Concerned citizens are being asked to call the White House today to request a ban on the process of hydraulic fracture--fracking--in natural gas extraction. Here's details from Save the Water Table, a very active group in Monroe County WV.
Food & Water Watch National Action Day – Call-In to BAN FRACKING
SavetheWaterTable.org encourages you to call in to the White House on September 13 as part of the Food and Water Watch National Action Day to ask for a ban on fracking. Here is a link to more information:
http://public.fwwatch.org/EdOut/Toolkits/Fracking/KIT_1108_BanFrackingActionGuide.pdf
This guide provides tips on how to prepare for the call-in day, what to do the day of, and how to report results.
From Candace Jordan :
Welcome to when the little guys become the big guys.
There are hundreds of local grassroots groups in the US working on issues related to fracking, clean water, and environmental health. Most of the individuals that make up these groups are, like us, committed unpaid volunteers who are passionate about protecting our water, air and public health. Together all of our groups and organizations make up a profound grassroots movement that carries immense power for positive change.
Well, the time has come for these grassroots groups to become the big guys and bring about this change. We’ve been waiting a long time, and now is our time in the sun. Let’s get together and be the large constituency we are. Take action!
The National Grassroots Coalition is partnering with Josh Fox and Gasland, Credo, Democracy for America, Food and Water Watch, United for Action, and several other organizations to push a National Call Day to President Obama on September 13th. We will be calling President Obama and letting him know that we oppose Hydraulic Fracturing.
Join us in announcing to your email list, website, and on Facebook and other social media this major national action.
Here are the details of the call day:
Call the White House at 202-456-1111 or 202-456-1414 between 9 am and 5 pm EDT on September 13th.
Say, “Hello my name is ______, I live in (City, State) and I oppose hydraulic fracturing and I want renewable and sustainable energy policy solutions.”
Feel free to cater this message to one that is appropriate for your organization. The important thing is that we let President Obama know that there is a lot of opposition to fracking.
If the phone lines get jammed, send an email through the White House Contact page here. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact)
This is going to be the first action of many more to come as we, together steer this country to more sane and sustainable energy policies where we don’t have to poison ourselves to power our lives.
If you have questions about this event, or would like to be listed on our website, please email nationalgrassrootscoalition@yahoo.com or contact your regional coordinator.
Thanks so much! Together we can do this!
THANK YOU
For all that you do as active and engaged citizens!
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
HCMC reschedules
The meeting of the Hampshire County Marcellus Committee scheduled for September 13th has been postponed until Tuesday, September 20th, at noon, at the Hampshire County Health Department in Augusta.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Groups react to Tomblin's Marcellus order
Statement from WV Environmental, Labor, Health and Public Interest Organizations
We the undersigned unanimously agree that the Executive Order issued by acting Governor Earl Ray Tomblin is inadequate and leaves communities vulnerable, while continuing to let the gas industry run roughshod over West Virginia.
The Senate should not be using the Executive Order as an excuse for stalling. Instead, the Senate should impose a moratorium on permits until a comprehensive bill becomes effective.
Many people, including Senate members of the Select Committee on Marcellus Shale, are under the illusion that the Executive Order and the resulting emergency rules are adequate enough to ensure safe, responsible development of the Marcellus Shale.
However, a number of important issues remain unaddressed.
Nothing in the Executive Order addresses protection from air pollution, noise, truck traffic destroying roads, radiation, or the cumulative impact of multiple wells in a community.
While the Executive Order does require public notice of well permits inside a municipality, it does not provide an opportunity for the public to comment on such permits and influence the permit conditions, nor does it require public notice and comment for well permits in rural areas.
Surface owners remain at risk from unilateral decisions by the gas companies. There is no requirement for drillers to negotiate with surface owners on the location of well sites and access roads or that drillers accommodate surface owners’ concerns, plans for or uses of their property.
Other items missing from the Executive Order include:
Protection for karst (limestone) areas.
Protection for parks or other public lands.
A TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) standard for water.
Elimination of the industry-influenced Oil and Gas Inspectors Examining Board in favor of a civil service type of hiring procedure.
Protective/adequate distances between large drill sites and homes, schools, hospitals and other sensitive places.
Expanded water well testing requirements.
Improvements to bonding requirements.
Disposal of toxic waste from well sites restricted to landfills designed to accept hazardous waste.
Additionally, regulations are only as good as their enforcement and with only 15 inspectors for 59,000 active gas wells, we remain concerned about the DEP’s ability to adequately protect citizens and the environment from the threats Marcellus development poses to human health and our land, air and water. Unfortunately, the emergency rules filed as a result of the Executive Order will not raise permit fees and will not provide money for more inspectors to enforce even those emergency rules.
