Scientists, engineers, economists and political leaders have a responsibility ...

From the Article by David Shearman, The Hill ~ Energy & Environment, May 12, 2022

Human health and the natural environment are indivisible. A recent article in the journal The Lancet reminds us that “economic decisions on the environment have major impacts on human health, and health and wellness depend on a flourishing environment.”

Those living in vast cities may find this statement difficult to grasp and many economists certainly do, for the words “natural environment” have now to be changed to “natural capital” for their understanding. We live in a world where economic thinking rules our lives, whereas many believe it should be our servant in delivering an equitable and secure future.

When leaders of most Western nations continue to puff out their chests to announce their latest increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or rate of growth, they expose their impotence to manage a nation’s future by failing to recognize environmental costs.

Or as written more politely by Stephen Posner and Lydia Olander, in The Hill, “While congressional leaders debate trillions of dollars of federal spending, they have a critical blind spot” for they are “not informed by a complete accounting of the nation’s assets, leaving out many critical services that nature provides.”

After nearly 70 years of GDP in economic ideology and practice, the World Bank is having second thoughts about GDP as a measure of “growth” for it takes no account of natural and human capital used to achieve it.

Indeed the bank’s “The Changing Wealth of Nations 2021 Managing Assets for the Future” report now seriously questions the use of GDP in its present form and may at long last provide a glimmer of hope for the world to have a sustainable future.

On “natural capital,” the report states “mismanagement of nature and failure to consider the longer-term impacts of our actions can carry severe consequences, even if they might not be immediately evident. We therefore need an expanded economic toolkit, including broader measures of economic progress, to secure our collective prosperity and even sustain our existence as a species.”

The report notes that “in countries where today’s GDP is achieved by consuming or degrading assets over time, for example by overfishing or soil degradation, total wealth is declining. This can happen even as GDP rises, but it undermines future prosperity.”

In Australia with an election due on May 21, the government has proudly announced a current GDP of 4 percent, yet it may well be minus 4 percent if the loss on natural capital is accounted for, due to prodigious land clearing, urban expansion and extensive environmental damage from mining. This may also be the case in the U.S. but there has been little attempt to measure it.

The issue is of pressing importance because world food supply is threatened by war, harvest failures from climate change extreme events and by supply problems. This is a threat to one of our life support systems, the living soil, the ecology of which together with the surrounding services from biodiversity provide our food. The research of many scientists defining these threats should galvanize action.

The World Bank 2021 report may have been influenced by the report “The Economics of Biodiversity,” by eminent economist Professor Partha Dasgupta, which was cited in a previous article in The Hill. Dasgupta pointed out that GDP does not include “depreciation of assets” as such as the degradation of the biosphere. Economic progress has been based on the extraction of resources from nature and the dumping of waste back into it. When extraction and dumping exceed nature’s capacity to repair itself, natural capital shrinks as do biodiversity and the essential environmental services they provide.

A basic tenet of any policy or practice is that it should be able to measure its effect accurately so it is now vital to establish environmental accounting to place a value on natural capital as explained in an article from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Indeed, one has to ask why the U.S. has been tardy to adopt the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) which commenced in 2012, when about 90 countries have already done so. The answer may be that the U.S. favors of a free-market system that embodies deregulation and is the leading instrument in disregard for the consumption of natural capital. Indeed, even recent articles from eminent business schools fail to mention the environment as it related to the U.S. economy.

It is also important to reflect that for too long we have failed to acknowledge and use the inherent knowledge of many indigenous peoples on land management. The free-market system has moved Western civilizations far from such understanding.

Reform must be initiated by a fundamental change in the thinking of economists and by politicians of both persuasions. Bipartisan reforms will become all the more necessary when climate-driven conflict emerge, and reforms could offer security, especially to rural constituencies who understand food production. Given the unprecedented impact we’ve had on land, the recent sobering UN land report is essential reading for all members of Congress as they consider economic policies — not just climate action.

A vital step in developing the World Bank’s “expanded economic toolkit” should be to educate the public and business on reform of GDP to put a value on nature so providing an incentive for government to protect it. Currently, “Real GDP” denotes GDP adjusted for inflation. Let us have “true GDP,” which encompasses environmental loss.

