A call to reflection: “A Manifesto for Understanding in a Time of Great Thirst, Emma Fisher, Charleston”

An incredibly heart-wrenching account of a West Virginian speaking about the love of a place and the defeatism that seeps in when society celebrates riches and rewards over its human and natural capital. Such profound visions come people when they cannot drink their water.

A Manifesto for Understanding in a Time of Great Thirst, Emma Fisher, Charleston.

The most powerful passage I want to quote here, but I hope everyone reads the whole piece.

It makes us angry, so angry. But we don’t direct our anger in the right places. Because the right places are so mighty and everlasting that we feel defeated before we even start. And those right places capitalize on their ability to shape our minds with slippery, imperious moves that are only slightly more veiled than the company store. Embracing modern manipulation techniques in advertising and branding and marketing to convince us they’re an ally. And we believe it. Because there is too much at stake to not believe it. And because we’ve been taught to believe it, and we’ve been taught that not believing it makes us a traitor.

And so we take the frustration that comes, and we turn on one another, and we turn on ourselves. And we keep ourselves down, in small behaviors every day. Small behaviors that shape our lifetimes. With this knowledge of powerlessness that is so insidious, so deeply, collectively understood as “the way it is,” it becomes difficult to detect, and it becomes us.

Amazing how poignant her statements ring for the debate here in North Carolina. Those in favor of fracking who repeat industry’s talking points without taking into consideration data to the contrary need to hear this voice from West Virgnia. Please, pro-industry folks, stop insulting the public with overblown claims about the stellar record of hydraulic fracturing. I, for one, acknowledge that this is an incredible technology to access and extract good resources, but there are a lot of risks involved, and the sustainability of natural resources must be accounted for in a cost-benefit analysis. But what should be an open discussion between policy-makers and the public quickly devolves to name-calling in a public forum: people turning on each other.

North Carolinia, we must do better.

-BT

 

Lab study cuts fracking waste’s radioactivity | The Sanford Herald

See this story linked below from the Associated Press by way of the Sanford Herald.

Lab study cuts fracking waste’s radioactivity | The Sanford Herald.

This is a curious find: flowback water mixed with “acid drainage from mining, or any other salty water” precipitates a good chunk of the radioactive material out of the water, thus binding it into a solid, more easily disposable form. I am not sure, in terms of isolating and removing radioactive materials, how much this differs from a standing practice of allowing the flowback water to sit in an open pit at the drill site and evaporate so the nasty material will be left behind.

What is encouraging is to see that after mixing the fluids, the research found that radioactive material was bound in solids, and the salinity of the water had diminished enough that it could be used again in fracking. That process saves some water supply while isolating materials to be handled as hazardous waste. Note that this is something that will be helpful in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, but not necessarily here in North Carolina since we do not have acid drainage from mining. {Ironically, it’s that acid wash that spilled in West Virginia causing 7 counties to be without public water supply, so this is still a nasty operation within a nasty operation.}

Also of note, since it was discussed today at the MEC meeting, the radioactivity of the disolved water in the flowback still has protection of the classified chemicals clause. We still don’t know what all is in the cocktail used in the slickwater fracturing process, but based on the discussion I heard in the meeting today (I was able to tune in to the middle portion, but not all of it: I would welcome more details on the meeting from those who were there or listened to the entire thing), the drilling operators would have to list on their permit request the chemicals to be used, and the state regulators would then acknowledge which are on the classified list. Regulators, as I understand it, would have to permit the site with appropriate chemical and wastewater storage, treatment, disposal, and spill response plan.

I am glad to see someone else in this article echo my feeling on the critical need for proper wastewater handling:

Tad Patzek, chairman and professor of the petroleum engineering
department at the University of Texas in Austin, cautioned that the
method could present problems in the field. The remaining water would
still be jam-packed with chemicals and toxins, he noted.

“That water can get spilled,” Patzek said. “That water can get into a shallow aquifer. There are many other considerations.”

