Urgent Attention is Needed to Preserve & Protect Public Lands

From an Article by Carole King, Opinion Editorial, New York Times, August 25, 2022

Ms. King is a singer, songwriter, author and environmental advocate.

My career as a songwriter began in Manhattan, not far from where I was born. When I moved to Los Angeles in 1968, I became part of the singer-songwriter community that coalesced around Laurel Canyon. I thought California would be wild in the sense of nature. It turned out to be wild in the sense of drugs and parties. I wanted to live close to the kind of wild nature that must exist somewhere on a large scale. Somewhere turned out to be Idaho.

In 1977 I moved to a mobile home on Robie Creek, a 40-minute drive from Boise. For the next three years, I lived in the backcountry northeast of McCall in a cabin with no running water or electricity. After that I lived adjacent to the Salmon River for 38 years, with a national forest as my nearest neighbor.

The future of America’s national forests is being shaped now. The Biden administration is developing a system to inventory old-growth and mature forests on federal land that the president wants to be completed by next April. But given the immediate threats facing many of these forests and their importance to slowing climate change, bold action is required immediately to preserve not just old-growth and mature trees but entire national forest ecosystems comprising thousands of interdependent species.

President Biden should issue an executive order immediately directing his secretaries of the interior and agriculture to take all steps available to them to stop commercial logging on public land. We can’t wait a year.

One of the best technologies to store carbon is an unlogged forest with minimal human intrusion. Forests sequester vast amounts of carbon in the trunks, leaves and roots of trees of all ages and sizes and the soil beneath them. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and water from the air and ground and through the process of photosynthesis release oxygen into the air. It costs nothing to leave them as they are. Allowing commercial logging to continue in our national forests would also be a catastrophe for the biodiversity they contain.

The order I propose would bring about a significant reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide. And it will help the United States meet the requirements of the Paris agreement, which Mr. Biden rejoined on the first day of his presidency. Even with the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, he will fall short of his promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 50 to 52 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. Cutting more forests isn’t going to help hit that mark.

Last fall, over 200 climate scientists from around the country sent Mr. Biden a letter underscoring the consequences if timber harvesting continues in the national forests. They wrote that “greenhouse gas emissions from logging in U.S. forests are now comparable to the annual” carbon dioxide “emissions from U.S. coal burning.” Protecting federal forestlands from logging, on the other hand, would remove 84 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year, they wrote.

My experience in Idaho led me to become involved as a volunteer in the ongoing effort to protect a bioregion of 23 million acres of nationally owned public land in Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon and Wyoming by means of the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act.

That legislation would designate corridors for the safe passage of wildlife between existing wilderness and roadless areas on federal forestland. It was proposed by scientists in the late 1980s who understood that protecting and connecting large-scale forest ecosystems is necessary for species to thrive. Despite the legislation receiving some bipartisan support in past years, it has not been enacted in the nearly 30 years since it was introduced.

Forest preservation is a climate solution. That’s why we need action to safeguard the forests on the public lands we all share. Federal law requires that most public lands be managed for multiple uses, such as recreation, gas and oil development, mining and logging. But this longstanding policy is running headlong into efforts to slow the warming of our planet.

Forests on federally owned land are being destroyed at breakneck speed by heavy equipment that can saw through a tree, strip its branches and set that tree on a pile of logs in the time it took me to type this sentence.

The effects of the climate crisis are undeniable. People are suffering, and the scale of the problem sometimes makes us feel helpless. But the public can do something right now by asking Mr. Biden — in numbers too big to ignore — to use all of his powers to stop the logging of the nation’s mature and old-growth forests.

In 1970, my collaborator Toni Stern wrote the lyrics to my most popular song, “It’s Too Late.” That title should not refer to the climate. That’s why, at age 80, I’m using my voice to call on Mr. Biden to stop commercial logging in our national forests. Please add your voice to mine.

>>> A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 26, 2022, Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: Leave Forests Alone, Before It’s Too Late.

Marcellus shale drilling in Bradford County, Pennsylvania

From an Article by Jon Hurdle, StateImpact Pennsylvania, March 31, 2022

Renewed attempts by Pennsylvania House Republicans to boost natural gas production by ending a ban on new drilling on public lands, among other measures, are unlikely to succeed because the industry already owns many unused leases on those lands, and because it lacks the pipeline capacity to take any new gas to market even if it was produced, analysts said.

In early March, GOP members introduced a raft of bills and resolutions designed to increase gas production and so lessen national dependence on imported energy at a time when Russia, a major energy exporter, has invaded neighboring Ukraine.

The measures seek to halt Gov. Tom Wolf’s moratorium on new drilling under state forests; urge the Delaware River Basin Commission to end its ban on fracking in the basin; ask the governors of New York and New Jersey to allow pipeline construction so that more Pennsylvania gas can get to market; and boost domestic consumption of natural gas by stopping Pennsylvania’s plan to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

But all the initiatives are likely to miss their targets, and represent another Republican attempt to enact familiar measures at the behest of the natural gas industry, analysts said.

