LNG leaks, accidents, explosions and fires are risks that are unacceptable in high population areas

By Hannah Chinn, WHYY, StateImpact Pennsylvania, September 11, 2020

The LNG export terminal proposed for Gibbstown, New Jersey, will have to wait a bit longer, now that the multistate Delaware River Basin Commission has postponed a vote on the project until data and documents in the case can be reviewed.

The project would involve construction of a new dock and partial dredging of the Delaware River off Gloucester County. It’s part of a plan by developer Delaware River Partners — an affiliate of New York hedge fund Fortress Investment Group — to ship liquefied natural gas from Wyalusing, in Pennsylvania’s gas-rich Marcellus Shale region, to Gibbstown, where the gas would be loaded onto ships and exported elsewhere.

To reach Gibbstown, the gas would be transported in trucks or rail cars, following federal approval last month of the nation’s first LNG-by-rail permit.

Plans for the LNG terminal were initially approved by the DRBC in June 2019, but that move was appealed by the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and subsequently reviewed in a May adjudicatory hearing and public comment period. The officer overseeing that hearing ultimately recommended that the commission uphold its earlier approval.

DRBC members are required to vote publicly on whether to accept the hearing officer’s recommendation or reject it. On Thursday, they opted for a third option and delayed the decision, citing a need for more time.

“Given the size of the record, the technical nature of much extensive evidence, and the submission of briefs as recently as last week, completing a careful and thorough review by all of the commissioners by this meeting has not been possible,” the commission’s general counsel, Kenneth Warren, said Thursday. “Additional time for review and deliberation is required.”

The Gibbstown vote was not listed on the formal agenda for Thursday’s meeting, although local governments and environmental advocates hustled to oppose the decision and lobby their state’s representatives on the commission. The urgency may have stemmed, in part, from the fact that, if no action was taken, the developer could have begun constructing a dock and dredging the Delaware River as early as next week.

“Given its existing government approvals, [Delaware River Partners] could commence construction anytime after Sept. 15,” Warren said. “The commissioners may wish to preserve the status quo by staying the docket approval until the commission issues a final determination resolving the administrative appeal.”

Warren added that the decision to “stay” would not be indicative of any future choice by the commissioners to allow or deny the project.

The motion to postpone passed 3-1-1, with “yes” votes from New Jersey, New York and Delaware. Lt. Col. David Park voted “no” on behalf of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, while Pennsylvania abstained.

“I want to be clear: Delaware’s support is for us to reasonably complete the process and should not be read as anything else,” said Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Secretary Shawn Garvin, who serves as that state’s commissioner and current DRBC chair. “Our focus is and will be on those things that fall under DRBC’s jurisdiction, but at this point, we do need some extra time to make sure that we have fully and thoughtfully reviewed all of the information that was recently provided to us.”

More than 90 people tuned in to the commission’s third-quarter public hearing to hear the results of the vote. Environmental advocates praised the decision in a public comment session afterward, saying the commissioners were “making the right move.”

“As we face the future here in the Delaware River Watershed, the health of our river and its 13,000-square-mile watershed depends in large part on the big-picture decisions you make at these meetings,” Tracey Carluccio, of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, told the commissioners as she thanked them for a “thoughtful delay.”

“Any time you delay a bad project, it’s a win for the environment,” added New Jersey Sierra Club president Jeff Tittel. Plans that support fracking, or that send “bomb trains” through vulnerable communities could be devastating, he said, noting that “the more we know, the more we realize how bad it is for the environment.”

On Wednesday, representatives of both organizations had delivered flash drives to the governors of New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware, as well as the Army Corps of Engineers, which holds the fifth vote on the commission. The drives contained 50,962 petitions, resolutions from local governments along the proposed LNG shipping routes, and multiple letters from community groups, scientists, and environmental groups opposing the LNG export terminal.

