Highly corrosive brine (residual) wastewater processing facility on Mon River in Fairmont

From an Article of Your Radio Place in Ohio, June 1, 2023

LORE CITY, Ohio–Members of three area fire companies responded to the report of an oil and gas well pad explosion Thursday morning.

Around 10 am Thursday, a explosion was reported at a Utica Resources drilling site on Leatherwood Road (SR 265) near the intersection of Salem Road, located east of Lore City.

According to local fire officials, a storage tank on the site exploded for reasons yet to be determined. The blast was reported by residents nearly 15 miles away.

Members of Lore City, Old Washington and Quaker City Fire Departments responded, and per protocol, staged at the entrance to the pad site. Following the explosion, a small fire was extinguished and situation was quickly brought under control by drilling company personnel on scene.

One worker, close to the blast received minor injuries and was evaluated by Old Washington EMS personnel. The worker refused treatment.

There was no report of nearby property damage and the incident is under investigation by the ODNR, well drilling company personnel and local fire officials.

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WV-DEP: Testing after Fairmont explosion showed no signs of contamination

Articles by C. Allan, WBOY News 12, Posted: May 30, 2023, Updated: May 31, 2023, UPDATE: 5/31/2023, 1:14 p.m.

FAIRMONT, W.Va. (WBOY) — Officials with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) are still assessing the site of a fire that happened at the Fairmont Brine Plant on Tuesday.

According to an update sent to 12 News by a DEP representative early Wednesday afternoon, testing performed by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources on Tuesday showed that no first responders showed any signs of contamination. “No testing showed above background readings on their bodies,” said a DEP representative.

The representative also said that when the fire was extinguished around 4 p.m. on Tuesday, DEP staff did not see evidence of material or firefighting water leaving the site.

Crews from the DEP, Fairmont Brine Plant and Environmental Protection Agency are currently on site conducting an updated assessment.

UPDATE: 5/30/2023, 7:01 p.m.

FAIRMONT, W.Va. (WBOY) — After previous reports that no evacuation was needed after an explosion at a brine plant in Fairmont on Tuesday, officials from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) are now at the site testing for radioactive material.

According to the Marion County Homeland Security & Emergency Management Facebook page, DEP is at the Fairmont Brine Plant on AFR Drive performing various sampling tests of the air and ground. The post said that the operations are contained to the immediate affected area.

The Winfield VFD, Valley VFD, MCRS, Bunner Ridge VFD, Rivesville VFD, Barrackville VFD, Marion County Sheriff, Marion DHSEM, WV DEP, and Mon County Hazardous Response Team all responded.

ORIGINAL: 5/30/2023, 2:59 p.m.

FAIRMONT, W.Va. (WBOY) — A representative with the Department of Environmental Protection has been called following an explosion in Fairmont.

According to the Marion County 911 Communications Center, an explosion was reported at 1:53 p.m. Tuesday at the old brine processing plant on AFR Drive in Fairmont.

When crews arrived on the scene, they reported back that there were no injuries and determined it was not necessary to evacuate the area due to potential chemical leaks resulting from the reported explosion, comm center officials said.

At this time, the Department of Environmental Protection has been notified of the incident and is sending a representative to the scene, according to the comm center.

At the scene were the Winfield, Valley, Rivesville, Barrackville and Bunner Ridge fire departments, also on the scene is the Marion County Rescue Squad as a precaution, comm center officials said.

The Winfield District Volunteer Fire Department is the lead at the scene, according to the comm center. Currently, the crews on scene are following precautionary direction and instruction per the Department of Environmental Protection.

