Area of Concern — Marcellus Outreach Butler (County) PA

Fracking and Community Health Webinar Series, Parts 1 – 3

August 15, 22, & 29 — Register free for each session below

On September 15. 2011, South Butler School Board approved a gas lease with Phillips Exploration, a part of XTO and a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil. The School District joined with privately owned property to form a 640 acre “pool” or drilling unit. Since then, the area has become inundated with gas wells and related infrastructure. Marcellus Outreach Butler asked then – and asks still, “What are the risks and impacts of placing such fracking activity so close to human habitats, especially a school campus?”

Join MOB for a series of online meetings to discuss these concerns about the intensive drilling near Knoch Schools Campus and Saxonburg.

Register below for each program by 6:30 PM on the day of the program and we’ll send you the link to join the Zoom online meeting.

PART 1, Aug. 15, 7 PM: Overview of the area, including drone footage, and Dr. Ned Ketyer who will review the health risks and impacts fracking and related activity pose to those who live in close proximity.
Register HERE .

PART 2, Aug. 22, 7 PM: Dr. John Stolz on Radioactive Fracking Waste and Sanitary Landfill. Register HERE.

PART 3, Aug. 29, 7 PM: EHP’s Sarah Rankin and Nathan Deron on potential impacts of fracking. Register HERE.

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THE PRESENTERS ARE DESCRIBED BELOW:

PART 1, Saturday, August 15, 7 PM

Ned Ketyer, M.D., F.A.A.P., ecketyer@gmail.com

Dr. Ned Ketyer is a Pittsburgh-area pediatrician with special interests in developmental pediatrics, preventative medicine, and environmental health. After his pediatric residency at Pittsburgh’s Children’s Hospital, Dr. Ketyer practiced general pediatrics for 26 years. Although retired from patient care, he writes and edits his practice’s popular blog, The PediaBlog, and remains a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Environmental Health. He is a consultant for the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project bringing attention to the health impacts of shale gas development, a board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility – Pennsylvania, and a Climate Reality Project Leader.

In all these roles, Dr. Ketyer connects the vast petrochemical “clusterfrack” underway in SW Pennsylvania with local and regional health impacts, and the global ecological and public health catastrophes resulting from plastic pollution and climate change that threaten the health and well-being of all passengers on this shining ball of blue.

Register HERE.

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PART 2, Saturday, August 22, 7 PM

John Stolz, Director, Center for Environmental Research and Education, & Professor, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Duquesne University

Dr. Stolz studies the microbial metabolism of metals and metalloids, microbial communities in hypersaline environments, and water quality. He has published 95 peer-reviewed articles, 37 book chapters, and author/edited two books. He is currently co-authoring/editing a book on the “Environmental Impacts of Unconventional Oil and Gas Reserves Development” for Cambridge University Press.

Most recently, Dr. Stolz has been looking at sanitary landfills in Pennsylvania and New York that have been allowed to take both solid and liquid waste from oil and gas operations. The leachate is now contaminated with toxins and radioactivity. Dr. Stolz will present the results of his investigation and the questionable ways in which the industry, with the help of legislators and regulators, are using to dispose of their wastes.

Register HERE.

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PART 3, Saturday, August 29, 7 PM

Sarah Rankin, MPH, BSN, RN, Public Health Nurse,
and Nathan Deron, MSPPM-DA, Environmental Data

The Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project (EHP) is a nonprofit public health organization that assists and supports residents of Southwestern Pennsylvania and beyond who believe their health has been, or could be, impacted by shale gas development (or fracking).

Sarah and Nathan will review the literature and EHP’s findings about potential health impacts of fracking. They will also discuss how a community science air monitoring project can measure the pollution that communities face.

Register HERE.

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See also: Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking – Physicians for Social Responsibility, June 19, 2019

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.

Diesel trucks deliver frack sand & chemicals

Boulder County’s New Fracking Rules: Three (3) Things To Know

From an Article by Jackie Fortier, KUNC, Boulder, Colorado, March 27, 2017

With its moratorium on new drilling permits set to expire in a few weeks, Boulder County commissioners unanimously passed new oil and gas regulations. The county calls them the “most restrictive” of such regulations in Colorado. They are about 60 pages and require a much higher environmental and public health standard than the state. Boulder County began the new rule process following two state Supreme Court decisions in 2016 that invalidated hydraulic fracking bans or long term moratoriums.

“In light of those decisions, the board terminated our moratorium that was in effect until 2018, and established a new moratorium until May 1, 2017, for the purpose of allowing us [Boulder County planning department] to update the regulations that we had adopted in 2012 and prepare for their implementation,” said Kim Sanchez, chief planner for the county.