“All these are things that they have been suggesting on behalf of the natural gas industry for years,” said David Hess, who was secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection from 2001 to 2003 under Republican governors Tom Ridge and Mark Schweiker. “It’s nothing new.”

Hess said that even if the Legislature approves the plan to open up state lands to new drilling, it wouldn’t result in the desired production increase because some two-thirds of the leases already held by drillers are unused, showing that it’s not the ban on opening up public lands that’s holding back production.

In fact, he said, drillers have avoided developing many leases because of low market prices, at least until the middle of 2021. More recently, expansion has been slowed by a labor shortage, supply-chain snarls, and even a shortage of sand for fracking. “It would be a little silly to open more land to leasing when they haven’t developed what was considered prime leasable land back in 2008,” Hess said.

Cindy Adams Dunn, secretary of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, told lawmakers in a Senate budget committee hearing on March 2 that 65 percent of existing shale gas leases in state forests have not been developed.

Quoting data from Pennsylvania’s nonpartisan Independent Fiscal Office, Hess noted that the industry produced gas from 10,322 wells in the fourth quarter of 2021, compared with 13,395 drilled, showing that more than 3,000 wells are shut in.

“Right now, today, they have multiple options if they wanted to increase production out there,” he said. “So far, they have not shown any interest in doing that.”

Despite Republican calls for higher gas production, IFO figures show it actually increased by 6.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2021 compared with a year earlier, suggesting more downward pressure on prices.

Natural gas futures prices rose to around $5.50 per million British thermal units in late 2021, their highest in more than a decade, after years when abundant production from the state’s Marcellus Shale kept the price at around $3. On Tuesday, the futures price in New York closed at $5.33.

Before the recent spike, the market slump deterred energy companies from adding new production, even from some wells that they had already drilled, and led some investors to pull back on their support of the Pennsylvania industry after returns had not been all they had hoped.

“Investors in these companies want to get their money out,” Hess said. “They learned their lesson. The finance folks who invest in these companies are holding them on a tighter rein than they did before.”

House majority leader Kerry Benninghoff (R-Center/Mifflin) said the United States should use Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an opportunity to wean itself off energy imports from countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, and instead ramp up domestic production from places like Pennsylvania.

“Gas-producing areas need to do their part to step up; and while President Biden and other world leaders are looking to countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia—countries that do not share our values—to increase production and make up the difference, they really should be looking to places like Pennsylvania,” Benninghoff said at a news conference on March 8.

Legislation to allow new drilling on state lands was made by Rep. Clint Owlett (R-Bradford/Tioga/Potter) who said production from those areas could be increased without disturbing the natural environment by siting well pads outside the preserved area and extracting gas by sub-surface horizontal drilling.

Revenue generated from leasing subsurface rights would “most importantly put us on a path where we as a country are not relying on Russian gas,” Owlett said in a statement on March 7. The next day, President Joe Biden signed an executive order banning the import of oil, liquefied natural gas and coal from Russia to the United States.

Jason Gottesman, a spokesman for House Republicans, denied that Biden’s order undermined the GOP proposals. He argued that the order doesn’t have the force of law, and could be changed by the current executive or the next one. He said Pennsylvania is a victim of years of federal energy policy that has “deprioritized” domestic energy production, but the state now has the potential to make up a shortfall.

“Pennsylvania has the ability right now to once again invest in and export freedom by being a leader in American energy independence, which makes our country and our allies more secure by no longer needing to be reliant on countries like Russia and other geopolitical actors that do not share our values to heat our homes and fuel our cars,” Gottesman said.

Wolf accused the GOP of trying to use the Ukraine crisis to meet longstanding demands from the gas industry. Although he supports bipartisan moves to cut Pennsylvania’s financial ties with Russia, he issued a statement dismissing the plans to boost gas production as “simply ​natural gas industry giveaways.”

Other measures proposed by lawmakers included one from Rep. Jonathan Fritz (R-Wayne/Susquehanna) who highlighted a bill urging the Delaware River Basin Commission to end its ban on fracking in the basin that covers parts of four states, including eastern Pennsylvania. The DRBC is a federal/state government agency responsible for managing the water resources within the 13,539 square-mile river basin.

And Rep. Stan Saylor (R-York) introduced a resolution that would urge the governors of New York and New Jersey to allow construction of natural gas pipelines so that Pennsylvania gas could reach markets in New England, which Saylor said have been “walled off” by anti-pipeline policies in those two states.

Analysts said there was little prospect of New York and New Jersey allowing new gas pipelines, given their pursuit of clean-energy goals, New York’s ban on fracking beginning in 2014, and a decision last year by the PennEast company to end a controversial plan to build a natural gas pipeline from Luzerne County to central New Jersey. That project faced strong community opposition, especially in New Jersey, and was withdrawn after seven years on the drawing board.