But we must realize that reform of GDP is only one piece of a thousand others needed to complete this jigsaw puzzle in the next few decades, if the planet is to remain viable for human life. The other pieces — including climate change, pollutions, toxic chemicals, water security, sea and land ecology, population growth, consumption, conflict — must all fit together as they are interrelated. Only in fitting together the puzzle can we ensure out survival.

>>> David Shearman (AM, Ph.D., FRACP, FRCPE) is a professor of medicine at the University of Adelaide, South Australia and co-founder of Doctors for the Environment Australia. He is co-author of “The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy” (2007) commissioned by the Pell Centre for International Relations and Public Policy.

#######+++++++#######+++++++#######

See Also: Americans Largely Favor U.S. Taking Steps To Become Carbon Neutral by 2050, Alec Tyson, et al., March 1, 2022

Majorities of Americans say the United States should prioritize the development of renewable energy sources and take steps toward the country becoming carbon neutral by the year 2050. But just 31% want to phase out fossil fuels completely, and many foresee unexpected problems in a major transition to renewable energy.

LOCAL SHALE REGION HEALTH SEMINAR .... ZOOM @ 7 PM

From the local Environmental Health Project, Peters Township, Penna., April 25, 2022

Please join the Environmental Health Project (EHP) this Wednesday, April 27, 2022, for Reproductive Health and Shale Gas Development featuring Mary Willis, Ph.D., MPH. The webinar will begin at 7 p.m. EST.

During the event, Dr. Willis will present the findings of her two most recent studies, emphasizing the role of environmental exposures on reproductive health.

Registration is available for free at the link below. We look forward to seeing you!

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErcuuurz0sHNa1jwQF515JvaWN04Nts9Sk

There is a wonderful world to be found after plastics

From the letter of Michelle Chan, Friends of the Earth, March 22, 2021

It’s the public health and environmental crisis that not enough people are talking about: PLASTIC.

Plastic will soon outweigh all the fish in the sea. It fills our rivers and oceans, chokes wildlife, permeates our drinking water and our food, and persists in the environment for centuries.

Discarded plastics don’t just disappear. They break down into smaller and smaller pieces, turning into microplastics that contaminate our water, soil, and the food we eat. Can we count on you to act now to stop plastics from overrunning our environment?

Scientists estimate that there are already 51 trillion pieces of plastic in our oceans. That’s 51 trillion deadly hazards that cause harm to ocean organisms — from the smallest of corals to the largest of whales.

In 2020, over 11 million metric tons of plastic was dumped in the ocean. If this trajectory is allowed to continue, by 2040, 29 million metric tons of plastic will be dumped annually.

One plastic bag, or bottle cap, or fishing net, can suffocate, strangle, or starve its helpless victim. After their bodies decompose, the plastic is released back into the environment where it can kill again — because plastics do not break down.

700 known marine species have been killed by either plastic entanglement or ingestion of plastic — resulting in over a million animal deaths every year.

Sea turtles, dolphins, seals, fish, and sea birds are all at risk if something isn’t done soon to address the plastic crisis. So, let’s take action to protect our vulnerable wildlife from deadly plastic hazards.

The world is facing an indisputable plastic pollution crisis. But it doesn’t end there: the plastics crisis is also linked to the climate crisis. More than 99% of plastic is made from fossil fuels, and one of the main ingredients is a byproduct of natural gas. The fracking boom is fueling an unprecedented surge in plastic production as well.

In fact, because of fracking, the fossil fuel industry plans to increase plastic production by 40% over the next decade. This not only means more fracking pollution, but also an explosion of new toxic petrochemical plants. These plants would be devastating to the health of millions of primarily low-income, Black, and brown Americans along the Gulf Coast and in Appalachia.

Here’s the dirty truth behind their actions: The fossil fuel industry is using plastics as their “get out of jail free” card. With the public demanding a shift away from burning oil and gas for energy or fuel, the industry wants to maximize plastic consumption, including unnecessary single-use plastics.

In short, this industry is destroying our planet with plastic pollution, harming the health of frontline communities, and pushing us further to climate catastrophe. It’s beyond outrageous.