Among others participating in the petition campaign were 350 Philly, Better Path Coalition, Catskill Mountainkeeper, Clean Air Council, Clean Water Action, Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, Empower NJ, Food and Water Action, Friends of the Earth, Mark Ruffalo for Move.On, Natural Resources Defense Council, Protect Northern PA, and Surfrider NJ and NY. A group of health professionals and 133 environmental group representatives, as well as actor-activist Ruffalo, also submitted letters to DRBC calling for a no vote on the project.

That public opposition appears to be mounting, as local government units including Lehigh County, Kutztown Borough, and Clarks Summit in Pennsylvania and Runnemede Borough in New Jersey have passed legislation opposing the transport of LNG through their communities. Several Philadelphia City Council members have indicated similar concerns, noting that a rail route through the city would expose Black, brown and low-income communities to the most intense zones of impact in the event of a derailment or explosion.

And then there are the people of Gibbstown, who would be directly affected. “I’m just a mom,” said Vanessa Keegan, one of the last to offer a comment at the meeting Thursday. She turned the camera to her 3-year-old son, Theo.

“Those signs in the Pennsylvania report that just came out, kids with the bloody noses and problems, that’s going to be us. And I am begging you to save my family — and that’s all I really wanted to say today, is that there are real people here, and I hope you protect us.”

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See also: GENERAL COUNSEL REPORT AND VOTE ON GIBBSTOWN ADMINISTRATIVE APPEAL, September 10, 2020

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See also: Marcellus LNG “Bomb Trains” Approved for Travel thru Philadelphia to New Jersey, FrackCheckWV, December 11, 2019

Allegheny - Blue Ridge Alliance (ABRA) Protest

>>> From: Lewis Freeman, ABRA, September 29, 2018

Yesterday, September 28, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond heard arguments on two important cases challenging permits granted to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP).

The first case challenged the December 13 decision by the Virginia State Water Control Board to grant a water quality certificate for the ACP (pursuant to requirements of Section 401 of the federal Clean Water Act).

The second case challenged the decisions of the U.S. Forest Service to amend the Forest Plans of the Monongahela National Forest and the George Washington National Forest and to accordingly issue a Special Use Permit for the ACP to cross the two forests.

The plaintiffs in both cases were a group of ABRA member organizations and others that were jointly represented by Appalachian Mountain Advocates (Appalmad) and the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC). An article about the briefs filed in each case appeared in the September 21 ABRA Update:

https://www.abralliance.org/2018/09/21/court-to-hear-challenges-to-acp-forest-service-water-quality-permits/?highlight=court%20to%20hear%20challenges

I attended Friday’s arguments. The lawyers representing our interests – Ben Luckett of Appalmad in the 401 case; D.J. Gerkin of SELC in the Forest Service case – were most effective. More about the oral arguments will appear in next week’s ABRA Update.

For now, though, I want to highlight a particularly significant moment during the arguments presented in the Forest Service case. In the course of the argument presented by the U.S. Justice Department attorney representing the U.S. Forest Service, Chief Judge Roger Gregory, who was presiding over the panel, interrupted the attorney and noted that the U.S. Forest Service had been diligently asking Dominion Energy for more complete information on how the company would and could build the ACP through the steep forest lands in West Virginia and Virginia without causing environmental damage. The judge then observed that the Forest Service seemed to have suddenly changed its mind and proceeded to approve the requested Special Use Permit.

Judge Gregory inquired of the attorney what the circumstances were that caused the Forest Service to change course. The attorney responded evasively, prompting the judge to interrupt him again and ask: “When?” The attorney tried to continue with his non-responsive response, and Judge Gregory again interrupted with: “When?” The judge’s “When?” question was asked twice more, but never received a response, prompting Judge Gregory to thunder: “Who’s running the train?” It was a riveting moment and one that also caught the attention of Michael Martz of the Richmond Times Dispatch, whose article about yesterday’s arguments appears in this morning’s paper and is available here.

A recording of Friday’s oral arguments will be available on the Court’s website on Monday. The case numbers you will need to access the recordings are: 401 case – 18-1077; Forest Service case: 18-1144.

