Gas Pipeline Leaked for Over 1 Year in a NY State Forest

The gas leak shown in the video.

On Nov. 30, Ryan Weatherley and Tim Ross, both of Olean, NY, were hunting in a NY State Forest near Franklinville  where they came across an unusual site. A large quantity of water was rising up above the surface of a puddle. It resembled the beginnings of a geyser eruption (see photo).

Nearby was a marker in the ground indicating that this was the location of a National Fuel Gas pipeline, suggesting that this was a gas leak. Weatherley spotted a total of 4 leaks in the area and recorded a closeup video of one of them.

See a 10 second video clip showing a closeup of the leak in the photo with sound: click here to open in YouTube.

View the full video (2 minutes): click here

Weatherley called National Fuel Gas who said they would handle it and that he should leave the area, according to a statement posted online with his video. He went back to his car with his friend and the company called back. They verified that there was a gas leak and that they wouldn't be able to do anything until after Christmas.

Contacted by the Olean Times Herald, Karen L. Merkel, National Fuel corporate communications director, said on Friday, Dec. 2, that the company has been aware of the leak for some time.

When it was discovered, it was determined to be “a Type 3 leak that did not require an urgent fix based on its location” in a rural area, Merkel said.

“We knew about the leak long before we saw it on YouTube,” Merkel said.

Late Friday afternoon, Merkel said crews had measured the extent of the leak, which had not changed in over a year.

However, Merkel said, “because of the volume of calls received about this leak in light of the Facebook and YouTube videos, we are in the process of repairing it so our system isn't inundated with leak calls that does not involve an inherent safety risk.”

To read the full report at Olean Times Herald, click here.

See also: Gas leak has now been repaired, click here.

Editorial Comments:
National Fuel knew that this pipeline was leaking for over 1 year and did nothing to stop it until it was spotted by citizens and posted on YouTube. Surprising, and at the same time, troubling.

This was not a small leak. Those were not simply gas bubbles in the photo and video. A sizeable mass of water was constantly being lifted above the surface of the surrounding puddle. It would take substantial amount of gas to do that and to constantly maintain it.

It's difficult to accept that this was not a safety hazard. What would happen if someone tossed a lighted cigarette butt in the vicinity of that leak? Explosion? Forest fire?

Safety aside, natural gas is primarily methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming and climate change. National Fuel said that the extent of the leak "had not changed in over a year."

How many Type 3 leaks like this exist for a year or more in all of the gas pipelines in NY State? What is the total contribution of all such leaks to greenhouse gas emissions in the State? We need to know this information to accurately assess the full contribution of natural gas operations to global warming.

Gas pipeline (blue line) in Boyce Hill State Forest near Franklinville, NY

Bill McKibben: Fracking Will Not Save Our Climate

Global Warming’s Terrifying New Chemistry

Our leaders thought fracking would save our climate. They were wrong. Very wrong.

By Bill McKibben | March 23, 2016 | The Nation

Global warming is, in the end, not about the noisy political battles here on the planet’s surface. It actually happens in constant, silent interactions in the atmosphere, where the molecular structure of certain gases traps heat that would otherwise radiate back out to space. If you get the chemistry wrong, it doesn’t matter how many landmark climate agreements you sign or how many speeches you give. And it appears the United States may have gotten the chemistry wrong. Really wrong.

There’s one greenhouse gas everyone knows about: carbon dioxide, which is what you get when you burn fossil fuels. We talk about a “price on carbon” or argue about a carbon tax; our leaders boast about modest “carbon reductions.” But in the last few weeks, CO₂’s nasty little brother has gotten some serious press. Meet methane, otherwise known as CH₄.

In February, Harvard researchers published an explosive paper in Geophysical Research Letters. Using satellite data and ground observations, they concluded that the nation as a whole is leaking methane in massive quantities. Between 2002 and 2014, the data showed that US methane emissions increased by more than 30 percent, accounting for 30 to 60 percent of an enormous spike in methane in the entire planet’s atmosphere.

To the extent our leaders have cared about climate change, they’ve fixed on CO₂. Partly as a result, coal-fired power plants have begun to close across the country. They’ve been replaced mostly with ones that burn natural gas, which is primarily composed of methane. Because burning natural gas releases significantly less carbon dioxide than burning coal, CO₂ emissions have begun to trend slowly downward, allowing politicians to take a bow. But this new Harvard data, which comes on the heels of other aerial surveys showing big methane leakage, suggests that our new natural-gas infrastructure has been bleeding methane into the atmosphere in record quantities. And molecule for molecule, this unburned methane is much, much more efficient at trapping heat than carbon dioxide.

The EPA insisted this wasn’t happening, that methane was on the decline just like CO₂. But it turns out, as some scientists have been insisting for years, the EPA was wrong. Really wrong. This error is the rough equivalent of the New York Stock Exchange announcing tomorrow that the Dow Jones isn’t really at 17,000: Its computer program has been making a mistake, and your index fund actually stands at 11,000.

