Armed U.S. Marshals Enforce Eminent Domain

https://www.popularresistance.org/armed-u-s-marshals-enforce-eminent-domain/

New Milford, PA – The land of the free got a little smaller this week when cutters from Williams Partners Company began clear-cutting trees on the Zeffer-Holleran property, readying it for construction of the Constitution pipeline. Five acres of the property were condemned under eminent domain to build the natural gas pipeline.

A dozen Pennsylvania State police and heavily armed U.S. Marshals escorted scores of tree cutters to remove hundreds of sugar bush maple trees from the property. The Marshals carried AR-15 assault weapons and wore bullet proof vests.

But when the cutters began tree removal they encountered trees with U.S. flags activists had painted on them. Activists stood out of the way during the cutting but held large signs spelling “People Not Pipelines.”

As land owner Megan Holleran watched the tree removal she kneeled in silence as the maples fell. “They made a very clear demonstration today, that all of their talk of dealing with landowners with respect and fairness couldn’t be further from the truth. They refused to see us as people and brought guns to our home,” she said.

Her mother, Catherine Holleran said, “We were shocked. I don’t know what in the world they thought they were going to encounter,” she said in response to the militarized force. “Nobody was giving them a hard time,” she said.

The Hollerans were joined by over a hundred environmentalists and supporters from the region in the month-long delay of the project. Nearly a thousand more supported them with donations of money and supplies, according to land owner Catherine Holleran. Calls of encouragement came from countries around the world, including France, Chile, Australia, according to Megan Holleran.

Vera Scroggins, a resident of Susquehanna County, railed against the builders, calling them “bullies” responsible for “raiding land and destroying property for profit.” Scroggins also rebuked Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf for being “nowhere to be found” when the people of Pennsylvania needed him most. “Our state has become a corporatocracy – where are our elected officials?” she asked. She documented the cutting with video and photographs.

The Hollerans have owned the 23-acre tract since 1950, when Megan Holleran’s grandfather bought it to start the Harford Maple Syrup business. Losing the hundreds of sugar bush maple trees will effectively end 90% of their business.

Cabot Oil & Gas Company and Williams Partners applied for permission to build the 124-mile project in 2013. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted the first approvals to cut trees in Susquehanna County in January of this year. However, no permits have been issued to begin cutting in New York. The 30″ pipeline is planned to run from Susquehanna County, PA to Scholaire County, NY, 24 miles of which runs through Pennsylvania.

Williams representatives and tree cutters first showed up at the Holleran property on February 11th, but the Hollerans and about 30 supporters, asked them not to begin cutting. The Williams official called State police, but police refused to enforce the permit, so the cutters left. But on February 19, a Federal Magistrate called the Hollerans into court, ordering them to comply with the order to cut.

The $683 million Constitution pipeline has been at the center of a growing regional resistance in Pennsylvania against hydraulic fracturing infrastructure, also known as “fracking.” Thousands of miles of gas pipelines have already been approved and permitted across the nation by FERC. Since 2009, when the fracking boom began ramping up in the Northeast U.S., over 9,000 fracking wells have been drilled across Pennsylvania. Susquehanna County sits on top of the Marcellus coal belt, the source of natural gas from fracking.

Join us for World Water Day to Walk Against PennEast Pipeline

From the NJ Sierra Club:

This year for “World Water Day” we are walking along the Delaware & Raritan Canal, one of the many water resources that would be impacted by the proposed PennEast Pipeline. We are joining to protect our water from this proposal that will threaten the drinking water for millions of people. The PennEast Pipeline will cut an ugly scar through communities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania as well as cross over 88 waterways, including the Delaware River and D&R Canal.

On Sunday, March 20th we will walk for three miles along the D&R Canal towpath to bring awareness to the impact PennEast Pipeline will have on our water resources and surrounding residents along the proposed route.

The Lower Delaware River has been designated by the federal government as Wild and Scenic for its aesthetic and environmental value. However, PennEast Pipeline will ruin this area’s cultural and historic value by impact 39 parks, 44 wetlands, 33 farms and other open space areas, including the D&R Canal Park, Goat Hill, and Baldpate Mountain. This pipeline will not only promote fracking and climate change, it will cause water and air pollution, but is a safety hazard.