-BT

Agenda for MEC meeting, Tuesday, January 14, 2014

NORTH CAROLINA

MINING AND ENERGY COMMISSION

January 14, 2014

9:00 a.m.

Archdale Building Ground Floor Hearing Room

512 N. Salisbury St.

Raleigh, NC

To join the meeting:
https://denr.ncgovconnect.com/mec011414/

—————-
If you have never attended a Connect Pro meeting before:

Test your connection: https://denr.ncgovconnect.com/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm

Get a quick overview: http://www.adobe.com/go/connectpro_overview

Draft Minutes from December 6th

MEC Quarterly Report

Sign In Sheets

 AGENDA

1. Call to Order – James Womack, Chairman of the Mining and Energy Commission

2. Moment of Silence and Pledge of Allegiance

3. Welcome and Notice of NCGS 138A-15 – Chairman Womack

In accordance with the State Government Ethics Act, it is the duty of every member of the North Carolina Mining and Energy Commission to avoid conflicts of interest and potential conflicts. If any member knows of a conflict of interest or potential conflict with respect to matters coming before the Commission today, please identify the conflict or potential conflict at this time.

4. Roll Call of Commission Members – Chairman Womack

5. Approval of Minutes from Last Meeting – Chairman Womack

6. Committee Reports (10 minutes each, plus time for questions)

Administration of Oil & Gas Committee – Charles Holbrook

Rules Committee – Amy Pickle

7. Study Group Reports

Coordinated Permitting Study Group and Review of Study Group Report – Dr. Kenneth Taylor

Protection of Trade Secrets and Proprietary Information Study Group – Chairman Womack

8. Administration – Chairman Womack

Review of 2014 meeting schedule and proposed timelines

9. Overview of Proposed Revisions to the EMC’s Water Quality Rules – Evan Kane, DWR

10. Discussion & Action on Chemical Disclosure Rule, Chairman’s Mark – Chairman Womack

11. Lunch Break – 30 minutes

12. Discussion & Action on Setback Rule – George Howard

13. Public Comment

The public comment period will be limited to a total of 10 speakers and each speaker will be allowed three minutes to speak. The sign-up sheet will be available in the Ground Floor Hearing Room from 8:30 a.m. until 12:00 p.m.

14. Concluding Remarks

a. Commission Members

b. Commission Counsel

c. Commission Chairman

15. Adjournment

Reminder to All MEC Members: Members having a question about a conflict of interest or potential conflict should consult with the Chairman or with legal counsel.

Reminder to MEC Members Appointed by the Governor: Executive Order 34 mandates that in transacting Commission business each person appointed by the Governor shall act always in the best interest of the public without regard for his or her financial interests. To this end, each appointee must recuse himself or herself from voting on any matter on which the appointee has a financial interest.

Well contamination complaints point to fracking in 4 states: 3 thoughts

An Associated Press release is making the rounds in various media outlets this morning about well complaints in 4 states that seem to indict fracking as the source of contamination. Here is the article as shared through Yahoo News.

There are a couple items in the article that I want to call attention to:

One, it does not describe how a state defines a “complaint” or how the state compiled the data of these complaints. This may be a matter of semantics, but I want to point to North Carolina: if a private landowner has a well for his/her primary water supply, it is up to the owner to have the quality of the water tested via the health department, and if it tests positive for contaminants, then the local health department will notify the owner of that contaminant. Local Health Departments will keep data from those well water tests, anonymously, and I assume this article is citing such data. Note: Public water supply utilities, which are defined and regulated by the state, are required to publish a Consumer Confidence Report at least once a year to communicate water quality data, and also must issue public notices if their water quality has been compromised.

Two, I agree with Irina Feygina’s statement that…

…comprehensive information about gas drilling problems is important because the debate is no longer about just science but trust.