DEP has already permitted 1,602 Marcellus wells in West Virginia. Of those, 942 of those are completed and producing and the agency is on track to issue another 400 permits this year.
We believe it is irresponsible for the acting Governor and the Legislature to allow the DEP to continue to issue new permits without having a comprehensive regulatory structure in place and without having enough inspectors on staff to ensure adequate enforcement. We appreciate that acting Governor Tomblin has recognized that there are problems, but the Executive Order does not go far enough.
It remains imperative for the Legislature to act.
Until that time there should be a moratorium on new permits.
In conclusion, acting Governor Tomblin’s Executive Order and the resulting emergency rules should not be construed as a solution to the many problems related to Marcellus Shale and other gas well drilling.
Far from it.
The Select Committee assigned to craft meaningful legislation, especially the Senators, need to step up to address these problems, and they must do so quickly — next year is unacceptable.
Although the draft legislation the committee is using as a starting point is also deficient in terms of addressing several issues of concern, a number of strengthening amendments were offered and adopted when the committee met earlier this month. We want to see the committee reconvene to continue its work and make the needed improvements to the bill.
Signatories:
Greenbrier River Watershed Association
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
Sierra Club West Virginia Chapter
West Virginia Citizens Action Group
West Virginia Highlands Conservancy
West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization
SavetheWaterTable.org
We the undersigned unanimously agree that the Executive Order issued by acting Governor Earl Ray Tomblin is inadequate and leaves communities vulnerable, while continuing to let the gas industry run roughshod over West Virginia.
The Senate should not be using the Executive Order as an excuse for stalling. Instead, the Senate should impose a moratorium on permits until a comprehensive bill becomes effective.
Many people, including Senate members of the Select Committee on Marcellus Shale, are under the illusion that the Executive Order and the resulting emergency rules are adequate enough to ensure safe, responsible development of the Marcellus Shale.
However, a number of important issues remain unaddressed.
Nothing in the Executive Order addresses protection from air pollution, noise, truck traffic destroying roads, radiation, or the cumulative impact of multiple wells in a community.
While the Executive Order does require public notice of well permits inside a municipality, it does not provide an opportunity for the public to comment on such permits and influence the permit conditions, nor does it require public notice and comment for well permits in rural areas.
Surface owners remain at risk from unilateral decisions by the gas companies. There is no requirement for drillers to negotiate with surface owners on the location of well sites and access roads or that drillers accommodate surface owners’ concerns, plans for or uses of their property.
Other items missing from the Executive Order include:
Protection for karst (limestone) areas.
Protection for parks or other public lands.
A TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) standard for water.
Elimination of the industry-influenced Oil and Gas Inspectors Examining Board in favor of a civil service type of hiring procedure.
Protective/adequate distances between large drill sites and homes, schools, hospitals and other sensitive places.
Expanded water well testing requirements.
Improvements to bonding requirements.
Disposal of toxic waste from well sites restricted to landfills designed to accept hazardous waste.
Additionally, regulations are only as good as their enforcement and with only 15 inspectors for 59,000 active gas wells, we remain concerned about the DEP’s ability to adequately protect citizens and the environment from the threats Marcellus development poses to human health and our land, air and water. Unfortunately, the emergency rules filed as a result of the Executive Order will not raise permit fees and will not provide money for more inspectors to enforce even those emergency rules.
DEP has already permitted 1,602 Marcellus wells in West Virginia. Of those, 942 of those are completed and producing and the agency is on track to issue another 400 permits this year.
We believe it is irresponsible for the acting Governor and the Legislature to allow the DEP to continue to issue new permits without having a comprehensive regulatory structure in place and without having enough inspectors on staff to ensure adequate enforcement. We appreciate that acting Governor Tomblin has recognized that there are problems, but the Executive Order does not go far enough.
It remains imperative for the Legislature to act.
Until that time there should be a moratorium on new permits.
In conclusion, acting Governor Tomblin’s Executive Order and the resulting emergency rules should not be construed as a solution to the many problems related to Marcellus Shale and other gas well drilling.
Far from it.
The Select Committee assigned to craft meaningful legislation, especially the Senators, need to step up to address these problems, and they must do so quickly — next year is unacceptable.
Although the draft legislation the committee is using as a starting point is also deficient in terms of addressing several issues of concern, a number of strengthening amendments were offered and adopted when the committee met earlier this month. We want to see the committee reconvene to continue its work and make the needed improvements to the bill.