These leaks are big enough to wipe out a large share of the gains from the Obama administration’s work on climate change—all those closed coal mines and fuel-efficient cars. In fact, it’s even possible that America’s contribution to global warming increased during the Obama years. The methane story is utterly at odds with what we’ve been telling ourselves, not to mention what we’ve been telling the rest of the planet. It undercuts the promises we made at the climate talks in Paris. It’s a disaster—and one that seems set to spre2ad.

The Obama administration, to its credit, seems to be waking up to the problem. Over the winter, the EPA began to revise its methane calculations, and in early March, the United States reached an agreement with Canada to begin the arduous task of stanching some of the leaks from all that new gas infrastructure. But none of this gets to the core problem, which is the rapid spread of fracking. Carbon dioxide is driving the great warming of the planet, but CO₂ isn’t doing it alone. It’s time to take methane seriously.

To understand how we got here, it’s necessary to remember what a savior fracked natural gas looked like to many people, environmentalists included. As George W. Bush took hold of power in Washington, coal was ascendant, here and around the globe. Cheap and plentiful, it was most visibly underwriting the stunning growth of the economy in China, where, by some estimates, a new coal-fired power plant was opening every week. The coal boom didn’t just mean smoggy skies over Beijing; it meant the planet’s invisible cloud of carbon dioxide was growing faster than ever, and with it the certainty of dramatic global warming.

So lots of people thought it was great news when natural-gas wildcatters began rapidly expanding fracking in the last decade. Fracking involves exploding the sub-surface geology so that gas can leak out through newly opened pores; its refinement brought online new shale deposits across the continent—most notably the Marcellus Shale, stretching from West Virginia up into Pennsylvania and New York. The quantities of gas that geologists said might be available were so vast that they were measured in trillions of cubic feet and in centuries of supply.

The apparently happy fact was that when you burn natural gas, it releases half as much carbon dioxide as coal. A power plant that burned natural gas would therefore, or so the reasoning went, be half as bad for global warming as a power plant that burned coal. Natural gas was also cheap—so, from a politician’s point of view, fracking was a win-win situation. You could appease the environmentalists with their incessant yammering about climate change without having to run up the cost of electricity. It would be painless environmentalism, the equivalent of losing weight by cutting your hair.

Anti-Fracking Law: Public Comments Move Amherst Town Board to Revise

Planning Board to review draft of anti-fracking law

The Town Board during its meeting on Monday directed the Planning Board to review a draft local law that would ban hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking,” in Amherst.

Fracking is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks and release the natural gas inside. People who oppose the practice believe it poses many dangers to the environment and could result in health risks to residents.

During a public comment period, Rita Yelda, a member of the community group Amherst Against Fracking, said the draft, created by the Town Attorney’s Office, lacks strength because it doesn’t cite the proper definitions of hydraulic fracturing.

Several residents following Yelda reiterated the importance of creating strong legislation that bans hydrofracking and its wastes in the Town of Amherst.

Following the comments from the public, Deputy Supervisor Guy Marlette said the reason it was put on the board’s meeting agenda was to allow the Town Board to review it first to vet any issues, such as the ones that were addressed by residents.

Following the Town Attorney’s Office working with the Planning Board to possibly amend the draft, a public hearing will be held to allow further community input on the revised version.

Marlette added that although it has been about 13 months since the Town Board directed the Town Attorney’s Office to draft a law banning fracking in the town, it was not an excessive time period.

“Our intent is to pass a law and have all of the definitions in place for a strong law,” Marlette said.

Read the full report at the Amherst Bee

For earlier reports on the dangers of fracking waste, Click Here.

Local Groups to Protest Anti-Environmental Keynote Speaker outside Gas Lobby Meeting

Protest: No More Fracking Lies! 

Wednesday, Nov. 12th at 4 p.m. 

Hyatt Regency, 2 Fountain Plaza, Buffalo

To view updates and join the Event on Facebook, click here.

The Independent Oil & Gas Association of NY (IOGA-NY) is the chief oil and gas lobbying organization in New York, spending millions backing fracking and natural gas development in the state and opposing environmental safeguards. 

IOGA-NY will hold their 2014 Annual Meeting in Buffalo on November 11th and 12th. This year a keynote speaker is Jack Hubbard who will present a talk titled "Big Green Radicals: Winning Public Opinion, Undermining the Activist's Credibility and Changing the Debate." 

Hubbard works for a Washington D.C.-based consulting firm, Berman & Co., which specializes in undermining the work of environmentalists on behalf of the natural gas industry. 

The New York Times published a secretly recorded a speech given by Hubbard's colleague, Richard Berman, in which he solicited up to $3 million from oil and gas industry executives to finance the "Big Green Radicals" PR campaign. He promised the industry executives “total anonymity.”

Berman said in his speech, that industry executives must be willing to exploit emotions like fear, greed and anger and turn them against the environmental groups.  “You can either win ugly or lose pretty,” he said.

To view the New York Times article, click here. For a transcript of the speech by Berman, which also includes one by Jack Hubbard, click here.