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TIMELINE for Fairmont Brine Processing

> 2009 – Facility was constructed under previous ownership
> Q4 2009 – Venture Engineering & Construction, Inc. (“Venture”) hired by previous ownership to manage construction and commissioning
> Late 2009 – Operations begin (3,500 bbl/day facility)

2010 – Facility encounters increasing and severe metallurgical issues ~ Facility shuts down due to improper materials of construction and process issues

2012 – Facility is acquired by Fairmont Brine Processing, LLC (“FBP”) ~ Venture is hired to redevelop the facility as a 4,000 bbl/day plant

2013 – Pretreatment operations commence

July 1, 2014 – Evaporation & Crystallization process operations commence

October 1, 2014 – Sold 100% of the plant capacity under two take or pay contracts (4,000 bbls /day) through end of 2016.

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.

Methane emissions cause ozone pollution (near term) & climate change (long term)

From an Article by Michael Booth, Colorado Sun, July 25, 2022

DCP Operating Company LP settles with federal and state officials over allegations of failing to detect gases contributing to Front Range ozone. This Colorado natural gas processor will pay a $3.25 million fine in a settlement with federal and state air pollution officials, after allegations the company failed to detect and repair leaks that contributed to worsening ozone problems on the northern Front Range.

DCP Operating Company LP and five related subsidiaries will pay the fines and make repairs, in a consent decree announced by the regional Environmental Protection Agency office in Denver after allegations of leaks and failure to repair at gas processing locations in Greeley, Platteville and other Weld County locations. Weld County is part of the EPA’s northern Front Range nonattainment area for ongoing ozone violations, and state and local governments must come up with plans to cut emissions that contribute to the health-harming gas.

The decree says DCP does not admit to liability for the allegations, but will have to pay the fine and also invest millions of dollars in equipment and systems to prevent new leaks. The decree was negotiated with EPA, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division, part of the state health department.

“Enforcement actions like this are critical to improving air quality, particularly in places facing air quality challenges like Weld County,” Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division said in a statement. Soon after the fine announcement, the state health department issued another Ozone Action Day Alert for the Front Range, one of many so far this summer, warning vulnerable residents to avoid too much outdoor activity for 24 hours.

“EPA continues to deliver cleaner air through the rigorous enforcement of the Clean Air Act,” EPA Regional Administrator KC Becker said in a statement. “This settlement will reduce emissions of over 288 tons of volatile organic compounds and 1,300 tons of methane from production areas near northern Colorado communities, a majority of which are disproportionately impacted by pollution.”

Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Executive Director Jill Hunsaker Ryan credited state inspectors and enforcement personnel from the air division’s leak detection and repair program. She said the settlement will go to the state’s Community Impact Fund, which helps pay for local environmental justice projects.

DCP will now have to bolster leak detection and repair at facilities in the Greeley, Kersey/Mewbourne, Platteville, Roggen, Spindle, O’Connor and Lucerne processing plants, and the future Bighorn plant. The requirements include new equipment that leaks less, tightening compliance with rules, repairing leaks faster, and staff training. The decree says the company will also use optical imaging technology to find and repair leaks faster.

One repair on two turbines at the Kersey/Mewbourne plant will cost $1.15 million, and is expected to reduce VOCs there by 26 tons a year, and methane by 375 tons a year, according to the agreement. Natural gas processing facilities separate impurities and liquids from the gas. Methane also contributes to global warming, multiplying greenhouse gases by dozens of times the rate of carbon dioxide emissions.

Ground-level ozone causes respiratory illness, aggravates asthma, and can worsen existing heart disease.

A related company, DCP Midstream, was fined $5.3 million by New Mexico regulators in 2020 for alleged repeated violations of state air pollution emissions rules.

EPA and state officials say they are focusing tightly on northern Front Range oil and gas operations. The EPA last year reached a $1 million settlement with Noble Energy over alleged violations from oil tank batteries in Weld County floodplains.

DCP said in an email statement that the company started working on some of the fixes in the decree as early as 2019. “The settlement agreement resolves an administrative enforcement matter with the EPA and the State of Colorado and is also in line with our commitment to responsible environmental management and sustainability,” said DCP manager of public affairs Jeanette Alberg. The agreement “is consistent with our ongoing efforts to reduce emissions within our company footprint and is a positive outcome for all of our stakeholders,” she said. DCP is also upgrading Colorado facilities not mentioned in the settlement, the company said.