Signatories:
Greenbrier River Watershed Association
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition
Sierra Club West Virginia Chapter
West Virginia Citizens Action Group
West Virginia Highlands Conservancy
West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization
SavetheWaterTable.org
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Citizen setbacks
The efforts of local West Virginia citizens to exert some control over Marcellus gas drilling in their own communities received two serious blows this week.
The first one came Tuesday night, when industry pressure convinced the Wellsburg city council to rescind its fracking ban.
http://www.wvmetronews.com/news.cfm?func=displayfullstory&storyid=47084
The second occurred yesterday, when a Monongalia County circuit court judge ruled that "the ordinance passed by the city of Morgantown [banning fracking within one mile of the city limits] is pre-empted by state legislation and is invalid." City officials are reviewing their options. You can find the story here:
http://www.frackcheckwv.net
The first one came Tuesday night, when industry pressure convinced the Wellsburg city council to rescind its fracking ban.
http://www.wvmetronews.com/news.cfm?func=displayfullstory&storyid=47084
The second occurred yesterday, when a Monongalia County circuit court judge ruled that "the ordinance passed by the city of Morgantown [banning fracking within one mile of the city limits] is pre-empted by state legislation and is invalid." City officials are reviewing their options. You can find the story here:
http://www.frackcheckwv.net
Friday, August 5, 2011
EPA study confirms fracking contamination
The New York Times reporter Ian Urbina, who, in a series of recent articles, has uncovered some damning information about the fracking process, had a story on Wednesday about an EPA study done in 1987 about a West Virginia water well contaminated by fracking chemicals.
It has long been a staple of industry propaganda that no such case exists.
The EPA report says, "When fracturing the Kaiser gas well on Mr. James Parson's property, fractures were created allowing migration of fracture fluid from the gas well to Mr. Parson's water well. This fracture fluid, along with natural gas, was present in Mr. Parson's water, rendering it unusable."
Although, as the article notes, drilling technology has improved since the EPA report was written, included in the report is the suggestion that this case is only the tip of the iceberg. Urbina interviewed the report's lead author, who "said that she and her colleagues had found 'dozens' of cases that she said appeared to specifically involve drinking water contamination related to fracking. But they were unable to investigate those cases further and get access to more documents because of legal settlements. All but the Parsons case were excluded from the EPA study, she said, because of pressure from industry representatives who were members of an agency working group overseeing the research."
It seems to be standard US government procedure to have a fox guarding every hen house.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/us/04natgas.html?_r=1&hp
It has long been a staple of industry propaganda that no such case exists.
The EPA report says, "When fracturing the Kaiser gas well on Mr. James Parson's property, fractures were created allowing migration of fracture fluid from the gas well to Mr. Parson's water well. This fracture fluid, along with natural gas, was present in Mr. Parson's water, rendering it unusable."
Although, as the article notes, drilling technology has improved since the EPA report was written, included in the report is the suggestion that this case is only the tip of the iceberg. Urbina interviewed the report's lead author, who "said that she and her colleagues had found 'dozens' of cases that she said appeared to specifically involve drinking water contamination related to fracking. But they were unable to investigate those cases further and get access to more documents because of legal settlements. All but the Parsons case were excluded from the EPA study, she said, because of pressure from industry representatives who were members of an agency working group overseeing the research."
It seems to be standard US government procedure to have a fox guarding every hen house.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/us/04natgas.html?_r=1&hp
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
WV Marcellus "emergency"
At a press conference yesterday, West Virginia's acting governor Earl Ray Tomblin announced (with gas industry lobbyists standing behind him at the podium) that he had signed an executive order directing the WV Department of Environmental Protection to implement some "emergency" regulation of Marcellus shale hydrofracking.
As Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette noted in a blog post, the new regulations first appeared at a gas industry website, thereby confirming that Tomblin had sought the approval of his corporate masters before his announcement.
On a positive note, the fact that Tomblin finally and officially recognized that the lack of regulation is an "emergency" is a demonstration that the growing public awareness of the dangers of the fracking process is putting some pressure on the political class, especially Tomblin, who is facing a special election in October for the position of real--not acting--governor.
http://wvgazette.com/News/201107121085
As Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette noted in a blog post, the new regulations first appeared at a gas industry website, thereby confirming that Tomblin had sought the approval of his corporate masters before his announcement.