“I don’t think a resolution urging New Jersey and New York to change their own energy policy that they adopted for whatever reason is going to have any impact,” Hess said. And he argued that any policy change by the DRBC would require the unlikely approval by the governors of all four basin states – all Democrats – as well as from the federal government.

Matthew Bernstein, senior analyst for shale exploration and production at Rystad Energy, a Norway-based research firm, said lifting the ban on new drilling under state lands would do nothing to boost production because output is restrained by a shortage of pipeline capacity.

“The main issue surrounding increasing production in Pennsylvania is not a lack of land to drill, but rather a lack of the necessary takeaway capacity to bring the gas to market,” he wrote in an email. “No material increase, with or without lifting the ban, is possible in the short-term, and is then dependent on whether future pipelines taking gas out of the basin come online.”

Rystad projects Pennsylvania gas production will remain flat in 2022 because drillers are already producing as much as they can, regardless of the market price, given transmission restraints.

John Walliser, a senior vice president at the nonprofit Pennsylvania Environmental Council, said current gas production is restrained by the industry itself, and not by a shortage of land to drill on.

“There was so much gas being produced that it drove prices down,” he said. “There were questions from the investment side on whether they were getting the return they wanted. I’m personally not of the mind that what’s holding back the industry at the moment is regulation.”

Penna. Republican lawmakers and the U.S. Capitol attack

As part of WITF’s commitment to standing with facts, and because the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was an attempt to overthrow representative democracy in America, we are marking elected officials’ connections to the insurrection.

Reps. Benninghoff and Owlett supported Donald Trump’s 2020 election-fraud lie by signing a letter urging members of Congress to object to Pennsylvania’s electoral votes going to Joe Biden. The election-fraud lie led to the attack on the Capitol.

Eagles need clean streams for their fish diet

From an Article by Gustave Axelson, Cornell Chronicle, March 24, 2021

For the past 50 years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has been assembling counts of bald eagle nests to track the triumphant recovery of America’s national symbol. But in its new bald eagle population report – tabulated with the help of results using eBird data from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology – the USFWS found many more eagles than previously thought to exist in the Lower 48 states. A lot more.

The latest USFWS Bald Eagle Population Update report estimates more than quadruple the eagle population noted in the 2009 report, or 316,708 eagles across the contiguous United States. The rising number of bald eagles undoubtedly reflects the continuing conservation success story that stretches back to the banning of DDT in 1972. But it also represents a major advance in using citizen-science powered supercomputing to generate better estimates for the eagle population.

“Working with Cornell to integrate data from our aerial surveys with eBird relative abundance data on bald eagles is one of the most impressive ways the we have engaged with citizen science programs to date,” said Jerome Ford, USFWS migratory birds program assistant director. “This critical information was imperative to accurately estimate the bald eagle population in the contiguous United States, and we look forward to working with Cornell in the future.”

In addition, the new USFWS report estimates 71,467 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the Lower 48 states, which is double the number of eagle nests noted in the 2009 report – and many multitudes higher than the all-time recorded low of 417 known eagle nests in 1963. Back then, the popular use of DDT pesticides after World War II had decimated the eagle population. In 1967, the bald eagle received protection under the predecessor to the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). Then in 1972, the United States banned DDT.

Thanks to legal protections, captive-breeding programs and habitat protection around nests, the bald eagle population rebounded. The USFWS tracked the recovery through counts from states and by aerial surveys every few years, as pilots from the agency’s Migratory Bird Program flew eagle-counting missions over high-density eagle-nesting areas to count numbers of occupied nests.

But for this latest USFWS report, the federal government collaborated for the first time with the Cornell Lab to augment their aerial surveys with a big-data population model generated by eBird.

The computer science that built the eBird model was powered by citizen science. More than 180,000 birders shared data with the Cornell Lab by uploading eBird checklists – tallies of which bird species they saw, and how many, in a single outing. Cornell Lab scientists then developed a model that uses eBird estimates of relative abundance for bald eagles to generate numbers of occupied nesting territories in the areas that USFWS were not able to cover in their aerial surveys.

“One of our main objectives was to see if population modeling based on eBird data would enhance the survey work the Fish and Wildlife Service was already doing,” said Viviana Ruiz-Gutierrez, assistant director of Cornell Lab’s Center for Avian Population Studies, who supervised the lab’s role in this partnership. “We’re hoping that this will allow the Fish and Wildlife Service to track bald eagle populations over a much wider area in the most cost-effective manner in the future.”

And, Ruiz-Gutierrez says, she also hopes those eagle models continue to show positive momentum. Since the USFWS delisted the bald eagle from the ESA in 2007 – a historic moment for species recovery under the act – the number of known occupied nests in the Lower 48 states has more than doubled, according to the latest report.