The oil and gas industry doesn't have science behind them so companies resort to lies and innuendo invented by high-priced PR firms. Berman and Co. seems to be a leader in this effort -- getting millions of $$ from industry executives to smear environmental groups, and hiding the industry's role in funding his campaigns.

Jack Hubbard, the keynote speaker of the upcoming IOGA-NY Annual Meeting in Buffalo, spoke at a previous meeting about the national "Big Green Radicals" campaign. He announced that “the initial targets of that campaign were the Sierra Club, NRDC, and Food & Water Watch.” 

Targeting these groups for being opposed to fracking is a big mistake on Hubbard's part. These groups are united in that they all remain unconvinced of the industry-touted safety of shale gas drilling and fracking in the face of industry-caused well water damage, air pollution, toxic and radioactive wastewater, and earthquakes.

Jack Hubbard also mentioned digging-up “criminal records” that activists have. He said “We’re really making this personal. We’re trying to make it so that they don’t have any credibility with the public, with the media, or with legislators.”

Criminal records? Well, that's just ridiculous! Another thing the three environmental groups have in common is that they're law-abiding people. Most all are volunteers, giving their time to protect the quality of our water, air, land and health. 

Many people in the Buffalo area are members of the targeted groups that Hubbard attempts to discredit. Organizers hope that people will be moved to attend the protest on Nov. 12 or take action by exposing the despicable tactics of these gas industry-funded attack dogs to the public and media.

Protesters outside of the IOGA-NY Annual Meeting will demand that our legislators not listen to gas industry lies! 

Berman said "You can either win ugly or lose pretty."

Let's Win Pretty!  Click here to Join the Event on Facebook!

Cosponsors: Renewable Energy Task Force of WNY Peace Center, Sierra Club Niagara Group, Western NY Drilling Defense, Food & Water Watch, PAUSE, and the New Yorkers Against Fracking coalition.

~  ~  ~

See also:  

"Meet Dr. Evil" is the title of a CBS 60 Minutes interview of Berman, which can be viewed here. 

"Frack Attack Likely at Talk" by Brian Nearing at Times Union.
  

VIDEO: Public Hearing on the NY State Draft Energy Plan

A NYSERDA public hearing on the NY State Draft Energy Plan was held at the University of Buffalo, Center for Tomorrow, on February 25, 2014. 

Below is a video SAMPLER of the proceedings (11 min.) from Martin Gugino: 

To view the Full Length videos of the opening remarks as well as a set of 5-minute public testimonies about the Draft Energy Plan recorded by Martin Gugino, Click Here.

Read a downloadable copy of the draft NYS Energy Plan here: 2014 Draft New York State Energy Plan Release [PDF]

Submit Public Comments Online: Click Here

Press Conference: STRENGTHEN CUOMO'S DRAFT ENERGY PLAN

Tuesday, Feb. 25th at 9 a.m.

Outside of SUNY Buffalo, Center for Tomorrow, North Campus,

Flint & Service Center Roads, Amherst, NY

TELL CUOMO

New York Energy Plan Misses Mark on Climate Protection

On Tuesday, Feb. 25, NYS is hold hearings on the state’s draft Energy Plan starting at 10:00.  At 9:00, there will be a press conference sponsored by the Sierra Club Niagara Group, NYPIRG at Buffalo State, Western NY Drilling Defense, Food & Water Watch, and New Yorkers Against Fracking.  The plan is intended to be a guide for energy decisions in the state.  Unfortunately, it falls short, failing to adequately address the dangers of climate disruption fueled by the state’s reliance on outdated and dirty fossil fuels.

Lynda Schneekloth, Chair of the Sierra Club Niagara Group, issued the following statement:

Now more than ever we need Governor Cuomo to be a climate leader, but he missed a great opportunity with this plan. New York’s Energy Plan has the potential to be a road map for a stronger economy, cleaner air and a safer future, but we won’t get there with more of the same dirty fuels like coal, gas and nuclear. Doubling down on wind power in upstate and getting steel in the water off our shores will reduce our climate risk, clean up the air and lower energy costs for families and businesses.

Specifically, we believe the plan should be strengthened in the following ways:

·         Ramp up investments in clean, renewable wind power both in upstate and off our shores.

·         Strengthen and extend our renewable energy incentive program and energy efficiency goals for at least 10 years.

·         Retire the state’s aging and uneconomical fossil fuel and nuclear plants, move away from further investments in gas infrastructure and protect our families and water from fracking.

·         Mandate enforceable interim targets to get on track to meet the state’s goal of reducing carbon pollution 80% by 2050.

·         Develop plans for a “Just Transition” for workers and communities that will be impacted by coal plant closures that are not re-powered with methane, but  proceed directly to renewables to boost regional economies.   

~ ~ ~

To view a flier from New Yorkers Against Fracking, click here.

NY State Energy Plan: Public Hearing in Buffalo and Extended Comment Period

2014 Draft State Energy Plan Hearings 
Six public hearings will be held across New York State to receive public comment on 2014 Draft New York State Energy Plan.