>>> Lewis Freeman, Executive Director, Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance, ABRA Web-site: https://www.abralliance.org/

XTO Shale Gas Well out of control near Powhatan Pt., Monroe County, Ohio

Reporting by Scott DiSavino and Kim Palmer, Reuters News Service, March 7, 2018

(Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp’s XTO Energy unit said on Wednesday it plugged a blown out natural gas well in rural southeast Ohio that had been leaking for nearly three weeks.

The Feb. 15 blowout in Belmont County had spewed millions of cubic feet of gas into the air, triggering evacuations of nearby residences and raising concerns among environmental groups about health and environmental impacts.

Exposure to low levels of natural gas is not harmful to human health, according to the National Institutes of Health, but extremely high levels can cause loss of consciousness or death by displacing oxygen.

“We would like to press for a full accounting of the damage,” said Melanie Houston, director of climate programs for the Ohio Environmental Council, an environmental advocacy group.

XTO spokeswoman Karen Matusic said the company could not immediately say how much gas leaked from the well, which was about to be put into production after being drilled and fracked.

An initial report from the Environmental Protection Agency on Feb. 17 estimated the natural gas flow rate from the well at 100 million cubic feet per day. Earthworks, an environmental group, compared the magnitude of the XTO well blowout with some of the biggest methane releases in the United States.

Matusic said the company has been taking air samples since the blowout and “never picked up anything that would harm humans or animals.”

Following the well blowout, emergency responders evacuated about 30 homes within one mile of the well. Residents of all but four homes located within a half mile of the well were able to return home within a few days, Matusic said.

Ohio Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is the lead government agency at the XTO well pad. Officials at the DNR were not immediately available for comment

The U.S. EPA said it responded to a fire at the well on Feb. 15 to provide technical assistance and air monitoring at the site. Because there were no apparent release of oil or hazardous substances, the EPA said it demobilized on Feb. 21.

An unknown quantity of brine and produced water, estimated to be more than 5,000 gallons, was initially discharged to streams that flow into the Ohio River, according to the EPA.

Protected wildlife species located in proximity to or downstream from the well site are the Eastern Hellbender Salamander, Northern longeared bat, and protected fish.

See Video Here: XTO Gas Well Blowout near Powhatan Point, Ohio – YouTube

Shales are radioactive in Illinois

Groups warn of radiation exposure associated with fracking

From an Article by Barb Eidlin, The Southern, Carbondale, Illinois, June 22, 2017

CARBONDALE — Concerned citizens and opponents of the controversial oil and gas extraction method commonly known as fracking met Wednesday night at the Carbondale Township offices to discuss the risks of radioactive exposure associated with the extraction process.

The gathering was prompted by the recent application for a High Volume Horizontal Hydraulic Fracturing permit applied for by Woolsey Operating Company, LLC, HVHHF.

The event was hosted by Illinois Green Party and Southern Illinoisans Against Fracking.

Rich Whitney, Vice-Chairman of the Illinois Green Party and S.A.F.E Steering committee member for said that to the best of their ability, the groups had determined that the location of the well site proposed by the permit is a few miles northwest of Enfield in White County.

Whitney said that the extraction process is a potential public health hazard.

“In addition to the chemical contamination of the environment and the proven link between earthquakes and injecting waste fluids deep underground under high pressure, the process also comes with a risk of exposure to radioactive elements.”

According to Whitney, studies show that naturally occurring radioactive materials are present in unusually high quantities in Southern Illinois shale.

During drilling and fracking operations, when elements like radium, uranium, thorium or other radioactive elements are present in the sediment or rocks that contain oil and gas, they will be brought to the surface as drill cuttings or in the drilling fluid, known as drilling mud, circulating up from the drill bit.

Whitney cited a 2014 study published in the Journal of Environmental Health Perspectives that shows that consuming radium in drinking water can cause lymphoma, bone cancer and leukemia. It also states that radium also emits gamma rays which raise cancer risk from external exposures.