“It’s a great American conservation success story,” Cornell Lab Center for Avian Population Studies Senior Director Amanda Rodewald said March 24 at a virtual press conference hosted by the USFWS. She thanked the agency for hosting the event to celebrate eagle recovery, and to celebrate the role of citizen science – the thousands of birders who shared their observations to help build the population models.

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See also: Bald eagle that suffered from lead poisoning, treated, released back to the wilderness, Jeff Morris, WCHS News 8, February 11, 2021

RANDOLPH COUNTY, WV — A bald eagle that was treated after suffering from lead poisoning was released back to the wilderness in Pocahontas County. West Virginia Natural Resources Police report that land owners found the eagle on their property and the bird was unable to fly.

The adult eagle was treated and banded at the Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia in Morgantown and returned to the Upper Shavers Fork area of Randolph County for release.

Police said lead poisoning occurs when eagles ingest lead most likely while scavenging carcasses of other wildlife. When ingested, lead has detrimental effects on the nervous and reproductive systems of eagles. Eagles with lead poisoning may have loss of balance, gasping, tremors and an impaired ability to fly. The birds can die within two to three weeks after ingesting lead.

Northeast Pennsylvania is part of the Marcellus shale zone

From an Article by Michael Rubinkam / Associated Press, StateImpact Penna., January 12, 2021

(Harrisburg) — Two Republicans claim the Delaware River Basin Commission overstepped its authority and usurped the Legislature with its moratorium on natural gas development.

Republican state lawmakers in Pennsylvania are seeking to overturn a ban on gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the Delaware River basin, filing a federal lawsuit against the regulatory agency that oversees drinking water quality for more than 13 million people.

Senate Republicans led by Sens. Gene Yaw and Lisa Baker claim the Delaware River Basin Commission overstepped its authority and usurped the Legislature with its moratorium on natural gas development near the river and its tributaries.

The senators want a federal court to invalidate the ban, potentially opening a sliver of northeastern Pennsylvania to what their lawsuit describes as $40 billion worth of natural gas. The gas is found in the Marcellus Shale, the nation’s largest gas field, whose vast reserves spurred a drilling boom elsewhere in Pennsylvania more than a decade ago.

Maya van Rossum, who leads the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental watchdog group, accused GOP lawmakers of “carrying the water of the industry,” saying their suit is “an absolute betrayal of trust in terms of their legislative obligation to serve the people of Pennsylvania, not the frackers.”

The lawsuit is the latest salvo in a long-running battle over drilling and fracking near the Delaware, which supplies drinking water to Philadelphia and half of New York City. A Pennsylvania landowners group is also challenging the basin commission’s right to regulate gas development. Baker and Yaw sought to intervene in that 2016 case — which is still being litigated — but a court ruled they lacked standing.

The commission, which regulates water quality and quantity in the Delaware and its tributaries, first imposed a moratorium on drilling and fracking in 2010 to allow its staff to develop regulations for the gas industry. A year later, the five-member panel was scheduled to vote on a set of draft regulations that would have allowed gas development to proceed, but it abruptly canceled a vote amid opposition from some commission members.

In 2017, the basin commission reversed course and began the process of enacting a permanent ban on drilling and fracking, the technique that has enabled a U.S. production boom in shale gas and oil.

The new litigation, filed Monday in federal court in Philadelphia, contends the de facto ban has deprived private landowners of the right to drilling royalties, and has prevented Pennsylvania from leasing public lands to the gas industry and collecting fees from gas development.

The suit argued the ban’s “deleterious effects” have been magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic downturn, with the state and local governments facing significant budget shortfalls.

Even if the suit were to succeed, however, it’s far from certain that drilling could take place on public lands within the Delaware watershed. Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, imposed a moratorium on new drilling leases on all state-owned land in 2015. That moratorium remains in effect.

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Senator Brewster Begins Another Term in Penna. Senate

Takes oath of office today in Harrisburg ceremony, EIN presswire

Harrisburg – January 13, 2021 – State Senator Jim Brewster (D) was sworn in today for another term in the Pennsylvania State Senate, serving constituents in portions of Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties.

“It is an honor and privilege to serve the citizens in the 38 communities that are a part of the 45th District,” Brewster said. “I will continue to pursue a broad agenda that is focused on families.

“My legislative proposals include measures to promote job creation, economic development, tax relief, education support and safety, and help for those who are in need.”

The lawmaker has also proposed plans to help small businesses and families during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to institute a responsible energy extraction tax on Marcellus Shale drillers and to use the revenue to fund education and environmental protection. He is also the prime sponsor of a package of bills to reform the legislature and make it more transparent, including eliminating per diems, state vehicles, and a gift ban.

Brewster was first elected to the Senate in a special election in 2010. He was re-elected in 2012, 2016, and 2020.

Brewster said there are great challenges ahead for lawmakers this session. A budget deficit and the continuing challenges from the pandemic, he said. Even amid these substantive and difficult issues, he said that there was an opportunity to address issues involving local government.