Each participant from the public will be given five minutes to address the New York State Energy Planning Board.  No formal presentations will be allowed, but participants may leave written supporting documents. There is also no formal Question-and-Answer format although Board Members may ask informal questions based on the provided testimony.  The hearings will be professionally recorded and transcribed, and the proceedings will be incorporated in the official record of the Plan and posted on the State Energy Plan website.

Public hearings are scheduled in Albany, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Manhattan, Long Island and Syracuse as listed here.

Public Hearing in Buffalo

A public hearing will be held on February 25, 2014 at 10:00 am at SUNY Buffalo Center for Tomorrow on the North Campus, Flint & Service Center Roads, Buffalo, NY   [MAP]

Advocates want more hearings, longer comment period on NY energy plan

By Jon Campbell • February 14, 2014 • 12:51 pm

A collection of environmental, anti-fracking and good-government groups are asking the state’s energy research authority for more time to respond to the state’s draft energy plan.

In January, the New York State Energy Research Development Authority released a draft of its 2014 energy plan, which calls for a boost in natural gas consumption and renewable energy, but noticeably skipped any mention of hydraulic fracturing.

NYSERDA is accepting public comments on the plan through March 31, and has six public hearings on the plan scheduled across the state. But in a letter sent Thursday to the head of the authority, the advocacy groups are looking for a number of changes — including a lengthier comment session and the scheduling of hearings in the evening, not just during the daytime.

“A process that facilitates public understanding of the draft plan and provides the public meaningful influence over the final plan is paramount to achieving climate, efficiency and renewable energy goals,” the groups wrote.

 The full letter is posted here.

The original article is posted here.

Comment period on NY energy plan extended to April 30

By Jon Campbell • February 14, 2014 • 4:38 pm

A comment period on the state’s draft energy plan has been extended by a month after a series of advocates raised concerns Friday.

The New York Energy Research Development Authority updated its website Friday [see below] after the letter was made public, revealing the deadline for submitting comments has been pushed back to April 30.

The comment period had been set to close March 31.

In a letter to NYSERDA’s president and CEO earlier Friday, a coalition of environmental, anti-fracking and good-government groups called on the authority to extend the deadline. The letter also called for number of other changes to the public response period, including the scheduling of hearings in the evening. (The six scheduled public hearings are all planned for the daytime hours.)

“A process that facilitates public understanding of the draft plan and provides the public meaningful influence over the final plan is paramount to achieving climate, efficiency and renewable energy goals,” the groups wrote earlier Friday.

 The original article is posted here.

Updates at the NYSERDA website (Friday, February 14, 2014):

• 2014-02-14: Comment period extended through April 30, 2014

•  2014-01-07: 2014 Draft New York State Energy Plan Release [PDF]

Link to the NYSERDA website

Submit Public Comments Online: Click Here

Shale Gas -- Revolution or Bubble?

Pennsylvania fracking boom goes bust
By Will Bunch, Daily News Staff Writer
It was just a couple of years ago that fracking was booming in upstate Pennsylvania's Bradford County, and Janet Geiger, a retired hospital worker living on a 10-acre spread near the New York border, could count on getting a $300 to $400 check every month from the gas giant Chesapeake Energy Corp., which was drilling under her land.

But both the gas and the checks - with the financially ailing Chesapeake now claiming big deductions - dwindled until finally, in March, a check never showed up. "I thought the mail had gotten lost," said Geiger, 74, but after a week she finally reached someone with the Oklahoma gas driller who explained "they didn't have a buyer [for the gas] that month."

But Geiger said that she'd already seen the signs of a slowdown, that rural streets once clogged with the massive trucks of the drilling firms were mostly empty now, while new motels that had been hastily thrown up or expanded to accommodate a flood of out-of-state workers had only a couple of cars in the parking lots.
Read more at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

US shale gas project 'biggest regret' for outgoing Shell boss
Outgoing Shell chief executive Peter Voser says in an interview with the Financial Times his biggest regret during his time at the company is the failure of the company’s huge bet on US shale gas.
The Financial Times says Shell has invested at least $24bn in so-called unconventional oil and gas in North America. But the investment has yet to pay off and in August Shell said it would carry out a ‘strategic review’ of its US shale activities.

‘Unconventionals did not exactly play out as planned,’ Voser is quoted as saying.

He also admitted exploration results in US shale beds had been disappointing. ‘We expected higher flow rates and therefore more scalability for a company like Shell,’ he said.
Read more at Dutch News.


Shale Bubble

We’re being told that – thanks to technological advances like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling – the US is undergoing an energy revolution, leading us in a few short years to become once again the world’s biggest oil producer and an exporter of natural gas. According to the Oil & Gas Industry and their proponents, “fracking” will provide the US with energy security, low energy prices for the foreseeable future, more than a million jobs, and economic growth.

Pointing to record low natural gas prices and increased production, policymakers and the media on both sides of the political aisle, as well as investors and utilities, have bought the hype and are shifting their plans and proposals with the expectation that the shale revolution is here to stay.