That’s why Friends of the Earth is supporting The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act, which holds corporations and plastic producers accountable for the plastic pollution crisis. We are also working to push the Biden Administration to enact the Presidential Plastics Action Plan, a comprehensive set of Presidential actions to tackle the crisis with or without Congress. And we’re pushing Congress and the Biden administration to stop giving the fracking industry special treatment as a “clean energy” version of fossil fuels.

As the fossil fuel industry doubles down on plastic as the new frontier for petrochemical production, we must do everything in our power to shape a new future — A future that isn’t bought and shaped by the richest and most powerful industries in the world. A future with a sustainable economy that doesn’t leave anybody behind.

Help us win a plastic-pollution-free future. Support Friends of the Earth with a donation today.

Plastics are choking off our planet EARTH

Thank you, Michelle Chan,
VP of Programs, Friends of the Earth

NOTE: Friends of the Earth
1101 15th Street NW, 11th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20005

Join us on the Halt the Harm Network

A TEACH-IN promoted by the Halt the Harm Network

REGISTER AT: https://tinyurl.com/BreakFreeTeachIn​

This event will feature:

>>> A presentation (giving an overview of the BFFPPA bill) from Congressional aides, Dr Anja Malawi Brandon (Senator Jeff Merkley) & Shane Trimmer (Congressman Alan Lowenthal)

>>> Alexis Goldsmith: National Organizing Director of Beyond Plastics sharing how we can support the bill

>>> A short film by Stiv Wilson (creator of “Story of Plastics”) & Megan Ponder.

>>> Live Q & A session

More about A-Z Plastics: This event will not only showcase this groundbreaking legislation, but it will also kick off the A-Z series 2.0!

Last summer People Over Petro and many of its partners joined in a summer digital series and summit called Tackling the A-Z Impacts of Plastic – From Fracked Gas to Plastic Pollution in the Ohio River Valley and Beyond.

Hundreds of people joined in a social network with events, arts, and discussions around the impacts of plastic and what we can do about it.

See impactsofplastic.com for more info, to join the A-Z community, and watch recordings of past events.

More about PASUP: Pittsburghers Against Single Use Plastic is a group advocating for a systemic & equitable shift away from plastic. Learn more and get involved by visiting http://pasupnow.org/.

FYI The presentations will NOT be taped for later viewing.

Hope you can join us live!!

REGISTER AT: https://tinyurl.com/BreakFreeTeachIn​

Injection wells operated at high pressure are an accident waiting to happen

Announcement from Ryan Clover, Halt the Harm Network, March 8, 2021

Are you concerned about injection wells? Want to meet other people working to prevent them?

Not sure if you’ve seen this yet – but FracTracker put together a report about disposal wells in PA and Matt Kelso will join us this Friday at our weekly live event.

Matt is the Manager of Data and Technology at FracTracker, so I’m sure we’ll have lots to discuss. I look forward to seeing what comments or questions you bring to the conversation on Friday.

§§§. MARCH 12, 2021 @ 2 PM
Coffee Break with FracTracker Alliance –
Pennsylvania’s Waste Disposal Wells –
A Tale of Two Datasets

Coffee Break is a weekly live-stream discussion to talk about the latest with researchers, leaders, community organizers, filmmakers, and artists standing up to fracking and the oil & gas industry.

This week’s guest is Matt Kelso, Manager of Data and Technology at FracTracker Alliance. Stop by to meet Matt and learn about the work they’re doing to map the industry.

​Register here via Crowdcast​.

Thanks! — Ryan Clover,
Halt the Harm Network

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

##############################

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

Trucks hauling Marcellus drill cuttings must pass a radiation monitor

From an Article of Media News Group, The Mercury, Pottstown, PA, August 2, 2019

AUDUBON, PA — J.P. Mascaro & Sons has announced that it has been awarded more than $7.5 million in municipal waste collection and recycling contracts, as well as a renewal of its operating permit for the Brooke County Landfill in Brooke County, West Virginia.

According to Sam Augustine, director of sales for the waste service company, long-term municipal contracts for waste collection and recycling were also awarded by Muhlenberg and Hamburg in Berks County, Catasauqua in Lehigh County and Newton in Westmoreland County. “We look forward to serving these communities and their residents,” he said in a statement.