Walk with us on the D&R Canal towpath from Bulls Island State Park to Prallsville Mills and learn how to stop the pipeline. We will discuss the pipeline’s environmental impacts, stage of its application to various agencies, and how to get involved.

The walk will be three miles and cars will bring us back to original destination.

When: Sunday, March 20nd at 10 AM

Where:

Bulls Island State Park

2185 Daniel Bray Hwy

Stockton, NJ 08559

Other details: Bring water, snacks and lunch. Leashed pets are welcome. Kids of all ages are also encouraged to attend. Hiking boots are not required but may be easier to walk in if path is slick. This event is rain or shine.

PLEASE carpool since parking is limited. You can e-mail toni.granato@sierraclub.org to find a carpool in your area.

RSVP: Toni Granato at toni.granato@sierraclub.org.

Delaware Riverkeeper trains pipeline protesters

Delaware Township resident, artist & fierce pipeline opponent Jacqueline Evans tells the reporter the truth about PennEast & their unwanted & unneeded pipeline!

http://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/local/2016/03/06/delaware-riverkeeper-trains-pipeline-protesters/81212372/

LAWRENCEVILLE – About 25 Central Jersey property owners and concerned citizens have joined a growing group of community activists monitoring the wetlands and other sensitive sites along the proposed route of the PennEast pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

They were part of a training session conducted Saturday at Rider University by the Delaware Riverkeeper Network of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the same organization that filed suit against FERC last week for conflict of interest in regulating the construction of pipelines.

The attendees at Saturday’s session were all New Jersey residents. A similar group in Pennsylvania was trained the previous Saturday.

Faith Zerbe, director of monitoring for the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, led the training, which included but was not limited to identifying the wetlands that community groups contend will be adversely affected if the PennEast pipeline is built and identifying the endangered native species of flora and fauna whose habitats will be affected. Zerbe said the pipeline route is about 114 miles long, although it gets modified from time to time as the PennEast consortium of companies reroutes the pipeline to meet certain conditions on the ground. She said changes had come as recently as this past week.

Should it be built, PennEast’s 36-inch pipeline will begin in the fracking fields of Pennsylvania near Wilkes Barre and extend across the Delaware River into Hunterdon County, then follow the river south into Mercer County. The route affects 87 waterways, 54 wetlands, 23 parks and 31 easements across the two states. Impacted sites include the Delaware and Raritan Canal and  several unnamed tributaries to the Delaware River.

“We are going through the PennEast aquatic resource reports to see what threatened and endangered species they have identified,” Zerbe said. “Then we are going out to find those species on the ground now, and we will continue to monitor them. Sometimes, the people who write these reports only consult maps and reports. They don’t actually visit the sites, and the maps and charts they consult may be out-of-date. Our monitoring can help prove how sensitive these resources are and help convince the regulatory authorities not to allow the pipeline to be built. ”

Some of the animals and plants that were discussed in the monitors’ training include the Indiana and Northern Long-eared bats, the Dwarf Wedge Muscle, the Atlantic and Short-nosed Sturgeon, the Bald Eagle, the Timber Rattlesnake, the Northern Flying Squirrel, the Bobolink, the Red-headed Woodpecker, the Wood Turtle, and the White-fringed orchid. A complete list of the endangered and threatened species in New Jersey can be found at http://www.nj.gov/dep/fgw/tandespp.htm.

In this preconstruction stage, Zerbe said, the monitors are really looking at wetlands and wildlife, to better bolster their arguments against the pipeline’s construction.

“We hope the pipeline is never built,” Zerbe added.

“The number of residents who have come out for this training shows clearly that we, the people, are not going to stop fighting this pipeline; rather, we are amping up our efforts. We will not let PennEast destroy our environment for profit,” said Kim Robinson, a Hopewell resident.

Delaware Township resident Jacqueline Evans owns a 6.51-acre farm on wetlands, with a stream flowing over one corner, as well as spring seeps and a pond. She raises goats, chickens, ducks and bees, practicing organic farming. She says if the PennEast pipeline is built, it will destroy her farm and her livelihood, and the stress is making her sick and scaring her three children.  But she is determined to fight it.