A 1997 U.S. Geological Survey of oilfield production sites in White county found that 7 out of 9 of the sites they surveyed were judged to have “high radioactivity.”

“If you look at what has been happening in recent years in Pennsylvania and North Dakota, the radioactive contamination coming out of those wells has been a disaster for those communities,” Whitney said.

According to Whitney, a 2006 Duke University study shows that radioactive contaminates have “gotten all over” the well sites and some of the waste disposal sites.

Additionally, he said, illegal dumping has led to radioactive contaminates in municipal dump sites. “That’s not to say that this is going to happen in Illinois, but the company has a foot in the door, and so people need to start educating themselves. We don’t want Illinois to be turned into a state wide Superfund site.”

Whitney also said that radioactive oil and gas waste is exempt from most federal regulations on radioactivity, and that the regulations adopted in Illinois roughly three years ago are mainly concerned with testing for radioactivity.

They say nothing about what companies must do if hazardous levels of radioactive emissions are detected.

Additionally, Whitney said, there is no regulation to test work areas for levels of radioactivity that would call for OSHA standards of occupational safety, and no provision for workers to wear radiation detection badges or devices.

Whitney said that the volume of waste from fracking will be far higher that from conventional drilling sites since the length of the wells can be over a mile long.

This means that hazardous radioactive elements being brought to the surface will also be proportionally greater that in conventional drilling.

If a Woolsey’s permit is approved, a public hearing will be held at the Enfield United Methodist Church Family Life Center, Corner of West Main and South Jennette St., in Enfield from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm on July 5, 2017.

Information about the organizations opposing fracking can be found at the Shawnee Green Party Facebook page, or the S.A.F.E. website at:

Don’t Fracture Illinois

'Frack Master' Chris Faulkner

Dallas ‘Frack Master’ arrested by Los Angeles Airport police

From an Article by Jeff Mosier, Dallas News, February 23, 2017

Dallas oil executive Christopher Faulkner, the self-titled “frack master” who federal authorities said ran an $80 million scam, was arrested Sunday in the Los Angeles area. Faulkner, 40, was taken into custody at 5:30 p.m. by Los Angeles Airport Police. No bail was listed.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department website said Faulkner was charged with a felony but no details were given. A sheriff’s spokeswoman referred questions to airport police.

News of the arrest was first reported on the TXsharon’s Bluedaze website run by Sharon Wilson, who was the first to publicly question Faulkner’s background and qualifications. The environmentalist and activist website is critical of gas drilling and has focused particularly on exploration locally in the Barnett Shale.

Faulkner’s lawyer, Larry Friedman of Friedman & Feiger, was not immediately available for comment Thursday morning. Friedman has previously said Faulkner did nothing wrong.

Frack Master Chris Faulkner Arrested on Felony Charges – Texas Sharon’s Bluedaze – https://t.co/oYWQNiGeHz via @Shareaholic#fracking

— TXsharon (@TXsharon) February 21, 2017

The federal Securities and Exchange Commission is suing Faulkner, the founder, president and CEO of Dallas-based Breitling Energy Corporation, along with seven other employees or associates. Breitling and three other related companies were also named in the complaint filed last summer.

Faulkner promoted himself, his “Frack Master” name and his company during dozens of cable TV appearances and at conferences from the United Arab Emirates to London. He was presented as a gas drilling expert and staunch defender of the industry against critics of hydraulic fracturing or fracking.

He had become such a go-to source that he was quoted as an expert in TheStreet.com more than a month after the SEC filed its complaint.

The federal civil complaint said Faulkner has little background in oil and gas and lied about his college degrees. The complaint also alleges that Faulkner and his employees inflated gas drilling costs and lied about likely production numbers.

The SEC also accused Faulkner of misappropriating at least $30 million in investor money to “maintain a lifestyle of decadence and debauchery.” One court document said Faulkner used a corporate American Express card — which he referred to as his “whore card” — to charge more than $1 million for strip clubs, escorts, nightclubs and personal travel.