J.P. Mascaro & Sons is headquartered in Audubon, Montgomery County and has more than 50 years’ experience. “Municipal contracts are a core component of our business operations,” according to Pat Mascaro, president of J.P. Mascaro & Sons.

In other business, a J.P. Mascaro & Sons related company — Valero Terrestrial Corp. — was awarded a new five year operating permit for the Brooke County Landfill in Colliers, Brooke County, West Virginia.

The Brooke County facility is one of two Mascaro-related landfills in West Virginia; a second facility is the Wetzel County Landfill in New Martinsville.

The Brooke and Wetzel County Landfills serve as the primary disposal facilities for waste collected by the two operating divisions of Solid Waste Services of West Virginia Inc., the Mascaro-related collection company that serves municipal, commercial and industrial customers in the panhandle region of West Virginia and in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, according to the company.

“The Brooke County Landfill is an important component of the operational infrastructure of the Mascaro-related waste service businesses in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania,” Ryan K. Inch, J.P. Mascaro director of engineering, said, in a statement. “These businesses not only serve our municipal, commercial and industrial customers, but also are important to the thriving Marcellus and Utica Shale gas development activities occurring in that three state regional area.”

For more information about J. P. Mascaro & Sons, visit www.jpmascaro.com.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

See also: Penna. Attorney General investigating wastewater case from landfill that accepts fracking waste | StateImpact Pennsylvania, Reid Frazer, May 24, 2019

The investigation comes a week after a judge barred the Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill in Rostraver Township from sending its wastewater to the nearby Belle Vernon Municipal Authority waste treatment plant for 90 days (now permanently).

The issue involves the landfill’s leachate — water that percolates through the landfill and gets collected for disposal. The landfill is permitted to send 50,000 gallons of the leachate per day to the treatment plant. But, according to a complaint filed by district attorneys in Washington and Fayette counties, the landfill had been sending 100,000 to 300,000 gallons of leachate per day.

Beginning last spring, the treatment plant started seeing levels of pollution in its discharge to the Monongahela River go up and exceed state and federal limits. The treatment plant determined the contamination was coming from the landfill, which accepts fracking waste including radioactive drill cuttings.

Antero "Clearwater" Construction

Residents wary of Antero’s answer to fracking wastewater problem

From an Article by Ken Ward, Jr., Charleston Gazette-Mail, September 17, 2016

<< Antero Resources is still seeking some of the permits it needs for a massive fracking wastewater treatment operation, but construction of the facility is well underway along the Doddridge-Ritchie County line >>

Greenwood, WV — Large cranes loom over the rolling hills just off Sunnyside Road. The tip of a large industrial tank and the steel skeleton of a building peek over the tree line along U.S. 50 near the Doddridge-Ritchie County line. Construction crews crowd the narrow road that winds up the hill from the four-lane, as workers push forward on a $275 million, two-year effort to complete what Antero Resources has dubbed “Clearwater.”

Antero officials say their new major complex — including a water treatment plant and adjacent landfill — will help solve a nagging problem faced by its natural gas operations across Appalachia: Getting enough water for gas drilling and then disposing of that water once it is contaminated with salts from underground mineral deposits and chemicals used to help release the gas from the region’s Marcellus Shale formation.

“This significantly improves the safety and reduces the environmental impact of shale development by removing hundreds of thousands of water truckloads from the roads every year, and recycles and reuses the water rather than dispose of it,” Antero CEO Paul Rady said when the project was announced a little more than a year ago.

But in the months since that announcement, residents near the project site and in the surrounding communities have become increasingly wary. Some residents have simple questions, like whether a new stoplight eventually will be installed at the intersection where the plant is being built. Others aren’t convinced that the water treatment facility will really remove some of the most potentially dangerous contamination — metals and radioactive materials — from the water from Antero’s natural gas production activities.

Still other critics of Antero’s plan worry that installing such a huge piece of industrial infrastructure simply furthers the state’s ties to another polluting fossil fuel industry, hindering any effort to make West Virginia a state that thrives on renewable energy production.

“There’s been strong community interest about this significant project coming to Doddridge and Ritchie counties,” said Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, which has been working with the local Friends of the Hughes River Watershed Association to help educate the public about the project and open dialogue between Antero and the community.