“In 1994, a 36-inch gas pipe exploded in Edison, creating a huge fire and a crater that was at least 100 feet,” Evans said. “That pipe had 980 psi (pounds per square inch). But because the PennEast pipeline would cross two states, it would be built to federal standards, which are lower than New Jersey standards, so it would be a weaker pipe with about 1480 psi,” she said. “In  the Edison fire, there was a safety valve every 2.5 miles and they still had trouble shutting it off. In the PennEast pipeline, they’re only going to have a safety valve every 10 miles. In fact, I had a 38-minute discussion with Jeff England, the project manager for UGI, the contractor for PennEast, and he said it would probably be even longer between safety valves because the area is less densely populated.”

Evans also pointed out the pipeline would be 150 to 180 feet from her house. If the Edison explosion created a crater that was at least 100 feet wide, she thinks that 150 feet isn’t enough of a safety buffer for her family, given her understanding that PennEast would use a weaker pipe with fewer safety features and at a much higher pressure.

For this and other reasons, she’s committed to fighting the pipeline to the fullest extent she can. She said that the pipeline proposal already has made it impossible to sell homes in Delaware Township, thus depriving her of her ability to send her daughters to college or to take care of her aging mother. And, she added, most mortgages have a clause that if a mortgagee leaves a property under conditions that have caused it to lose value, the mortgagor can call the loan to be paid in full.

Although she feels stressed, she said the opposition to the pipeline has united her community.

“We have wonderful people (in Delaware Township) and I have made so many great friends. This gives me strength,” she said.

Zerbe said that the Delaware Riverkeeper Network will be conducting more training sessions for people who want to monitor the sensitive wetlands and native species along the route. To find out more about future training sessions, contact her at faith@delawareriverkeeper.org or call her office at 215-369-1188, ext 110.

Cheaper gas means N.J. pipelines on the rise

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/business/cheaper-gas-means-n-j-pipelines-on-the-rise/article_110c26d6-dd9e-11e5-8304-f31cbf10e138.html

As more natural gas comes from the Marcellus shale, corporations are capitalizing on low prices with a proliferation of pipelines in New Jersey, experts say.

More than a dozen New Jersey pipeline projects have been in service, under construction or waiting for approval at the state or federal level in the past 12 months.

Increased natural gas supply and low prices have led to more pipelines nationwide, experts said.

But opponents and environmentalists worry about the long-term implications of extracting and burning the fossil fuel, as well as the pipelines’ effects on both the environment and the landscape.

Experts expect modest growth in pipelines in the next several years before demand slows.

“The pace of industrial growth after 2020 should cut in about half,” said Sam Andrus, senior director of North American gas service for IHS Inc., a Colorado-based information and analysis company. “So what that means is we expect to see a significant slowdown after 2020, from an exploration and production standpoint. And from a pipeline standpoint, that will slow as demand slows.”

Doug O’Malley, president of Environment New Jersey, wonders when these projects will stop.

“This isn’t about one pipeline at this point,” O’Malley said. “This is about whether we’re going to allow pipelines to be built unfettered.”

O’Malley believes the influx of projects is a sign of corporations attempting to move customers toward a fuel that may become costlier than it is today: “To build gas infrastructure now when prices are low, so consumers will be on the hook when they inevitably rise.”

Pipeline transportation is a $27 billion industry in the United States, according to IHS.

It’s becoming a big one in New Jersey, too.

The Cape Atlantic Reliability Project will serve the B.L. England plant in Upper Township while feeding natural gas throughout Cape May and Atlantic counties. The pipeline would stretch 22 miles from Maurice River Township in Cumberland County to B.L. England and includes a 10-mile route through protected Pinelands. The cost will be upward of $100 million, according to Folsom-based South Jersey Industries, parent company of South Jersey Gas.

New Jersey Natural Gas’ Southern Reliability Link, which will stretch 30 miles and serve three counties, including Ocean County, is projected at $178 million.

And the PennEast Pipeline, a 118-mile project that stretches from Luzerne County in northeast Pennsylvania to Mercer County, is estimated at a $1 billion total investment. South Jersey Industries is a 20 percent partner in the project as well.

