Infrared footage of air pollution from gas drilling

"A Chesapeake Bay Foundation infrared video investigation of natural gas drilling and processing sites in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia found invisible air pollution rising from almost three quarters of them." Learn more at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Company fined for dumping HCl in Oklahoma. How safe are Pennsylvania's waters?

On our last show, Dave Yoxtheimer from Penn State's Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research talked about some of the hazardous materials used in hydraulic fracturing operations. One of those is hydrochloric acid. According to the Department of Justice's Office of Public Affairs, an employee of Integrated Production Services, LLC has pleaded guilty to improper handling of 500-700 gallons of the acid.

Here's DOJ's release:

WASHINGTON – Integrated Production Services, LLC, (IPS), a Houston-based natural gas and oil drilling contractor, pleaded guilty today to a negligent violation of the Clean Water Act in federal court in Muskogee, Okla., announced Assistant Attorney General Ignacia S. Moreno for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, and Mark Green, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.

In entering the plea, which is subject to approval by the court, IPS has agreed to pay a $140,000 criminal fine and to make a community service payment of $22,000 to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation for ecological studies and remediation of Boggy Creek, located in eastern Oklahoma. IPS will serve a two-year period of probation, during which it will be required to implement and perform an environmental compliance program at a cost of $38,000, to train IPS employees regarding proper hazardous waste handling and spill response procedures.

In May 2007, IPS was performing drilling operations at the Pettigrew natural gas well site in Atoka County, Okla. The company’s operations included hydraulic fracturing, which entails the use of drills and hydrochloric acid to penetrate through bedrock and substrata in order to access natural gas reserves. On May 24, 2007, a tank at the site leaked hydrochloric acid onto the bermed surface of the well, which also was flooded due to recent heavy rainfall. Rather than taking the necessary steps to properly remove the rainwater from the site, Gabriel Henson, an IPS supervisor, drove a company pickup truck through the earthen berm, causing the discharge of the rainwater and an estimated 400-700 gallons of hydrochloric acid into Dry Creek, a tributary of Boggy Creek.

On July 20, 2011, Henson pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation of the Clean Water Act. Henson is awaiting sentencing. He faces up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine. “As hydraulic fracturing occurs with increasing frequency across the country, companies and individuals involved in those operations must adhere to the laws that protect human health and the environment and level the playing field for responsible businesses,” said Assistant Attorney General Moreno. “We recognize the critical importance of developing domestic sources of energy responsibly, and will continue to vigorously prosecute illegal conduct.”

“This was a case of a corporate employee making a careless decision that caused the release of dangerous hydrochloric acid into our waters,” said U.S. Attorney Green. “Whether to expedite oil production or to save corporate expense, these types of actions cannot be justified nor can they be tolerated. This office will pursue all legal remedies necessary to prevent and/or punish such actions.”

“Hydrochloric acid is a highly corrosive substance. Its release into a tributary of Boggy Creek was a serious threat to the environment,” said Ivan Vikin, Special Agent-in-Charge of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) criminal enforcement program in Oklahoma.

“Today’s guilty plea demonstrates that companies will be held responsible for environmental crimes.” This case was investigated by the U.S. EPA Criminal Investigation Division and the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office of Inspector General. The case is a joint prosecution between the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma and the Environmental Crimes Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Just a few weeks ago I was at an EPA public comment hearing on new regulations for natural gas operations (tweeted here on September 27th, 2011). Outraged Pennsylvanians at that hearing wondered who in the government was sticking up for them. It appears as though someone is working in Oklahoma.

But do you ever wonder how many spills like this happen and aren't caught? I am reminded of Jeff Tietz's Rolling Stone article (pdf) on the pork industry a couple of years ago in which he alleged that Smithfield Foods' chairman Joseph Luter III said that the 74 EPA citations under the Clean Water Act were paltry in comparison to the likely 2.5 million violations he estimated they'd actually committed.

The oil and gas industry is not the same as the pork industry. But much of the public suspects that there is woefully little oversight. According to Mary Carol-Frier who compiled DEP numbers with Pennsylvania Land Trust Association report numbers (pdf) , between January of 2008 and June of 2010 in Pennsylvania, the oil and gas industry were cited by DEP for 161 violations for discharge of industrial waste including into streams, 524 discharges of pollutional materials into waters of Commonwealth, 1,149 Oil and Gas Act-specific violations, including improper pits, impoundments, well waste treatment, well casements and cementing and plugging. It is troubling to imagine that the oil and gas industry could be cited for as relatively few violations as the pork industry might have been.

Pennsylvania has the second most surface water in the fifty states after Alaska and a booming gas industry. Many people aren't sure who's protecting them. One woman at the EPA hearing pointed her finger at the board and said, "How do you sleep at night? You're supposed to be protecting us." Three compressor stations roar around her property and fill the air with a smell she can hardly believe. "It's like living in a third world country."

