Latency periods vary for PFAS compounds and type of cancer

From the Article by Allen Siegler, Mountain State Spotlight, May 2, 2023

State lawmakers passed the PFAS Protection Act to start controlling pollution in drinking water. While a step in the right direction, many are concerned that it prolongs health hazards for West Virginians.

In the 1990s, when Chuck Crookshanks worked as a teacher at Parkersburg South High, a student told him about her family’s farm and how dozens of their animals had grown physical deformities. “Not only the livestock, but also other animals near it,” Crookshanks recalled. “Deer, frogs and anything else that was around it. It was pretty remarkable.”

He said she was one of the first people he remembers raising concerns with the Washington Works plant in Parkersburg; a few years later, these concerns led to a mid-2000s high-profile lawsuit against chemical company DuPont, a lawsuit which linked the factory’s hazardous chemical pollution to diseases like kidney and testicular cancer.

Those chemicals are now often grouped with a broader group of cancerous, man-made concoctions called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. And PFAS, from both past and present polluters, continue to concern Crookshanks.

His house, between Ravenswood and the unincorporated town of Murraysville, is about 25 miles down the Ohio River from Washington Works. Crookshanks said his wife, Tammy, worries often about what invisible chemicals are present in the water from their well. “She brought it up probably in the last couple of weeks, wanting to get the water tested,” Crookshanks said.

Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it had reached a deal under the Clean Water Act for the plant, now owned by the Chemours Company, to address PFAS pollution. But the so-called “forever chemicals” have already been found in drinking water systems around the state.

While state lawmakers passed a bill in March to take steps toward identifying and contemplating action for affected public water systems, the bill does not require the state’s Department of Environmental Protection or any other group to remove the chemicals from drinking water yet. As a consequence, experts believe it could be years before many West Virginians can drink tap water and be assured that it won’t increase their risk of diseases like cancer.

“Why do you need another year or two years to figure that out when that’s been known for 22 years?” said Robert Bilott, an attorney with Taft Stettinius & Hollister who has led many lawsuits related to the chemicals.

Some monitoring, and some prolonged unknowns ~ Although there is scientific consensus that they increase health risks, PFAS are still used ubiquitously by manufacturing companies. The chemicals are effective at keeping liquids from seeping through material, and they are commonly used in products like candy bar wrappers and waterproof clothes.

When manufacturing plants use PFAS in their products, they can release them into the soil, water and air. All three methods risk contaminating people’s drinking sources, as chemicals released into the air can be absorbed by rain clouds and solid waste can seep into groundwater.

While the amount of PFAS in water is often highest at sites near polluting factories, it’s not uncommon for the chemicals to contaminate places far from the original source, meaning even West Virginians who live away from factories could still have the chemicals in their water.

“The thing about these forever chemicals is that they don’t break down,” said Angie Rosser, the executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition. “They accumulate in our bodies and accumulate in the food chain.”

The state’s new PFAS Protection Act intends to focus on contamination identified by a 2022 U.S. Geological Survey study of the state’s water treatment facilities. That study found nearly half of the facilities, many along the Ohio River or in the Eastern Panhandle, had at least one hazardous chemical above the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s recently-proposed regulations in their untreated water.

For the sites with documented contamination, the bill tasks the DEP with coming up with action plans that identify the source of the pollution and propose ways to limit West Virginians’ exposure. It also lays out plans for the government agency to test the sites’ water after treatment.

To combat future pollution, the bill requires West Virginia factories that discharge any PFAS into surface water to report that action to the DEP. It will limit the factories’ amount of pollution to the standards set by the federal government, and no more stringent, once they’re proposed and finalized.

While the Legislature did not designate money for the effort, DEP Deputy Director for External Affairs Scott Mandirola said the department is applying for federal grants, like funds from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to develop the action plans. “Our focus is on doing what the Legislature is telling us to do,” Mandirola said.

In the present, the bill doesn’t mandate any cleanup of PFAS in public drinking water. Some of that will likely come in the next two years, after the federal government finalizes its first-ever standards for the chemical under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Rosser worries about whether the action plans will prepare the WV-DEP to enforce the EPA’s future PFAS limits, but she thinks the bill will generate crucial data. “I would characterize it as a measured step,” she said.

Others are concerned the step is too measured, missing key information about the ways in which PFAS can endanger West Virginians’ drinking water. While the bill will provide more information about public water sources, it won’t monitor private wells that many, like Crookshanks, depend on. In an email, bill lead sponsor Clay Riley, R-Harrison, said if the state was to test private water, it would have required an additional bill that involved the Department of Health and Human Resources.

For Dr. Alan Ducatman, a WVU professor emeritus who has spent decades studying PFAS, that’s a big omission, as it’s how hundreds of thousands of West Virginians access water in their homes. “It’s hard to be confident that you know what’s going on if you’re worried about your personal water supply and can’t find that information,” Ducatman said.

Aileen Curfman lives in Berkeley County and also uses well water in her home. As the co-chair of the Sierra Club’s Eastern Panhandle group, she’s aware of the impacts PFAS can have and of the high levels recorded near her. As such, Curfman recently paid hundreds of dollars to test her water for the poisons. “There would be a lot of folks who could not afford it,” Curfman said.

It came back free from the hazardous chemicals. But if it hadn’t, she thinks she would have had to pay around $5,000 for a filter — something she thinks would have been necessary to ensure her water was safe to drink.