“As the former mayor of McKeesport, I know the difficulties that economically-stressed communities face,” Brewster said. “Lawmakers in Harrisburg also need to focus on addressing the problems of small cities and struggling communities across Pennsylvania.”

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Familiar sign in Penna. state forests, unfortunately

Letter of Protest by Ron Evans to Olean Times Herald, August 29, 2020

When Andrew Jackson disagreed with a decision of the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice, he reportedly said, “John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.”

All three branches of Commonwealth government are saying the equivalent regarding a ruling the Pennsylvania Supreme Court made in June 2017. The court ruled in favor of the Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation (PEDF), which sued the governor for not executing the environmental amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution.

The amendment states: “The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.”

PEDF’s lawsuit specifically contended that the governor and legislature were ignoring the amendment in the management of state parks and forests. The state Supreme Court’s decision in PEDF’s case clearly stated that the amendment means state lands and resources are owned by the citizens of the Commonwealth in the form of a public trust. In addition, the trust includes any money gained from the sale of the resources.

The court ruled that the role of government at all levels is to act as a trustee of the public trust, not as proprietors, by conserving and maintaining public lands and resources.

Since the ruling, all three branches of state government have ignored the court. The governor, legislature and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), the agency charged with conserving and maintain state parks and forests, abdicated their responsibilities as trustees, especially with the rush to drill for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale region of the state.

The governor and legislature have not permanently banned additional drilling on public lands, even though DCNR has stated that any additional drilling will endanger fragile ecologies. In fact, DCNR, in its most recent plan for state forests, determined that oil and gas extraction are legitimate uses of lands owned by the citizens. This is not “conserving and maintaining” public natural resources.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in its ruling, deemed the Oil and Gas Lease Fund can be used only to maintain and conserve public natural resources. Starting with the Rendell administration, approximately $1.2 billion has been taken out of the public trust and diverted to the general fund. Gov. Wolfe and the legislature continue to ignore the court decision by diverting $61 million from the Oil and Gas Lease Fund to the general fund for the 2020-21 budget.

Consequently, PEDF filed another lawsuit specific to the diversion of Oil and Gas Lease Fund money. After a two-year wait, Commonwealth Court has ignored the decision of the state Supreme Court by ruling that some of the Oil and Gas Lease Fund can be used to fund the operation of state departments and agencies. Now all three branches of state government are complicit in ignoring the state Supreme Court decision in the PEDF case.

PEDF’s appeal of the Commonwealth Court’s decision is under review by the Supreme Court.

In 1971, the legislature passed, the governor signed and the citizens ratified a visionary amendment to the Commonwealth’s Constitution. For almost 50 years, state government largely ignored its responsibility to conserve and maintain public lands and resources. In 2017 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court made an unambiguous ruling mandating that government fulfill its trustee responsibilities. However, all three branches continue to ignore the ruling.

As citizens who own the public trust, we cannot allow this undemocratic challenge to a state Supreme Court decision to persist.

>>> Ron Evans is president of the Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation. For more information on PEDF’s legal actions, go to pedf.org or https://www.pedf.org/

Property rights need to be basic in the U.S.

Essay by George Neall, Rockingham County, VA, August 6, 2018

Studies have documented that the construction of gas pipelines can cause the value of properties impacted by the pipelines to decrease an average of more than 30%. Other studies have documented similar decreases in land values caused by fracking. Who pays for these losses? Beyond the decrease in appraised property values, what are some of the other losses that occur as a result of pipeline construction?

There seems to be little useful and publicly available information on getting fairly compensated for the loss of your land, your quiet enjoyment, and other factors if your property is confiscated, despite the fact that condemnation proceedings are not uncommon. You are typically on-you-own when it comes to this. Most people hire an attorney to represent them in such matters. Finding a knowledgeable attorney who has a successful track record in such cases is very important.

Clearing a pipeline pathway through forested and mountainous land will result in the loss of many tons of topsoil. In one instance (not related to pipeline construction) documented in Texas, 23 tons of topsoil per acre were lost in just one rain event on fairly flat land with a slope of just 4%. Who will pay landowners for the loss of topsoil from their land where pipeline construction will result in the denuding of land? In many areas where the pipeline will be installed, ground slopes exceed 50%. Even after being “reclaimed,” erosion will be astronomical compared to pre-pipeline conditions, especially in forested land.

How much would it cost to have topsoil trucked in and spread on the ground to replace the topsoil that was washed away? What thickness of topsoil loss is equivalent to 23 tons per acre? The answer, shown in the simple calculations below, is just 1/8 in! Soil is not renewable in the classical sense. It takes a long time to form. Allowing topsoil to erode from landowners’ properties is akin to stealing money from them. Will we allow topsoil thieves get off scot-free like all of the crooked “too-big-to-fail” bankers?