Environmental groups responded with skepticism, noting a recent hearing in front of the Air Quality Control Commission where northern Front Range cities said their own studies showed emissions are not down.

“This just continues to underscore the oil and gas industry’s rampant noncompliance with clean air laws and the terrible toll that continues to be taken on air quality along the Front Range,” said Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians. “Studies have basically confirmed that oil and gas industry emissions have not decreased over the years. It’s good that regulators are pressing DCP, Nichols said, “but it doesn’t seem like industry is truly changing its ways and doing everything it can and should to comply.”

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CLEAN AIR COUNCIL Recommendation ~

Tell the EPA to finalize the strongest air pollution regulations possible. This includes a ban on gas flaring or venting unless in absolute emergencies, consistent methane monitoring at all oil and gas facilities (including smaller, leak-prone wells), and requiring “no-bleed” pneumatic controllers and pumps at all gas wells and compressor stations.

Jeremy Richardson ~ senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists

From an Article by Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette Mail, October 13, 2021

PHOTO ~ Marion County native Jeremy Richardson, a senior energy analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, is pictured during an online event Wednesday touting the release of a report he coauthored calling for full remediation of coal ash disposal sites in the Ohio River Valley. The analysis relies on public documents from utility closure plans, coal ash site conditions, economic modeling and alternative closure plan development.

Regional and national clean energy advocacy groups united Wednesday (10/13/21) to release a report suggesting that cleaning up hazardous coal ash in the Ohio River Valley could benefit the area economically as well as environmentally.

The new report “Repairing the Damage ~ Cleaning Up Hazardous Coal Ash Can Create Jobs and Improve the Environment” makes the case that fully remediating coal ash disposal sites would create more jobs and protect communities as more coal plants close in the region amid the nation’s clean energy transition.

The economic analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists, a national science advocacy nonprofit, and the Ohio River Valley Institute, a Johnstown, Pennsylvania-based nonprofit think tank, cited case studies of two coal ash sites in Kentucky and Ohio finding that full remediation of the sites would create more than $100 million in additional economic activity in each state.

“My excitement about the report is because you just have so much of an opportunity to create so much benefit to the people in the communities that we’re talking about,” said Marion County native Jeremy Richardson, a senior energy analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists who coauthored the report.

Those communities are economically vulnerable coal communities where coal ash — waste left behind when coal is burned to produce electricity — is a common threat to human health.

Approximately 102 million tons of coal ash was produced in 2018 alone, according to the American Coal Ash Association, an organization that promotes the environmentally responsible use of coal ash as an alternative to disposal.

Coal ash contains contaminants like arsenic, cadmium, chromium and selenium associated with cancer, heart disease, liver and kidney damage. Coal ash is frequently disposed of in surface impoundments or landfills or released into nearby waterways, often under a plant’s water pollution permit.

The analysis notes that more than one out of every five coal ash disposal sites nationwide can be found at operating or retired coal-fired power plants in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana.

The report calls for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen its enforcement of a 2015 rule that established closure requirements for coal ash disposal sites under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and finalized minimum criteria for groundwater monitoring and corrective action.

The report emphasizes holding utilities and coal ash disposal site owners responsible for fully remediating such sites. “[R]atepayers should not bear the costs without reaping the economic value of full cleanup,” the report says.

The WV Public Service Commission on Tuesday approved $448.3 million in rate recovery for Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power for coal ash disposal and other environmental upgrades federally required to keep three in-state coal-fired power plants operating past 2028.

The report also calls for prioritizing dislocated workers in hiring. Representatives from the Ohio River Valley Institute, nonprofit environmental law group EarthJustice, left-leaning nonprofit think tank Policy Matters Ohio and the ReImagine Appalachia coalition of environmental and community organizations across the region highlighted the report in a press conference and webinar Wednesday.