The Reality is that the so-called shale revolution is nothing more than a bubble, driven by record levels of drilling, speculative lease & flip practices on the part of shale energy companies, fee-driven promotion by the same investment banks that fomented the housing bubble, and by unsustainably low natural gas prices. Geological and economic constraints – not to mention the very serious environmental and health impacts of drilling – mean that shale gas and shale oil (tight oil) are far from the solution to our energy woes.
See the full report at ShaleBubble.org 

US shale gas project 'biggest regret' for outgoing Shell boss

Monday 07 October 2013
Outgoing Shell chief executive Peter Voser says in an interview with the Financial Times his biggest regret during his time at the company is the failure of the company’s huge bet on US shale gas.
The FT says Shell has invested at least $24bn in so-called unconventional oil and gas in North America. But the investment has yet to pay off and in August Shell said it would carry out a ‘strategic review’ of its US shale activities.

‘Unconventionals did not exactly play out as planned,’ Voser is quoted as saying.
He also admitted exploration results in US shale beds had been disappointing. ‘We expected higher flow rates and therefore more scalability for a company like Shell,’ he said.
- See more at: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2013/10/us_shale_gas_project_biggest_r.php#sthash.CNn5l8qf.6bLkEKok.dpuf

US shale gas project 'biggest regret' for outgoing Shell boss

Monday 07 October 2013
Outgoing Shell chief executive Peter Voser says in an interview with the Financial Times his biggest regret during his time at the company is the failure of the company’s huge bet on US shale gas.
The FT says Shell has invested at least $24bn in so-called unconventional oil and gas in North America. But the investment has yet to pay off and in August Shell said it would carry out a ‘strategic review’ of its US shale activities.

‘Unconventionals did not exactly play out as planned,’ Voser is quoted as saying.
He also admitted exploration results in US shale beds had been disappointing. ‘We expected higher flow rates and therefore more scalability for a company like Shell,’ he said.
- See more at: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2013/10/us_shale_gas_project_biggest_r.php#sthash.CNn5l8qf.6bLkEKok.dpuf

Shale Gas Science is Topic of Visiting Professor

Dr. Anthony Ingraffea, from the Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University, will speak on: 

The Science of Shale Gas: The Latest Evidence on Leaky Wells, Emissions, and Implications for Policy .

• Thursday, October 3, 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

• Canisius College, Montante Cultural Center, 2021 Main St, Buffalo 

Dr. Ingraffea will present scientific facts to consider in the debate over the use of hydraulic fracturing in natural gas extraction in New York State.

The event is free and open to the public.  

Parking: Science Hall Parking Ramp at the corner of Jefferson and E. Delvan Ave.

~ Sponsored by the Western New York Division of the American Chemical Society ~

Exerting Local Authority over Shale Gas Development

UB Geography Colloquium Series presents:

Susan Christopherson .
Professor, Dept. of City and Regional Planning,
Cornell University

A Vote of ‘No Confidence’? 
Why Local Governments Take Action in Response to Shale Gas Development

Friday, October 4, 2013, 3:15p.m.
WILKESON 145H (inside GIAL Computing Lab), UB North Campus, Amherst [Map]

Why has a local response to high volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) shale gas development emerged?  To understand why many New York communities have moved to exercise local authority or “home rule” over natural gas development, we examine how they came to understand (1) the risks attendant to HVHF, and (2) their strategic and regulatory options.  An answer to these questions looks at the concerns that have framed the public discussion, and at how key local actors evaluated industry and state government willingness or capacity to address those concerns. 

BIO:  Susan Christopherson is an economic geographer whose research and teaching focus on economic development, urban labor markets, and location patterns in service industries, particularly media industries. Her research includes both international and U.S.-policy-oriented projects. Her international research includes studies in Canada, Mexico, China, Germany, and Jordan as well as multi-country studies. In the past three years she has completed studies on advanced manufacturing in New York’s Southern Tier, the photonics industry in Rochester, the role of universities and colleges in revitalizing the upstate New York economy, and production trends affecting media industries in New York City. She has written more than 50 articles and 25 policy reports on topics in economic geography and economic development. Her current projects include studies of phoenix industries in old industrial regions and a comprehensive economic impact analysis of natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale in New York and Pennsylvania. Christopherson received her Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley.

Light refreshments will be served.

For more info on the Colloquium Series, contact Marion Werner <wernerm@buffalo.edu>.
 
THIS EVENT Co-SPONSORED by the GEOGRAPHY GRADUATE STUDENT ASSOCIATION (GGSA).

