Fracking is hardly leakproof

By Josh Fox and Barbara Arrindell

Updated 10:57 a.m., Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Recently, politicians and publications have conditionally endorsed so-called "safe fracking" as a part of the nation's energy mix. But safe fracking is an impossibility, and the industry's claims for it are knowingly based on false premises.

Chief among them is the notion that a "leakproof well" is possible. We've heard time again that strict regulation is the key to moving forward on fracking, and that new regulations should make sure that industry constructs leakproof wells that do not pollute the water table. There is no such thing as a leakproof gas well. The gas industry knows this; in fact, it has known it for decades.

The part of the gas well that they're relying on to protect groundwater is simply cement: about a 1-inch-thick layer between the steel casing and the surrounding rock. Cement is permeable before it sets, subject to cracking afterward and can never be made leakproof. A 1-inch layer could never be adequate when groundwater is at risk.

The gas industry's own documents and case studies show that about 6 percent of cement jobs fail immediately upon installation, and recent experience in the Pennsylvania Marcellus shale has borne this out over and over again.

Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection has tracked gas leaking from wells across the state. They found 6.2 percent of new gas wells were leaking in 2010, 6.2 percent in 2011 and 7.2 percent so far in 2012.

When the cement fails, it opens a pathway for gas and other toxins involved in the drilling and fracking process to migrate into groundwater and to the surface.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Fracking-is-hardly-leakproof-3646458.php#ixzz1yaAlccXw

Cuomo Proposal Would Restrict Gas Drilling to a Struggling Area

By DANNY HAKIM

Published: June 13, 2012

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration is pursuing a plan to limit the controversial drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing to portions of several struggling New York counties along the border with Pennsylvania, and to permit it only in communities that express support for the technology.

The plan, described by a senior official at the State Department of Environmental Conservation and others with knowledge of the administration’s strategy, would limit drilling to the deepest areas of the Marcellus Shale rock formation in an effort to reduce the risk of groundwater contamination.

Even within that southwest New York region — primarilyBroome, Chemung, Chenango, Steuben and Tioga Counties — drilling would be permitted only in towns that agree to it and would be banned in Catskill Park, aquifers and nationally designated historic districts.

 with great sadness… Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/nyregion/hydrofracking-under-cuomo-plan-would-be-restricted-to-a-few-counties.html?hp

Arsenic in drinking water deemed 'safe' could harm mothers and children, study finds

By Loren Grush

Published June 01, 2012

FoxNews.com

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According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), drinking water with low levels of arsenic – 10 parts per billion – has been deemed nontoxic and okay for human consumption.  However, new research has revealed that the water may not be so ‘safe’ to drink after all.

Researchers from both the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.,  and Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth have discovered that drinking water with low levels (10 ppb) of arsenic stimulates adverse health effects in pregnant and lactating mice, as well as their offspring.

The experiment had stemmed from previous studies the researchers had done, which had shown exposure to low levels of arsenic in water caused mice to have lower immune responses and become more susceptible to the flu.  They had found the effects were even greater on the mice who were exposed to the arsenic in utero and in early childhood.

After an order issued by the EPA in 2006, the arsenic standard for drinking water was set at a limit of 10 parts per billion in order to protect consumers from the adverse effects associated with chronic arsenic exposure.  According to the EPA’s website, such complications include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, partial paralysis, blindness, and an increased risk of various types of cancer.

While 10 ppb is the EPA standard, it only applies to public, regulated well waters.  The problem lies in the unregulated well waters in arsenic heavy regions – such as New England, Florida, and the Upper Midwest – which have been found to have concentrations of 100 ppb and higher.

The researchers noted that since the experiment was done in mice, it does not necessarily translate to humans since they are not physiologically identical.  However, Hamilton said that the experiment should still serve as a cautionary tale because tests on mice can be predictive of how something will react in humans.
 
“I think as a community in toxicology, we’re seeing more and more studies that are suggesting that 10 ppb may not be protective enough for humans,” Hamilton said.  “I can’t think of any other drinking water contaminant regulated by the EPA where the federal drinking water standard is so close to levels where we see adverse effects in animals and humans.  It’s a very unique chemical.”