“Pollution cleanup is essential to ensuring that these areas become places where people can safely live and work,” Amanda Woodrum, senior researcher with Policy Matters Ohio, said.

Memorial to workers of coal ash cleanup in Kingston, TN

From an Article by Travis Liller, AP News, May 30, 2022

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — In 2013, the first of more than 200 workers who labored to clean up the nation’s worst coal ash spill filed a suit against the contractor, blaming Jacobs Engineering for illnesses they believe were caused by exposure to heavy metals and radioactive particles in the ash. Nearly a decade later, not a single case has made it through the court system.

As the cases drag on, dozens who believed their work for the contractor made them sick have died.

They include people like Ansol Clark, who arrived at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant just hours after the Dec. 22, 2008, spill, and got to work. He labored long hours in the coal ash sludge with few or no days off for months at a time until he became too sick to work in 2013. He died last year from a rare blood cancer that he believed was caused by exposure to the ash.

“Ansol never lived to see any justice,” his wife of almost 50 years, Janie Clark, said. “He never did — on earth.”

Over the years, Jacobs has made repeated attempts to have the suits thrown out. The Tennessee Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on Wednesday in Jacob’s latest challenge to the workers’ lawsuits. The company wants a judge to dismiss most of the plaintiffs for failing to follow a procedure outlined in the Tennessee Silica Claims Priorities Act.

The law requires anyone pursuing claims for exposure to silica or mixed dust to file a doctor’s report concluding that the exposure is a “substantial contributing factor” to the patient’s illness. For plaintiffs bringing wrongful death claims on behalf of a loved one, they must also show the worker was exposed to the dust for at least five years. Workers with lung cancer are subject to the five-year provision too and additionally must show that their cancer was diagnosed at least 10 years after their first exposure to the dust.

In court filings, Jacobs said the vast majority of plaintiffs either didn’t file the doctor reports, filed inadequate reports, or didn’t meet the time restrictions. For example, one worker died from lung cancer in 2015, less than seven years after the spill, so should not be allowed to sue, according to Jacobs.

Attorneys for the workers argue the silica law was never meant to apply to cases like theirs. The act specifically refers to silica, which is just one component of coal ash. The components they believe caused the worker injuries include arsenic, lead, cadmium, mercury and radium, but not silica. The law also refers to claims for very specific injuries — silicosis and pulmonary fibrosis — that are not at issue in this case.

In addition, the workers’ attorneys say it is simply too late to bring this challenge. The case already went through the first part of a two-part trial in 2018, when a Knoxville, Tennessee, jury found that Jacobs breached its duty of care to the workers. The jurors said Jacobs’ actions were capable of making the workers sick. Whether those actions actually did make them sick, and thus eligible for monetary damages, was left for a subsequent trial or trials.

Jacobs’ attorneys have said the company did its best to manage the cleanup in a way regulators said was safe. It has not been proven that Jacobs — or even coal ash — is to blame for any illnesses, and the EPA classifies coal ash as nonhazardous.

After the 2018 trial, the federal judge in the case ordered mediation, alluding to workers’ urgent need for medical care. Mediation was unsuccessful, but a new trial date has not been set as Jacobs continues to pursue legal challenges. Twice, the company has asked the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to find that it is immune from being sued because it was acting on behalf of the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federal agency. The court has ruled against Jacobs both times, most recently this month.

Doug Bledsoe didn’t live to see that small victory. Bledsoe was called to work at Kingston just days after the 2008 collapse of a six-story earthen dam released more than a billion gallons of coal ash sludge. The spill was so massive it knocked nearby homes off their foundations. As the sludge slowly dried over the yearslong course of the cleanup, it turned into a fine dust that had to be constantly watered down but still filled the air, especially on windy days, according to trial testimony.