Jeremy Wagers, Breitling’s chief operating officer and general counsel, used his business card to charge $40,000 at a Dallas strip club during a four-day period in July 2014, according to court filings.

The SEC has accused the Breitling crew of more than a dozen violations of federal securities laws and rules.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Siemens Modular Micro-LNG Unit in Penna.

Siemens (German) Rolls Out Micro-LNG Unit in Marcellus Region

From an Article by Mark Smedley, Natural Gas World, January 18, 2017

PHOTO: The LNGo low pressure liquefaction solution from Dresser-Rand consists of four different modules

Siemens subsidiary Dresser-Rand said January 18 it has commissioned its first micro-LNG system.

The Ten Man facility in Pennsylvania began LNG production in mid-September last year, just four months from contract signing, and has produced 500,000 litres of LNG since start-up. The facility enables operator Frontier Natural Resources to monetise stranded natural gas at Tenaska Resources’s Mainesburg field in the Marcellus shale play of northeastern Pennsylvania.

The modular, portable ‘LNGo’ system can be installed in a short period of time. Consisting of four different modules, it can be transported on eight trucks, deployed at the gas field and has a footprint of some 508 cubic meters, roughly the size of a basketball court.

Dresser-Rand’s LNGo™ system is a modularized, re-deployable natural gas liquefaction plant capable of producing up to 30,000 gallons of LNG per day. This point-of-use production plant is a standardized product made up of packaged modules that work together to offer a decentralized, distributed approach to meet the demand for LNG fueling. The LNGo system is comprised of legacy products from Dresser-Rand and Siemens including a Dresser-Rand MOS™ reciprocating compressor, a Dresser-Rand Guascor^® generator set, and control, monitoring, and safety systems to offer a new liquefaction process that can be installed and operating within a few months.

With the increasing use of LNG as a fuel for road trucks in North America, micro-LNG represents one way to monetise stranded gas. Rival technologies such as small-scale gas-to-liquids (GTL) offered by other companies also offers a way to turn natural gas into motor fuel.

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“Fire and Ice”

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost, 1920

Submitted Commentary: LNG corporations are misleading the residents

Commentary by Stefanie Herweck, Rio Grande Monitor, August 9, 2015

Rio Grande Valley residents on Tuesday will have an opportunity to express their concerns to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during a public hearing over the proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals for the Port of Brownsville. And it’s important that the public comes out and voices opposition to this project because the corporations that want to build the LNG export in South Texas are engaging in a campaign of half-truths designed to boost public support and to avoid confronting the serious issues that this massive project raises.

Those advocating for the terminal say LNG is not flammable and when confronted with safety concerns, claim that any spill would vaporize and dissipate. But “vaporize” and “dissipate” does not mean the LNG would disappear. It means that the liquefied methane would turn back into gas. And when that gas mixes with enough oxygen, it becomes highly flammable and could ignite in the presence of a spark or flame.

If a fire starts just above the evaporating LNG spill, it is called a pool fire. A 2008 Department of Energy report found that LNG pool fires burn so hot that it can kill or injure people up to 1 mile away. A flammable vapor cloud can also travel more than 1 mile from the LNG spill before encountering an ignition source and catching fire.

That is why everyone living within 2 miles of a Washington state LNG facility was evacuated in 2014 when an LNG storage tank was punctured.

Sections of Port Isabel are within this 2-mile evacuation zone, and up to 10 LNG tankers per week would pass within 200 yards of the crowded Isla Blanca Beach.

The LNG corporations also claim that natural gas is “clean-burning.” But what they mean is simply that methane burns cleaner than coal, and that is a necessary distinction.

LNG export terminals are, in fact, major sources of hazardous air pollutants. The plants emit nitrogen oxides, which can harm the respiratory tract; carbon monoxide, a poison especially harmful to pregnant women and fetuses; volatile organic compounds, which are carcinogens and neurotoxins; and particulates that are extremely harmful to those with asthma.