Now that the commissioners have adopted these regulations, here are three key takeaways:

These regulations are ‘the most restrictive’ in Colorado

Boulder County wants to push the envelope. For example, an oil or gas company that wants to drill in unincorporated Boulder County would have to give notice to surrounding landowners and residents, have multiple public meetings, and do soil and water testing, which could be a very long and probably more expensive process than anywhere else in Colorado. State officials told Boulder County it is overstepping their local authority, a position that Commissioner Elise Jones said they would defend.

“Our focus is on adopting regulations that we think are the strongest possible, for our citizens and the environment, and our understanding of the law as we see it,” she said. “If the state disagrees well, so be it, we’ll deal with that. If the state wants to pre-empt local governments, on oil and gas then they need to do their job and protect us from the impacts of oil and gas, and they are not doing that. And until they do that, local jurisdictions like Boulder County will continue to push to do that work themselves.”

What can the state regulate and what can local governments like Boulder County regulate?

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission regulates location and construction of drill sites and associated equipment, for example what machinery is used. Local governments like Boulder County have substantial regulatory authority through their land use code, such as building permits for structures, traffic impact fees, and inspecting for compliance with local codes and standards related to water quality and wildlife impacts. Boulder County’s new regulations are the most stringent in terms of land use.

New regulations aim to minimize the noise, dust and pollution associated with oil and gas drilling, like the sand loading in the photo above.

You could get paid to live by oil and gas drilling

One of Boulder County’s regulations could require a company to pay residents “disruption payments.” Not every company would have to do this; it’s an option for the county to require. Within a mile radius of the drill site, companies would need to pay residents enough money to move and pay rent somewhere else during some operations. The closer you are to the drill site, the more money you would get. The amount would be calculated based on federal data for the area. Every month residents would get a check. It would be up to them if they would want to move temporarily or just keep the money.

Commissioner Jones said they thought disruption payments were necessary to include.

“Industry has never been required to say ‘Yes, I’m impacting those people’s lives and I’m going to pay to help move them to a place so their quality of life isn’t diminished by my noise and my dust and my vibrations and my emissions,’ Jones said. “We think that it’s an important first step in industry taking ownership of the significant impacts that drilling has, particularly when you’re drilling near homes and schools and the like.”

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>>> Hear a reporter debrief with KUNC’s Erin O’Toole and Jackie Fortier on the new oil and gas regulations, and how they compare.

Percent Change in Jobs with & without Fracking

The false promise of fracking and local jobs

From an Article by Susan Christopherson, Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University, January 27, 2015

In a surprise decision that led to consternation in the oil and gas industry and elation among fracking opponents, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in December banned fracking in the state. He attributed his decision to unresolved health risks associated with this drilling technique, but the governor surely also weighed the economics and the politics.

During the past five years, I’ve researched and written about the economic impacts of fracking and, as a long-time resident of New York, I have observed its fractious politics. What I’ve found is that most people, including politicians and people in the media, assume that fracking creates thousands of good jobs.

But opening the door to fracking doesn’t lead to the across-the-board economic boon most people assume. We need to consider where oil and gas industry jobs are created and who benefits from the considerable investments that make shale development possible. A look at the job numbers gives us a much better idea of what kind of economic boost comes with fracking, how its economic benefits are distributed and why both can be easily misunderstood.

Not a recession buster

Pennsylvania is one of the centers of dispute over fracking job numbers. In Pennsylvania, the job numbers initially used by the media to describe the economic impact of fracking were predictions from models developed by oil and gas industry affiliates. For example, a Marcellus Shale Coalition press release in 2010 claimed:

“The safe and steady development of clean-burning natural gas in Pennsylvania’s portion of the Marcellus Shale has the potential to create an additional 212,000 new jobs over the next 10 years on top of the thousands already being generated all across the Commonwealth.”

These job projections spurred enthusiasm for fracking in Pennsylvania and gave many people the impression that oil and gas industry employment would lead Pennsylvania quickly out of the recession. That didn’t happen.

Pennsylvania’s unemployment roughly tracked the national average throughout the state’s gas boom. While some counties benefited from the fracking build-up, which occurred during the “great recession,” the state economy didn’t perform appreciably better than the national economy.

Nationally, the oil and gas industry employs relatively few people compared to a sector like health care and social assistance, which employed over 16 million Americans in 2010. The drilling, extraction and support industries employed 569,000 people nationwide in 2012, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Although it grew faster than other sectors of the economy, the core of oil and gas employment constitutes only one half of one percent of total US private sector employment. This total includes jobs unrelated to shale development and jobs that preceded the shale boom. As for job growth, the EIA indicates that 161,600 of these jobs were added between 2007 and 2012. Drilling jobs specifically increased by only 6,600.