“This is what’s going on in New Jersey and other Northeastern states that want to tap into production sites with the PennEast Pipeline,” said Darryle Ulama, industry lead analyst at research firm IBISWorld. “Even with higher utilization of existing pipelines, new construction is necessary to open up new delivery channels and expand transport capacity.”

Andrus said the current pipeline surge should remain modest through 2025, and that building a pipeline offers “a lot of capacity in one shot.”

He expects natural gas consumption to rise significantly over the next two decades.

“The pipeline capacity has to be built to service the market,” Andrus said.

Marissa Travaline, director of stakeholder relations for South Jersey Industries, believes lower cost and the reliability of natural gas will continue to drive customers toward the fuel.

“We believe that the cost effectiveness of this fuel choice and our proximity to an abundant domestic supply within the Marcellus and other shale formations can provide our region with significant benefits,” Travaline said.

But there has been criticism of the use of natural gas and the growth in the number of pipelines throughout the United States.

In South Jersey, one of the biggest objections has been the B.L. England pipeline. In December, the state Board of Public Utilities voted to allow the project to proceed without oversight by local zoning boards. It voted three previous times on the issues of its construction, its safety for residents and rerouting of an interconnection station for the project.

Natural gas also has been criticized for the dangers of fracking, or hydraulic fracturing — the process of drilling down for miles into the rock, then drilling horizontally and applying pressure until the rock is cracked. This can sometimes lead to water and air pollution and can be detrimental to the areas of the drilling, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Travaline said South Jersey Gas has worked in consultation with the BPU in maintaining an environmentally safe operation for the Cape Atlantic Reliability project.

“There will be no forest clearing or impact to the Pinelands,” Travaline said.

New Jersey Natural Gas spokesman Michael Kinney said the company’s project, the Southern Reliability Link, will provide resiliency to their customers.

Kinney said 85 percent of the company’s peak day supply of gas comes from a single interstate pipeline.

“The SRL would provide a feed to a second interstate pipeline at the southern end of our system,” he said.

Chesapeake Energy pulls up stakes in PA and Ohio

https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2016/02/25/chesapeake-energy-pulls-up-stakes-in-pa-and-ohio/

Chesapeake Energy, one of the state’s largest gas producers with more than 800 active wells in Bradford and Susquehanna counties, has stopped drilling new wells in both the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays. The Oklahoma based oil and gas producer, which also operates in Texas, Louisiana and Wyoming, announced Wednesday a net loss of $14.8 billion in 2015.

It put just three new Marcellus wells on production last year, compared to 25 new wells in 2014. Chesapeake also plans to cut its capital expenditures by more than half in 2016 and sell off between $500 million and $1 billion in assets. The company divested $700 million in assets in 2015.

In Pennsylvania Chesapeake has racked up about $1.4 million in fines with 428 violations. It’s also facing allegations of cheating Pennsylvania leaseholders out of royalties. While the company denies this, Attorney General Kathleen Kane is investigating. The company is the subject of several class action lawsuits and was also recently subpoenaed by the U.S. Department of Justice, seeking information about its royalty practices.

Pipeline opponents say tree-cutting along Pa.-NY border is illegal

A coalition of environmental activists, attorneys and residents of Pennsylvania and New York met last Thursday in Albany to urge Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reject the construction of the Constitution Pipeline and to denounce current tree-cutting associated with the project.

The proposed pipeline is being developed by Williams, an energy infrastructure company and Cabot Oil & Gas to connect Appalachian natural gas supplies in northern Pennsylvania with major Northeastern markets.

Speakers at the Albany press conference said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is disregarding New York state authority, because it has “prematurely” approved mass tree cutting along the 25-mile Pennsylvanian route of the proposed Constitution Pipeline.

“A 401 Water Quality Certificate was not granted by the DEC, this is a Fifth-Amendment due process violation,” said Anne-Marie Garti, an attorney associated with Stop the Pipeline, an organization dedicated to preventing the construction of the Constitution Pipeline.  The group argues that the proposed pipeline will have harmful effects on the environment and local agriculture. Members of the organization point out the pipeline would store and transport fracked gas that would run through watersheds where fracking has been banned and that it would lower property values in the affected areas.