The weight of a one-foot thickness of topsoil covering one acre of land area is approximately 4,000,000 lbs. Using 23 tons of topsoil loss per acre, we can calculate how thick this topsoil loss would be:

First, 23 tons/acre x 2,000 lb./ton = 46,000 lb./acre lost from just one rain event

Then, 46,000 lb. soil erosion / 4,000,000 lb./ft. thickness = 0.0115 ft./acre = 0.138 in., a little over 1/8 inch!

In other words, you would not be able to accurately measure soil depth to document this loss. You would actually need to see the topsoil being washed away during or following a rain or observe the gullies and rills left by water that eroded the topsoil to know that erosion had occurred.

Beyond compensation to the landowner for the loss of valuable topsoil, who will pay citizens for the degradation of water, our most precious resource, caused by the erosion of soil into surface and underground water sources? Let’s assume that pipeline construction will result in a total of 23 tons of soil erosion per disturbed acre of land. The actual figure will likely be much greater because most of the land being disturbed by the pipeline will have a slope much greater than 4%, with slopes exceeding 60% in areas. The 23-tons/acre figure was also from just one rainfall, albeit a big one, whereas increased erosion from pipeline construction will continue for many years. The pipeline will result in the denuding of approximately 10,000 acres of land, which would result in more than 200,000 tons of topsoil being washed into our fresh water resources. The rivers and streams carrying this sediment-laden water will eventually carry it to the oceans, further polluting them.

What are trees worth? I’m not a forrester. Standing tree values will vary depending upon a lot of factors, but an estimate of $1,500.00/acre can be used for tracts that are commercially clear-cut. Many people who have purchased forested tracts of land for recreational or retirement use would consider their land more valuable with standing timber than without. Indeed, many people looking for recreational or retirement land would not consider purchasing a clear-cut tract or land that was crossed by or adjacent to a large natural gas pipeline.

My wife and I would not sell the timber rights on the land we temporarily own. The timber is more valuable standing than cut down. The timber is what helps produce the pristine spring water we drink and the pure stream that flows down the mountain behind our house. When you really think about it, we’re all “temporary owners” while we’re alive. The land will endure and flourish if we let it. Sooner or later, someone else will temporarily own our land.

Water is not only the most important product of our wooded property but also of the national forests. Pristine water is dependent upon trees. The animals are dependent upon the trees and water. How much is it worth listening to woodpeckers drumming for food or catbirds calling from the trees? Can you assign a worth to collecting black walnuts, hickory, and May apples nuts in the fall? What about wineberries, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries and mulberries in the summer? If you’re a pipeline company that wishes to profit from the resources in our environment, they would have you believe the values of these things are intangible and irrelevant. We all know better!

There are many other factors that need to be considered if you are faced with condemnation of your land for the construction of a natural gas pipeline. Will your mortgage be affected? Will your house/property insurance be affected? What happens if the pipeline pollutes your land? What happens if/when the pipeline is abandoned? How will your use of the land confiscated by the pipeline be limited or adversely affected? How will the pipeline owner ensure the pipeline right of way is kept clear of trees or other objectionable plants? Will they use herbicides or will this be done manually? How often will these or other pipeline activities disrupt the “quiet enjoyment” of your property? What will happen if you lose your water supply as a result of pipeline construction? If your property is near a compressor station, is that station a nuisance, legally?

Here is the dictionary definition of “nuisance”: “Nuisances that interfere with the physical condition of the land include vibration or blasting that damages a house; destruction of crops; raising or lowering of a water table; or the pollution of soil, a stream or underground water supply. Examples of nuisances interfering with the comfort, convenience, or health of an occupant are foul odors, noxious gases, smoke, dust, loud noises, excessive light or high temperatures.”

Pipeline companies don’t care about any of these “theoretical” considerations. They don’t care about inconveniencing people. They don’t care that their actions may cost other people money or cause emotional pain. They’re not in the business to be nice. They’re in business to make money. They make money by externalizing as many costs as possible, like pollution of our environment. Violations of environmental regulations should result in significant fines. Landowners should receive fair compensation that not only includes the actual value of confiscated land, but also compensation for loss of quiet enjoyment, loss of topsoil and other factors. The cost of mitigating pollution should be paid up front and not by society after is has occurred. If paying environmental costs up front makes the product or project too expensive to generate a profit, it would not happen.

We may be able to stop some pipelines from being built. This needs to be our collective goal. But there will be instances where pipelines are built in spite of widespread and fervent opposition, science and common sense. Dominion and other corporations pay politicians to do their bidding. They help write the laws that let them run roughshod over you and me.

Suggested further reading:
Finding and Buying Your Place In The Country by Les & Carol Scher

Public lands in Colorado at risk of damages

From the Center for Biological Diversity, EcoWatch.com, April 27, 2018

The view from lease parcel COC77996 looking across the Colorado River and DeBeque State Wildlife Refuge toward parcel COC77999 and the Roan Plateau.

Conservation groups on Thursday sued Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and the Bureau of Land Management for approving new leases to allow fracking on more than 45,000 acres in western Colorado, including within communities and within a half-mile of a K-12 public school, without analyzing or disclosing environmental and public health threats as required by federal law.