‘Getting the stuff out of the water’ ~ From Rosser’s understanding, the earliest that maximum PFAS drinking water contaminant levels would be enforced is 2025, meaning many West Virginians’ water will likely continue to be hazardous for the time being.

Bilott, the attorney who has litigated many PFAS-related cases, believes West Virginia’s continued-prolonging of any chemical cleanup to be unnecessary and inhumane. “DEP was notified that these chemicals were getting into drinking water supplies 22 years ago,” he said. “They should already have been doing this.”

Harry Deitzler, another attorney who has represented West Virginians harmed by PFAS, was dismayed that the state’s new oversight is limited to PFAS discharged directly into rivers and streams. From his experience in lawsuits he’s litigated, a major way the chemicals enter people’s drinking water is when they’re released into the air and enter the water cycle.

Riley didn’t answer why the PFAS Protection Act didn’t address airborne pollution, instead responding that most air regulation comes from the federal government.

When asked what state residents should do until enforcement takes effect, he said the “EPA is still trying to understand the science and impact related to PFAS. I recommend people educate themselves about the topic.”

Bilott rejected the premise that the EPA is still trying to figure out the health impact of the chemicals, and he pointed to their health guidelines released last summer as evidence. He thinks rather than calling for West Virginians to educate themselves, the onus should be on the companies that caused the health hazards. “It shouldn’t be the burden of the impacted community to address that contamination,” Bilott said.

To Ducatman, the professor emeritus with the WVU School of Public Health, there are many more steps both the WV-DEP and the state Legislature could take to protect residents’ health. Those include creating a robust effort to test private wells, prohibiting factories in the state from using PFAS unless the chemicals are essential and monitoring industrial pollution beyond self-reporting.

Ducatman realizes that this type of effort could be costly, time-consuming and resource-intensive. But, from a public health standpoint, he sees it as crucial for West Virginians. “People’s health will improve,” Ducatman said. “Have no doubt about that. Getting the stuff out of the water is good for people.”

Support Mountain State Spotlight ~ We are a nonprofit investigative newsroom that exists to give West Virginians the information they need to make our state a better place. As a nonprofit, we rely on your help to power our journalism. We are committed to lifting up voices that aren’t always heard and spotlighting solutions that are making a difference.

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See Also: US EPA Takes Unprecedented Action to Tackle PFAS Water Pollution, Tom Perkins, The Guardian, May 6, 2023

EPA has ordered chemical company Chemours to stop discharging high levels of toxic PFAS into the Ohio River at Parkersburg

PROMOTING AND PROTECTING OUR RIVERS REQUIRES PUBLIC PARTICIPATION (Click to enlarge above image)

From the Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community (BCMAC), July 10, 2022

Join BCMAC and friends July 17th to celebrate the Ohio River! We’ll have a free cookout and food, summer games, an info session with the Three Rivers Water Keepers, kayaking (feel free to bring your own), and a river clean-up with Mountain Watershed Association. We’ll also be giving out free school supplies!

(**In the event of inclement weather please check the Facebook page for any day of updates.)

Please register (RSVP) so we know how much food to bring. And please spread the word!

The event is being held at the Monaca River Front Park, which does not require steps to enter and has a bathroom and handicap-accessible bathroom on site. Childcare is not provided, but the event is child friendly, with children’s activities and a playground on site.

Vegan and vegetarian food options will be available, but please mark in the registration form for other dietary needs.

If you are feeling sick, have had a direct covid exposure, or have tested positive for covid within the past week, please sit this one out and join us next time! The event will be held completely outdoors and is not in a scent-free or scent-reduced environment. COVID-19 vaccination is not required to attend, but masks are encouraged and will be available on-site, with event organizers asking that attendees respect the need for distance between themselves and others.

Our mailing address is: Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community, P.O. Box 31, Ambridge, PA 15003

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.

Comments needed on water pollution potential of complex plastics industry

New Year Greetings from the Concerned Ohio River Residents (CORR), January 17, 2022 ~

As we are all weathering the winter storm and (hopefully) enjoying the snow, we ask that you take a couple actions to help protect the Ohio River today. The PTT Global Chemical ethane cracker/plastics plant proposed for Belmont County, OH (just 5 miles south of Shadyside) is still on indefinite hold.

They still have not announced a Final Investment Decision, and have been stringing along residents and decision makers for far too long – almost 7 years. Despite the fact that the future is still uncertain for this major polluting facility, they still have applied to renew their water pollution discharge permit with the state of Ohio – a move that does not necessarily indicate the project is moving forward.

We need you to take action today to help us tell the state of Ohio that enough is enough.

The Ohio River serves as a drinking water source for 5 million people with 23 water supply intakes located downstream from the proposed facility, including the drinking water intake for the city of Cincinnati. The closest water supply intake to the site of the proposed PTTGCA facility is in Sistersville, WV only approximately 30 river miles downstream.

Recent research has found that existing petrochemical facilities are already permitted to pollute 500,000 pounds of toxic discharge into the Ohio River. The PTTGCA plant would further exacerbate this problem. The Ohio EPA did not do an antidegradation review before issuing the permit the first time – something they should have done to see how the extra load of toxins would impact the River.

Additionally, the Ohio EPA put out the public notice for this water discharge permit renewal on December 20th – during the holidays – a time when people are not paying attention to these kinds of things, therefor we also need to ask for an extension to the comment period and for a public hearing.