If completed, the proposed pipeline would run 124 miles from Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, to Schoharie County, New York.  It would have the capacity to transport 650,000 dekatherms of natural gas per day.

Speakers argue that the proposed pipeline is a direct threat to residents of New York and Pennsylvania, because it would destroy more than 1,800 acres of land, cross 700 streams and require 700,000 trees to be cut down, which can result in erosion.  They also said that similar pipelines, like the Iroquois and Millennium Pipelines, have caused safety and environmental concerns in the past.

“If you can stop it in [New York], it would stop it in [Pennsylvania]; our governor has not supported us,” said Maryann Zeffer, a property owner in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, whose family owns a maple farm she says has been threatened by the proposed tree-cutting associated with the pipeline.

Those in favor of the pipeline say that during the construction phase, it is estimated that the workforce will be comprised of five teams of 260 workers totaling up to 1,300 new construction jobs.  It is also estimated that 2,400 direct and indirect jobs will be created during the construction phase.  The project is expected to generate $17 million in new sales and income tax revenue.

Williams and Cabot Oil & Gas say that tree cutting must be completed by March 31 to avoid harm to certain species of birds and bats. In coordination with state and federal agencies, Constitution Pipeline has agreed to voluntarily provide $8.6 million in conservation funding for the restoration and preservation of migratory bird habits.

The DEC must make a decision by late April whether to issue a 401 quality certificate and ultimately allow the Constitution Pipeline to be built. The DEC is currently reviewing the potential effects of the pipeline.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has asked FERC to deny permission to start work until the state water quality permit is issued.

“Gov. Cuomo and DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos can put an end to this broken FERC process by denying the 401 water quality certificate right now,” said Roger Downs, Conservation Director, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter.

Pipeline opponents say tree-cutting along Pa.-NY border is illegal

Pipeline too risky for Robeson

https://robesonian.com/opinion/84600/pipeline-too-risky-for-robeson

It is not at all surprising that a representative for Dominion Resources, the primary stockholder in the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, would assert the potential economic benefits of the pipeline for Robeson County when he visited recently. What would be shocking is if the people of Robeson County believed the assertions of a corporate representative who has a vested interest.

It is not at all surprising that Dominion would suggest that the pipeline could provide construction jobs in North Carolina. What would be shocking is if the people of Robeson County believed that those jobs would be offered to local construction workers. Historically, pipeline companies hire skilled labor which most often comes from out of state.

There is no way to responsibly build a 42-inch fracked-gas pipeline across three states without considering the damage it would do from source to destination. This consideration should include fracking wells, high-pressure transport lines, compressor stations and LNG export facilities. It should take into account the devastation that communities subject to extraction, transportation and exportation of fracked gas will experience.

The dangers, damages and deaths due to pipeline explosions are well-known. For example, an explosion in Appomattox, Va., on Sept. 14, 2008, instantly destroyed two homes and damaged 100 more. An explosion in San Bruno, Calif., on Sep. 9, 2010, demolished 38 homes and killed eight people.

Natural gas pipeline explosions have killed hundreds of people, injured more than a thousand, and caused more than five billion in property damage. Between 1994 and 2013 there were 5,623 “significant incidents” — costing more than $50,000, $6,700,203,540 in losses, 1,397 injuries, and 362 deaths.

Some immediate results from a landowner’s proximity to a gas pipeline may be: inability to sell; potential retraction of the mortgage because the owner allowed industrial development; and dangers of fire and explosion (this clause is in almost every mortgage agreement);

The safety and health issues regarding these pipelines are many and alarming. They include, but are not limited to: dangerous, life-threatening explosions; colorless, odorless leakage; contamination of air; contamination of soil; and psychological stress and trauma.

But one of the most alarming threats to our communities, especially those who depend on farming as an essential part of their economy, is the potential for contamination of water resources. It is crucial that we take those costs into account.

Based on an economic analysis recently compiled for four counties threatened by the pipeline in Virgnia, the effect that compromised water resources would have our local economies would be devastating.