If built, these LNG facilities would be the largest single-sources of air pollution in Cameron County. And those emissions would blow with prevailing southeasterly winds towards Los Fresnos, Laguna Vista and Port Isabel.

Furthermore, when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions and the climate, exporting liquefied natural gas is actually just as polluting as coal. The U.S. Department of Energy found that by the time natural gas was extracted by fracking, piped to the export terminal, processed and liquefied, transported to Asia and then re-gasified and burned in a power plant, its carbon footprint was just as bad as coal.

The companies are also wooing our elected officials with golden promises of jobs, but the predictions that they make don’t take into account the bigger economic picture: A few hundred LNG jobs cannot compare with the thousands of jobs that rely on beach and nature tourism. People in the rest of the state pass up beaches in Galveston and Corpus Christi to come to South Padre Island precisely to avoid dirty petrochemical industrial areas.

When the view from the South Padre beach includes 14-story-tall storage tanks and 300 to 500-foot-tall flare stacks, and sunsets are spoiled by a brown haze and hundreds of high-powered lights, will they continue to come? Will birders from all over the world still visit when the area is an industrial site? In their rosy predictions, the corporations seem to ignore all of the job losses the LNG plants will surely bring.

They also leave out the costs to us, consumers. As U.S. gas is exported, domestic gas prices are expected to rise, which means that our electric bills will go up, along with the prices for everything we buy. Higher gas prices mean a higher cost of doing business for U.S. manufacturers. That means Valley businesses will take a hit. And with LNG corporations asking for 10 year tax abatements, those costs suffered by the community will not be balanced out by tax revenue.

Rio Grande Valley citizens and elected officials need to look past the LNG corporate sales pitches and demand the whole truth about how LNG export terminals will affect our safety, our health and our economy.

For more information, please go to: SaveRGVfromLNG.com.

Stefanie Herweck serves on the executive committee of the Lower Rio Grande Valley Sierra Club. She lives in McAllen, TX.

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See also for news on the Cove Point LNG terminal: Chesapeake Climate Action Network

AAAS Science, Issue June 27th

SCIENCE: Special Issue: Volume 344 no. 6191 pp. 1464-1467

From an Introduction by David Malakoff, SCIENCE, June 27, 2014

702—PERCENT INCREASE IN U.S. SHALE GAS PRODUCTION SINCE 2007

40—PERCENT SHALE GAS SHARE OF TOTAL U.S. PRODUCTION

47—PERCENT INCREASE IN U.S. ELECTRICITY GENERATED USING NATURAL GAS SINCE 2005

15,000,000—LITERS OF WATER AND CHEMICALS PUMPED INTO A TYPICAL FRACKING WELL

Nearly 70 years ago, a small group of engineers and geologists gathered at a dusty gas drilling site in southwestern Kansas to try an experiment. They pumped nearly 4000 liters of gelled gasoline and sand some 700 meters down a borehole into a thick bed of limestone, in hopes that the pressurized gunk would fracture the rock and release more natural gas. The “hydraulic fracturing” test failed. But success ultimately followed: Today, fracking, as it is known, is revolutionizing the energy industry, enabling firms to extract natural gas from a source once considered unpromising—vast deposits of shale, which is too dense for gas to flow freely (Science, 25 June 2010, p. 1624). By penetrating the shale with boreholes that bend horizontally, and then pumping in millions of liters of fluids and sand under high pressure, drillers can force open minute cracks that release valuable streams of gas.

Extensive shale gas deposits—or “plays” as they are known in the industry—are found around the world (see map). So far, however, the shale gas boom is largely confined to the United States, where over the past decade companies have drilled thousands of fracking wells into once obscure geological formations, including the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, the Barnett in Texas, and the Haynesville in Louisiana. (In other shale plays, such as the Bakken in North Dakota, fracking is primarily used to produce oil.)