Comments are due by this Wednesday, January 19th. Please submit your comment today. Click this link to open a document with a full comment that you can copy/paste into an email to the Ohio EPA.

Please insert your own unique comments as they carry even more weight than just submitting the generic comment. But, if you don’t have the time, just sending this language is helpful! Tell them your story about living along the Ohio River or why you care.

Send comment to the following three (3) email addresses: HClerk@epa.ohio.gov, Nicholas.McGovern@epa.ohio.gov, Ariel.Ruth@epa.ohio.gov

Please insert the following text into the subject line of the email:

Re: PTTGCA Application No.: OH0144967 Public Comment

Please also bcc our group so we know how many comments were submitted! Our email address is: general@concernedohioriverresidents.org

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SEE ALSO: PTTGC Ethane Cracker Project for the Mid-Ohio River Valley is Stalled, — FrackCheckWV.net, September 24, 2020

SEE ALSO: FIDdlesticks: Why PTTGC can’t make up its mind — Sean O’Leary, Ohio River Valley Institute, June 24, 2021

Carbon dioxide is difficult to remove AND near impossible to store

Newsprint Article by Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette Mail, 10/28/21

Julio Friedmann, senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, mentioned the impacts of the climate crisis before looking ahead to the future of carbon dioxide removal during a webinar hosted by the WV Center on Climate Change Tuesday night. He went biblical to describe the extreme wildfires, flooding and freezing devastating the country more and more as the climate crisis intensifies.

“We’re having our family stroll through the Book of Revelation this year,” Friedmann said. They are keenly aware that failing to decarbonize at an unprecedented scale in the years to come will result in even more apocalyptic climate impacts.

“If you don’t think this is hard, you’re not paying attention,” Friedmann said. The future of carbon removal, though, is wide open and could see West Virginia play a key, job-creating role in decarbonization efforts. “We’re going to need to make a bunch of stuff here,” Friedmann said.

Carbon management and removal are poised to become the largest markets in history, Friedmann said. He noted that some 100 countries have net-zero emissions goals and alluded to a March report from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a London-based energy and climate analysis nonprofit, that more than a fifth of the world’s largest 2,000 publicly traded companies have made a net-zero commitment.

Friedmann presented a PowerPoint slide that called carbon capture, use and storage technology “mature, cost effective technology for CO2 reduction & removal.” But carbon capture, use and storage technology, which gathers and compresses carbon from emission sources for reuse or underground storage so it will not reenter the atmosphere, has been too uneconomical to be widely deployed. It has also faced criticism from some clean energy advocates fearing that it could be used to justify lingering fossil fuel dependence.

The Global CCS Institute, a think tank that aims to accelerate carbon capture and storage deployment, reported earlier this year that there were 26 operating CCS facilities worldwide, with 34 in early or advanced development.

Friedmann, though, cited U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports from recent years including carbon capture and storage technologies as a critical component of decarbonization models.

Politicians representing constituencies like West Virginia — Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., most prominent among them as Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman — have embraced developing carbon capture, use and storage technologies as a way to keep coal in the energy mix.

The bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed the Senate in August would authorize more than $12 billion for carbon capture technologies, a provision taken from Manchin’s Energy Infrastructure Act that served as legislative text for key portions of the bill.

West Virginia Public Service Commission Chairwoman Charlotte Lane also is interested in carbon capture technology and recently asked Manchin to support federal funding for installing carbon capture technology at the Mountaineer coal-fired generating plant in Mason County.

But a briefing document that PSC General Counsel Jessica Lane indicated was discussed at a meeting between Lane and Manchin last month, says that a carbon capture project to treat the slipstream of just 20% of the plant capacity likely would cost $850 million to $1 billion to construct.

The document acknowledges that federal funding of close to 100% of project capital costs would be needed, since the unsubsidized cost for customers would be unsustainable. The document was first obtained by the Energy and Policy Institute, a utility watchdog group that supports a transition to clean energy.

American Electric Power deemed carbon capture technology uneconomical in its request for $448.3 million in cost recovery to make environmental upgrades at three in-state coal-fired plants federally required to keep them operating past 2028. The PSC granted that request earlier this month, after Kentucky and Virginia utility regulators deemed the proposed upgrades uneconomical.

Friedmann noted that Microsoft, Amazon and Shopify are among the companies to buy direct air capture carbon removal. Direct air capture is a technology that captures carbon dioxide directly from the air. The carbon removal market, Friedmann observed, needs much greater structure and definition.

“We need to be able to quantify CO2 removals and validate them in the marketplace,” Friedmann said. “Today in the market, there’s no supply, there’s no demand, there’s no transparency, there’s no regulation and there’s no actual exchange. Other than that, the market’s perfect.” Friedmann predicted that the cost of direct air capture technology would come down “pretty fast” as more is deployed.

Fellow panelist and Wayne County native Erin Burns, executive director of Carbon180, a Washington, D.C.-based climate-focused nonprofit, emphasized the difference between carbon capture, which is the process of capturing carbon from a smokestack or flue before it enters the atmosphere, and carbon removal, which takes carbon from the atmosphere and doesn’t have to involve fossil fuel production or extraction.

“For a long time, people have talked about opportunities around employment in places like West Virginia around point-source carbon capture,” Burns said. “But I think that that promise has never appeared in any meaningful way.” She argued that carbon removal could be more impactful in West Virginia from forest preservation and expansion to steelmaking and direct air capture facility work as that technology is scaled up. “Carbon removal is not a silver bullet for West Virginia’s future,” Burns said, “but I think it could be an interesting part of it.”