For example, according to a recent study by Key-Log Economics, a landowner would face an estimated out-of-pocket expense of $35,000 or more to find and drill into an uncontaminated aquifer. For dairies and livestock operations, which need more water, a contaminated aquifer would face an estimated cost of $50,000. If a city or town had to replace a contaminated municipal water supply, the costs are even higher: $2.5 million to complete geophysical, hydrological, and engineering studies, purchase land, drill a well, and build the necessary surrounding infrastructure.

Before we blindly accept the false promises of corporate executives who seek to make a profit on the backs of the people, we must seek for ourselves the difficult answers to questions of value, cost and benefit. The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League believes that the pipeline would not benefit the people of Robeson County, and we invite any citizens who wish to find out more about this dangerous, ill-conceived and unnecessary project to contact us for more information. You can take action to protect and preserve your community and way of life.

Mara Robbins is part of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, which is a seven state organization working with communities to protect public health, safeguard America’s resources and preserve our way of life.

Here’s the New Study the Fracking Industry Doesn’t Want You to See

http://theantimedia.org/heres-new-study-fracking-industry-doesnt-want-see/

Though fracking industry proponents scoff at any intimation their so-called vital industry poses even scant risks to the public, a new study published in Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology just proved those critics right — fracking wastewater causes cancer.

Using human bronchial epithelial cells, which are commonly used to measure the carcinogenesis of toxicants, researchers confirmed fracking flowback water from the Marcellus Shale caused the formation of malignancies.

After conducting further tests on live mammalian subjects, researchers found five of six mice “injected with cells transformed from well water treatments developed tumors as early as 3 months after injection,” including a tumor in one mouse that grew to over 1 cm in size in just five months. A control group did not develop any tumors for the six months of the study period.

According to the study, performed by scientists from the Department of Environmental Medicine, as well as Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmaceutical at New York University, the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at Rutgers, and esteemed partners from universities in China — results indicate fracking flowback water causes cancer.

Implications of the report’s findings would be difficult to overstate considering how fracking wastewater is generated, stored, and treated, and how often spills, leaks — and even the wastewater injection process, itself — can lead to contamination of the potable supply. A concise but thorough explanation of the fracking process can be found in the introduction to the report, “Malignant human cell transformation of Marcellus Shale gas drilling flow back water,” which states:

“Natural gas is believed to possibly be a bridge to transitioning from coal dependence. Currently natural gas fuels nearly 40% of the U.S. electricity generation, and the Marcellus Shale formation in the Appalachian Basin is on the forefront of gas-shale drilling for natural gas production in the United States. Mining natural gas is not new, but the volume has soared in recent years because the new technique of high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing (HVHHF). The concern surrounding the environmental, public health, and social impacts of this method has increased accordingly. HVHHF is an advanced technology that injects water, sand, and other ingredients at very high pressure vertically into a well about 6000 to 10,000 feet deep. The high pressure creates fractures in the rock that extend out as far as 1000 ft away from the well. The pressure is reduced after the fractures are created, which allows water from the well to return to the surface, also known as flow back water [or flowback]. The flow back water contains complex proprietary chemical mixtures, but also naturally occurring toxins such as metals, volatile organics, and radioactive compounds that are destabilized during gas extraction. On average, 5.5 million gallons of water is used … to hydraulically fracture each shale gas well, and 30% to 70% of the volume returns as flow back water.”

“Metal pollution is a serious problem as they are taken up readily in the digestive tract and exhibit harmful effects on many tissues. Barium and strontium are abundant in the Marcellus Shale formation, and are easily dissolved and transported in wastewater after gas drilling activity, which could potentially pose a threat to drinking water.”

In fact, in 2014, environmental consulting firm Downstream Strategies diligently attempted to track fracking water from Marcellus Shale drilling — both water withdrawn from sources for use in the process, as well as wastewater — but found it to be a nearly impossible task.

“We just couldn’t do it,” said staff scientist Meghan Betcher, according to Yale’s e360.

Regulatory requirements that would otherwise divulge where these massive quantities of water end up are simply not in place. According to the Downstream Strategies study, “gas companies use up to 4.3 million gallons of clean water to frack a single well,” and “more than half of the wastewater is treated and discharged into surface waters such as rivers and streams.”