Fracking News

Treatment Plants Accused of Illegally Disposing Radioactive Fracking Wastewater
A Pennsylvania industrial wastewater treatment plant has been illegally accepting oil and gas wastewater and polluting the Allegheny river with radioactive waste and other pollutants, according Clean Water Action, which announced today that it is suing the plant.
“Waste Treatment Corporation has been illegally discharging oil and gas wastewater since at least 2003, and continues to discharge such wastewater without authorization under the Clean Water Act and the Clean Streams Law,” the notice of intent to sue delivered by Clean Water Action reads.
State officials also discovered that the sediments immediately downstream from the plant were tainted with high levels of radium-226, radium-228 and uranium. Those particular radioactive elements are known to be found at especially high levels in wastewater from Marcellus shale gas drilling and fracking, and state regulators have warned that the radioactive materials would tend to accumulate in river sediment downstream from plants accepting Marcellus waste. Read more at EcoWatch.


Fracking Debris Ten Times Too Radioactive for Hazardous Waste Landfill
A truck carrying cuttings from a Pennsylvania fracking site was quarantined at a hazardous-waste landfill and sent back after its contents triggered a radiation alarm showing the load was emitting 96 microrem of radiation per hour; the landfill rejects waste with levels above 10 microrems. The radioactive material from a site in the Marcellus Shale formation was radium 226, a common contaminant from the decay of uranium-238 that tends to accumulate in bone and can get into water. Officials said “everything was by the book in this case" because the alarm went off as designed; the fracking operators can now either re-apply at that landfill or take their deadly waste to an out-of-state facility that accepts it - and yes, they exist. The scariest thing here: Pennsylvania, which is currently studying radiation contamination associated with fracking wells, claims to be the only state that even requires landfills to monitor radiation levels.
Read more at Common Dreams. 

Radioactive waste rejected by Pa. hauled to Idaho
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection says containers of radioactive drilling waste rejected by a southwestern Pennsylvania landfill have been hauled to a U.S. Ecology site in Idaho for safe disposal.
Read more Here.

Fate of 200,000 public fracking comments unclear 
ALBANY — New York's proposed rules for hydraulic fracturing drew an unprecedented response in January, when more than 200,000 comments were submitted by the public to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Seven months later, the fate of those comments is unknown, with the DEC refusing to say whether it will respond to the concerns raised in the submissions or allow them to sit unanswered.
Read more at Press Connects. 

Oil and Gas Spills: Many mishaps among drillers, but few fines 
If Kristi Mogen causes a crash on the road, she knows she'll probably get a ticket and have to pay a fine. 
So she's frustrated that Wyoming officials didn't fine Chesapeake Energy Corp. for an April 2012 well blowout near her home outside Douglas, Wyo. The ruptured gas well spewed gas and chemicals for three days, forcing her and her neighbors to evacuate their homes.
Read more at EnergyWire News.


FRAC Act Re-introduced to Senate
Amid widespread fears that the boom in fracking for natural gas poses a growing array of environmental threats, some members of Congress are making a new effort to reverse a 2005 law that exempted the industry from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Read more at Environmental Working Group.

Ohio lawmakers who oppose fracking tax have gotten lots of money from frackers 
Oil and gas companies have been on a fracking spree in Ohio for a couple of years now, but they’re not bringing many jobs to the state, so Republican Gov. John Kasich has been trying to get them to give back in another way: via a fracking tax. Read more at Grist.

Methane leaks may burst natural-gas bubble
President Obama’s climate-change plan calls for a closer look at the scope of leaks from gas wells, pipelines and compressor plants. Depending on what is found, new regulations could be imposed.
Duke University researcher Rob Jackson trolled through Washington, D.C., searching for evidence that natural gas is not quite the climate champion President Obama claimed last month.
He was replicating a study he did in Boston, measuring leaks from creaky natural-gas pipes. In addition to being a possible safety risk, methane, the key component of natural gas, is 25 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. And leaks may undercut much of the climate benefits of gas.
Read more at The Seattle Times.

Former Mobil VP Warns of Fracking and Climate Change 
Few people can explain gas and oil drilling with as much authority as Louis W. Allstadt. As an executive vice president of Mobil Oil who ran the company's exploration and production operations in the western hemisphere before he retired in 2000.
Allstadt has become an indispensable guide for one of the country's most powerful environmental movements, New York's grass-roots anti-fracking resistance. Recently he was elected a Cooperstown Trustee.
"The fracking that's going on right now is the real wake-up call on just what extreme lengths are required to pull oil or gas out of the ground now that most of the conventional reservoirs have been exploited - at least those that are easy to access," Allstadt said. Read more at TruthOut.


Gas drillers cancel lease with NE Pa. landowners
Two energy companies are pulling out of northeastern Pennsylvania, where a three-year moratorium on gas drilling has infuriated landowners who say it’s now cost them a windfall of more than $187 million. 
Hess Corp. and Newfield Exploration Co. sent a letter to landowners that notified them their leases are no longer in effect, according to the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance, which negotiated a master lease on behalf of more than 1,300 families and businesses. Read more at Ithaca Journal

Art installation brings you face to face with fracking 
Fracking hell or fracking bliss? Fracking Futures, an art installation at Liverpool's FACT gallery, gives visitors a chance to decide what they think of this controversial gas extraction technique. Its miniaturised fracking "rig" simulates the sounds, tremors and flames that a real one might produce, and appears to drill right through the gallery floor.
Read more at New Scientist.