The webinar took place just hours after the U.S. Department of Energy announced $14.5 million in available funding to leverage existing low-carbon energy to scale up direct air capture technology combined with reliable carbon storage. The agency called advancing direct air capture deployment critical to slowing climate change and achieving net zero emissions by 2050. The department intends for the funding to facilitate engineering studies of advanced direct air capture systems capable of removing 5,000 tons of carbon per year from the air — the equivalent of electricity used by more than 900 homes in the United States for one year.

“[T]here are a lot of people working very, very hard to try to not do it poorly,” panelist Emily Grubert, deputy assistant secretary for carbon management at the Department of Energy, said of carbon removal. “There are pathways where this is done really well and really provides an important net benefit to the world. We can get there, but it’s going to be a hard road, and we need help.”

Pieces of power plant have gone into Ohio River

From an Article by Paula Christian, WCPO News 9, Cincinnati, April 26, 2021

NEW RICHMOND, OH — Clermont County residents were shocked in February when a smokestack from the retired Walter C. Beckjord power plant toppled into the Ohio River. But emails obtained by the WCPO 9 I-Team show that wasn’t the first time demolition crews left bricks, mortar and pieces of metal in the water.

Now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has ordered contractors to clean up the mess it made in a river that provides drinking water for 5 million people and serves as the recreational play area for thousands of boaters, tubing children and jet skiers during the summer.

In an April 15 compliance letter to MCM Management Corp., the federal agency ordered the company to submit a clean-up plan by the end of April and remove an estimated 75 cubic yards of demolition debris from the river within 30 days of the plan’s approval.

This comes three months after Clermont County and Pierce Township officials first complained to state and federal agencies about waste debris in the river at Beckjord. “I do have huge concerns,” said Pierce Township fire Chief Craig Wright. “It’s not just Clermont County’s drinking water, it’s the city of Cincinnati’s and Hamilton County’s and Northern Kentucky’s. It’s much larger than just us.”

As the nation transitions away from coal, the colossal plants that burn it are being shuttered up and down the Ohio River. Ohio has more coal plant closures and retirement announcements than any other state in the nation, according to the Sierra Club.

This leaves more questions than answers in the communities left behind. Perhaps the biggest ones: How will the sites be cleaned up? And who is monitoring them? After a year of asking those very questions about Beckjord, Clermont County and Pierce Township officials said they still don’t have many answers.

“If we acquire a house and burn it down for training for our firefighters, I have to get more permits than what are needed to demolish and implode a power plant,” Wright said. Wright is worried about his drinking water. As the summer boating season approaches, he also fears curious boaters could be injured by falling debris that hangs over the river at Beckjord or strike debris hidden underneath the water.

“The big deal is, the same people who appear to be having these mishaps that are non-regulated are the same people that control a catastrophic amount of fly ash perched on the river,” said environmental attorney Dave Altman. “How much are you going to allow this company to get away with without the scrutiny that it deserves?” Fly ash is a by-product of burning coal, which the U.S. EPA states on its website contains contaminants such as mercury and arsenic.

Altman represents more than 100 New Richmond residents in a federal lawsuit filed in December 2019 against site owner Commercial Liability Partners. It argues that the developer breached a 1986 agreement with then Beckjord owner Cincinnati Gas and Electric that allegedly entitles residents to more information about contaminated waste disposal.

An attorney for Clermont County, Scott Doran, wrote to the U.S. EPA last December, asking for more oversight at Beckjord, which he described as a “danger to human health and the environment” because the coal ash is stored in unlined leaking ponds covering over 200 acres.

Some say the delayed cleanup of demolition waste in the Ohio River highlights a bigger problem about lack of oversight at the now-dormant plant, which is known as a legacy site because federal rules overseeing coal combustion residuals that took effect in 2015 do not apply.

But Commercial Liability Partners (CLP) said its contractors “followed best practices by a highly experienced demolition contractor and we worked collaboratively with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Ohio EPA and local emergency and transportation officials to ensure a successful demolition.”

‘Fully engaged with local officials’ — Built in the 1950s as a coal-burning giant, the plant pumped electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across Southwest Ohio for decades. In 2014, Duke Energy closed the Beckjord power plant, where more than 5 million tons of coal ash are buried in unlined, man-made ponds along the Ohio River.

Duke sold the 1,443-acre site in 2018 to Commercial Liability Partners, which is demolishing the plant with plans to build an industrial park, green space and port terminal. In a permit application to the Corps of Engineers, CLP’s demolition contractor, MCM Management, assured the agency that no debris would enter the Ohio River.

In an October 2019 application letter from MCM, vice president of demolition operations Aaron Fitch stated that a barge with a 15-foot-high backstop would be used to contain any falling debris, and that demolition would take place in the summer or fall, when the Ohio River is at a low stage.

Neither of those things happened. The contractor later determined that using a barge “would not be feasible,” and it is “not a required permit condition” to demolish the smokestack during low river stage, a Corps spokesman told WCPO.

CLP provided a statement that said, in part: “Our teams and our contractors have been fully engaged with local officials and regulators who have overseen major milestones and ongoing work at the site.” But emails WCPO obtained through a public records request reveal tense, and sometimes confrontational, exchanges between local officials and Beckjord’s contractors. They began when contractors announced via a March 27, 2020, email that demolitions would begin in early May at Beckjord.