Additionally, in 2013, Duke University geochemists published a study that found “dangerous levels of radioactivity and salinity at a fracking disposal site near Blacklick Creek, which feeds into water sources for Pittsburgh and other western Pennsylvania cities.” Even more disturbingly, after studying soil samples for two years, between 2010 and 2012, “After wastewater was treated at the plant to remove dangerous chemicals, radiation was detected far above regulated levels.”

“Each day, oil and gas producers generate 2 billion gallons of wastewater,” Duke Professor Rob Jackson stated, as Business Insider reported. Though the disposal site near Blacklick Creek has since ostensibly agreed to stop storing or treating Marcellus Shale fracking waste, the industry is far from clean — or transparent.

“They produce more wastewater than hydrocarbons,” said Jackson of the natural gas industry. “That’s the broader implication of [the Duke] study. We have to do something with this wastewater.”

Considering the Marcellus Shale study and the now-proven cancer link, fracking wastewater just became enormously important to millions of people living near thousands of wells in the United States, as well as other countries.

As the Downstream Strategies researchers found, due to lack of regulatory reporting requirements for the fracking industry — aided greatly by its exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act by law in 2005 — “the fate of 62 percent of fracking waste is unknown.”

Researchers for the carcinogenicity study of flowback claim progress with their findings, identifying barium and strontium as traceable fracking contaminates, which they say should now be designated for further study. As the study concludes:

“Research to determine whether fracking-associated pollutants can migrate to private or public drinking wells, to identify early warning indicators of exposure and effect, and to identify suitable remediation approaches are urgently needed.”

Natural Gas Becomes a Fracking Mess

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34827-natural-gas-becomes-a-fracking-mess

Until late last year, Laura Gideon’s family lived in Porter Ranch on the outskirts of Los Angeles. “We didn’t ever want to leave,” Gideon told the Associated Press. It’s “a nice gated community.”

What uprooted them from one of LA’s wealthiest pockets? They became climate refugees when the nearby Aliso Canyon natural gas storage well sprang a nasty leak.

Clouds of gas have billowed from the faulty well, which lacked a subsurface shutoff valve, for three and a half months. After inhaling nonstop plumes of methane, benzene, and other toxic chemicals, local residents began to suffer nausea, vomiting, headaches, and nosebleeds. The disaster has also smacked local businesses hard and eroded real estate values.

Erin Brockovich, the activist and legal researcher made famous by an Academy-award winning film depicting her against-all-odds victory against another California utility, lives only 30 miles away. Now working with a law firm to help the locals file claims, she calls the Aliso Canyon leak a “BP oil spill, just on land” – because of its magnitude, duration, and climate impact.

And that’s why this incident imperils more than the people who live there and the bottom line of Southern California Gas Co., the local utility that ran the well.

Just as the Gulf Coast disaster invigorated opposition to offshore oil drilling, the Porter Ranch debacle may sap the natural gas industry’s popularity. Above all, it’s exposing the fuel’s persistent reputation as “clean” and climate-friendly as a complete lie.

Environmentalists, backed by ample research, have struggled to debunk that narrative for years.

Although burning natural gas releases less carbon dioxide than coal or diesel, extracting and distributing it releases methane into the atmosphere. And so do storage accidents like this one.

And methane is between 86 and 105 times as powerful as CO₂ at disrupting the climate over a 20-year period. The now common practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to obtain natural gas also pollutes waterways and squanders water – a big problem for parched California.

Environmental Defense Fund is tracking the climate damage wrought by the broken well, which is located in a vacant oil field about a mile and a half underground. The group calculates that the roughly 100,000 metric tons of natural gas that escaped is the equivalent of burning nearly 900 million gallons of gasoline.

This big climate footprint is particularly troubling because thanks to record production levels, natural gas will soon become the nation’s top power source, eclipsing coal. Natural gas supplies have grown so fast that U.S. prices are crashing due to oversupply. The industry wants to fix this imbalance through exports.

Shipping the stuff overseas requires condensing natural gas into liquid form at very high heat, using expensive infrastructure. More production will trigger more pollution and potential leaks.

Exporting liquefied natural gas, or LNG, also depends on persuading foreigners to buy it. But where are the customers?

Selling to Europe means competing with Russian producers. And the Russians stand ready to block this competition by slashing their own prices. At the same time, liquefied natural gas prices in Asia have fallen. Experts say they could plunge further as supplies outweigh demand.