As Dave Yoxtheimer said on our show, there are some good actors and some who aren't. There are the fly-by-night guys and those who are good neighbors who work with families, municipalities and the state. Can we get all of them to be the best neighbors they can be?

EPA Air Quality Hearing

On our last show, Peter Buckland announced an Environmental Protection Agency "first-ever emissions standards to control and reduce toxic air pollution from oil and gas wells that are hydraulically fractured like those tapping into the Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania and other Appalachian states" according to the Post-Gazette. Buckland said it was on Wednesday, September 27th. A listener corrected him. It is on Tuesday, September 27th from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Does ozone create the no zone?

On today's show, we will discuss air quality in the United States and in Pennsylvania.

A lot of the United States lives with a lot of smog a lot of the time. That puts a lot of people - especially children and elderly Americans - at risk for health problems like asthma and other respiratory illness. That's the gist of a new report Danger in the Air, released on Wednesday, from PennEnvironment.

The report tells us that some of our large and mid-size cities have pretty awful air from smog. Not surprisingly, cities like Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Houston have bad air a lot more often than they should. But even idyllic places like State College, PA have higher levels of ambient air pollution more often than we might suspect.

The report takes aim at the Obama administration for its recent decision not to tackle ozone standards. As Charlie Dorsaneo of PennEnvironment said, "They chose to kick the can down the road until 2013." PennEnvironment recommends policy makers take positive action to alert the public with a stricter standard, to reduce air pollution through tighter regulation on emissions sources like cars, trucks, industry, and power plants, and finally to invest in renewable and less wasteful energy sources like solar and wind.

On that last note, you might be interested to see that even in the wake of the Solyndra controversy, that Republican Congressman Joe Barton agrees:



Sustainability Now's Peter Buckland joined State College Mayor Elizabeth Goreham, Sierra Club Moshannon's Gary Thornbloom, and PennEnvironment's Charlie Dorsaneo at the State College press conference on the report. Buckland;'s remarks are included here:

I don’t know if anyone here knows, but this week is No Impact Week. It’s a funky approach to reduce our individual and collective negative impacts and increase our positive impacts. I think those are just plain good things to do.

PennEnvironment’s report today shows us some challenges we face from our society’s and our economy’s impacts. This is about us.

Every year, thousands of people get sick from ambient air pollution. Every high-risk ozone day brings thousands of asthma attacks. It harms elderly people and young children disproportionately. 92% of ozone comes from fossil fuels and the lion’s share from transportation and industry. We in central Pennsylvania live downwind from coal plants and industrial hubs to our southwest. The pollution they pour into the air hurts us. It illustrates how we all live downstream, or downwind in this case.

Now I don’t know about you, but I love being outside. For years I have been riding mountain bikes like they are going out of style. I quit smoking and have since ridden my bike more than most people think sane. It’s fun. It’s also healthy. My wife rides. I have ridden with hundreds or thousands of people across this lush and verdant state. Just about every day, my wife and I play outside with our four-year-old son. We play baseball. A lot. He and the other kids on Chestnut Street run around constantly. Riding, running, and playing should to be healthy.

But what the Danger in the Air Report shows us, and I am not being an alarmist, is that I might actually get sick from exercising. Moderate to intense exercise for a few hours puts people at higher risk of respiratory dysfunction on high pollution days. As we’ve just heard, the alerts are lower thresholds than they should be according to the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. In places like Philly and Houston, you’re talking about regular health threats to people doing the right thing. I quit smoking for a reason.

Governor Corbett says Pennsylvania has the opportunity to be the next Texas because of the Marcellus and Utica shale natural gas booms. Take note of Pennsylvania’s air quality now. It’s not so different from Texas’. Philly is just a bit worse than Houston but Fort Worth is just a little worse than Pittsburgh. Now add tens of thousands of wells, compressor stations, pipelines, and the trucks to service it all and let’s talk about Pennsylvania air quality. As a bike racer I like to rank high. But this is no race for Pennsylvania to win. I say “No thank you” Mr. Corbett. So should you.

We need real action for health. Regulations are structured for polluters’ exorbitant profits. They say they fuel progress. More asthma and chronic breathing conditions – in humans or otherwise – is not progress. Progress is not pollution.

Health and happiness are progress. Congress and the President must act. We must also call our power companies to initiate switches from toxic power to less wasteful and renewable energy.
It can’t stop with phone calls, policies, and techno-fixes. Just like healthy diets and exercise, live to reduce pollution. Don’t go for no impact. Go for better impacts. Today, eat lower on the food chain. Tomorrow carpool, ride the bus, or ride a bike. Next week, figure out ways to throw away less stuff. Trash here travels 75 miles to Somerset county in 4 mpg trucks. Next month, get an energy audit and work your way toward a high efficiency low impact house.