On a positive note, the fact that Tomblin finally and officially recognized that the lack of regulation is an "emergency" is a demonstration that the growing public awareness of the dangers of the fracking process is putting some pressure on the political class, especially Tomblin, who is facing a special election in October for the position of real--not acting--governor.
http://wvgazette.com/News/201107121085
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Frack damage in WV forest
A press release from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:
Washington, DC — A new study has found that wastewater from natural gas hydrofracturing in a West Virginia national forest quickly wiped out all ground plants, killed more than half of the trees and caused radical changes in soil chemistry. These results argue for much tighter control over disposal of these “fracking fluids,” contends Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
The new study by Mary Beth Adams, a U.S. Forest Service researcher, appears in the July-August issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Environmental Quality. She looked at the effects of land application of fracking fluids on a quarter-acre section of the Fernow Experimental Forest within the Monongahela National Forest. More than 75,000 gallons of fracking fluids, which are injected deep underground to free shale gas and then return to the surface, were applied to the assigned plot over a two day period during June 2008. The following effects were reported in the study:
- Within two days all ground plants were dead;
- Within 10 days, leaves of trees began to turn brown. Within two years more than half of the approximately 150 trees were dead; and
- “Surface soil concentrations of sodium and chloride increased 50-fold as a result of the land application of hydrofracturing fluids…” These elevated levels eventually declined as chemical leached off-site. The exact chemical composition of these fluids is not known because the chemical formula is classified as confidential proprietary information.
“The explosion of shale gas drilling in the East has the potential to turn large stretches of public lands into lifeless moonscapes,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that land disposal of fracking fluids is common and in the case of the Fernow was done pursuant to a state permit. “This study suggests that these fluids should be treated as toxic waste.”
For the past twenty-five years, the Forest Service has not applied any environmental restrictions on private extraction efforts, even in wilderness areas. As a result, forests, like the Monongahela, which sits astride the huge Marcellus Shale gas formation, have struggled with many adverse impacts of widespread drilling. By contrast, the nearby George Washington National Forest (NF) has recently proposed to ban horizontal drilling, a practice associated with hydrofracking, due to concern about both the ecosystem damage and also the huge amount of water required for the fracking process. Two subcommittees of the House of Representatives will hold a joint hearing this Friday to examine the George Washington NF’s singular pro-conservation stance.
“Unfortunately, the Forest Service has drilled its head deeply into the sand on oil and gas operations harming forest assets,” Ruch added, noting the National Wildlife Refuges also lack regulations to minimize drilling impacts. “The Forest Service needs to develop a broader approach than asking each forest supervisor to cast a lone profile in courage or cowardice.”
Washington, DC — A new study has found that wastewater from natural gas hydrofracturing in a West Virginia national forest quickly wiped out all ground plants, killed more than half of the trees and caused radical changes in soil chemistry. These results argue for much tighter control over disposal of these “fracking fluids,” contends Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
The new study by Mary Beth Adams, a U.S. Forest Service researcher, appears in the July-August issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Environmental Quality. She looked at the effects of land application of fracking fluids on a quarter-acre section of the Fernow Experimental Forest within the Monongahela National Forest. More than 75,000 gallons of fracking fluids, which are injected deep underground to free shale gas and then return to the surface, were applied to the assigned plot over a two day period during June 2008. The following effects were reported in the study:
- Within two days all ground plants were dead;
- Within 10 days, leaves of trees began to turn brown. Within two years more than half of the approximately 150 trees were dead; and
- “Surface soil concentrations of sodium and chloride increased 50-fold as a result of the land application of hydrofracturing fluids…” These elevated levels eventually declined as chemical leached off-site. The exact chemical composition of these fluids is not known because the chemical formula is classified as confidential proprietary information.
“The explosion of shale gas drilling in the East has the potential to turn large stretches of public lands into lifeless moonscapes,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that land disposal of fracking fluids is common and in the case of the Fernow was done pursuant to a state permit. “This study suggests that these fluids should be treated as toxic waste.”
For the past twenty-five years, the Forest Service has not applied any environmental restrictions on private extraction efforts, even in wilderness areas. As a result, forests, like the Monongahela, which sits astride the huge Marcellus Shale gas formation, have struggled with many adverse impacts of widespread drilling. By contrast, the nearby George Washington National Forest (NF) has recently proposed to ban horizontal drilling, a practice associated with hydrofracking, due to concern about both the ecosystem damage and also the huge amount of water required for the fracking process. Two subcommittees of the House of Representatives will hold a joint hearing this Friday to examine the George Washington NF’s singular pro-conservation stance.
“Unfortunately, the Forest Service has drilled its head deeply into the sand on oil and gas operations harming forest assets,” Ruch added, noting the National Wildlife Refuges also lack regulations to minimize drilling impacts. “The Forest Service needs to develop a broader approach than asking each forest supervisor to cast a lone profile in courage or cowardice.”
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