“Fracking is a filthy, dangerous business, and dodging environmental analysis puts people and public lands at risk,” said Diana Dascalu-Joffe, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Trump administration is trying to ignore science, public health and climate change threats to enrich corporate polluters, but it can’t shrug off the law.”

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, challenges leases in and around the towns of De Beque, Molina and Mesa on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. Fracking would be allowed near three state parks—James M. Robb-Colorado River, Vega and Highline, a migratory bird hot spot and the site of the “18 Hours of Fruita” mountain bike race. Leases also have been offered within a half-mile of a K-12 public school in De Beque and beneath Vega Reservoir, important for wildlife, recreation, irrigation and hydroelectric power.

“Not only did the Bureau of Land Management move forward with these lease sales without looking at the climate effects of fracking, the agency also failed to examine its likely public health risks,” said Kyle Tisdel with the Western Environmental Law Center. “In addition, the agency failed to analyze or acknowledge the enormous water depletion drilling will impose on the Colorado River, already in low-flow conditions. BLM is simply drilling in the dark on these lease sales.”

These areas would face toxic air pollution, industrialization and potential spills and groundwater contamination from fracking operations. The BLM is using a shortcut called a “determination of NEPA adequacy” to bypass analysis of fracking harms required under the National Environmental Policy Act. This cursory review, used with increasing frequency under the Trump administration, presumes that leasing complies with broad resource-management plans and delays site-specific review until drilling permits are requested, thereby ignoring NEPA’s requirement to disclose impacts at the earliest possible time. The BLM routinely bypasses that promised review at the drilling stage and says that it can’t block drilling once land has been leased to industry.

“BLM has reverted to a lease before you look policy that marginalizes the public, ignores environmental impacts, and violates the law—all for the benefit of oil and gas companies,” said Wilderness Workshop‘s Peter Hart. “We asked BLM to consider the impacts of these decisions and our requests were denied. Now we’re asking a federal court to order the agency to comply with its legal obligations.”

“Once again, Ryan Zinke’s efforts to please corporate polluters are leaving American communities to suffer the consequences,” said Sierra Club associate attorney Marta Darby. “Zinke wants to limit public input and hide the environmental and public health threats of this huge expansion of fracking in Colorado, but he is not above the law. We will continue to fight to ensure our communities are protected from the dangers of fracking.”

The areas to be fracked include habitat for rare wildlife like peregrine falcon, spotted leopard lizard and burrowing owl. It also includes critical habitat for threatened and endangered species, including the Colorado pikeminnow and two flowers, the Parachute beardtongue and DeBeque phacelia. Fracking, which can use more than 20 million gallons of water per well, would threaten the pikeminnow and the Colorado River with spills and water depletions at a time when climate-driven drought is already reducing river flows throughout the Colorado River Basin.

“The water of the Colorado River Basin is essential for the 40 million people relying it. The system is already strained from climate change and overuse,” said Sarah Stock, program director with Living Rivers Colorado Riverkeeper. “The last thing we need right now is to add more water hungry, polluting industry without the proper regulatory framework or public process in place to protect this priceless resource.”

The administration’s oil and gas leasing shell game is consistent with Trump’s new “energy dominance” edict and policies directing the BLM to avoid NEPA analysis by prioritizing the use of DNAs when issuing oil and gas leases. The policy also limits or removes public notice and gives the public only 10 days to raise concerns.

Dascalu-Joffe and Kyle Tisdel of the Western Environmental Law Center are representing the Center for Biological Diversity, Wilderness Workshop, Living Rivers Colorado Riverkeeper and Sierra Club in the lawsuit.

Crestone contractors work on oil/gas well near Aspen Ridge Prep School, Erie, CO

From an Article by Rebecca Dickson, Daily Camera, Boulder, CO, April 7, 2018

Fracking on Boulder County open space could begin within the year. If you’re reading this article, you’re likely aware of this threat because the Camera has been covering it. But many Boulder County residents do not follow local news closely and thus do not know that after our county spent over $500 million to protect land from development, the oil and gas industry still has the legal right to frack it. Several oil and gas companies now want to frack Boulder County open space. And they will — unless enough of us act to stop them.

Crestone Peak Resources, a way too pretty name for a company that contributes heavily to climate change while polluting our water and air, has submitted a comprehensive drilling plan to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC). In it, they lay out their plan to drill on Boulder County Open Space. If you agree that it’s outrageous for an extraction company to tear up and poison land that we citizens paid buckets of money to protect, make comments about this lousy plan before April 15 at http://bit.ly/Crestone3Comments.

Another oil and gas company, 8 North, a subsidiary of Extraction Oil and Gas, also wants to drill our public lands. The COGCC will hold hearings at the end of April about 8 North’s plan. You can sign up to speak at these hearings or you can just watch the proceedings. The schedule hasn’t been set yet, so watch the COGCC’s website for more information on this.