Last week, the two citizen groups hosted a community meeting on the project. About 50 people gathered in Harrisville, at the Women’s Club Center on Main Street, a few miles west of the construction site. Representatives from Antero attended. So did someone from the Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Environmental Advocate, which works to help citizens be better heard and understood during DEP’s review of permit applications for projects like Antero has proposed.

Conrad Baston, Antero’s project manager, explained why he and his company believe that the water treatment plant and the landfill are such good ideas. “It’s a centralized way of dealing with this waste, trying to compress this issue into as small a package as you can,” Baston said.

The whole process presents obvious problems: Where will all that water come from, especially during dry months when streams are low? What will companies do with all that contaminated water that comes back up?

Those underground injection wells have drawn increasing scrutiny, sometimes because they might be leaking, and others because scientists have found underground injection causes earthquakes.

Antero’s project would change all that, Baston said. Wastewater produced at the company’s wells would be trucked to the treatment plant, where it would be cleaned of salts and other contaminants. The water could then be reused at other gas wells. Salts would be disposed of at an adjacent landfill. Material with other contaminants would be hauled by train to some other dump somewhere else, probably in Utah or Idaho. No more on-site waste pits. No more underground injection wells. Less truck traffic.

“As an engineer, I just see this problem that I’m trying to compress into a smaller and smaller footprint,” Baston told residents.  That description, though, didn’t sit well with Lissa Lucas, who lives a few miles west of the project. “I wonder if you recognize that what you regard as a problem or an obstacle to making profits is different than what someone who lives nearby regards as a problem,” Lucas said. For example, Lucas said, “You may be saying there’s only 10 houses affected, but if you live in one of those houses, that’s a big deal.”

‘Right on top of us’

The scale of the Antero project alone has many residents worried. Located on a nearly 500-acre site, the landfill would accept 2,000 tons of salt per day, according to a Rivers Coalition fact sheet. Environmental groups also note that the landfill project alone would bury more than 5 miles of streams.

Antero officials like to point out that, overall, the facility — especially with an adjacent landfill that eliminates having to ship the salt for off-site disposal — actually helps to greatly reduce truck traffic related to the company’s operations. But residents worry that the treatment plan, by processing 60,000 barrels per day of wastewater, creates one giant, congested industrial site.

“You’re consolidating,” said one resident, who didn’t give his name. “What you’re consolidating is the problem — right on top of us.”

For some residents in places like Doddridge and Ritchie counties, West Virginia’s natural gas boom has brought with it not only concerns about water quality, but what one local sheriff has called an “invasion” of truck traffic, along with constant noise and light and localized air pollution concerns.

Lyn Scott Bordo, a sixth generation Ritchie County resident, said that the noise from a natural gas compressor station that started up near her home ended her ability to even have a conversation while sitting on her porch in the evenings.

Residents especially are resentful toward Antero. They note repeated water pollution problems and workplace incidents that left workers hurt or dead. And Antero is the main company targeted by hundreds of residents who have filed lawsuits over truck traffic, mountains of dust, constant heavy equipment noise and bright lights that shine into their homes day and night.

Kevin Ellis, an Antero vice president, reminded residents who brought up such issues during last week’s meeting that a lot of their neighbors work for Antero and its many contracting companies, and that those neighbors do their best every day to operate safely and to minimize any negative effects from the company’s operations. “We take seriously our obligation to do right,” Ellis said.

Still, residents and environmental groups have a variety of questions about the finer details of Antero’s plan.

For example, the company proposes to permit its landfill as a non-commercial facility — one that would take only Antero’s own waste — a move that avoids dealing with siting review by the local solid waste authority, which is required for commercial operations under the state’s decades-old law aimed at reducing out-of-state garbage. But Antero officials also talk about the possibility that they might accept and treat wastewater from other natural gas producers at the Clearwater facility, and then dispose of the salt from that treatment at the landfill, under the theory that the salt becomes internal to Antero when it comes out of the treatment facility.

Also, residents worry that they don’t yet have enough information about exactly how the treatment plant would ensure that only the salts, and not other contaminants like metals or radioactive materials, would be kept out of the landfill. In written comments submitted to the state Department of Environmental Protection, a coalition of environmental groups noted that the project is located so that spills or leaks or other discharges could affect the drinking water supply for the Hughes River Water Board, which provides water to Pennsboro, Harrisville and Cairo.