Videos: Exclusive interviews of Josh Fox on The Daily Show
Part 1, "Gasland Part II" director Josh Fox disputes the idea that natural gas is a boon for the environment.  (06:39)
Part 2, Josh Fox argues that government regulatory agencies are in the natural gas industry's pocket.  (04:25)
Part 3, Fox warns against the natural gas industry's tendency to address engineering problems with PR solutions.  (04:30)

Compressed Natural Gas or Electricity as Vehicle Fuels--Which Would You Choose?

By Joel Huberman 

     In his recent Another Voice article in The Buffalo News, Craig Jackson described some apparent advantages of compressed natural gas (CNG) derived from fracking compared to conventional gasoline as a power source for vehicles. However, the article did not compare CNG-powered vehicles (CNGVs) with electric vehicles (EVs). Could EVs have even more advantages than CNGVs?

     As described by Mr. Jackson, CNG is currently affordable, abundant, and produced in the US or Canada. But it won't be affordable and abundant forever. It's a finite resource that, if heavily used, will run out within the next hundred years. In contrast, renewable energy sources (wind, water and sun) that can produce the electricity needed by EVs will be around for millions of years, their price (free) won't increase, and they're available throughout our country; we don't need Canada for a portion of our supply.

     Although CNG may be clean compared to gasoline, it should not be described as "clean" when vastly cleaner energy is available from wind, water and sun. CNG, like gasoline, is a fossil fuel. Burning it adds to the CO2 in our atmosphere and thus increases the rate of global warming. Even worse, producing natural gas (the raw material for CNG) by fracking releases into the atmosphere large amounts of such gas (as much as 9% of the total gas produced, according to a recent study in the prestigious scientific journal, Nature). Natural gas warms our planet more rapidly than CO2 (about 25-fold faster, averaged over 100 years). These large gas emissions mean that the total global warming impact of CNG is worse than that of coal! Furthermore, the process of fracking is fraught with problems, as is evident from the draft regulations released last month by the Department of Environmental Conservation. These regulations are intended to ensure that fracking operations don't poison New York's water supplies and don't endanger the health of people living nearby. The regulations may or may not achieve their purpose, but why take a chance when safer options are available? Wind, water and sun do not threaten our water supplies or our health.

     The most recent studies (for example the World Bank's November 2012 report, "Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided", the International Energy Agency's "World Energy Outlook 2012", and PriceWaterhouseCoopers' "Too late for two degrees?") indicate that, if we are to avoid catastrophic global warming, we need to reduce our use of fossil fuels immediately and eliminate their use entirely within the next couple of decades. Which, then, would be most economical--building an infrastructure to support CNGVs, knowing that the price of CNG will rise with time and that its use may become illegal in the future, or building an infrastructure to support EVs, knowing that wind, water and sun will last forever, and the price of renewable electricity will decline after the initial infrastructure costs have been reimbursed?

     I want to make it clear that the electricity needed to power EVs currently comes from a mixture of renewable, nuclear and fossil-fuel sources. To make EVs as clean as they have the potential to be, we need to generate electricity completely from CO2-free sources. Numerous studies show that the transition to 100% CO2-free electricity can be accomplished readily with current technologies. It simply requires appropriate incentives to build the infrastructure.

     Also, there are significant environmental impacts involved in mining the metals needed for EV batteries. These can be controlled by proper regulation of the mining activities and can be minimized by further research to improve EV batteries. Despite these problems, EVs do currently make environmental sense in regions of the world (such as Western New York) where a substantial portion of electricity generation comes from CO2-free sources. Thus much of the promise of EVs will be realized in the future, when CO2-free electricity will be readily available everywhere. Contrast that with the predicted future of CNGVs, for which fuel will certainly become much more expensive before it runs out completely or is made illegal, probably within the lifetimes of today's children. Which would you choose?

Impacts of Air Pollution from Oil and Gas Drilling

Organizations Petition EPA to Protect Public Health from Oil and Gas Emissions Contributing to Harmful Ozone Pollution

Ground-level ozone or "smog" contributes to serious adverse health impacts, including decreased lung function and premature mortality, and it damages foliage.  Children, the elderly, Americans with existing lung and heart disease, and those active outside are especially vulnerable.

On December 19, 2012, a broad coalition of environmental, conservation and children’s health groups petitioned the EPA to take two actions that will provide important public health protections for communities impacted by oil and gas emissions that contribute to harmful ozone pollution:

• First, we respectfully urge EPA to require broad deployment of ozone air quality monitors in oil and natural gas development areas. Requiring the necessary air monitors will ensure that Americans have clear, transparent information about whether the air in their communities meets the nation's health-based air quality standards for ground-level ozone or "smog" pollution as oil and natural gas operations in their communities expands briskly.