“I will not support or sign off on this in any way unless several things were to happen,” Wright replied hours later on March 27, to Rhonda Reed, project manager for Devon Industrial Group, which is working on the Beckjord project. “There would need to be clear and open communication between all parties and partners involved, and that obviously hasn’t occurred up to this point.”

Follow-up emails show that local officials tried to get Devon to delay the demolition at Beckjord due to fears about COVID, in light of Ohio stay-at-home orders that closed all non-essential business. Officials even turned to Clermont County Prosecuting Attorney Ernie Ramos for help.

“The question remains, is there anything that the county can do to encourage/force CLP to hold off on any demolition work until the current emergency has ended,” Clermont County Emergency Management director Pam Haverkos wrote in an April 1 email to Ramos. “The Beckjord property has a class 1 dam that holds back coal ash. If breached, this could be an environmental disaster that we will not have the resources to respond to effectively.”

But Wright said he and other local officials quickly learned that they had virtually no authority over what happened at the Beckjord site. “It’s still technically classified as a public utility … so it’s exempt from building codes,” Wright said. “It’s exempt from a good portion of the fire code. The things that give me my authority and jurisdiction, they’re mostly exempt from.”

What he ‘didn’t expect to find’ — Emails from Clermont County building and permit officials confirm that demolitions at Beckjord are exempt from local jurisdiction, and emails from the state fire marshal’s office confirm that explosives permits were not needed because the explosives were stored in a Department of Transportation-permitted transport vehicle.

Beckjord contractors did provide Wright with safety and demolition plans, maps of road and water closures, and communication contacts. But emails show that Wright argued with contractors about notifying the public, allowing local officials to attend the demolition, and using a Clermont County Sheriff’s Department drone to check for curiosity seekers.

Pierce Township Fire Chief Craig Wright.The May 8, 2020, demolition of precipitators and turbine roof units at the plant went off smoothly, and for months afterward Wright said he had little contact with Beckjord contractors. Contractors initially planned to use explosives to demolish another portion of the plant for October or November 2020, but emails obtained by WCPO reveal that it was canceled because they could not secure explosives.

Then in January a Pierce Township trustee alerted Wright that residents were complaining about large amounts of construction debris in the Ohio River at Beckjord. Wright took his camera and zoom lens to the shores of Melbourne, Kentucky, directly across the Ohio River from Beckjord, where he took dozens of photos.

“I didn’t expect to find that kind of debris in the river itself,” Wright said. “They’re using equipment to push debris and stuff around the site so it was piled rather high on the side … but I honestly can’t say if it was pushed in there, or if it just slid down, or how it ended up there.” But Wright added that “it did not appear” contractors at Beckjord were actively trying to prevent debris from going into the Ohio River.

Wright sent those photos to local officials, who in turn sent emails to the Ohio EPA, U.S. EPA, Corps of Engineers, U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies, asking for help. “Attached are pictures of the debris being pushed into the Ohio River at the Beckjord plant,” Haverkos, the county’s emergency management director, wrote in a Jan. 19 email to the Ohio EPA.

What was the Ohio EPA’s response? “Agency staff went to the site on Jan. 22, confirmed that debris from the demolition was in the river. Ohio EPA followed up by contacting the Corps of Engineers and the demolition contractor about the issue,” according to an Ohio EPA spokesperson. But the debris was still not cleaned up. “I reached out to anybody and everybody that I could think of that could provide some help to us,” Wright said.

What’s in the water? More debris fell into the Ohio River on Feb. 26, when contractors used explosives to demolish the largest smokestack at Beckjord. The top portion of the stack fell into the river with a thunderous splash.

A Corps of Engineers spokesman said 75 cubic yards of debris fell into the river from that demolition, based on estimates provided by MCM. That’s 45,000 pounds, or 22.5 tons, or enough to fill 2.5 commercial construction dumpsters.

But Chris Wessels, owner of Interstate Stack and Chimney Services, believes much more debris from that smokestack is in the river than what MCM is reporting. “I would say almost the whole chimney is in that Ohio River,” Wessels said. “And whatever contamination was in that chimney that went in that river has probably been washed down the river by now.”

Wessels has been repairing and demolishing industrial and utility chimneys across the nation for more than 40 years. He said contractors invited him to the Beckjord site last spring to bid on the demolition of smaller steel stacks. Wessels did not end up performing work at Beckjord. But while on site he took photos of and asked questions about the largest concrete smokestack, in anticipation of possibly bidding on that job, he said.

“It never should have been taken down, ever, with explosives … because you can’t control where that chimney is going to fall,” Wessels said. He said a chimney of that size, standing at more than 400 feet tall, should have been taken down in a controlled piecemeal manner using scaffolding and a team of workers. But that would have been more expensive and taken several weeks.

Was the smokestack clean? “I am still very curious if that chimney was ever inspected before it was demolished,” Wessels said. “Because, typically, on the inside of that chimney, in the fly ash and based on the fuels that were burned, there’s contaminants.” Wessels asked if the largest smokestack had been cleaned, but he said contractors never gave him an answer.

Ohio regulations require that asbestos be removed from structures before demolition, and that did happen at Beckjord, according to an October 2019 application letter by MCM to the Corps.

But other materials, besides asbestos, are not regulated, according to an Ohio EPA spokesperson. So it is unlikely that public records exist that reveal whether the Beckjord smokestack contained coal ash or other pollutants, or if it was cleaned before it imploded and fell into the river, because contractors do not need to provide that documentation to regulators.

“The Beckjord power plant has been decommissioned, coal ash removed and asbestos abated,” Fitch wrote in a permit application to the Corps signed in February 2020, which did not contain test results. Based on documentation it received from the contractor, a Corps of Engineers spokesman said any debris in the Ohio River is simply “brick and mortar.”

But Altman, the environmental attorney, isn’t so sure. “You’ve got all the heavy metals just for starters – mercury and nickel and the whole list of heavy metals, depending on where the coal came from,” Altman said. “This would have had decades of such residues built up inside the stack.”

Federal law has banned companies from putting smokestacks into rivers since 1899, Altman said. “This was a violation of potentially the Clean Water Act and the Rivers and Harbors Act,” Altman said. “But nobody seems to care about this, at least at the federal level, or perhaps at the state level … that is just not the way that the government is supposed to work.”

Wessels would like to see more oversight and regulation in how contractors bring down tall chimneys using explosives, especially since so many utility plants will be demolished in the coming years. “If you think about the age of these chimneys being 60, 70, 80, 90 years old … and now that we’re changing the way that electricity is being generated,” Wessels said. “We’re seeing, I think, the beginning of what’s going to be a lot more of tall utility chimneys being brought down.”

Meanwhile Wright said, he will be honest when residents ask him about what’s going on at the Beckjord site. And that means saying he doesn’t know. “I have a duty to look out for the community and the residents,” Wright said. “We just don’t have the authority or the jurisdiction to truly oversee what’s going on down there … So far, we’ve not found any agency that truly does.”

The 15 state ORSANCO / ORBA region

From the Ohio River Basin Alliance, Cincinnati, October 21, 2020

The Ohio River Basin Alliance released a sweeping strategy today to help the 15-state region and its more than 25 million residents tackle urgent environmental threats and economic needs, including inadequate river infrastructure, pollution to the river and its tributaries, and increased flooding that is only expected to get worse due to climate change.

“The regional plan provides a roadmap for needed investments that will benefit millions of people in the region by boosting our economy, protecting our drinking water, restoring our environment, protecting our public health, supporting our outdoor recreation, and improving our quality of life,” said Harry Stone, chairperson of the Ohio River Basin Alliance. “We have a historic opportunity to stand up for communities large and small in the region—and we are going to do it. We look forward to working with stakeholders in the region, as well as local officials, governors, and members of Congress to implement these common-sense solutions, before these challenges get more difficult and costly. We have solutions, and it’s time to use them.”

The plan, which covers portions of the states of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia, highlights six regional priorities:

>> Restoring the river, its tributaries and ecosystems to protect the health of people, fish, and wildlife;
>> Addressing flooding to protect vulnerable communities and infrastructure;
>> Ensuring abundant clean water for people, fish and wildlife, and businesses;
>> Increasing nature-based recreation and tourism;
>> Growing water-borne commerce and ensuring efficient waterborne commerce through adequate lock and dam infrastructure; and,
>> Supporting robust research and education to inform the needs and opportunities of the region.

The goal is for the regional strategy to be implemented by collaborating with local communities, states, and federal government and other diverse partners that leads to robust new federal investment in the region, akin to what other regional initiatives have received in the Chesapeake Bay, Florida Everglades, Great Lakes, Gulf Coast, and Puget Sound. The next phase is to craft implementation plans for the six goals.

“We look forward to working with local partners to put forward solutions that benefit our environment, economy, and communities—especially those communities that have historically borne the brunt of pollution and environmental harm, such as people of color, low-income and rural communities, and Tribal Nations,” said Stone. “We have an obligation and responsibility to help all of the people who call the region home, and we believe that the regional plan can lift all boats.”

The “Plan for the Ohio River Basin 2020 – 2025 Planning Assistance to States Study” was funded and performed under an agreement between Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Louisville District, with financial support from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The plan received input from a diverse set of stakeholders, including state and federal agencies, colleges and universities, businesses, industry associations, cities, and non-governmental organizations.

The Ohio River basin covers 204,000 square miles encompassing parts of 15 states. It is home to over 25 million people. The Ohio River supplies drinking water to more than 5 million people.

Ohio River Basin Alliance, a collaboration of Ohio River Basin stakeholders and stakeholder organizations, was formed in 2009 to fill the need for an organization to speak for the Basin holistically by capturing the highest priorities of the numerous organizations of the Basin and advocating for the ecological health and economic well-being of this world class basin through sound laws, policies, and projects, and the funds to support them. ORBA is a collaboration that includes more than 250 representatives from over 130 states, local and federal agencies, industry, academia, and nonprofit organizations in the Ohio River Basin. ORBA’s purpose is to foster broad collaboration to advance education and science; promote the conservation of natural resources in the Ohio River Basin; and achieve sustainable economic growth, ecological integrity and public safety across and within political jurisdictions within the Ohio River Basin.

Read the plan at: http://bit.ly/ORBAplan

ORBA Address:
Ohio River Basin Alliance, 5735 Kellogg Ave, Cincinnati OH 45230

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See the list of sample sites and parameters

The Shell workers were paid to rally for Trump

From an Article by Reid Frazier, Allegheny Front, September 21, 2020

At a marina in Moundsville, West Virginia, Dan Williamson looked out across the Ohio River at a quiet stretch of land on the other side. “There’s a little activity going on,” said Williamson, a spokesman for PTT — an oil and gas company based in Thailand that wants to build an ethane cracker on the far side of the river, in Dilles Bottom, Ohio. “But really we’re kind of in between phases right now.”