Regulators must observe data closely for patterns of contamination, and narrow potential sources of contamination from that data set. A private landowner’s well water quality test would not be available to the public, even if it simply states that water quality had been tested (i.e., no results published), but the health department would know where contaminants have been found.

This aspect of public trust in our regulatory agencies certainly raises eyebrows (again) as to why the state of North Carolina turned away grant money to conduct baseline water quality testing in the region likely to be open to hydraulic fracturing. And let restate, I have the utmost respect for the professional staff we have in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. DENR does make a great amount of information accessible to the public, most readily available via a searchable map of various permitted activities.

And finally, it is worth noting the percentages of the contaminated wells that appear to point to oil and gas drilling activity as the source of contamination. Based on the information in the article, 4% of complaints in Ohio, 3% in West Virginia and Texas, and 2% in Pennsylvania were linked to fracking (or conventional drilling in Texas). I do not want to disparage anyone who has lost use of their well, but these are not high percentages by any means. The Penn State study cited in the article documents a 40% failure rate of well quality meeting federal standards (though this is poorly defined since the EPA and DHHS/CDC have different minimum contaminant levels for drinking water); I would bet many rural North Carolina landowners would find the same true of their well water. Nonetheless, given the results reported in this AP story, the gas industry must stop saying there has been no contamination in drinking water due to fracking.

-BT

Fracking, environmental justice in central PA, and its implications in NC

Lengthy story here about environmental justice in central Pennsylvania.

Barry Yeoman report on environmental justice in heavily-fracked central Pennsylvan

What I find revealing about this investigative piece from central Pennsylvania is something that Yeoman observes at the opening of the second page:

Few Places in the United States are tougher ground for building an environmental-justice movement than the Appalachian counties of central Pennsylvania—politically conservative, temperamentally reticent, and historically reliant on resource extraction. “We’re family-oriented. We’re white. We don’t bother people. We take care of our own,” [a local minister] told me.

The dispersed nature of fracking with the remote, isolated, small-scale industrial sites come with the promise of quick riches in mineral leases, changing the use of that land. The pride of taking care of our own leads to self-protective decisions, swayed by the gas man’s push to boost his bottom line, ensure painless and profitable access for the industry. The very residents sitting upon unproductive soils, a lost and contractually confining poultry industry offering loosing returns, and what seems like a budding American revival combine to turn a blind eye – a willful ignorance – to banking on the short-sighted hope of pulling the last drop of liquid from an already squeezed source while not investing in very real outputs to stretch our personal incomes and create real jobs and industry.

See my previous post about finding energy efficiency programs throughout the southeast, but these underlie the whole energy debate. Use less energy, diminish the demand for the supply, and utilities slow their push to extract every last drop of oil and gas. We can all play a role in reducing our consumption, while at the same time appreciating the developed economy in which we live that affords us the option.

On the bigger picture of jobs and industry, there is vast more opportunity to develop manufacturing facilities for wind and solar energy production here in North Carolina. In fact, North Carolina recently opened a manufacturing facility in Cleveland County for Schletter, a German company, to produce state-of-the-art photovoltaic panels and associate machinations for more efficient capture of solar energy. This facility has a workforce of around 300, I believe. Why chicken farmers are not leasing the rooftops of their chicken houses for solar panels to sell energy to utilities is beyond question. Dare I say that single-use commercial/agricultural facilities should be a thing of the past? Lee County is situated very well for manufacturing, especially in industry building for tomorrow’s economy. Its proximity to the Research Triangle and the growing markets of the state (and the whole southeast) is advantageous. For central North Carolina to get into the energy production industry solely through extracting natural gas is really selling its workforce and residents short. The long-term effect of fracking won’t burden the drillers or the utilities that purchase the gas, but it will linger in the community, both in the personal realm and in the civic and social infrastructures. Extraction of gas has not begun, but division is rampant: elected leaders have slandered their own constituents in the public square! This is a time for planning, and all stakeholders need to be at the table and respected in the process.