• Second, we respectfully ask that EPA provide communities with tools to help reduce smog-forming pollution from oil and gas development by issuing control technology guidelines (“CTGs”) for oil and gas equipment. These clean air measures can be some of the single most cost-effective methods for reducing smog-forming pollution in areas that violate the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone as well as those areas seeking to attain and maintain the National Ambient Air Quality Standards under the Ozone Advance Program.

RED, Active Rigs (Sept. 2012); BLUE, Ozone Monitors; SHADED, Population Density.

The Press Release is here.  The Petition is here [PDF, 34 pages].



Energy experts say drilling can be made cleaner
Scientists are concerned about effects of emissions on climate change and health impacts of breathing smog, soot and other pollutants.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — In the Colorado mountains, a spike in air pollution has been linked to a boom in oil and gas drilling. About 800 miles away on the plains of north Texas, there's a drilling boom, too, but some air pollution levels have declined. Opponents of drilling point to Colorado and say it's dangerous. Companies point to Texas and say drilling is safe.

The answer appears to be that drilling can be safe or it can be dangerous. Industry practices, enforcement, geography and even snow cover can minimize or magnify air pollution problems.

Some environmentalists say if leaks and pollution can be minimized, the boom has benefits, since gas burns much cleaner than coal, emitting half the carbon dioxide.

Al Gore told The Associated Press that it's "not irresponsible" to look at gas as a short-term substitute for coal-fired electricity. But Gore added that the main component of gas, methane, is a more potent heat-trapping greenhouse gas than CO2. That means that if large quantities leak, the advantage over coal disappears, the former vice president said.

Prasad Kasibhatla, a professor of environmental chemistry at Duke University, said that controlling gas drilling pollution is "technically solvable" but requires close attention by regulators.

"One has to demonstrate that it is solved, and monitored," he said.

Link to the full report is here.

Clean Natural Gas? Exploring the Challenge of Hydrofracking

7:30 p.m., Monday, October 29

Daemen College
4380 Main Street, Amherst
Room 336, Duns Scotus Hall

Free and Open to the Public

Film

• The Sky is Pink by Josh Fox and the Gasland Team

Panelists

• David Kowalski, Professor Emeritus; UB CLEAR; Blogs: j.mp/ReEnergizeBuffalo & j.mp/CleanEnergyNow

• Scott Sackett, President, Skipping Stone Pictures

• Joseph Currier, Mathematics Major, Daemen College

• Lynda Schneekloth, Chairperson, Sierra Club Niagara Group (niagarasierraclub.wordpress.com)

Moderator 

• Walter Simpson, energy educator & activist, Daemen College Instructor (www.energyreallymatters.com)

Pintable Flyer & Map: Click Here 

For years natural gas has been regarded as a clean fuel but no longer.  Drilling for gas in deep shale formations using hydraulic fracturing technology has changed everything. Can fracking be done in an environmentally responsible way, as suggested by an abundance of TV ads?  Or is it too risky?  And do cleaner alternatives exist?  This panel discussion will address these questions and explain the role of citizen action and media in shaping natural gas public policy.

This panel discussion is presented as part of the Alternative & Renewable Energy Issues course in Daemen's Global & Sustainability program.  For information on this exciting new major and minor, visit www.daemen.edu/sustainability.  For more information about the panel discussion, wsimpson@daemen.edu or 839-0062.

Fossil Fuel Subsidies: Let's End 'Polluter Welfare'

Politico 
By U.S. SEN. BERNIE SANDERS and U.S. REP. KEITH ELLISON

At a time when we have a more than $15 trillion national debt, U.S. taxpayers are set to give away roughly $110 billion to the oil, gas and coal industries over the next decade. We cannot afford it.

The five largest oil companies made more than $1 trillion in profits in the last decade, and in some cases paid no federal income taxes for part of that time. They certainly don’t need government handouts.

We need to end this corporate welfare in the form of massive subsidies and tax breaks to hugely profitable fossil fuel corporations. It is time for Congress to support the taxpayers’ interests instead of powerful special interests like the oil and coal industries. That’s why we introduced the End Polluter Welfare Act — which eliminates every subsidy to the oil, gas and coal industries.

The bill already has grass-roots support from across the political spectrum, including 350.org, Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense and many others.

Some of the same Republicans in Congress who advocate savage cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security consistently vote to preserve billions in tax breaks for Exxon Mobil, one of the most profitable corporations in U.S. history. While those members of Congress fight to continue fossil fuel subsidies worth tens of billions, they are working overtime to deny a one-year extension of key sustainable energy incentives for the emerging wind and solar industries.

Rather than pass strong legislation to help reverse global warming, Congress continues giveaways to the fossil fuel industry — even as its carbon pollution devastates our planet.

While there have been attempts to remove some of these fossil-fuel subsidies in the past, our bill is the most comprehensive. It would end all tax breaks, loopholes and federal research support for fossil fuels. It would make sure the industry pays its fair share by ensuring royalty collection for all drilling or mining on public land. We also end the loopholes that allow tar sands pipeline operators avoid paying clean-up tax.

It is important that the American people understand just how egregious these fossil fuel handouts are: