Dustin White of OVEC speaks at press conference

Contacts: Dustin White, OVEC-Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, 304-541-3144, dustin@ohvec.org; Deb Smit, Breathe Project, 412-760-7677

MORGANTOWN, W.Va.—Today more than 50 people representing more than a dozen grassroots groups from West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania gathered to show their opposition to the Appalachian Storage and Trading Hub, a petrochemical mega-complex build-out proposed for the Ohio and Kanawha river valleys.

The group gathered outside the Marriott at Waterfront Place as the West Virginia Manufacturers Association was hosting the Marcellus and Manufacturing Development Conference, where the Hub was to be a main topic.

Among those gathered was Melcroft, Pa., resident Ashley Funk, a community organizer for Mountain Watershed Association, who said, “We are standing together to show the shale gas and petrochemical industries that, unlike the plastics from which they want to profit, our communities are not disposable.”

The end products of a Hub would be plastics, and its feedstock would come from an increase in regional fracking, which is already wreaking havoc in some north-central West Virginia counties. The infrastructure related to a Hub would stretch along more than 400 miles of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers, and reach into 50 counties in West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky.

A Hub would include underground storage caverns for volatile natural gas liquids, six major pipelines (new pipelines in the region have already exploded*, resulting in destroyed buildings including a home, property damage, livestock deaths and evacuations), thousands of miles of feeder pipelines, and huge polluting factories including fractionators and cracker plants, like the one being built in Beaver County, Pa.**

“It is of upmost importance that people see these current and proposed petrochemical projects in Appalachia for what they are: a scheme that the oil and gas companies are using to bail themselves out of debt. Appalachia has been exploited enough. Every stage of the life-cycle of plastic is toxic and harmful to human health and the environment—from the extraction of the natural gas liquids to the manufacture and use of the products, to the disposal of them. The tide needs to shift to alternatives to plastic, rather than creating more,” said Bridgeport, Ohio, resident, Bev Reed, who attended today’s event. She lives near the site of one component of the Hub, the planned PTTG ethane cracker plant.

Participants in the protest worried about the human health aspects of the Hub. They spoke about the warnings they are receiving from their allies who live in petrochemical regions of Louisiana and Texas known as “Cancer Alley,” and cited the recent petrochemical fires near Houston as reason enough to question the proposed Hub. They talked about Bayou Corne sinkhole, an ongoing incident in Assumption Parish, La., where residents who had been living near a collapsing storage cavern operated by Texas Brine Company and owned by Occidental Petroleum have been evacuated.

Due to the direct human health impacts and the potential for deadly and costly disasters, participants in today’s protest questioned the wisdom of government loans and tax breaks aimed at facilitating the construction of components of the Hub. Given the likelihood of a dramatic increase in regional greenhouse gas emissions from Hub-related infrastructure, participants also questioned the sanity of the Hub.

“It’s nuts for our state to bow down to another round of abuse from fossil fuel corporations,” said Dustin White, project coordinator with OVEC, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, which is based in Huntington, W.Va. “We deserve a diverse and sustainable, community-led economy that is not dependent on fossil fuels with all the associated health and safety risks. Workers deserve better than more toxic jobs.

“The ASH scheme is an unimaginative regression to 1950s era economic development. Why can’t we have real innovation? Development focused on tourism and cottage industries could allow our area to be part of real progress, toward a world we’d want our grandchildren to live in,” White added.

“West Virginia is commonly referred to as ‘almost heaven’ and I could not think of a better way to describe it myself. The places and people here are what makes West Virginia like no other, and for far too long large corporations have plundered our beautiful land and harmed its people,” said Abby Minihan with WVU Sierra Student Coalition. Another coalition member, Ethan Cade, added, “As a young West Virginian, I can say that we are tired of dealing with the negative economic, environmental, and health consequences of corporate pollution and are coming out to fight for a cleaner, better West Virginia.”

“Our oceans are drowning in plastic waste. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, up to 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles die each year from eating our plastic garbage,” said Brenda Jo McManama, a campaign organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network. “Recycling has become a convenient myth as facilities shut down across the U.S., and other countries close their ports to our garbage. We are literally burying our future in discarded plastic. We are here to demand: No more plastics, no more petro over people! Greed and hubris is destroying any hope of a healthy and safe future for the generations to come.”

Groups involved in the planning of this event include OVEC-the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Concerned Ohio River Residents, Indigenous Environmental Network, Sierra Club WV, Sierra Club OH, Center for Coalfield Justice, Breathe Project, Mountain Watershed Association, and Climate Reality Project: Pittsburgh.

*For April 2, 2019 aerial photos of the site of September 10, 2019 Center Township, Pa., pipeline explosion

**For April 2, 2019 aerial photos of the Beaver County, Pa. Shell cracker plant construction site on the Ohio River

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For more photos and an article on the Morgantown conference see:

WV MetroNews Downstream opportunities touted at annual Marcellus and Manufacturing Development Conference. – WV MetroNews

“Fractured Land” by Lisa Peters (2014)

From an Article by Christopher M. Matthews, Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2018

As companies step up oil production, the natural gas byproduct is weighing on already low gas prices and on gas producers. Higher oil prices are helping many American shale drillers. But they are hurting companies that frack for natural gas.

As companies respond to rising oil prices by drilling more for it, they often unearth gas as a byproduct. That has further weighed on already low gas prices, pressuring shale frackers in regions that primarily produce gas.

The average share price for the five top companies focused on the oil-rich Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico are up more than 16% over the past year. Share prices for the top five producers focused on the Marcellus Shale in Appalachia, the country’s largest deposit of natural gas, are down more than 9%.

“It’s going to be tough for the Marcellus for a while,” said Brian Lidsky, managing director at oil-and-gas research firm PLS Inc. “There is just a tidal wave of gas coming out of the Permian.”

Like most shale drillers, those focused on natural gas in the Marcellus— a group that includes Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., EQT Corp., Range Resources Corp., Antero Resources Corp. , and Southwestern Energy Co. — have been under investor pressure to live within their means, curtail excessive spending and improve returns. And they have come closer to doing that.