So how can Crestone and 8 North get away with drilling on protected land? While you and I were busy with our daily routines, paid oil and gas lobbyists were cozying up to Colorado state legislators — they’ve been doing this for decades. As a result, many pro-oil and gas laws were passed, among them preemptive state laws that favor the fossil fuel industry. What this means is that oil and gas laws at the state level can nix those at the local level.

Those laws are why it doesn’t matter that cities in Boulder County have voted to ban fracking. Those laws are why the county commissioners could impose only a moratorium on fracking, not an outright ban. This is why the county commissioners cannot impose another moratorium on fracking without getting our county sued for millions of dollars. The oil and gas industry is rich and powerful and for them, profits always come first. They get what they want. They have for over a hundred years.

With the laws on the oil and gas industry’s side, we might lose this fight. The Sierra Club and other groups are acting legally to resist the fracking, but fights like this are most often won or lost in the public arena. If many of us speak up, we can win, like we did at Rocky Flats. If not enough of us speak up, we’ll certainly lose.

If you care about fracking on Boulder County public lands, there is a lot you can do. Make a comment on Crestone’s drilling plan before April 15. Tell your friends and co-workers that fracking could happen within the year on our open space. Share this article and recent articles in the Camera on fracking by Harv Teitelbaum, Dana Bove, and Mike Foote. Sign up to speak at the 8 North hearings that will take place at the end of April. Tell your kids about the fracking on public land, tell some young people — they appear to be our most determined activists these days.

And of course, educate yourself on the issues. Check out a recent study by University of Colorado researchers Lisa McKenzie et al. that suggests a correlation between fracking and childhood leukemia. Consider Robert Howarth and Anthony Ingraffea’s studies on the significant amounts of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, that leak into the atmosphere during fracking operations. Learn how often fracking ends up in low-income families’ backyards by looking at articles by Eric Huber and Dara Illowsky. Fracking damages us in multiple ways while the oil and gas industry amasses huge profits.

Several decades ago, Boulder County recognized the importance of open space and invested half a billion dollars to protect it. Now we need to defend this land from another threat. If enough of us stand up to the oil and gas industry, we can protect what we value so much in our county.

>>> Rebecca Dickson is chair of the Sierra Club-Indian Peaks Group. She lives in Boulder.

Access roads & land disturbances are real problems

From the WV Rivers Coalition, January 16, 2018

A bill to allow commercial logging in West Virginia’s State Parks, Senate Bill 270, was introduced in the WV Legislature at the request of Governor Justice. This bill would end an 80-year ban on logging in West Virginia’s State Parks. Contact the Governor now, tell him you oppose lifting the logging ban!

Send a Letter

The bill is an ill-conceived plan to log our parks, presented as a way to pay for park maintenance — but it risks destroying the Wild & Wonderful places we love.

Take action now! ASAP send the Governor a letter. After you’ve sent your letter, amplify your voice by calling the Governor’s Office at 304-558-2000 and share your concerns about logging our state parks.

For more information, check out the Save Our State Parks webpage, and email info@wvpubliclands.org.

Grand Tetons National Park in NW Wyoming

They Want to Disturb our National Treasures

Dear Friends of the Environment –   February 1, 2017

Donald Trump’s Republican Congress wants our National Parks to become a drilling and fracking free-for-all.

House Republicans have introduced a bill that would allow oil and gas drilling in more than 40 National Parks — Grand Teton National Park, Everglades National Park, and Mesa Verde National Park, just to name three.

It’s insane. Canoe past an oil rig. Hike around a fracking well. And WHEN a spill happens, they destroy the habitats of endangered animals already on the brink.

They don’t care — they’ll do anything to line big oil’s pockets.

The Sierra Club has worked for 125 years to protect these natural treasures, and we’re not letting them fall prey to polluters without a fight. We need your help URGENTLY to stop this disgusting bill — can we count on your emergency gift now?

With parks like Grand Teton, Everglades, and Mesa Verde vulnerable to drilling, we don’t have a moment to waste.

Trump has, since the early days of his campaign, promised to turn our federal parklands over to his billionaire fossil fuel backers at the expense of human health. Now his Republican Congress is falling over themselves to help him do it.

Wiping out current, common-sense drilling rules would devastate our national parks. They’d be subject to poorly regulated exploration. Polluters could drill without informing park employees or visitors — and escape responsibility for leaks and spills.

The Sierra Club is fighting to preserve our last wild places — and the people who enjoy them, and the wildlife who call them home — but we urgently need your help to do it. Please, help us stop this ill-conceived and inhumane bill with a donation now.

Please, help us fight this outrageous anti-environmental legislation now.

Thanks for standing with the Sierra Club to save our natural heritage which, once drilled, fracked or deforested, cannot be replaced.

Sincerely,

Michael Brune, Executive Director, Sierra Club

2101 Webster Street, Suite 1300, Oakland, CA 94612

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net