The resulting surge in natural gas is remaking U.S. energy markets—and causing economic ripple effects globally. Shale gas has made the United States the world’s leading natural gas producer and now accounts for about 40% of U.S. production, up from less than 2% in 2001. The share is projected to grow to 53% by 2040, and natural gas prices have tumbled as abundance grows (see graphs). That’s helped accelerate a shift away from coal to natural gas for generating electricity and prompted energy-intensive manufacturing firms to shift production from overseas factories to the United States, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. The United States is also boosting natural gas exports to other nations—reversing its traditional role as an energy importer.

The shale gas shake-up has been accompanied by plenty of controversy—and new research—as the stories in this special section illustrate. Scientists are debating fracking’s impact on water quality (see p. 1468) and whether the shale gas boom will help or hurt efforts to curb climate change (see p. 1472). They are also exploring potential links to human-caused earthquakes (Science, 23 March 2012, p. 1436), air pollution, and habitat fragmentation.

Basic researchers are also sizing up this new resource. They are searching for life deep in shale deposits (p. 1470) and potentially transformative ways to convert the methane in natural gas into liquid fuels and other chemicals (p. 1474). Some are examining the origins of shale gas, trying to determine whether it is primarily the product of methane-producing microbes or thermal breakdown of organic matter (see p. 1500). And analysts continue to debate just how much shale gas is really out there—and how quickly the current boom could turn bust.

For the moment, any downturn seems distant. Canada, which already gets 15% of its natural gas from shale, is ramping up production. China, Europe, and Russia are eyeing their essentially untapped shale deposits. Public opposition to fracking is growing in some nations, however, and drilling technologies that have performed well in the United States may not work well overseas, where the shale can have very different properties. One thing is clear: The shale gas revolution is still in its infancy, with plenty of growing pains ahead.

Further reading

R. D. Vidic, S. L. Brantley, J. M. Vandenbossche, D. Yoxtheimer, J. D. Abad, Impact of shale gas development on regional water quality. Science 340, 1235009 (2013).

W. L. Ellsworth. Injection-induced earthquakes. Science 341, 1225942 (2013).

R. J. Conrado, R. Gonzalez, Envisioning the bioconversion of methane to liquid fuels. Science 343, 621–623 (2014).

A. R. Brandt et al., Methane leaks from North American natural gas systems. Science 343, 733–735 (2014).

B. G. Hashiguchi et al., Main-group compounds selectively oxidize mixtures of methane, ethane, and propane to alcohol esters. Science 343, 1232–1237 (2014).

X. Guo et al., Direct, nonoxidative conversion of methane to ethylene, aromatics, and hydrogen. Science 344, 616–619 (2014).

D. A. Stolper et al., Formation temperatures of thermogenic and biogenic methane. Science 344, 1500–1503 (2014).

The New Environmentalism by Sandra Steingraber

Concerns and Plans for Our Future –– Part 2

From a Speech by Sandra Steingraber, New Environmentalism Summit, Brussels, Belgium, June 3, 2014

In fact, there are two critical issues: climate change, which is killing our life-support system, and chemical pollution, which is killing us.

Like a tree with two trunks, these twinned problems have a single root cause: fossil fuels. Whether we shovel them into ovens and light them on fire or turn them into toxic petrochemicals, fossil fuels are the problem.

The ideas that would lead to breakthrough solutions are already here. Their names are green energy and green chemistry, but they are being held hostage by the oil and gas industry. Their rescue depends on a vigorous new environmentalism that closes the door on fracking.

Fracking is the imposter in the room.

Fracking is the problem that masquerades as a solution.

Fracking is the deadly enabler that keeps the whole fossil fuel party going far past the time of its curfew.

Methane—also known as natural gas—is carbon dioxide’s partner in crime. Indeed, as a greenhouse gas, it is far more powerful. According to the latest estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, methane is, over a 100-year period, 34 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.

Over a shorter period, methane is even more potent. The best science tell us that methane is, over 20 years, nearly 100 times more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. How much methane is actually released between drilling for it and burning it? We don’t exactly know. Those studies are ongoing.

We do know that fugitive methane wafts from every stage of the gas extraction, processing and distribution process—and from all of the ancillary infrastructure along the way, including well casings, condenser valves and pipelines.