“But at the end of the day, we gave [mice] drinking water with arsenic in it with exactly the same dose that you can drink out of your tap that the EPA says is safe – and bad things happened to them,” Hamilton added.  “It needs further investigation, but certainly it’s a cautionary tale that at such a low dose, we’re seeing these dramatic effects on these animals.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/06/01/arsenic-in-drinking-water-deemed-afe-could-harm-mothers-and-children-study/#ixzz1wk2uvCey

In Land of Gas Drilling, Battle for Water That Doesn’t Reek or Fizz

By DAN FROSCH

Published: June 2, 2012     PAVILLION, Wyo. — It has been more than four decades since the first well was drilled in the natural gas field beneath this stretch of slow rolling alfalfa and sugar beet farms. But for some who live here, in the shadows of the Wind River Mountains, the drilling rigs have brought more than jobs and industry.

For the last few years, a small group of farmers and landowners scattered across this rural Wyoming basin have complained that their water wells have been contaminated with chemicals from a controversial drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

A draft report by the Environmental Protection Agency, issued in December, appeared to confirm their concerns, linking chemicals in local groundwater to gas drilling.

Read More:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/02/us/in-land-of-hydraulic-fracturing-a-battle-over-water-pollution.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

Jonathan Crosby for The New York Times

At a meeting in Pavillion, Wyo., state officials and local residents discussed water quality.

Deadliest Danger Isn’t at the Rig but on the Road

Meg Roussos for The New York Times

Crystal Roth’s husband, Timothy, an oil field worker from West Virginia, was killed in a company truck that crashed in his home state last year when the driver fell asleep.

By IAN URBINA

Published: May 14, 2012     After working 17 hours straight at a natural gas well in Ohio, Timothy Roth and three other crew members climbed into their company truck around 10 o’clock one night last July and began their four-hour drive back to their drilling service company’s shop in West Virginia.

When they were just 10 minutes from home, the driver fell asleep at the wheel. The truck veered off the highway and slammed into a sign that sheared off part of the vehicle’s side, killing Mr. Roth.

About two months before the fatal crash, Mr. Roth nearly died in a similar accident when another co-worker with the same company fell asleep at the wheel after a long shift and ran the company’s truck into a pole. In 2009, Mr. Roth’s employer was penalized in New York, Pennsylvania and Utah for violations like “requiring or permitting” its oil field truckers to drive after working for 14 hours, the legal limit.

Over the past decade, more than 300 oil and gas workers like Mr. Roth were killed in highway crashes, the largest cause of fatalities in the industry. Many of these deaths were due in part to oil field exemptions from highway safety rules that allow truckers to work longer hours than drivers in most other industries, according to safety and health experts.   Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/us/for-oil-workers-deadliest-danger-is-driving.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&hp

New Proposal on Fracking Gives Ground to Industry

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

A natural gas well in Pennsylvania. The industry objected to a proposal requiring chemicals to be disclosed 30 days before drilling.

By JOHN M. BRODER

Published: May 4, 2012 WASHINGTON —

 The Obama administration on Friday issued a proposed rule governing hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas on public lands that will for the first time require disclosure of the chemicals used in the process.

But in a significant concession to the oil industry, companies will have to reveal the composition of fluids only after they have completed drilling — a sharp change from the government’s original proposal, which would have required disclosure of the chemicals 30 days before a well could be started.

The pullback on the rule followed a series of meetings at the White House after the original regulation was proposed in February. Lobbyists representing oil industry trade associations and individual major producers like ExxonMobil, XTO Energy, Apache, Samson Resources and Anadarko Petroleum met with officials of the Office of Management and Budget, who reworked the rule to address industry concerns about overlapping state regulations and the cost of compliance.

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/05/us/new-fracking-rule-is-issued-by-obama-administration.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, April 30, 2012

In Fracking Secrecy Court Case, Newspapers Get Support From Doctors, Scientists, Advocates 

Group files legal brief arguing public, journalists are entitled to fracking health impact info

 PITTSBURGH, PA – In a court case over gas industry secrecy, doctors, scientists, researchers and advocates are lending support to newspapers fighting for access to information that could shed light on the health impacts of gas development, including the controversial process known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Observer-Reporter are seeking to overturn a court order sealing the record in a case in which a Pennsylvania family sued several gas companies over health impacts related to air and water pollution from nearby natural gas development operations. The companies are fighting to keep the records out of the public eye.