In other words, the natural gas business has turned into a money-losing venture at the same time that the fossil fuel’s real costs to people and the planet are becoming clearer.

Capping the failed well won’t stop all the physical, emotional, and financial distress experienced by Laura Gideon and thousands of other Southern Californians. As she told the AP: “We’re in mourning now.”

The natural gas industry probably is too. It’s a fracking mess.

Residents encouraged to conduct air tests near pipeline compressor site before construction

http://www.recorder.com/home/20806810-95/residents-encouraged-to-conduct-air-tests-near-pipeline-compressor-site-before-construction

DEERFIELD — While abutters to a proposed natural gas compressor station in Northfield are concerned about what the facility will do to the air they breathe, they’d do well to take note of the current air quality, according to those who’ve researched similar projects.

During Saturday’s three-hour presentation at Frontier Regional School, the research team that studied the health effects of a 12,000-horsepower natural gas compressor station in Minisink, N.Y., advised the approximately 100 audience members to conduct air quality measurements before, during and after construction has finished with the proposed 41,000 horsepower compressor station slated for Northfield.

Those interested in studying how the weather will affect the atmospheric movement of volatile organic compounds transported in the gas can purchase a particulate matter monitor and a Summa canister for about $200 apiece, according to the research team — Celia Lewis, Ph.D., Beth Weinberger, Ph.D., and Dr. David Brown.

Compressors stations along pipelines manage pressure along the system by venting gas from time to time and in case of emergencies.

The monitors were used by a research team from the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project to study the health effects of the New York compressor station. Eight families — a total of 35 individuals, including 12 children — living within 1.5 kilometers of the site purchased monitoring systems that collected data regarding the type and amount of pollutants that settled inside and outside of their homes.

The researchers explained that air quality is worse when living near a compressor station because toxic chemicals including benzene, methane and toluene can travel anywhere from two to six miles away from the site and can lodge deep into the lung tissue, causing cancer and other incurable diseases.

Weather significantly affects if and how far the emissions will travel from the compressor station. Sunny days allow the toxins to quickly rise upward into the atmosphere while cloudy days without any wind keep the toxins closer to the Earth’s surface as they slowly move through the air. Pollution, however, is most dangerous at night because the cool air stays low to the ground. The researchers advised those in the audience who will live near a compressor station to stay inside their house when the weather isn’t conducive to healthy outside activities.

Lewis said the predominant health impacts of living near a compressor station were seen in the respiratory tract, impacted neurological functions and sometimes disturbed the skin though the development of a rash, adding that the overall quality of life for about half of the respondents was below the national average, according to physical health self-assessments.

When presenting a dot diagram featuring particulate matter peak frequencies, Lewis carefully noted the difference between analyzing shorter and longer data sets, adding that even though her slides presented the same numbers, companies like Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. — planning to transport 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas through eight Franklin County towns as part of the Northeast Energy Direct project — can manipulate the facts with diagrams showcasing lower data points that were averaged over a longer period.

She pointed to a graph that showed the hourly averages of particulate matter found outside a home over the course of a month and compared that slide to one with the same data that was presented over the course of 24 hours.

“You can see that the higher peaks are about 300 and the lower peaks are about 75,” she said. “We took that same data and averaged it over 24 hours and if you look at the numbers on the side, you can see that the highest peak dropped from 300 to about 130 to 135 and those lower peaks that were 75 are now down to 20. This just gives you an idea of what a longer averaging period does to the data and how it allows companies to say that they are meeting the standard that’s low.”

If communities decide to partake in the monitoring program, Lewis advises families to also use the online survey tools such as the environmental home assessments and health questionnaires to help the EHP collect additional data regarding the impacts of natural gas infrastructure so the organization can continue educating people about the hazards of living near fracking wells, pipelines and compressor stations.

She said baseline testing, however, is one of the four main monitoring programs that communities should pursue if they wish to generate a clear understanding regarding the effects that natural gas will have on humans, wildlife and geology.

“If there’s any possibility that something is coming into your town or through your area, we really, highly recommend that you get some baseline data,” she said. “Even if it’s just minimal, anything is better than nothing at all.”