The groups complained that the company’s permit applications have not described these potential impacts or any steps that would be taken to avoid them. Antero says its landfill has many layers of protections to avoid any water contamination, but residents and others are concerned that there’s no way to absolutely guarantee any such system is foolproof.

“Landfills leak,” said Kendra Hatcher, an environmental scientist who has been examining the project for the Morgantown-based environmental consulting firm Downstream Strategies. “It might not be a big, catastrophic event, but landfills leak, so there is a legitimate concern for the groundwater.”

‘Good for the environment’

Compounding the concerns for local residents is the fact that while the DEP is still reviewing permit applications from Antero — and asking members of the public for their comments on those applications — construction has not only started, but appears from what residents can see to be fairly well along.

Jane Hearne, of Ritchie County, wondered aloud at last week’s meeting if approval by DEP of the project’s permits isn’t a “done deal … when you see the [construction] process is already underway.”

Residents who worry about the politics underlying such projects and their review by state agencies were greeted at last week’s meeting with promotional material from Antero that included a quote from Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin in which the governor praised the company and its project as “good for the environment and good for West Virginia’s economy.” That quote appeared in Antero’s press release announcing the project, with approval from the governor’s office, Tomblin communications director Jessica Tice said last week.

Antero already has a construction and operation permit for the treatment facility and a construction stormwater permit, issued by separate divisions of DEP. The company still needs several other DEP approvals, including an air quality permit for the landfill, a draft of which was issued for public comment on the day of last week’s public meeting in Harrisville.

The process, with separate permits under separate laws, rules and programs — and divisions of DEP — has been confusing for residents, even setting aside the issue of whether, with a facility already being built, a review of other permit applications is no more than an academic exercise for agency officials and citizens.

For example, as late as December 2015, when the DEP Division of Air Quality issued the treatment plant’s air permit, residents who asked questions about the company’s landfill plans were told by the agency that Antero hadn’t submitted a landfill permit application and that the company had told DEP only that “they are exploring this option, but no decision has been made yet.” The application was submitted a month later.

Some residents complained during the air permit comment period that their community is “already besieged by the gas industry — well pads, diesel truck traffic, compressor stations, pipelines, and major processing facilities … [that] already emit toxic substances into our air. We who choose the fresh air, clean water, and quiet of country life find these destroyed.”

WV-DEP officials responded that they are “aware of the increased activity in the oil and gas industry as it pertains to horizontal drilling in the Marcellus Shale.” “The increase in drilling activity has created new challenges with maintaining healthy air, water and land usage,” the DEP Division of Air Quality said. “Air quality issues associated with the oil and gas sector are an expanding aspect of the DAQ’s regulatory responsibilities.”

John King, of the DEP Office of Environmental Advocate, told residents last week that the agency doesn’t allow housing developers to segment their projects into small pieces to avoid having to get stormwater construction permits, and that some sort of “common plan of permitting” is something DEP could consider and residents could encourage the agency to employ when they submit public comments on the Antero project.

‘They created the problem’

DEP Secretary Randy Huffman said last week that he doesn’t recall a situation with a major project where his agency has ever “lumped all of the permits together and required all of the permits before you can do anything.” Such an approach, Huffman said, probably would only be relevant to citizens who view the permit process as a “thumbs up or thumbs down” on a project, as opposed to an opportunity for the public to point out things DEP permit reviewers may have missed or ways the agency could improve a project’s air or water permits.

Huffman said his agency’s job is not to decide whether a particular activity — such as natural gas drilling using hydraulic fracturing — is allowed. Lawmakers and governors set such policies, and DEP enforces them, Huffman said.

“We’re not there to make policy decisions about whether some activity should occur or should not occur,” Huffman said. “The presumption with any permitting action is, if all of the requirements are met, then you will be issued the permit.”

When lawmakers passed and Tomblin signed a 2011 law aimed at better regulating oil and gas drilling, they weakened some provisions of it that would have provided more protections for residents near gas production operations. State officials said they would study those issues and could come back to them later.

The studies were done, and recommended more protections, but the law hasn’t been updated based on the findings. Instead, environmental and citizen groups have had to spend their time beating back legislative proposals aimed at lessening controls on drilling and blocking citizen lawsuits against companies like Antero.