The emerging science shows us three things about fracking and climate change: First, that we have grossly underestimated the amount of methane that leaks from drilling and fracking operations. Second, that we have grossly overestimated the ability of regulations to control those emissions. And third, that the ability of methane to trap heat is far more powerful than we realized in the only remaining time frame available to us to avert catastrophic climate change.

In short, fracking is the ultimate bridge to nowhere. You cannot blast natural gas out of the bedrock and send it into kitchen stoves and basements furnaces across the land without venting massive amounts of climate-killing methane into the atmosphere.

Let’s now look at the chemical pollution of caused by drilling and fracking operations and their attendant infrastructure. This is a problem that has created a public health crisis in the United States where fracking was born and where it has spread relentlessly from sparcely populated western states to the densely populated Northeast.

The evidence for human harm caused by fracking is contained within the medical literature itself. The totality of the science now encompasses hundreds of peer-reviewed studies. All together, these data reveal multiple health problems associated with drilling and fracking operations and expose intractable, irreversible engineering problems.

They also make clear that the relevant risks for harm have neither been fully identified nor adequately assessed and, thus, that no regulatory framework in any U.S. state can be said to adequately protect public health.

Last week, alarmed by growing evidence for harm across the United States in areas where fracking is practiced, more than 250 health organizations and individual physicians, nurses, midwives, scientists and other health professionals sent a letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo that calls for a formal three-to-five moratorium on fracking in New York State. Among the signatories were many researchers who are generating the actual data.

I’ll describe for you now some of the trends that are so concerning to those of us in the scientific and medical community. [All studies referenced below are cited in the May 29 letter to Gov. Cuomo from Concerned Health Professionals of New York and other signatories.]

First, despite ongoing industry denial, evidence linking water contamination to fracking–related activities is indisputable. Investigations have confirmed water contamination in four states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Texas. These contaminants include methane, radioactive radium, the carcinogen arsenic and multiple hormone-disrupting substances—so called endocrine disruptors. This last discovery is especially worrisome because endocrine disruptors can exert powerful effects on human development at vanishingly low concentrations. There is no safe level of exposure.

To sum up the evidence for the threat to drinking water, I’ll quote from a new review by the Council of Canadian Academies: A common claim . . . is that hydraulic fracturing has shown no verified impacts on groundwater. Recent peer-reviewed literature refutes this claim and also indicates that the main concerns are for longer term cumulative impacts that would generally not yet be evident and are difficult to predict reliably. . . . The most important questions concerning groundwater contamination from shale gas development are not whether groundwater impacts have or will occur, but where and when they will occur. . .

Why is drinking water contamination inevitable with fracking? The science shows that there are at least two reasons. The first is based in engineering: cement is not immortal. It can fail. And when it does, the structural integrity of gas wells can fail. These failures are common, unavoidable, and increase over time as wells age and cement and casings deteriorate.

According to the data available to us in the United States, five to seven percent of gas wells leak immediately, and more than half leak after 30 years. Drilling and fracking itself appear to contribute to loss of well integrity. Drilling creates fractures in the surrounding rock that cement cannot completely fill and so opens pathways for the upward migration of liquids and gases. Also, as cement ages, it shrinks and pulls away from the surrounding rock, reduce the tightness of the seal, thus opening potential portals for contamination. No regulations, no best practices can prevent this problem.

Drinking water can also be contaminated by the disposal of liquid fracking waste. This is the fluid that flows back out of the hole when the high pressure is released after the bedrock is fractured. Fracking waste is contaminated not only with the toxic chemicals that are purposefully added to water to create fracking fluid but also with brine, heavy metals and radioactive substances that it absorbs on it journey down to the center of the earth and back again.

These cannot be filtered out by any known technology. Hauling fracking wastewater to treatment plants has resulted in contamination of U.S. rivers and streams with bromine and radioactive radium. We have good data on this.

>> Part 1 was yesterday and Part 3 is tomorrow <<