Bledsoe drove a water truck there until 2014. In 2018, he was diagnosed with lung and brain cancer. He died two years later, leaving behind his wife of 38 years, Johnnie Bledsoe. The two began dating when she was 14 and Doug Bledsoe was her “whole world,” she said.

“Everything we done, we done together,” Johnnie Bledsoe said. “We raised cattle together. We had a farm together. All that’s stopped.” Last year Johnnie Bledsoe and Janie Clark received an American flag that had flown over the U.S. Capitol to honor the coal ash cleanup workers. Clark said it is the only official acknowledgement they have received of the suffering they’ve endured.

Before he died Ansol Clark built a wooden cross that he placed near the Kingston plant as a memorial to the workers. Janie Clark said she plans to go there this weekend to change the flowers, as she does regularly.

“I’ll be doing that as long as I can get up the hill,” Clark said. “I do not intend to let this be forgotten.”

>>>>>>>…………………>>>>>>>…………………>>>>>>>

See Also: Coal Ash Is Hazardous. Coal Ash Is Waste. But According to the EPA, Coal Ash Is Not “Hazardous Waste” ~ Jeff Turrentine, NRDC On Earth, September 6, 2019

Coal ash, a catchall term for several kinds of waste left over at power plants that burn coal, typically contains a number of substances harmful to human health—arsenic, chromium, lead, and mercury among them. Coal ash is incredibly dangerous. Short-term exposure can bring irritation of the nose and throat, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and shortness of breath. Long-term exposure can lead to liver damage, kidney damage, cardiac arrhythmia, and a variety of cancers. Every year hundreds of American coal plants generate about 110 million tons of the stuff. Most of it gets mixed with water and stored in sludgy basins commonly known as coal ash ponds, which have an unfortunate tendency to leak or flood or spill, sometimes in catastrophic amounts.

A few days before Christmas in 2008, more than a billion gallons of coal ash slurry poured out of a Kingston, Tennessee, power plant, spilling into local waterways and swamping 15 homes after the six-story earthen dam that had been containing it collapsed. The incident remains, to this day, the largest industrial spill in American history. More than 900 workers were quickly dispatched to clean up the mess, a massive effort that took five years. When those same workers began to get sick and even die under conditions that strongly suggested coal ash poisoning, 200 of them sued the contractor that had employed them, alleging that they had been greatly misled about the dangers of their exposure. A Tennessee jury last November found that the contractor had indeed jeopardized the health of its workers through its actions, but the case is ongoing, and no monetary damages have yet been paid.

Despite the protests of many whose lives have been affected by this demonstrably toxic substance, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has for years refused to classify coal ash as hazardous waste. Instead, the agency continues to regard coal ash as solid waste — the same designation, believe it or not, given to household garbage.

Crossridge Landfill near Steubenville Ohio has issues

From an Article & Broadcast by Tyler Madden, WTOV News 9, Steubenville, OH, 5/19/22

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ohio — Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said it was important to visit the Crossridge Landfill in Jefferson County on Thursday as his office is still involved in litigation pertaining to the site. “I’m very troubled by what I saw,” Yost said.

Signs up and down the road leading to the landfill site underscore the longstanding tension over the site in the community. Yost was joined by officials from the Jefferson County Health Department on a tour of the site. “I’m amazed this has been pending for so long and hasn’t been cleaned up,” Yost said. “There’s a part where you can see the leachate and it looks like some kind of horror movie.”

NEWS9 cameras were not permitted to go on the tour as it is private property. But there were a number of different areas on the site highlighted on the tour, including those problem areas that have caused so many concerns from residents.

“Whether it’s dumping leachate into the water, that’s vitally important environmental issue that needs to be addressed and he’s seen them himself now firsthand,” Jefferson County Health Commissioner Andrew Henry said.

“It’s red and oily and it’s coming off of there and it looks like it’s headed down the creek into the river,” Yost said. The AG’s office is still involved in litigation involving the site and how it moves forward.

“We keep kicking the can down the road and our can is getting kicked,” Yost said. “We’ve got a hearing on (June 21). I wanted to see this for myself, and I’ve instructed my staff to do everything in their power to move this thing forward.

“I want the local folks that have been working so hard on this to know that they have a partner in the state and we’re looking to get this done and cleaned up.”

LOCAL SHALE REGION HEALTH SEMINAR .... ZOOM @ 7 PM

From the local Environmental Health Project, Peters Township, Penna., April 25, 2022

Please join the Environmental Health Project (EHP) this Wednesday, April 27, 2022, for Reproductive Health and Shale Gas Development featuring Mary Willis, Ph.D., MPH. The webinar will begin at 7 p.m. EST.

During the event, Dr. Willis will present the findings of her two most recent studies, emphasizing the role of environmental exposures on reproductive health.

Registration is available for free at the link below. We look forward to seeing you!

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErcuuurz0sHNa1jwQF515JvaWN04Nts9Sk

A pipeline and two power plants have been cancelled, but look out in West Virginia? CLICK HERE

Chickahominy Power LLC has officially called it quits for their pipeline and power plant project. That means that Charles City County here in Virginia is free from fossil fuel development for the foreseeable future.

The company blamed its failure on the “renewable energy industry and state legislators that supported them.” To that we say: “Good! We’re proud that CCAN played a key role, too.” The tide is turning in Virginia. Thanks to the clean energy victories we’ve achieved with your help, companies such as Chickahominy are finding it much harder to build new polluting projects.

We plan to continue working to prevent future fossil fuel injustices like the Chickahominy gas pipeline and plant, to prevent methane pollution and carbon dioxide emissions.

Chickahominy Power has been a looming threat since October 2016 when the project was first proposed. This plant was intended to be a merchant plant – meaning that it would supply energy into the regional grid for profit but not provide energy directly to Virginia customers. The business venture struggled to find financing and faced stiff opposition from Charles City County residents. CCAN is proud to have partnered with Concerned Citizens of Charles City County and other groups to defeat this pipeline project.

The cancellation of Chickahominy comes only months after another proposed gas plant — C4GT — was canceled. That gas plant would have been built just a few miles from the proposed site of Chickahominy. At a time when scientists call climate change a “code red” for humanity, it would have been lunacy to build these two new massive gas plants when we know that clean energy is our future.

But it’s not over yet. Chickahominy Power has stated that it intends to site the project elsewhere – looking to either West Virginia or Ohio. We know that NO community deserves to be home to a massive merchant gas plant like Chickahominy Power, polluting the community and fueling climate change. That’s why our federal work — efforts to inject billions into clean energy across the US — is so vitally important.

Thank you all for your tireless work. We won here and we will continue to win – against the Mountain Valley Pipeline, TC Energy & Transco-Williams pipelines**, and whatever else comes our way.

>>> In solidarity, Elle de la Cancela, Virginia Grassroots Organizer, Chesapeake Climate Action Network

** — PPS: For more about these pipelines and for information on an upcoming comment period, click here.

The challenges of carbon dioxide capture & storage persist here (click to expand)

From an Article by Audrey Carleton, VICE Communications, February 8, 2022

The fossil fuel industry has a new plan for Appalachia: Blue hydrogen.

An alliance between some of the largest corporations in the energy business — Shell, General Electric Gas Power, EQT Corporation, Equinor, Mitsubishi, US Steel and Marathon Petroleum — announced in a press release late last week their plan to create a “hydrogen industrial hub” in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Their plan is to work with local stakeholders in the process, creating “a national model for sustainable energy and production systems.”

The companies are putting their faith in an element that’s gained traction as an energy form in recent months, as the bipartisan infrastructure bill includes billions of dollars to build out clean hydrogen energy development. Hydrogen is also the most abundant element in the universe, existing in water, alcohols, and the like.

Producing hydrogen as an energy source requires separating H atoms from other elements in the molecules where it naturally occurs (so, removing the H from H2O, for example). This is most commonly done commercially using steam to separate hydrogen from methane in natural gas; the finished product is referred to as ‘blue hydrogen,’ because it is emissions-free when burned, but is made with polluting sources of energy. (Its green counterpart, ‘green hydrogen’ is made by separating hydrogen atoms from water using renewable sources of energy, like wind and solar.)

Matt Kelso, manager of data and technology at the non-profit environmental watchdog FracTracker Alliance sees the investment in hydrogen as “an extension of the existing polluting industries, by the exact same companies that are polluting our air, land, and water today.”

“It is an excuse to keep drilling, obfuscated under a new identity, in an environment where there is increasing awareness of the damages that oil and gas extraction has caused to the region,” said Kelso, who lives in Pittsburgh, near southwest Pennsylvania’s oil and gas hub.

The plan will capitalize on the region’s natural gas stores, largely trapped in the Marcellus Shale geologic formation, untapped during the fracking boom of the early 2010s. The technique, which involves thrusting drilling fluid deep into rock formations, first vertically, then horizontally, to reach gaps in which natural gas is stored and release it. At the time, fracking promised to resuscitate the oil and gas industry, bringing an economic renaissance to the region.

In reality, these plans didn’t pan out: Actual job numbers paled in comparison to those promised. A 2021 economic analysis by the non-profit think tank Ohio River Valley Institute found that jobs in Appalachian fracking counties climbed by merely 1.6 percent in the 2010s, compared to the 450,000 jobs that industry estimates from the early 2010s laid out. It also led to an oversupply of natural gas that the industry is now trying to offload (most notably by pushing plastics).

The companies are positioning the move as an environmentally-sound one, or a way to achieve “aggressive net zero carbon goals,” Bill Newsom, president and CEO of Mitsubishi Power said in a press release. In fact, the fossil fuel industry more broadly has rallied around using carbon capture and sequestration as a technique to eliminate emissions from steam-methane reforming in the hydrogen production process.

These emissions are substantial. An August, 2021 report out of Cornell and Stanford Universities found that the carbon footprint that comes with creating blue hydrogen is 20 percent larger than that of burning natural gas and coal for heat and 60 percent greater than burning diesel oil for the same purpose.

Thus, carbon capture and storage — in which carbon dioxide is collected at the source of emissions and shot underground into stores — is essential to the fossil fuel companies’ plan if it is to be ‘net zero.’ But CCS comes with its own set of risks; pipelines carrying captured carbon have, in the past, exploded, and in the Marcellus Shale, where oil and gas wells, many abandoned, dot the landscape, shooting it underground could prove geologically risky — pressure from two wells interacting could lead to explosions.

Though the nuances of the ‘blue hydrogen hub’ plan remain opaque, and it is not clear how close any of these corporations are to receiving the permits required to see it through, they have a topline goal to generate “thousands of new jobs” and “protect current jobs,” per the release on the hub.

Matt Kelso remains dubious of this claim. “Based on the past actions of the industry, I would be highly skeptical with whatever figure they put forth,” he said, citing a Shell ethane cracker plant in Pennsylvania that was touted as generating 17,000 jobs but actually created 600. “The economic promises were knowingly inflated by several orders of magnitude, which undoubtedly helped secure better state investment offers,” he said of the project.

Even so, much of the landscape of Appalachia has yet to be reclaimed from already-dying industries; abandoned coal mines continue to leach into waterways and abandoned oil wells sit uncapped, leaking planet-warming methane all the while. The quick shift to a new energy form begs the question of whether a region is ready for a new wild west era, as the remnants of old ones have yet to be cleaned up.

Free radicals as “reactive oxidative species” (ROS) are highly reactive and damaging

Submitted to the Morgantown Dominion Post, WVU Today (6/27/21), June 28, 2021

Every day, our bodies face a bombardment of UV rays, ozone, cigarette smoke, industrial chemicals and other hazards.