–BT

Find resources to make your home (more) energy efficient!

technology working backwards

See this resource below put together by Appalachian Voices in which you can search for utility-sponsored rebate programs for homes (and businesses) to improve energy efficiency:

Map to identify resources to improve energy efficiency

I conducted a quick search for programs in a rural community in Halifax County (NC) and found a nice range of options for homeowners even where the utility does not have a rebate program. In this example, there are three utilities in the area, two of which do not provide a program for homeowners. In both of those cases, however, there is a list of resources on the sidebar which homeowners may explore, such as availability of discounted LED or CFL lightbulbs and appliance recycling programs.The utility that does have programs for homeowners are listed with a brief description, and active links to the utility’s program website.

Be sure to check Appalachian Voices’ main Energy Savings

View original post 25 more words

Colorado study finds higher occurrence of contaminants near fracking sites

A researcher from the University of Missouri School of Medicine has found evidence of higher occurrence of endocrine disrupting chemicals near fracking sites when compared to presence in control areas. The study was published in the journal Endocrinology.

LATimes report on University of Missouri study finding endocrine disruptors at fracking sites

Based on the information in the abstract, the study collected samples from drilling sites, the Colorado River, and a control site in Missouri. The drilling sites had elevated levels of contaminants, and the Colorado River showed a higher level than that of the control site in Missouri. To be fair, the study does not indicate that these endocrine disrupting chemicals had been released directly into the natural system from fracking sites, but merely points to the evidence as indicating the increase in industrial activity in remote sites present a greater likelihood of contamination. The study certainly verifies the presence of endocrine disrupting chemicals in the fracking process (something, you may recall, that Josh Fox mentions highlights in Gasland without making a qualitative link).

I want to emphasize here again: wastewater storage, treatment, and disposal are the most critical pieces that must be in place for fracking to be any kind of success.

–BT

Workshop for landowners scheduled in Sanford, Dec. 14th

Just passing notice of this workshop for concerned landowners scheduled for December 14th at the McSwain Center in Sanford. The workshop is being organized by RAFI and the Southern Environmental Law Center. Click the link below for the official flyer for more information.

RAFI & SELC Landowner workshop flyer

Exploratory wells coming to… western NC?

A nice summary courtesy of Carolina Public Press of the report DENR Assistant Secretary Mitch Gillespie gave to the Environmental Review Commission of the General Assembly last week draws attention to a an unforeseen plan to explore areas in western NC for natural gas. The report included a list of feasibility studies for fracking, which I presume to mean exploratory wells for core samples, though the article does not specify what the studies will fully entail. The point that raised eyebrows was the identification of a feasibility study in western NC:

the list included a rare mention of a site in the mountain area, identified only as a “precambrian rift basin” in “western NC.”

I admit that I have not really studied the geology of North Carolina in more than 10 years, but considering those precambrian basins are more than 540 million years, those formations have not changed much. I cannot imagine that those precambrian basins are anything but crystalline rock, and though they may be porous, any gas that was there is probably cooked.

Presentation slides from Mitch Gillespie to NCGA Environmental Review Commission

Thanks to a commenter on the article, he points to a nugget of policy presented to the Environmental Review Commission that has a huge impact on local jurisdiction:

…municipalities will not be allowed to prohibit fracking within their boundaries.

There has been a lot of attention given to Colorado after several municipalities there voted earlier this month to ban fracking. Clearly, the legislation in North Carolina has preempted that option for local governments. The state does have that power as they are the body to recognize legal standing of municipalities and counties, but this prohibition on localities is heavy-handed.

–BT

Forced pooling and its potential impact

I am remiss that I did not pass along this information when it was first published by RAFI, but they have put together a very easy-to-follow explanation and graphic on the impact of the Compulsory Pooling policy in Lee County.

Graphic put together by RAFI demonstrating the impact of Compulsory Pooling. See their website, linked at the top of this post, for the narrative and a number of helpful, informative links.