Impressive growth percentages notwithstanding, that is not a lot of jobs. In 2010, more than 143 million people were employed in the US, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

In Pennsylvania, the Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative (MSSRC) report on shale employment in the Marcellus states found that shale development accounts for 1 out of every 249 jobs, while the education and health sectors account for 1 out of every 6 jobs.

FedEx drivers?

The central issue with job projections is how many additional jobs are credited to oil and gas development beyond the relatively small number of people directly employed in oil and gas extraction.

In December 2014, Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor and Industry reported that just over 31,000 people were employed in the state’s oil and gas industry. That figure was higher than the federal data indicates, but appears to be reasonable. However, what’s striking is that the Department attributed another 212,000 jobs to shale development by adding employment in 30 “ancillary” industries.

All employment in these related industries – including such major employers as construction and trucking – was included in this attributed jobs figure. Thus, a driver delivering for FedEx or a housing construction worker were “claimed” as jobs produced by the shale industry.

This is eye-rolling territory for economists. They know that attributing two additional jobs to every one directly created in an industry is very generous. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania attributed seven additional jobs to each one created in the oil and gas industry.

Depending on how broadly you define the state’s oil and gas industry, between 5,400 and 31,000 people were employed in Pennsylvania before many of the rigs started pulling out in 2012 to head west. Certainly, jobs in other sectors were also created, but a generous estimate would be 30,000 to 60,000 rather than the hundreds of thousands claimed by industry promoters.

QCEW is the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, a federal-state cooperative program that is based largely on the quarterly Unemployment Insurance reports filed by employers. Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative, Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, Author provided.

The MSSRC report demonstrates that only a tiny portion (under 1%) of jobs in many of these 30 industries could be related to shale development activities, and further, that Pennsylvania employment in these industries overall changed little before, during, and after the shale boom.

The real winner: Texas

Beyond the exaggerated numbers, a geographic blindness obscures our view of fracking jobs. Where do the workers extracting gas in Pennsylvania or Ohio live and spend their money? Where are the best jobs located? While the fracking industry may support the national economy as a whole, some places are winners and others are losers.

In Ohio, where extraction continues because its shale holds both natural gas and other valuable “wet gas” hydrocarbons, a series of investigative reports by The Columbus Dispatch showed that at least a third of the workforce in drilling areas are transient workers. In the four Ohio counties with the most shale permits, the number of local people employed actually decreased between 2007 and 2013.

This tells us that the production sites aren’t necessarily the places that get the economic boost. The most skilled workers on drilling crews are from Texas and Oklahoma and they return home to spend their earnings. Northern Pennsylvania drilling crews spent much of their money in the Southern Tier of New York.

My own research on the geography of shale jobs shows that Texas has derived the lion’s share of the benefits from US fracking. Texas has consistently had around half the jobs in the oil and gas industry (currently 47%). During the 2007-2012 shale boom, Pennsylvania gained 15,114 jobs in the drilling, extraction and support industries, but Texas gained 64,515 – over four times as many jobs. Texas not only has much of the skilled drilling workforce, but the majority of the industry’s managers, scientists and experts, who staff the global firms headquartered in Houston. Still, even in Texas, energy-related jobs constitute only 2.5% of the state’s now more diversified employment.

What does this tell us about New York’s decision on fracking? Andrew Cuomo may have decided that the state would do better providing finance capital to the oil and gas industry from Wall Street rather than taking on high-risk, low-reward fracking production. _________________________________

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

NOTE: Please read the excerpts below from an article of September 15^th which originated with IOGA.  Here we have a blatant case of indoctrination, what we used to call brainwashing, planned for our finest teachers and our finest students.  Can you believe that the oil and gas industry would actually pay for a program that was so openly biased?  We know where the money is and what the money will buy.   We also can see that IOGA thinks that they have a message for society that the rest of us cannot understand.  One more comment:  our fine teachers and our fine students will see through this propaganda scheme!

The excerpts below are from the State Journal of September 15^th:

The Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia has announced the Tom Dunn Energy and Leadership Academy to honor the memory of one of its pioneer members and industry leaders.

The first session of the academy will take place at West Virginia Wesleyan College July 9-11, 2013 in conjunction with IOGA’s sixth Annual West Virginia Oil & Gas Equipment Show, WVWC alumnus and IOGA President Dennis Xander announced.

 ”Starting this fall, the academy will be soliciting applications from every high school, public and private, across West Virginia, seeking science teachers who want to participate,” Xander said.  “Forty teachers will be selected, and those teachers will be asked to select two of their best and brightest students. We hope to have 40 teachers and 80 students.”