This exposure can lead to free-radical production in our bodies, which damages our DNA and tissues. A new study from West Virginia University researcher Eric E. Kelley — in collaboration with the University of Minnesota — suggests that unrepaired DNA damage can increase the speed of aging. — The study appears in the journal Nature.

Kelley and his team created genetically-modified mice with a crucial DNA-repair protein missing from their hematopoietic stem cells, immature immune cells that develop into white blood cells. Without this repair protein, the mice were unable to fix damaged DNA accrued in their immune cells.

“By the time the genetically-modified mouse is 5 months old, it’s like a 2-year-old mouse,” said Kelley, associate professor and associate chair of research in the School of Medicine’s department of physiology and pharmacology. “It has all the symptoms and physical characteristics. It has hearing loss, osteoporosis, renal dysfunction, visual impairment, hypertension, as well as other age-related issues. It’s prematurely aged just because it has lost its ability to repair its DNA.”

According to Kelley, a normal 2-year-old mouse is about equivalent in age to a human in their late 70s to early 80s.

Kelley and his colleagues found that markers for cell aging, or senescence, as well as for cell damage and oxidation were significantly greater in the immune cells of genetically-modified mice compared to normal, wild-type mice. But the damage was not limited to the immune system; the modified mice also demonstrated aged, damaged cells in organs such as the liver and kidney.

These results suggest that unrepaired DNA damage may cause the entire body to age prematurely.

When we are exposed to a pollutant, such as radiation for cancer treatment, energy is transferred to the water in our body, breaking the water apart. This creates highly reactive molecules — free radicals — that will quickly interact with another molecule in order to gain electrons. When these free radicals interact with important biomolecules, such as a protein or DNA, it causes damage that can keep that biomolecule from working properly.

Some exposure to pollutants is unavoidable, but there are several lifestyle choices that increase exposure to pollution and thus increase free radicals in the body. Smoking, drinking and exposure to pesticides and other chemicals through occupational hazards all significantly increase free radicals.

“A cigarette has over 10 to the 16th free radicals per puff, just from combusted carbon materials,” Kelley said.

In addition to free radicals produced by pollutant exposure, the human body is constantly producing free radicals during a process used to turn food into energy, called oxidative phosphorylation.

“We have mechanisms in the mitochondria that mop free radicals up for us, but if they become overwhelmed — if we have over-nutrition, if we eat too much junk, if we smoke — the defense mechanism absolutely cannot keep up,” Kelley said.

As bodies age, the amount of damage caused by free-radical formation becomes greater than the antioxidant defenses. Eventually, the balance between the two tips over to the oxidant side, and damage starts to win out over repair. If we are exposed to a greater amount of pollutants and accumulate more free radicals, this balance will be disrupted even sooner, causing premature aging.

The issue of premature aging due to free-radical damage is especially important in West Virginia. The state has the greatest percentage of obese citizens in the nation and a high rate of smokers and workers in high-pollution-exposure occupations.
“I come from an Appalachian background,” Kelley said. “And, you know, I’d go to funerals that were in some old house — an in-the-living-room-with-a-casket kind of deal — and I’d look at people in there, and they’d be 39 or 42 and look like they were 80 because of their occupation and their nutrition.”

Many West Virginians also have comorbidities, such as diabetes, enhanced cardiovascular disease, stroke and renal issues, that complicate the situation further.
Although there are drugs, called senolytics, that help to slow the aging process, Kelley believes it is best to prevent premature aging through lifestyle change. He says that focusing on slowing the aging process through preventive measures can improve the outcome for each comorbidity and add more healthy years to people’s lives.

“The impact is less on lifespan and more on healthspan,” he said. “If you could get people better access to healthcare, better education, easier ways for them to participate in healthier eating and a healthier lifestyle, then you could improve the overall economic burden on the population of West Virginia and have a much better outcome all the way around.”