As a group, those companies spent about $106 million more than they made in the first quarter of 2018, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of S&P Global Market Intelligence data. That is down from outspending cash flow by more than $274 million in the previous quarter and more than $735 million in first quarter of 2017.

The shares of the top five shale drillers in the Marcellus region have lagged behind their peers that drill mostly for oil in the Permian Basin.

Still, investors have been reluctant to put more money into gas drillers, and the reason is simple: Gas has been cheap for years and doesn’t look primed to go up soon.

Demand for natural gas is predicted to rise globally over the next decade as many countries switch from coal-fired power plants to gas-powered ones. However, that isn’t expected to solve gas drillers’ problems in the short term. U.S. gas production will outpace domestic consumption through 2019, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Natural-gas futures for July delivery closed at $2.939 a million British thermal units on Tuesday and have been below $4 since 2014. Prices passed $10 in 2008 and had stayed above the $4 mark before 2012. Many banks and analysts predict average prices will be below $3 for years. Meanwhile, U.S. oil prices have climbed to more than $65 a barrel for the first time since 2014.

“We are mostly a gas company, so it is fair that we are judged on the price of gas,” said William Way, the chief executive of Southwestern Energy, which was the third-largest gas producer in the contiguous U.S. in 2017, after Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chesapeake Energy Corp. EQT is now poised to be the largest gas producer this year, following its acquisition of Rice Energy Inc. at the end of 2017.

Southwestern Energy’s strategy has been to cut costs and squeeze out efficiencies over the past two years while weathering the storm, according to Mr. Way. The road has been painful.

The company’s share price is about a 10th of what it was in 2010. The company was burdened with debt when Mr. Way became CEO in 2016— $4.6 billion in debt in December 2016 — following an ill-timed acquisition of Marcellus acreage from Chesapeake in 2014 for nearly $5 billion, just before gas prices sank. That debt represented more than 83% of its total capital.

After he took the top role, Mr. Way quickly laid off 40% of the company’s staff and shut down all of its drilling rigs. “We had to reinvent ourselves as a $2.75 gas company instead of a $4.50 gas company,” he said.

Southwestern Energy is now seeking to sell all its assets in the Fayetteville shale in Arkansas, which analysts say could be worth more than $2 billion. The company will use a significant portion of that to pay down debt, now about $3.4 billion, and reinvest in the Marcellus, where it has begun drilling again, albeit with modest growth targets.

Some hold a measure of optimism

Todd Heltman, a senior energy analyst at Neuberger Berman Group LLC, an asset-management firm that owns shares in shale producers, noted that prices for gas-focused shale companies have rebounded a bit since earlier this year, with investors having potentially seen a bottom for gas producers.

“They’re no longer growing for the sake of growing, and buying for the sake of buying,” Mr. Heltman said. “And I do think investors have gotten too bearish on natural gas.”

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Reagan’s EPA chief was forced to resign amid scandals. Why not Scott Pruitt? (Opinion) – CNN

Mountain Valley Pipeline to use 42” diameter pipe

From an Article by Ken Ward Jr., Staff Writer, Charleston Gazette, April 27, 2018

This article was produced in partnership with the ProPublica Local Reporting Network. ProPublica is supporting seven local and regional newsrooms this year, including the Gazette-Mail, as they work on important investigative projects affecting their communities.

More than 26 years ago, I wrote a story about a woman named Dixie Woolum.

I had been at my paper barely six months. At the time, I thought it would be cool that I’d get a dateline from Woolum’s hometown, Cinderella, W.Va. Little did I know then how much that story’s headline — “Broken promises” — really meant in the long history of West Virginia’s relationship with coal.

Woolum’s husband, Jimmy, was a coal miner who had died years earlier.

“Dixie Woolum packed her husband’s dinner bucket every morning,” I wrote. “Jimmy left early to work in the mines outside Williamson, heart of the billion-dollar coalfield.”

I was hoping to illustrate the financial distress faced at the time by Woolum and by thousands of people like her because of the potential collapse of the United Mine Workers of America’s health care plan for retired miners and their families. Miners like Jimmy Woolum thought they were promised health care for life in a long-ago deal between President Harry Truman and legendary UMWA President John L. Lewis.

In reality, protecting that health care has been an almost constant fight, part of the root of the bitter strikes against Pittston Coal and A.T. Massey Coal, the first two in an avalanche of coal operators who tried to stop funding miner benefits and pensions the union had won in its national contract.

Coal miners and coal communities are pretty used to broken promises by now.

Congress promised in 1969 to eliminate black lung disease. But thousands of miners — including Jimmy Woolum — continued to die from it. Today, though the industry knows how to prevent black lung, there’s a resurgence of the disease among miners in Central Appalachia.

Coalfield residents were promised that strip mines would be reclaimed, but most states haven’t required companies to set aside nearly enough money for cleanups, setting the stage for a financial crisis as the industry’s decline puts more and more companies at risk of failing.

Most of all, coalfield communities were promised prosperity — and today some of the places that have produced the most coal are among the region’s poorest.

How can this be?

It’s a crucial question to ask, especially at this critical time in West Virginia, as the state rushes forward with its new relationship with the natural gas industry.

Coal has done a lot for West Virginia. Generations of miners earned a good living, especially after the state’s coalfields were unionized. As Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., likes to remind people in Washington, coal helped win two world wars and built our nation into a global superpower.

The industry’s downsides are, if not always acknowledged by political leaders, well-documented. The great Appalachian historian John Alexander Williams listed coal’s “repetitive cycle of boom and bust, its savage exploitation of men and nature, and its seemingly endless series of disasters,” in an often-cited passage from his seminal history of the state.

And now, in the face of a major decline in the coal industry, families and entire communities that depended on it are hurting.

What will coal leave behind? Many in West Virginia are starting to understand the painful answers to that question: Abandoned mine lands, abandoned pension plans, polluted streams, empty government coffers — giant challenges for local communities in supporting schools and other basic needs.

At the same time, political leaders and business boosters are pointing to natural gas as the way out of West Virginia’s downward spiral, as the answer to our state’s economic problems.

But others worry that the state is headed down the same road with natural gas that it’s been on with coal.