The academy will be aimed at students entering their junior or senior years.  There will be no costs to the participants for tuition, lodging or meals. Those attending will stay on the campus of WVWC at the expense of the academy. Funding for the academy will come from donations from the energy industry and from the many friends of Tom Dunn, a former President of IOGA.

The three days of the academy will offer the teachers and students information about the broad range of energy careers available in West Virginia. Participants will visit active energy production sites and meet with energy companies.

NOTE: Instead,  IOGA could  provide funds to the State of West Virginia that could benefit all the students and all the teachers of the State.  Such funds are surely needed! The previous writings of S. Tom Bond on this web-site provide more examination on how the oil and gas industry is spending incredible sums of money to influence public opinion and gain political advantage.  See these at www.FrackCheckWV.net

Bill Hughes of Wetzel County, WV

WV-DEP Hearing near Wheeling on Sept.  12th 

Dr. Michael Blatt, Blanche Rybeck, Bill Hughes and others say air pollution from Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling is an issue environmental regulators need to take seriously, at the WV-DEP hearing on September 12^th, as reported in the Wheeling Intelligencer.

“Because we cannot absolutely prove that this is going to kill us does not mean we should allow it to go on,” said Blatt, a physician specializing in lung and breathing problems who has practiced in the Wheeling area for 30 years, while speaking during the Tuesday West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Air Quality public hearing at West Liberty University’s Highlands Center.

Although the hearing officially only addressed Chesapeake Energy’s air quality permit application to emit certain pollutants – methane, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde – from the Dytko well pad along Stone Church Road, those in attendance took the opportunity to let the Division of Air Quality workers know they feel there are problems throughout West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle.

“The concept of aggregation is what the state of West Virginia needs to come to grips with,” said Wetzel County Action Group member Bill Hughes, whose organization has been speaking out about air pollution from gas drilling for a few years now.  In the photo Bill Hughes demonstrates how he believes the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection inspects shale gas operations.

Peering through a tube from a roll of paper towels, Hughes said this demonstrates how state officials evaluate the environmental impact of drilling sites. Instead, he said, regulators should consider pollution from drilling sites, compressor stations, processing plants and diesel motors in the large trucks used to move equipment as a cumulative environmental impact of gas drilling. “We look at these things one at a time, as if this is not going to add up into a larger problem,” Hughes said.

In addition to the pollution from the Dytko pad and all of the other well sites, Chesapeake – the only active Marcellus driller in Ohio, Brooke or Hancock counties – also will release similar emissions from its local compressor stations. One of these is just off the Interstate 70 Dallas Pike exit near The Highlands, while another is in the Sand Hill area near the Marshall/Ohio county border.

The “potential to emit” amounts of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and other chemicals that may be released at the sites can vary, according to numerous legal advertisements posted by Chesapeake.

However, because the DEP’s air quality division does not measure the cumulative environmental impact of Chesapeake’s multiple sites throughout Ohio County, regulators evaluate each individual site on its own – without regard to how much pollution nearby similar well pads, compressor stations, processing plans or trucks will release.

Chesapeake began drilling at the Dytko well site last year, but a rig was back on site last week to continue the process. As air quality Director John Benedict pointed out, his division of the DEP has nothing to do with allowing a company to drill a gas well, as those permits are obtained through the DEP’s Office of Oil and Gas. Benedict’s office only deals with the air pollution.

Stone Church Road resident Blatt and Dallas Pike Road resident Blanche Rybeck also expressed concern over the amount of noise being produced during Chesapeake’s drilling and fracking operations. “The decibel level is pretty loud,” Blatt said, noting it is sometimes so bad that he and his neighbors need to wear earphones to go outside.

Rybeck said she lives in the middle of several drilling pads, noting that she has needed to wear ear plugs to “get a good night’s sleep” for a long time. She said last week, the pressure of the sound got so bad that she had to track down Chesapeake officials to ask them to build a sound barrier. Once the barrier was up, Rybeck said the situation improved somewhat. “When the DEP considers applications from Chesapeake, they need to consider all the issues,” she said.

Wheeling Jesuit University biology professor Ben Stout expressed frustration while commenting, claiming that oil and gas industry leaders spend a lot of money to make sure the regulations are loose. “They just overwhelm the people and overwhelm the regulators,” he said of the drillers.

Ohio County resident Christine Bonfili, who collected signatures for a petition she sent to the DEP to protest Chesapeake’s plans to drill 1,300 feet from Wheeling Park High School, said there should be a moratorium on future drilling in the state. “Here in West Virginia, we are being bombarded by this industry. Other states are looking at us as a guinea pig,” she said.