Those impacts aren’t no impacts. They are much better impacts. That’s progress. It’s work. Let’s work together.

Listen in today from 4-4:30 pm on The Lion 90.7. Call in at (814) 865-9577.

The Republican Congress's War on Clean Air and Water

Today, we will be talking to Ed Perry of the National Wildlife Federation. A few weeks ago he hosted a protest outside Pennsylvania Congressman Glenn Thompson (R) because of Thompson's support of some legislation that will gut environmental regulations, inhibit the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases, and will expand polluting industries' governmental entanglement.

Ed has recently written the following:

The House Majority Wants to Gut Environmental Protections

On Feb. 25, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a continuing budget resolution to keep the government operating and cut spending. But most people didn’t notice that it also was intended to gut environmental agencies and regulations that have protected our air, water and land for more than 40 years.

The U.S. Senate wouldn’t go along, but a House majority was willing to trash decades of bipartisan support for our most basic clean water and clean air protections in a full retreat from the fundamental expectation that elected leaders should safeguard our health and natural resources.

Instead of adding earmarks to its first budget resolution, this Congress added “oilmarks.” An oilmark is a prohibition attached to a spending bill that handcuffs regulators, forcing them to look the other way as polluters endanger the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the lands and waters that nurture fish and wildlife.

Oilmarks are like earmarks in that they don’t get debated and scrutinized, so members feel safe in voting for them. Of 51 amendments added to the original House continuing resolution, 14 were oilmarks aimed at letting politics override science and commonsense public-health protections.

Among other things, the oilmarks would have:

• Allowed 5,000 additional tons of hazardous air pollution and mercury emissions.
• Blocked new health standards to reduce soot pollution, which is particularly harmful to the lungs of our children.
• Blocked funding for climate change science and sensible regulations to start reducing carbon dioxide pollution from oil refineries and power plants.
• Blocked science-based restoration of the Chesapeake Bay, Klamath Basin, San Francisco Bay Delta and Florida waters.
• Blocked new rules and guidance to prevent hazardous coal ash from entering water supplies as happened in the 2008 Tennessee disaster.
• Blocked new rules and guidance to protect stream valleys and wetlands from the dumping of waste from mountain top-removal mining and other sources.

The total budget savings for the 14 oilmarks would have been zero dollars. Not one dime would have been shaved from the deficit, which ostensibly was the purpose of this bill.

While adding all kinds of oilmarks to the spending bill, the House rejected the one amendment, offered by Rep. Markey, D-Mass., that would have eliminated billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to oil companies. Closing a royalty payment loophole for oil companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico could save taxpayers $53 billion in the coming years, but the amendment was defeated.

At least Congressmen Glenn Thompson and Bill Shuster were consistent. They voted for every one of these oilmarks and then voted against the only amendment that would have reduced the deficit; the one that would have cut taxpayer subsidies to the oil companies.

The sheer audacity and scope of the assault on environmental protection makes you wonder if these folks are out of touch with their constituents. Poll after poll shows Americans want Congress to protect air and water regulations and take action on climate change.

A national survey found that two thirds of Americans — including 54 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of Independents — said the EPA should “reduce carbon pollution without delay.” One poll question revealed particularly strong support for clean air updates the EPA is putting forward: 66 percent of Americans — including 54 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of Independents — favor stricter limits on the release of toxic chemicals such as mercury, lead, and arsenic from coal-fired power plants and other industrial facilities.

Our representatives may say they don’t want a bunch of unelected bureaucrats setting carbon limits for the United States; they want Congress to do it. But what they really mean is that they don’t want any limits at all.

Last year, Congress had an opportunity to pass clean energy legislation to reduce carbon emissions and virtually every representative who voted for the oilmarks voted against the bill. They continue to vote against clean energy legislation, yet they have no alternatives.

Is this what Americans want this new Congress to do? Assault the agency that has effectively reduced air and water pollution and set environmental standards that make our country’s quality of life the envy of the world?

Really?

You know, not long ago our government reflected Americans’ strong environmental values. The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act were passed with bipartisan support in the 1970s, with Republican representatives and senators leading the way. And when Congress updated the Clean Air Act in 1990 to protect thousands of lives and curb acid rain, the House passed the legislation with an overwhelming vote of 401-25. Now it appears all of that has changed.

Fortunately, the U.S. Senate refused to go along with the House oilmarks in last month’s temporary budget resolution. But with another resolution coming soon, let’s hope the Senate — with the help of Pennsylvania Sens. Bob Casey and Pat Toomey — stands firm again and continues to support the EPA and its efforts to protect our air, land and water.

- Ed Perry, PA Outreach Coordinator, National Wildlife Federation

Listen in today from 4-5 pm on The Lion.