We’ve just published a story detailing those similarities. Earlier this year, for example, Gov. Jim Justice proposed and then quickly backed away from a natural gas tax earlier to help fund our state’s schools. Gov. William Marland did the same thing with a proposed coal tax in the 1950s.

And Marland was far from the first to offer warnings about West Virginia’s wealth being dug from the ground and hauled out of state.

As early as 1884, a state Tax Commission report said, “The question is whether this vast wealth shall belong to persons who live here and who are permanently identified with the future of West Virginia, or whether it shall pass into the hands of persons who do not live here and care nothing for our state except to pocket the treasures which lie buried in our hills.”

In this series of stories, with the help of ProPublica, I hope to bring readers here in West Virginia, and those around the country, a clearer view of how history could be repeating itself.

For example, as my first story illustrates, West Virginia lawmakers and regulators have moved quickly to give gas developers broad latitude to operate, weakening environmental and public safety rules that govern the industry. Over the course of the year, I plan to more fully illustrate the ways the gas boom and what it brings with it are changing our communities and our landscape.

I also plan to look at the impact on workers. Are the jobs from the Marcellus Shale gas boom really going to West Virginians, or are companies bringing in seasoned hands from Texas and Oklahoma? Unlike our experience with coal, is West Virginia using the wealth created during this boom to plan and prepare for some day in the future when the gas is gone and we need a more diverse economy?

Who is in the room when decisions about the gas industry are being made? Are our communities empowered, or are government officials and gas lobbyists working out deals behind closed doors?

Hopefully, the stories about this crossroads in our state will shine some light on how West Virginia can learn from our past and the experience of people like Dixie Woolum. Follow along, and please tell us your stories, about your experience with the coal or the natural gas industry in West Virginia.

You can email us at changingwv@wvgazettemail.com or call 304-348-1702. You can also send us regular mail to Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette-Mail, 1001 Virginia Street, East., Charleston, W.Va., 25301 Plus, we’ll be giving you more information in the days to come about how to take part in this conversation.

Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kward@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1702, or follow @kenwardjr on Twitter.

Alberta Canada Earthquakes & Fracking

Groundbreaking Study Shows Direct Link Between Fracking and Earthquakes

From an Article by Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com, November 18, 2016

IMAGE: Seismicity of northwestern Alberta, Canada for the period 1985−2016. The size of the dot correlates to the magnitude of the earthquake. Xuewei Bao and David Eaton

Geoscientists have revealed a direct link between hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and earthquakes in Canada. The groundbreaking study found that earthquakes can even occur intermittently over several months after drilling operations end.

According to a new study published in the journal Science, seismic activity in northwest Alberta over the last five years were likely caused by fracking, in which chemically-laden water and sand is injected at high pressures into shale formations to release oil or gas.

The article, Fault activation by hydraulic fracturing in western Canada, was authored by Xuewei Bao and David Eaton from the University of Calgary.

For the study, the researchers mapped out more than 900 seismic events near Duvernay shale drilling sites around the Fox Creek area dating back to December 2014. This included a 4.8-magnitude earthquake in January in northern Alberta that’s likely the strongest fracking-induced earthquake ever.

They found that there were two main causes for quakes. The first was immediately from pressure increases as the fracking process occurred. “We were able to show that what was driving that was very small changes in stress within the Earth that were produced by the hydraulic fracturing operations,” Eaton told DeSmogBlog.

The second cause comes from pressure changes from lingering fracking fluid. According to the Globe and Mail, a fault shakes when fluids infiltrate tiny spaces in the porous rock and increases pore pressure. “If that pressure increases, it can have an effect on the frictional characteristics of faults,” Eaton told the Globe and Mail. “It can effectively jack open a fault if the pore pressure increases within the fault itself and make it easier for a slip to initiate.”

Per the study abstract, “Patterns of seismicity indicate that stress changes during operations can activate fault slip to an offset distance of >1 km, whereas pressurization by hydraulic fracturing into a fault yields episodic seismicity that can persist for months.”

Eaton told DeSmogBlog that a “majority of injection-induced earthquakes are actually linked to hydraulic fracturing” in Canada.

The new study is not related to the recent spate of induced earthquakes currently rocking midwestern states, most notoriously Oklahoma. Those quakes are not likely caused by fracking itself but from the injection of large volumes of oil and gas wastewater into deep underground wells.

“The key message is that the primary cause of injection-induced seismicity in Western Canada is different from the central United States,” Eaton told the New York Times, adding that their study could help regulators craft guidelines to avoid more human-caused earthquakes. 

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It’s Official: Injection of Fracking Wastewater Caused Kansas’ Biggest Earthquake

From Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com, October 14, 2016

The largest earthquake ever recorded in Kansas—a 4.9 magnitude temblor that struck northeast of Milan on Nov. 12, 2014—has been officially linked to wastewater injection into deep underground wells, according to new research from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The epicenter of that extremely rare earthquake struck near a known fracking operation.

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Oklahoma’s Latest Fracking-Related Earthquake Sparks Demand for Withdrawal of Oil and Gas Leases

From the Center for Biological Diversity, EcoWatch.com, November 8, 2016

Sunday’s earthquake that damaged dozens of buildings near an oil and gas pipeline hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, is further proof that fracking and wastewater injection are too dangerous to people and property to be allowed to continue, the Center for Biological Diversity said Monday. In May, the organization called on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to withdraw 11 proposed oil and gas leases in Oklahoma because of earthquake risks. The BLM has yet to respond to that request.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

And Recent Larger Quakes in Canada

Oklahoma Residents Sue 12 ‘Reckless’ Fracking Companies for Earthquake Damage

From an Article by Cole Mellino, EcoWatch.com, January 13, 2016

Oklahoma has seen a dramatic uptick in earthquakes in recent years, and some residents refuse to sit idly by. Some 14 residents of Edmond, Oklahoma have now filed a lawsuit against 12 energy companies, claiming their fracking operations contributed to a string of earthquakes that hit central Oklahoma in recent weeks.

The plaintiffs are specifically targeting the companies wastewater disposal wells, alleging that the injection of fracking wastewater into these wells “caused or contributed” to earthquakes and constituted an “ultrahazardous activity.” The companies named in the lawsuit are Devon Energy Production, Grayhorse Operating, Marjo Operating Mid-Continent, New Dominion, Northport Production, Pedestal Oil, Rainbo Service, R.C. Taylor Operating, Special Energy, Sundance Energy, TNT Operating and White Operating.

In the lawsuit, the residents focus on two earthquakes of magnitude 4.3 and 4.2, which struck Edmond on December 29, 2015 and January 1, respectively. Citing “reckless disregard for the consequences to others,” the plaintiffs argue in the lawsuit that the companies “injected large volumes of drilling waste in disposal wells located near the cities of Edmond and Oklahoma City, in the vicinity of the plaintiffs’ properties, under conditions that defendants knew or should have known would result in an increased likelihood that earthquakes or other adverse environmental impacts would occur, thereby unreasonably endangering the health, safety and welfare of persons and property, including plaintiffs and others.

“The use of disposal wells by defendants created conditions which, among other things, are the proximate cause of unnatural and unprecedented earthquakes that continue unabated, increasing in both frequency and magnitude within Oklahoma County and elsewhere in the state of Oklahoma, which have damaged plaintiffs and others and threaten to do so in the future.”

The residents have suffered and will continue to suffer “severe and permanent damage to their persons and property,” according to the lawsuit. This damage includes “cracked and broken interior and exterior walls” and “movement of the foundations beneath their dwellings.” The residents also cited “mental and emotional anguish, fear and worry” as a result of the earthquakes.

The plaintiffs are seeking a permanent injunction to stop the use of 16 disposal wells operated by the energy companies. “Mother Earth has spoken, and Oklahoma is in a dangerous, dangerous position,” attorney Garvin Isaacs, who represents the Edmond-area homeowners along with David Poarch, told The Oklahoman. “We must address this.”

Oklahoma went from two earthquakes a year before 2009 to two a day. The state now has more earthquakes than anywhere else in the world. Just in the past two weeks, Oklahoma experienced at least 82 earthquakes.

The Oklahoma Geological Survey concluded in April 2015 that the injection of wastewater byproducts into deep underground disposal wells from fracking operations has triggered the seismic activity in the state.

Even pro-business Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has admitted that there’s a “direct correlation between the increase of earthquakes that we’ve seen in Oklahoma [and] disposal wells.” However, Fallin has maintained a nuanced stance on fracking, as Oklahoma is one of the top natural gas-producing states in the country, and the industry provides a significant number of jobs in the state.

“We want to do it wisely without harming the economic activity we certainly enjoy and the revenue, quite frankly, we certainly enjoy,” Fallin said at a water and energy event in September 2015. “The council has worked very hard to ensure the energy sector, state agencies, environmentalists and academia are all talking and sharing that data and we have a scientific-based approach to reducing seismicity in our state.”

And, to its credit, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, has taken action to grapple with the near-constant earthquakes that have been plaguing the state. It has forced changes to more than 500 disposal wells around the state, including the shutdown of wells around the city of Cushing, which holds one of the largest crude oil storage facilities in the world. But with 3,500 disposal wells in operation, these regulations only apply to a fraction of existing wells.

The milquetoast response from state regulators has led Oklahoma residents, including the plaintiffs who filed suit on Monday, to take action into their own hands. At least two lawsuits were filed, according to the Oklahoman, after the state was hit with its largest earthquake to date, a 5.6-magnitude that hit the Prague area in 2011.

One of those suits, Ladra v. New Dominion, LLC, was initially dismissed by a lower court judge, who said such disputes should be handled by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. The plaintiff, Prague resident Sandra Ladra, appealed the decision to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which ruled in July 2015 that the lawsuit could proceed in district court. The ruling helped clear the way for citizens to sue the oil and gas companies responsible for the wells. Ladra’s case is still pending.

In October 2015, the Oklahoma Sierra Club and Washington-based Public Justice Foundation sent letters to four Oklahoma energy companies warning them of a lawsuit. Public Justice launched a petition, which has gathered more than 11,000 signatures that demands Oklahoma’s oil and gas companies take “immediate steps to curb their impact on the state’s people and environment.” The group told The Oklahoman that it still plans to file suit.

See also:

70 More Earthquakes Hit Oklahoma, Averaging Nearly Three a Day in 2015

Porter Ranch Natural Gas Leak Spews 150 Million Pounds of Methane, Will Take Months to Fix

Contrasting futures for the ocean give a stark warning to governments ahead of the Paris climate negotiations

PRESS RELEASE — CNRS, Paris, Thursday 2nd July 2015

Source: Gattuso J.-­‐P., Magnan A., Billé R., Cheung W. W. L., Howes E. L., Joos F., Allemand D., Bopp L., Cooley S., Eakin C. M., Hoegh-­‐Guldberg O., Kelly R. P., Pörtner H.-­‐O., Rogers A. D., Baxter J. M., Laffoley D., Osborn D., Rankovic A., Rochette J., Sumaila U. R., Treyer S. & Turley C., “Contrasting futures for ocean and society from different anthropogenic CO2 emissions scenarios.” Science, July 2, 2015.

Any new global climate agreement that does not minimize the impacts on the ocean will be incomplete and inadequate.

The ocean moderates anthropogenic atmospheric warming at the cost of profound alterations of its physics, chemistry, ecology, and ecosystem services. The Oceans 2015 Initiative has published a paper in Science evaluating and comparing the risks of impacts on marine and coastal ecosystems and the goods and services they provide under two potential carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions pathways over this century. Jean-­‐Pierre Gattuso, Senior Scientist at CNRS and lead author of the paper says “the oceans have been minimally considered at previous climate negotiations; our study provides compelling arguments for a radical change at COP21”.

Atmospheric CO2 has increased by more than 40% over the industrial period, which has driven a series of major environmental changes. Yet, the global ocean is a “climate integrator’’ that (1) absorbed 93% of the earth’s additional heat since the 1970s, keeping the atmosphere cooler but increasing ocean temperature and rising sea level; (2) captured 28% of human-­‐caused CO2 emissions since 1750, but acidifying the ocean; and (3) collected virtually all water from melting ice, furthering sea-­‐level rise.

From moderate to very high risks

Ocean changes associated with Copenhagen Accord’s goal of a global atmospheric temperature increase of less than 2°C by 2100 — already carries high risks of impacts for warm-­‐water corals and mid-­‐latitude bivalves. The risk of other impacts will remain moderate if we do not exceed this scenario. Higher emissions pathways, such as the business-­‐as-­‐usual path we are currently following, would greatly aggravate the situation: almost all marine organisms the Oceans 2015 Initiative team considered (e.g., corals, pteropods, finfish, and krill) would face very high risk of impact, such as mass mortalities or species displacement. Likewise, the risk of impact on ecosystem services such as coastal protection (e.g., by oyster beds, coral reefs and mangroves), aquaculture, tourism and capture fisheries would become high or very high by 2100. For example, substantial declines for tropical fisheries are projected as soon as mid 21st century, even under low-­‐emissions pathways. This study also shows that:

“Given the extent of the expected changes, no country is in a safe position, making this issue a worldwide problem that challenges the traditional North/South divide”, said Alexandre Magnan, scientist at IDDRI and coauthor of the paper.options to address ocean impacts (mitigate, protect, repair, adapt) narrow as the ocean warms and acidifies, i.e. as the world moves away from the +2°C path.

For example, one cannot manage coral reef resilience if there is no healthy reefs remaining. Some options are also antagonistic, for example, solar radiation management could limit the increase in temperature but would reduce the incentive to cut CO2 emissions, thereby providing no relief from ocean acidification.

Push to consider ocean issues at COP21: Four key messages are articulated –

(1) The ocean strongly influences the climate system and provides important services to humans.

(2) Impacts on key marine and coastal organisms, ecosystems, and services from anthropogenic CO2 emissions are already detectable across various latitudes, and several will face high risk of impacts well before 2100, even with stringent CO2 emissions scenarios.

(3) Immediate and substantial reduction of CO2 emissions is required more than ever to prevent massive and effectively irreversible impacts on ocean ecosystems and their services.

(4) As CO2 increases, the protection, adaptation and repair options for the ocean become fewer and less effective.

Given the contrasting futures outlined in this paper, the ocean provides further compelling arguments for rapid, rigorous and ambitious CO2 emissions reductions.

The Oceans 2015 Initiative was launched to provide COP21 negotiators with key information on how the future ocean will look like. It is led by CNRS-­‐UPMC and IDDRI and is supported by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, the Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the BNP Paribas Foundation and the Monégasque Association for Ocean Acidification.

Fracking could hurt house prices, health and environment, official report says

From an Article by Adam Vaughn & Rowena Mason, The Guardian, July 1, 2015

The DEFRA report, published in full after freedom of information battle, admits impact on water quality and wildlife is ‘uncertain’, though possible benefits also listed. The report’s release comes days after Lancashire council rejected the UK’s biggest fracking bids so far.

Fracking operations to extract shale gas in Britain could cause nearby house prices to fall by up to 7% and create a risk of environmental damage, according to a government report that has been published in full for the first time.

Entitled Shale Gas Rural Economy Impacts, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) document was released on Wednesday after a freedom of information battle. An official assessment of the impact of fracking, it warned that leakage of waste fluids could affect human health through polluted water or the consumption of contaminated agricultural products.

The report was first published last year in a heavily redacted form under freedom of information rules, prompting the Green MP, Caroline Lucas, to accuse the government of censorship and of trying to hide the negative impacts of fracking. Two weeks ago the information commissioner’s office ruled that the environment department must release the report unredacted.

The findings of the study come at a crucial time for the government and shale industry, just two days after the surprise rejection by Lancashire county council of what would have been the biggest round of fracking so far.

Previously omitted sections reveal that:

>> House prices near fracking wells were likely to fall, and there was a potential reduction of up to 7% in property values within a mile of wells.
>> Properties within a one- to five-mile radius of fracking sites may incur additional insurance costs.
>> Leakage of waste fluids from fracking processes has resulted in environmental damage in the US.

Even if contaminated surface water did not directly impact on drinking-water supplies, fracking could affect human health indirectly through consumption of contaminated wildlife, livestock or agricultural products. It concluded that the UK regulatory regime was “likely to be more robust” but the impact on water-resource availability, aquatic habitats and ecosystems, and water quality was “uncertain”.

The report also spelled out possible benefits of fracking, such as generating jobs and economic growth, as well as providing greater energy security for the UK. Rents may also increase due to additional demand from fracking-site workers, it suggested. It added that communities could benefit from investment in local services and infrastructure due to community payments that shale companies will have to pay to people nearby their operations.

Liz Truss, the environment secretary, has distanced herself from the report, calling it misleading and emphasising its draft nature. Ministers were split over the publication of the report in full, with Truss saying it should not be released, and the energy minister Andrea Leadsom saying the paper was “going to be published”.

Tony Bosworth, an energy campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said the timing of the report’s release was significant. “No wonder DEFRA sat on this explosive report until after the Lancashire decisions,” he said.

Lancashire councillors had debated whether to hold off making their planning decision until the report was published in full, but eventually decided to reject bids by Cuadrilla to frack at two sites on the Fylde plain.

Lucas demanded that Truss apologise for initially withholding the full report. “The government has conducted itself appallingly in holding back this crucial evidence. The environment secretary should now offer a full apology to communities facing the threat of fracking and guarantee that such deceitful behaviour won’t happen again in the future,” she said.

The main industry body, UK Onshore Oil and Gas, dismissed the report as being “in danger of extrapolating the experiences of other jurisdictions that have different regulation, planning regimes and geologies”.

Ken Cronin, chief executive of UKOOG, said: “It is a shame that this report has become such a cause célėbre as it is merely a review of literature and brings nothing new to the debate or any new information in a UK context.”

A DEFRA spokesman said: “This document was drawn up as a draft internal discussion paper – it is not analytically robust, has not been peer-reviewed and remains incomplete. “It does not contain any new data or evidence, and many of the conclusions amount to unsubstantiated conjecture, which do not represent the views of officials or ministers.”

See also: www.Marcellus-Shale.us

Warning: Climate Change Is Hazardous to Your Health

From an Article by Elizabeth Perera, Sierra Club, June 26, 2015

As 100-degree temperatures broke Washington, DC records on Tuesday, I was pleased to be at the White House Public Health and Climate Summit listening to Surgeon General Murthy tell the American people that climate disruption poses an extremely dangerous risk to Americans’ health. If this sounds familiar, it should. Fifty years ago Americans received a similar warning from then Surgeon General Terry, on the terrible health risks of smoking tobacco.

Yesterday the @Surgeon_General made clear the public health need to #ActOnClimate: http://t.co/7OycIIr1ip pic.twitter.com/djvw6nJiW4. — Sierra Club (@sierraclub) June 24, 2015

With Surgeon General Terry’s warning, our country was made bluntly aware of the dangers of cigarettes and Tuesday, Surgeon General Murthy was just as direct about the severe health consequences of climate disruption. Climate disruption is fueled primarily by carbon pollution coming from fossil fuels and fossil fuel power plants contribute 40 percent of all U.S. carbon emissions. Therefore, it’s logical to think dirty fossil fuel burning power plants now deserve a bold-print warning label that lets Americans know of the dire consequences similar to a pack of cigarettes.

As climate policy director at Sierra Club, people often ask me if I still use my public health degree and today the Surgeon General answered that question for me by making it abundantly clear that good climate policy is good health policy. The reverse is also true: if we keep burning fossil fuels like we are today, we will destroy our health and the health of our children. This message connecting two important facets of good government is what attracted pillars of the American medical community to the summit including the American Lung Association, the American Public Health Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. It goes without saying that I was honored to be there with them and join them in celebrating the historical significance of Surgeon General Murthy’s words.

VIDEO:See the conversation between the President and @Surgeon_General on climate change and public health at: http://t.co/K52r1QHs3m

— Dr. Ali Khan (@UNMC_DrKhan) April 20, 2015

The event itself united health professionals, academics, the environmental community and other important stakeholders to discuss the important role the public health community has in communicating and preventing health-related climate impacts. Also this week, one of the most respected medical journals, the Lancet, released a report which found that by acting to stop climate disruption the world can save countless lives, reduce the spread of disease and ensure a secure food supply by moving to clean energy and creating a healthier future for people in every part of the world.

Also, Monday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a Climate Change Impacts and Risk Analysis (CIRA) report finding that acting on climate change will prevent almost 60,000 premature deaths from poor air quality and 12,000 deaths from high temperatures in 49 major U.S. cities by 2100. And if that wasn’t enough, acting on climate will also save us a lot of money: $10-34 billion in electricity savings in 2050, $3.1 billion in avoided damages from sea-level rise in 2100, $110 billion in avoided damages from lost labor hours due to extreme temperatures in 2100 and $6.6-11 billion in avoided damages to agriculture in 2100.

However, despite all of this evidence and just days after the release of the Pope’s powerful encyclical saying that climate inaction is immoral, Congress has once again voted to block climate action. Today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2042, Rep. Whitfield’s Polluter Protection Act, and voted to block the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, the first-ever limits on carbon pollution from power plants. Also today, in the Senate, the Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works is holding a hearing on S. 1324, the Senate version of the Polluter Protection Act, sponsored by Sen. Capito and the climate denier in chief, Senator James Inhofe, who hopes to move this legislation to the floor of the Senate in July.    

Climate change deniers in Congress need to stop acting as pawns in industry’s game while the severe effects of climate disruption wreak havoc on the health of our families and our communities. Make no mistake, industry-funded scientists are simply giving excuses for members of Congress to oppose climate action just like they were used years ago to protect the tobacco industry. All this is happening while most Americans, including a majority of Republicans, support taking action on global warming.

This is why the Surgeon General Murthy’s warning speech is so significant. Just as his distant predecessor initiated the push to stomp out the normalcy of cigarette smoking in American life, Surgeon General Murthy did the same today with our everyday use of coal, gasoline and natural gas. With his leadership, we can overcome the denier campaigns that attempt to twist and augment scientific fact, and take the necessary steps to protect our planet from climate disruption. When I left the cool air conditioning of the summit and walked back out into the 100-degree swelter of Washington, DC in summer, I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that something is really being done to protect my kids and future generations from climate disruption.

Diesel Trucks Destroy Country Road

Oil and gas: 10 lessons for 2015, for Montana, ND, OK, TX, OH, PA & WV

From an Article by David Katz, Preserve the Beartooth Front, January 1, 2015

The year 2014 was a tumultuous year along the Beartooth Front. It began with our communities reeling from an announcement by Energy Corporation of America that the company planned to bring “a little bit of the Bakken” here, a quick drilling permit granted in Belfry with no public input and a lawsuit against the Board of Oil and Gas Conservation.

The year ended with a crash in oil prices and an uncertain future for the American oil and gas industry, a small step forward for Silvertip landowners, and a growing effort by landowners in Stillwater County to put zoning rules in place.

Along the way residents of Carbon and Stillwater counties have educated themselves, joined together, and made significant progress in assuring that if oil and gas drilling occurs along the Beartooth Front, it will be done in a way that protects the long-term viability of our community.

Writing this blog has been a tremendous learning experience for me, and I have gained some insight about local action and the oil and gas industry. The beginning of a new year is a good time for reflection on lessons learned, so I’ll offer these ten lessons for 2015, in reverse order of importance, based on my experience.

<photo> Carol French displays her contaminated drinking water

10. For all we read about the effects of oil and gas exploration — economic, political, environmental — the stories that have the most impact are personal.
Over the course of the last year I’ve told many personal stories on this blog. They get the biggest readership because people can identify with the experiences of regular people, often in rural communities, whose lives are changed forever when a drilling rig shows up in their back yard. You can read these personal stories by clicking here. (Note that there are several pages of these — click on “older posts” to page back to the older ones.)

9. There is much that can be done locally if people put their hearts and minds to it.
A year ago, the most frequent comment I heard went something like, “The oil and gas industry is too powerful, and the laws are all in their favor. We’re powerless to do anything.”

That’s just not true. What’s true is that the oil and gas industry is very adept at coming into a community, getting people to sign agreements, and expanding rapidly before locals can get organized. They have been incredibly successful with this strategy in eastern Montana, Texas, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Utah and other states.

But in 2014 we saw the power of local activism on display in New York, which has now banned high volume hydraulic fracturing; in Denton, Texas, where a public health nurse led a ballot initiative to stop fracking; and in Vernal, Utah, where a midwife shined a light on a large number of stillbirths in a town where drilling has been the norm for 50 years.

Along the Beartooth Front, 2014 was a very successful year for local action. The Silvertip Zone is a great example of the power of dedicated activism. Before that zone was put in place, local vigilance kept oil and gas drillers from taking water without a right. Local input helped to prevent the lease of BLM land in Dean last May. And the Northern Plains/ Carbon County Resource Council lawsuit forced the Montana Board of Oil and Gas to grant a public hearing on the Belfry well.

<photo> Protest in front of the Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation

In the future, more is possible. In 2015, Stillwater residents will be bringing a larger zone to the County Commissioners, and local residents are looking at working with the water conservation board to enact a county-wide ordinance to set standards for water use in oil and gas drilling.

Local action is not only possible, it can be very effective. And it’s happening along the Beartooth Front. Just watch this video put together by local citizens, who raised over $8,000 for the effort:

8. When people know the facts, they support local efforts to regulate oil and gas exploration. Effective communication is critical to successful management of oil and gas activity in a community.
In 2014 there have been two substantial local efforts to establish citizen initiated zoning along the Beartooth Front. In Carbon County, a small group of landowners has petitioned to form a citizen-initiated zone, the Silvertip Zone, in Belfry. Because of their great persistence they achieved a first approval in December to go forward from the County Commissioners. In Stillwater County, the Stillwater Protective Association has launched a more expansive effort to establish a zone in the Nye-Dean area, and expect to bring a petition signed by several hundred landowners to the County Commissioners in early 2015.

What has been remarkable about both these efforts is how few people, when presented with the facts, are opposed to plans to regulate drilling. Montanans don’t necessarily love regulation, they certainly don’t love zoning, and they don’t love signing their name to public documents, but when they understand that this is a viable path to protect their rights, their water, and their way of life, they are supportive.

The clear lesson here is the need to communicate, communicate, communicate locally. There is a great deal of FUD — fear, uncertainty and doubt — about oil and gas drilling. But when people are presented with factual information, they are responsive.

7. The management of oil and gas drilling iis not a blue – red issue. We should focus on the long-term health of our communities.
The media loves a narrative that portrays oil and gas drilling along the lines of traditional American political divisions. If you want to regulate oil and gas drilling, the narrative goes, you’re an environmental whacko who hates jobs and economic growth. If you’re for expanding mineral extraction you’re a climate change denier who doesn’t care if your daughter gets cancer.

If we allow that narrative to predominate, we all lose. The real discussion we need to be having in American communities should center on how we can foster economic growth in a way that protects the long-term sustainability of the way of life in a community.

That’s the purpose of the citizen-initiated zoning efforts taking place in Carbon and Stillwater counties. I encourage local citizens to join those discussions. Responsible oil and gas drilling is something environmental whackos and climate change deniers should both support.

6. Scientific research now offers compelling evidence that oil and gas drilling is dangerous to human and animal health. It’s time for elected officials to take their heads out of the sand and pay attention.
The oil and gas boom began just a few years ago and expanded like wildfire. Fracking and horizontal drilling technology brought wells close to where people live like never before.

Scientific research is taking time to catch up, but it is getting there. Every week new studies are being released that show that people who live close to wells have more adverse health impacts than those who don’t. Babies who are born near wells have more health issues than those who aren’t.

The oil and gas industry argues that there’s no smoking gun, and they’re right in a very limited way. We can’t yet prove why these things happen, we just know that they do. You can read this report that reviews the science and read the peer reviewed scientific studies yourself. There is simply no denying the health impacts of drilling.

The state of New York chose to invoke the “precautionary principle” and ban fracking. That’s not likely to happen in Montana, but our elected officials need to recognize that they can’t play Russian roulette with the citizens they represent. Oil and gas drilling needs to be regulated to protect us from permanent damage to public health.

5. It is not fair for local communities to pay for the mess the oil and gas industry creates. Infrastructure maintenance is a cost of doing business and should be paid for by industry, not local citizens.
Over the course of 2014 I have written often about the impact of oil and gas drilling on infrastructure. As drilling expands in an area, roads are chewed up, the costs of sewage and garbage collection increase, police and court costs rise dramatically, schools need to expand and more healthcare services are required.

<photo>  side-by-side rural road before and after a winter of heavy truck traffic

The way this works in most places is that the oil and gas companies come in, mineral owners profit from their work, and local citizens are left holding the bag for the increased infrastructure costs.

In Montana we have an oil and gas tax holiday that grants drillers of horizontal wells an 18 month grace period in which they do not pay an oil tax. We’ve seen how that plays out in towns like Sidney, where the shortfall for increased costs is huge. The Montana legislature should remedy this, but until they do, efforts like the Silvertip Zone are necessary to make sure local residents don’t get stuck paying for costs that the oil industry ought to be responsible for.

4. Under current law, oil and gas drilling is fundamentally unfair in its impacts. Local communities need to enact rules to make sure the rights of landowners are protected.
In Montana, as in many states, each property is divided into two parts: the surface estate and the mineral estate. Some properties are fee simple, or unified, meaning the surface owner is also the mineral owner. But others have split estates — the surface owner is not the mineral rights holder.

Montana law favors the mineral rights holder. The split surface owner has little ability to keep the mineral owner from extracting minerals, and receives little compensation for providing access. If drilling results in water contamination, excessive air pollution or infertile soil, there is little to be done.

What’s more, research shows that, for surface owners, drilling reduces property value, and makes it more difficult to get mortgages and compensation for damages that occur during drilling.

A fundamental reason for forming zones in Carbon and Stillwater counties is to restore fairness to the equation. Surface owners should not have to pay for water, air and soil testing and remediation. They should be protected from the 24 x 7 light and noise impact that drilling brings. They should not pay for the increased infrastructure burden caused by drilling that does not benefit them.

We need to do what is fair for everyone, not just the lucky few who hold mineral rights.

3. We can’t pretend we’re not concerned about the long-term viability of our planet. We need to feel urgency to change our energy ways.
If you’ve gotten this far, you won’t be shocked by this statement: Science tells us that our planet is warming, and that human activities are a contributing factor. Our dependence on fossil fuels is one huge reason, and we need to move as quickly as possible to shift to alternative fuels.

We can no longer afford to engage in the pointless debate politicians like Steve Daines, a proud climate change denier, want us to. It is convenient for those who receive huge contributions from the oil and gas industry to pretend that they just don’t know whether humans are causing this, so we can’t do anything that might impact job growth (click to read letter at right). That’s irresponsible.

In the short-term we need to stop engaging in activities such as flaring, which introduces massive amounts of methane into our atmosphere. In the long-term we need to embrace non-carbon fuels that reduce our carbon footprint.

2. Water is our most precious resource. Preserving it should be our primary goal.
As our planet warms and our need for water expands, drought is a perennial condition for much of the West. In areas where there is no municipal water system, each resident depends on the health of an aquifer and a well for their crops, livestock and personal use.

Fracking and horizontal drilling are threats to water for two reasons:

• A single well can require a large water supply, potentially several million gallons. In areas impacted by drought, this means that the source of water becomes a critical issue, and states can face choices between fracking and other essential uses.
• If an aquifer or well becomes contaminated, a landowner’s livelihood can be ruined.

In Montana, there are few regulations governing water testing and use. The oil and gas industry would love to have you believe that there is no relationship between fracking and water contamination, but it’s just not true.

Any local community faced with an expansion of oil and gas drilling should put regulations in place to protect water from contamination. Rules requiring water testing paid for by oil and gas operators, remediation of contamination, and water usage should be at the top of the list.

Water protection is a key element of zoning petitions in Carbon and Stillwater counties.

1. The fight for the long-term sustainability of our communities against unregulated oil and gas drilling never ends. We need to be constantly vigilant.
We should take pride in what we have accomplished so far, and will accomplish in 2015.

But in Montana, as in most states, protecting communities from unregulated oil and gas drilling has many facets. In addition to the kind of action we’re seeing at the local level, we need to be active on many fronts:

>> The Board of Oil and Gas Conservation (BOGC), which has primary responsibility for permitting wells, is in need of substantial reform. As currently constituted, the BOGC’s mission is to encourage the development of wells for profit.

>> The Montana Supreme Court, which should be an apolitical steward of the environment, is an elective body, and, as we saw in the most recent election, outside corporate interests, including energy companies, have poured money into Montana to try to elect anti-environmental ideolgoues. We need to stay vigilant to protect the neutrality of this important body.

>> The Legislature can enact laws that overturn existing rights to act locally. To the extent that our local efforts to establish citizen initiated zones are successful, it is possible to imagine the Legislature overturning that right. We need to make sure that our legislators understand the importance of these rights.

>> The Governor, who appoints members to the BOGC, needs to understand the importance of reform, and of upholding local rights to protect our communities.

We can never win protection from the oil and gas industry. We can win battles, but the oil and gas industry is relentless. Protecting our land, our rights, and our way of life is an endless struggle.

Keep at it. It’s a righteous fight. Here’s to a great 2015.

See also: www.Marcellus-Shale.us and   www.FrackCheckWV.net

Fragmented & Over-Developed Landscape

TITLE: Oil and gas development transforms landscapes

From a Report by Brady Allred, et al., The University of Montana, April 29, 2015

Researchers have conducted the first-ever broad-scale scientific assessment of how oil and gas development transforms landscapes across the US and Canada. A landscape transformed by broad-scale vegetation loss and fragmentation from oil and gas development is shown in the photo.

But what are the ecological consequences of this accelerated drilling activity? Researchers at the University of Montana have conducted the first-ever broad-scale scientific assessment of how oil and gas development transforms landscapes across the U.S. and Canada.

Their work was published April 24 in an article titled “Ecosystem services lost to oil and gas in North America” in Science. The article concludes that oil and gas development creates significant vegetation loss of rangelands and croplands across broad swaths of central North America.

Lead author Brady Allred said, “There are two important things here: First, we examine all of central North America, from the south coast of Texas to northern Alberta. When we look at this continental scale picture, we see impacts and degradation that are missed when focusing only at a local scale. Second, we see how present policies may potentially compromise future ecosystem integrity over vast areas.”

Allred and co-authors estimated that from 2000 to 2012 oil and gas development removed large amounts of rangeland vegetation, culminating at a rate per year of more than half of the annual grazing on U.S. public lands. Vegetation removed by this development on croplands is equivalent to 120.2 million bushels of wheat, approximately 13 percent of all wheat exported by the U.S. in 2013.

Fragmentation and loss of habitat also disrupts wildlife migration routes, alters wildlife behavior and assists new disruptive invasive plant species. Co-author Dave Naugle highlights the complexity of the issue: “We’ve known about the impacts of oil and gas development for years, but we now have scientific data from a broad regional scale that tells us we need to act now to balance these competing land uses.”

Furthermore, nearly half of wells drilled are in extreme- or high-water-stress regions. High-volume hydraulic fracturing uses 2 million to 13 million gallons of water per well, intensifying competition among agriculture, aquatic ecosystems and municipalities for water resources.

“We need a policy framework that quantifies and weighs major tradeoffs at large scales because current policy does not address both assessment and future mitigation adequately,” said co-author Julia Haggerty of Montana State University.

“Satellite technologies now can provide annual acre-by-acre information for land managers on oil-and-gas-driven land-use changes,” said Steve Running, a co-author and UM Regents Professor of Ecology. “We must have policies that ensure reclamation of this land after production has ended. Otherwise, by 2050, tens of millions of acres of land will be permanently degraded.”

The authors assessed the ecosystem services lost by using high-resolution satellite measurements of vegetation growth based on methods developed by co-author W. Kolby Smith and previous groundbreaking research by Running. Terrestrial plant production is the foundation of the biospheric carbon cycle and the basis for a multitude of critical ecosystem services.

>>> Brady Allred is assistant professor of rangeland ecology at UM’s College of Forestry and Conservation. Additional co-authors are W. Kolby Smith, a recent UM doctoral student now at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota; Dirac Twidwell from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; and Samuel Fuhlendorf from Oklahoma State University <<<

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net