The plant would turn the region’s plentiful natural gas into plastics. It’s taken years to develop, and a final decision on whether the company would build the plant was due this summer. But then came the pandemic. “It just kind of changed the game for all industries, including this one. And so they have had to put off their announcement of a decision,” Williamson said.

For years, industry boosters in Appalachia have promoted the idea of a building boom for petrochemical plants like the PTT ethane cracker. Oil and gas backers have said there’s enough gas in the region for four or five chemical plants like this. But so far, only one of those plants is a ‘go’ — Shell, with the help of $1.65 billion in state tax breaks, is building a giant plastics plant in western Pennsylvania.

But other projects have either been dropped or put on hold, and now the pandemic has left some some communities in the Ohio River Valley wondering if those plants will ever get built.

A project in West Virginia was canceled last summer when its Brazilian owners backed out. A planned $84 billion Chinese investment in West Virginia’s gas and chemical industry has yet to materialize. And PTT has watched as potential partners backed away from the project. Matsubeni, a Japaneese company, initially signed on as a partner but was out of the picture by 2016.

In July, Daelim, a Korean chemical company that had agreed to invest in the PTT plant, cited the pandemic when it backed out of the project, which could be the largest of its kind ever built in the U.S. according to PTT.

Williamson says PTT is still looking for investors, but he says the real barrier for the plant is simple: COVID-19. “I believe and the project leaders believe that if not for the pandemic, it would be under construction right now,” Williamson said.

Problems Before the Pandemic

Some aren’t so sure. “Don’t believe company announcements — believe the ribbon cutting,” said Kathy Hipple, an analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a left-leaning think tank that works toward sustainable energy.

She says Daelim’s decision to pull out of the PTT project is a red flag. “We view this as a market signal that the project has possibly become far too risky for them to continue,” Hipple said. “The other possibility is that the economics of building a petrochemical complex have changed tremendously.”

Hipple said the price of plastic has fallen by around 40 percent since PTT first announced its interest in the site five years ago, pushed down by new supply from new plants built on the Gulf Coast. She thinks a wave of environmental policies around the globe — like bans on single-use plastics — could threaten the industry’s bottom line.

Steve Lewandowski, an analyst at the research firm IHS Markit, thinks there will still be demand for plastic in the next few decades. But he also wonders if delays in the Ohio project might be a sign that the $10 billion plant is looking too expensive for investors.

“If it was such a compelling case to build there, that cracker would have been approved under construction and then it probably would be another one on top of that — and it’s not,” Lewandowski said. “So there’s something going on that is causing companies to say, ‘That’s probably not the right place to be.’”

Advantages for Appalachia

Lewandowski said Northern Appalachia has advantages — Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania sit atop the Marcellus Shale, the biggest natural gas formation in the country. And it’s close to East Coast and Midwest manufacturers that would use the plastic. But he thinks companies might want to keep their production centered on the Gulf Coast, where dozens of similar plants have been running for decades.

“We’re assessing that the cost to build [in Ohio] is higher than on the Gulf Coast. And we would we would argue it’s probably going to be a bit more expensive to operate only because they’re not really in a cluster of industry.”

If a part breaks down at a plant in Louisiana, there’s a better chance that a supplier nearby will be able to replace or repair it than there would be in Ohio, he said.

But closer to the proposed Ohio plant site, there are fewer doubts. In August, a senior Trump administration official visited the site and said it would boost the Ohio River valley’s economy.

‘100 Percent Positive That This Will Be a Go’

That has people like Matt Coffland confident. “I’m 100 percent positive that this will be a go,” Coffland said. “No doubt about it.”

Coffland is a big proponent of the PTT project — and it’s easy to see why. He owns Matt’s Tiger Pub — a tavern in the town of Shadyside, Ohio, a few miles from where thousands of hungry construction workers could one day build the project. “I mean, it’s three miles away from my doorstep. And you’re talking an influx of close to ten thousand people at one point,” Coffland said.

Coffland sees the plant as a good thing not just for his restaurant but for his part of southeastern Ohio — which he says has been neglected by the state in favor of the ‘three Cs” — Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus. “I think we deserve it by now,” he said. “Finally, something is going to land right here in our lap. You know, it’s about time.”

Someone else who’s hoping the project moves ahead works in a school building a few blocks away. John Haswell is superintendent of the Shadyside Local School District.

On the wall of his office hangs a set of drawings showing what a K-12 school complex would look like. If PTT builds its chemical plant, the company agreed to pay for the new building. “Any time that I can build something or we can build something for $30 million and it does not cost our taxpayers a cent — that’s a pretty good deal,” Haswell said.

The district’s 700 students are in a school built 1932, and Haswell says a new building is badly needed. Uncertainty over whether the PTT project will go forward — or whether he’ll have to ask taxpayers for more money to build a new school — has made him anxious.

“I would really love to get really busy on a building project, but until we have that final investment decision, I can’t do anything but sit. Sit and wait and wait and wait,” Haswell said.

Opposition to Cracker

If the delay has made Haswell antsy, it’s been a reprieve for Amanda Petrucci. She and her husband live with their four children and seven goats on a hillside across the Ohio river in Moundsville, West Virginia.