It all creates a tough situation for residents confronted with permit applications for operations like the one Antero has planned for Doddridge and Ritchie counties, or already living with the realities of large-scale natural gas production in West Virginia’s Marcellus Shale region. They feel like a big part of the discussion is left out of the public hearings and comment periods DEP encourages them to take part in, and permit decisions are made without looking at the whole picture of a project or industry.

Rosser, the Rivers Coalition director, said that the Antero project should be “part of a broader discussion of where we are going with energy production. This infrastucture we see, with projects like this and pipelines, the more we are setting ourselves up for that future with more and more waste and not moving toward renewables.”

And as for Antero’s specific plan, Rosser recalled what one resident at last week’s meeting said as the event was breaking up: That it was good that Antero officials were trying to come up with a solution for the wastewater problem, but that, “what underlies that is that they created the problem in the first place.”

NOTICE:  Water Quality Monitoring Program Underway for Snapshot Day

From the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, September 14, 2016

We are so excited to offer a volunteer opportunity as part of Trout Unlimited’s and WV Rivers’  WV/VA Water Quality Monitoring Program! We are hosting a one day Watershed Snapshot Day for folks to help us collect water quality samples in the Monongahela National Forest (MNF). No prior water quality monitoring experience is needed.  

The event is limited to 35 participants, please register by September 23. 

Register here: http://goo.gl/forms/DiFbNOixn63caLFl1.

Watershed Snapshot Day brings together volunteers from throughout West Virginia to collect water quality data and samples within the Monongahela National Forest (MNF), providing a “snapshot” of water quality conditions within the forest. This data helps establish baseline conditions in advance of any potential development within or adjacent to the forest, including pipelines and shale gas development. Snapshot Day is a great opportunity to meet other volunteers and explore a beautiful part of West Virginia.

Registration begins at 9:45am and the day will wrap-up around 4:30pm. We’ll provide you with an event t-shirt and bagged lunch for the field. We’ll have a BBQ picnic when you get back! 

Here’s How it Works

In the morning, we will assign groups of 2-4 volunteers with their monitoring routes, which will consist of 4-8 sites. We’ll provide detailed directions on how to get to each monitoring location. Before folks start monitoring, we’ll hold a mini-training on the sample collection protocols. The monitoring groups will then fan out to collect data from throughout the MNF. We’ll have dinner ready as groups return. We’ll be meeting at the Stuart Recreation Area right on Shaver’s Fork near Elkins, WV. This is a beautiful part of the state and a great time to visit. 
  
You can find further information and registration instructions here.
 
Please don’t hesitate to call or email Jake Lemon, Trout Unlimited’s Eastern Shale Gas Monitoring Coordinator, if you have any questions, 814-779-3965, jlemon@tu.org.

You can help protect our water!

Your Comments are Needed on Antero Landfill Project

Announcement from WV Rivers Coalition, August 22, 2016

Public Hearing Tomorrow, August 23, 2016, in West Union, WV

The WVDEP is currently accepting comments on two permit applications for Antero’s landfill project, 401 water quality certification and NPDES stormwater construction permit. The permit application for these large projects should be very detailed, but both lack all the information that WVDEP needs to certify the projects will not significantly impact our water.

The proposed Antero landfill and wastewater treatment facility encompasses approximately 486 acres located in Doddridge and Ritchie Counties, view our fact sheet on the project here. The facility would treat fracking wastewater for re-use and dispose of the salt byproducts in the attached landfill. It is still unclear how they plan to dispose of the sludge byproduct. The project would impact 89 streams and 11 wetlands and is located within Hughes River Water Board’s drinking water protection area. To submit comments to WVDEP on Antero’s 401 application click here and to submit comments on Antero’s stormwater permit click here. 

View WV Rivers’ comments on the 401 application and stormwater permit. 

The WVDEP is holding a public hearing on the Antero stormwater permit tomorrow, 8/23/16, in West Union, WV. Attend the public hearing and use your voice to protect our water!

What: Antero Landfill Stormwater Permit Public Hearing
When: August 23, 2016 at 6:00 p.m.
Where: Doddridge County High School Auditorium, 79 Bulldog Dr, West Union, WV 26456