income communities of color, often many of which are immigrants such as the Central Valley of California, where over 95% of fracking occurs in California,” said Shane Davis, an activist who was forced from his home in Colorado after being exposed to the harmful impacts of fracking, in a press statement.

“We cannot stand by and accept a political system in which both candidates support the toxic fracking industry, and one candidate freely uses violent racialized language against immigrant communities,” Davis added.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Earthquakes Occur in Virginia

Virginia to review natural gas fracking rules

From an Article by Steve Szkotak, Associated Press, May 31, 2014

RICHMOND—Virginia is looking anew at regulations governing hydraulic fracking for natural gas, a drilling method that has spawned a gold rush for the energy resource in the U.S. and given rise to its own environmental movement.

The review comes ahead of a Dallas energy company’s plans to drill in tens of thousands of leased acres south and east of Fredericksburg. To date, drilling for natural gas in Virginia has occurred only in the southwest Coalfields region of the state.

The Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy has assembled an advisory panel of state officials, an industry representative and others to review the state’s existing rules on fracking, as the process is informally called. Its first meeting is Wednesday in Richmond.

Michael A. Skiffington, the DMME’s program support manager, said the advisory panel will offer recommendations in several areas, including whether drilling companies should be required to disclose what chemicals they use to drill.

Panel members will also review best industry practices and whether additional requirements are needed for drilling in different regions of the state, Skiffington said.

Citing quickly evolving drilling methods, he said the department is reviewing its existing regulations to ensure they “provide for safe and environmentally sound natural gas production.”

Many drilling companies voluntarily disclose contents of their fracking fluids, but critics contend they can avoid full disclosure by declaring chemicals or precise recipes as trade secrets.

The review also comes as interest grows in the Taylorsville Basin in eastern Virginia. Containing an estimated 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the basin is beneath the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula along the Chesapeake Bay. It also extends into Maryland.

With an eye on tapping those reserves, Shore Oil and Exploration Corp. has leased approximately 84,000 acres in five counties in the Fredericksburg area: Caroline, Essex, King George, King and Queen and Westmoreland. The company said it hopes to start drilling by 2015.

Environmental groups such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and The Nature Conservancy have sounded the alarm about the prospect of drilling in an area snug to the Chesapeake Bay, which is amid a massive federally directed cleanup after years of pollution and neglect. The area east of Interstate 95 already has more stringent regulations on fracking because of its proximity to water source.

In a letter to DMME from the Southern Environmental Law Center, representing an array of conservation groups, the state’s existing regulations are called inadequate.

It warns, “Virginia must not repeat the lessons learned during the drilling boom in West Virginia and Pennsylvania where the fast pace of development forced regulators to play catch up with the industry’s widespread impacts on the environment and communities.” We have an important opportunity to insure [sic] that Virginia’s regulatory framework is amended before high-volume hydraulic fracturing is underway in the state.”