On a recent afternoon, she pointed out a few landmarks — a hilltop across the river where a well owned by an ExxonMobil subsidiary blew out in 2018, releasing 60,000 tons of the potent greenhouse gas methane, a natural gas processing plant a half-mile from her front door, which flares gas at all hours, and a Superfund site just down the hill.

The site used to house a chemical plant. In the 1990s, the U.S. EPA declared it a superfund site, and began a cleanup. Around that time, her family endured a spate of health problems — her son developed a rare blood disorder, her husband was diagnosed with asthma, and she developed Tourette’s syndrome and migraines.

Petrucci blamed dust from the Superfund site for their health problems. (The EPA says dust levels at the site never endangered human health.) She worries about the oil and gas infrastructure that ring her property, and isn’t happy about PTT’s proposed ethane cracker a mile from her house.

“I think we’re going to get hit with more toxic air. How many more layers can we throw on everybody in the community?” Petrucci said. She says she’s been thinking about moving somewhere where the air and water are clean, and there’s no oil and gas. But she hasn’t found anywhere that fits that bill just yet.

So it was welcome news for her when she heard PTT was delaying a final decision on its ethane cracker. “I [felt] like I could kind of just hang out here for a little bit longer and enjoy life here,” she said. “I feel relieved and feel like I can enjoy my property a little more.”

NOTE: John Haswell is superintendent of the Shadyside Local School District in Shadyside, Ohio. His district would get a $30 million school building if PTT builds a proposed ethane cracker in Belmont County, Ohio.

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See also: Project Design Planning for Ethane Cracker Complex at Belmont County, Ohio, FrackCheckWV, June 21, 2020

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See also: THE SHELL ETHANE CRACKER, As the world grapples with plastic pollution, Pa.’s ethane cracker promises more plastic, Reid Frazier, StateImpact Penna., YouTube, September 21, 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R01yOnk_ynw

Drinking Water Dilemma: Barging Oil and Gas Waste on the Ohio River

From an Article by Robin Blakeman and Sarah Carballo, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, July 30, 2020

A new threat recently emerged for communities along the Ohio River.

Three barge docks are proposed to be built along the river to transport oil and gas waste from horizontal and vertical fracking operations. The projects, if approved, could result in the first barges carrying briny fracking wastes on the Ohio River.

The terminals would be developed by 4K Industrial Frac Water Supply and Recycling Technologies in Martins Ferry, DeepRock Disposal Solutions about 61 miles downstream at Marietta, and by Fountain Quail Energy Services about 38 miles downstream from Marietta in Meigs County, Ohio.

According to Dr. Randi Pokladnik, a retired research chemist and volunteer with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC), these operations pose a substantial risk for the Ohio River — the primarily tap water source for approximately five million people.

“Citizens have every right to be concerned about yet another threat to their drinking water,” says Dr. Pokladnik. “A quick glance of the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) data collected from public drinking water suppliers along the Ohio River reveals that all public drinking water sources along the river have pollutants that in many cases exceed the EWG health standards and in some cases exceed federal standards.”

Based on current regulations, it is unclear what agencies would be tasked with responding to potential spills as a result of these new barging operations, and whether or not those agencies would be able to work together successfully to address the environmental and public health hazards associated with these pollutants.

Even worse, many public water treatment facilities are not equipped to filter out the contaminants if this conventional and unconventional oil and gas waste is spilled in the Ohio River. For example, some contaminants, such as radioactive chemicals in water, can only be removed using very specific techniques that are not currently utilized by most public water treatment facilities in our region.

In response to requests and comments from concerned citizens, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has scheduled a virtual public hearing on Friday, August 7, for the DeepRock barge dock near Marietta, Ohio.

To prepare for the public hearing, an online informational session will be hosted on Monday, August 3, by the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and other partners across the region. For more information about the issue or how to attend the public hearing, check out THIS ARTICLE from OVEC or contact robin@ohvec.org.

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See also: GREEN NEWS, WV Environmental Council, Volume 30 Issue 13 — https://wvecouncil.org/green-volume-30-issue-13/

Dear Friends & Concerned Citizens ~~ April 27, 2020

*Please note that this alert contains a petition that is new and has not yet been shared. The previous alert was about sending in hearing requests for this facility.*

During a global pandemic, after the public was asked to stay at home, three companies proposed barge loading/unloading facilities along the Ohio River for radioactive oil & gas waste. If permitted, these facilities would put the drinking water for millions of people at risk. The waste, which contains radioactive materials, heavy metals and toxic chemicals, would be transported along the river from unknown locations for disposal or reused for more oil & gas operations.

Millions get their water straight from the river and many towns and cities along the Ohio River also get their drinking water from shallow aquifers that are highly susceptible to Ohio River contamination.

Tell Army Corp and Coast Guard we do not want ANY oil & gas waste being shipped along the Ohio River.

CLICK HERE to sign the petition.

Submit individual comments. HERE are instructions on how to submit comments to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Coast Guard about these facilities.

A map of the three facilities that are proposed: 4K Industrial in Martins Ferry, OH, Deep Rock in Marietta, OH and Fountain Quail in Meigs County, OH, is shown below:

CLICK HERE to sign the petition.

Learn more about the details of these projects by clicking HERE.

Please let us know if you have any questions about any of this. You can reply to this email and we will get your message. We will keep everyone updated on if we get a public hearing or comment period extension for this permit or not. We have submitted over 50 requests so far. We have until the end of April to get requests in. We want to make sure that citizens have an opportunity to be heard and have their questions answered.

Yours truly, Concerned Ohio River Residents