 Represented by the nonprofit environmental law firm Earthjustice, the group -- Philadelphia Physicians for Social Responsibility, Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy, Dr. Bernard D. Goldstein, Dr. Walter Tsou, Dr. Jerome A. Paulson, Dr. William Rom, Dr. Mehernosh P. Khan, Dr. Sandra Steingraber, Dr. Simona Perry, Dr. Robert Oswald, Dr. Michelle Bamberger, Kathryn Vennie, and Earthworks -- filed an amicus brief today supporting the newspapers. The newspapers also filed briefs in the case today.

 “Understanding and preventing any health risks from gas development depends on public access to information on the industry.” said Earthjustice attorney Matthew Gerhart, who filed the brief on behalf of the group.  “The gas industry should spend less time trying to conceal information and more time disclosing information necessary to understand the true risks of fracking and gas development.”

The initial case against the gas industry was brought by Stephanie and Chris Hallowich, who after moving their family to a farm in Mount Pleasant, PA found themselves surrounded by the expanding natural gas industry as companies built wells on their property and gas processing facilities nearby. The health of the parents and children quickly deteriorated and they began suffering unexplained headaches, nosebleeds, burning eyes, and sore throats.

“In order to treat patients exposed to toxins from gas development, doctors need access to a wide range of information,” said Dr. Jerome Paulson, Children's National Medical Center. “The gas industry has information that could prove vital to our patient’s health and we are asking the court to make it available.”

After unsuccessfully trying to get state regulators and nearby companies to address the problem, the family sued, eventually settling with the companies and abandoning their home. As a condition of the settlement, the companies insisted that the Hallowiches sign a non-disclosure agreement. These types of non-disclosure agreements have proven to be the norm in such lawsuits against the gas industry, as this chart of related cases in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana , Pennsylvania, Texas, and West Virginia demonstrates.

Prior to the agreement, the Hallowiches had been outspoken critics of gas industry abuses. But like so many others bound by industry-mandated non-disclosure agreements, the family has not been able to speak out about the case since the court settlement.

“People living in communities where the gas industry operates have important firsthand knowledge of the impacts of gas development. But time and again, these people are silenced by industry-mandated non-disclosure agreements in lawsuits as well as leases,” said Dr. Simona Perry, Research Scientist, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “As their neighbors struggle to contend with these impacts, they are unable to share their knowledge. Whole communities are impacted as a result.”

These nondisclosure agreements are just one example of a wide-ranging pattern of industry secrecy. Industry has lobbied for, and won, exemptions from portions of the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, and other federal laws with important right-to-know requirements. In Wyoming, the gas industry has fought against a state law requiring that it disclose the identities of chemicals used in fracking, submitting claims to keep secret more than a hundred chemicals. In Pennsylvania, industry lobbied for Act 13 which, among other things, seeks to limit information doctors can share about health problems linked to gas development activities.

“From Wyoming to Pennsylvania and Colorado to Louisiana, the gas industry is fighting to keep the toxic secrets of drilling out of the public eye and to retain special exemptions to the laws that protect public health and the environment,” said Bruce Baizel, Staff Attorney, Earthworks. “They claim that what they do is safe, but if it is, why do they have so much to hide? We intend to find out.”

The case comes as the nation undergoes a fracking-enabled gas drilling boom. Along with this boom have come troubling reports of poisoned drinking water, polluted air, mysterious animal deaths, and sick families. But industry loopholes in right-to-know laws have made it difficult for researchers to study health and environmental impacts.

“Scientists studying the health and environmental impacts of fracking and gas development need data in order to do their job,” said Stan Scobie, PhD, Senior Fellow, Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy. “The gas industry may prefer that we not have the information we need, but the public good clearly outweighs industry’s preference for secrecy.”

In instances where individuals prefer to keep the details of their court settlement sealed, they will typically intervene in any legal challenges to unseal the records. In this case, the Hallowiches have not intervened in the appeal.