West Virginia Blue
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West Virginia has been plundered and re-plundered first by the logging industry during the early 20th century, producing denuded mountains, fires, mudslides and flooding. Then came the coal industry bringing even worse devastation with acid mine drainage, mine subsidence from conventional underground mining and the ultimate destruction of entire mountain ranges and streams with mechanized Mountain Top Removal. West Virginia is now ground zero for another environmental disaster, Marcellus Shale gas extraction. If it is allowed to continue without regulation, Marcellus Shale drilling and fracking could make Almost Heaven, Wild Wonderful WV virtually uninhabitable. But this isn't about the environmental concerns that everyone should be familiar with by now. This is about the politics of the issue. Logging, coal, oil and gas extraction will not bring about the ruin of West Virginia, but our State Legislature and its inability and refusal to protect us surely will.
Hundreds of people will arrive Monday morning at the Charleston Civic Center for a court-ordered mediation of claims they suffered health problems from polluted mine run-off water.
This will make the trolls under the bridge very sad. Evidently mega-doses of some elements are not just like taking vitamin pills.
As West Virginia's number of Marcellus Shale natural gas wells skyrockets, many concerned residents are calling on the state Department of Environmental Protection to increase its oversight of the industry.
And look who else is weighing in. Huffman has such a spotty track record.
If you ask Jeff Kessler, Orphy Klempa, Erikka Storch or Ryan Ferns, they believe the DEP needs to take a stand on regulating Marcellus drilling.
First they came for their overweight drilling rigs, now it's their water. Now we are going to have a chance to talk back.
West Virginia University Extension Service is helping members of the community obtain factual information on issues related to the oil and natural gas industry. The agency is sponsoring education and information sessions around the state regarding the Marcellus Shale - a large natural gas field in the form of shale rock - and the oil and natural gas industry.
Heather, people are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. What factual information are you looking to be presented, and why the differentiation of the words citizen and client?
Except for its elevation - high enough to produce snow this week - a reclaimed surface mine on the upper slopes of Cheat Mountain's 4,429-foot Barton Knob is not much different from scores of other former mine sites scattered across West Virginia.
Remember when we were challenged to believe the flat tops, grassland with good hunting and all, were better than the original?
Hopefully progressives in Congress will also notice. Some of these issues are not just ours alone.
OK. As we look at the alarming crisis that BP and the oil industry has brought us to, as we evaluate the amount of military spending we are pouring into the middle east for no evident return (and as we consistently apologize for killing innocent civilians with airborne missiles), as we observe politicians and lobbyists letting payoffs and focused fundraising deny the needs of voters in favor of the needs of corporations, as we see the Supreme Court gradually eliminate generations of civil rights achievements, we are getting more and more convinced that making a change in America... indeed in the whole world... is getting less and less possible.
HB 4277 - giving DEP Secretary signature authority for water quality permits.
HB 4513 - Marcellus Shale "Water Bill".
Please take the time early Saturday to call or e-mail your Delegates and especially the Speaker of the House, Rick Thompson. Ask them to REFUSE to concur with the Senate versions of HB 4277 and HB 4513.
HB 4277 Background: Gives the DEP Secretary the authority to sign NPDES water quality permits.
This change clearly violates provisions of the federal Clean Water Act that require NPDES permits to be issued and signed by the head of the "Expert Agency" in charge of a states Water Pollution Control program.
The Secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection is a political appointee and NOT an expert in water quality protection. The legislature should REJECT this bill.
HB 4513 Background: This WAS a good start for regulating withdrawal of water for drilling and fracturing these Marcellus shale wells. The bill contained regulations requiring identification of the contents of frac fluids - and set up a system for tracking the disposal of those fluids.
However, changes to this bill made by the Senate removed critical language that would have protected streams from being "sucked dry" by Marcellus Shale well drilling operations.
In addition, the Senate amended SB 369 into this bill! SB 369 would change the definition of a "shallow well" so that it applies to vertical Marcellus Shale wells. This would essentially legalize stealing of gas from neighboring mineral owners.
This bill is also bad for surface owners because without well spacing, there can be more of these larger sites on the surface, with no limit on how close together they can be. The bill is also bad for the environment because it would result in more well sites, meaning more forest fragmentation, more soil erosion and stream sedimentation, and increased risks to groundwater.
The legislature should KILL THIS BILL !
- Call the capitol toll free: (877)-565-3447 - you can leave a voice mail message for your particular Delegate. It will go directly to their office.
- Visit the capitol website: http://www.legis.state.wv.us You can locate your Delegate easily, and leave your e-mail message for them. Fast way: plug in your zip-code in the lower right of the page; click on submit - (your particular representatives contact information will appear).
The reason I keep harping about frac'ing fluids used in Marcellus Shale natural gas extraction is because, yes, they really are a threat to clean water. Our political leaders are fond of talking about "balance" between the needs of industry and the needs of individuals to enjoy a clean environment. What's scary in this case is there is no existing regulatory framework in place to protect us.
I'm not one to fear-monger, but this is an example of where commerce is out-pacing any balancing regulation. You, me, and our neighbors who have well water in the Marcellus Shale region will be ones who get screwed. Even if you have municipal water your rates could go up just to boost natural gas drilling profits.
For more than a decade the energy industry has steadfastly argued before courts, Congress and the public that the federal law protecting drinking water should not be applied to hydraulic fracturing, the industrial process that is essential to extracting the nation's vast natural gas reserves. In 2005 Congress, persuaded, passed a law prohibiting such regulation.
Now an important part of that argument -- that most of the millions of gallons of toxic chemicals that drillers inject underground are removed for safe disposal, and are not permanently discarded inside the earth -- does not apply to drilling in many of the nation's booming new gas fields.
Three company spokesmen and a regulatory official said in separate interviews with ProPublica that as much as 85 percent of the fluids used during hydraulic fracturing is being left underground after wells are drilled in the Marcellus Shale, the massive gas deposit that stretches from New York to Tennessee.
The Marcellus Shale, denoted in brown, primarily cuts across large swaths of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. (Map by Jennifer LaFleur/ProPublica)
The industry has long argued for exemptions from regulation and--so far--as largely gotten those exemptions:
If another industry proposed injecting chemicals -- or even salt water -- underground for disposal, the EPA would require it to conduct a geological study to make sure the ground could hold those fluids without leaking and to follow construction standards when building the well. In some cases the EPA would also establish a monitoring system to track what happened as the well aged.
But because hydraulic fracturing is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, it doesn't necessarily have to conform to these federal standards. Instead, oversight of the drilling chemicals and the injection process has been left solely to the states, some of which regulate parts of the process while others do not.
As the industry was lobbying Congress for that exemption -- and ever since -- the notion that most fluids would not be left underground continued to emerge as a recurring theme put forth by everyone from attorneys for Halliburton, which developed the fracturing process and is one of the leading drilling service companies, to government researchers and regulators.
"Hydraulic fracturing is fundamentally different," wrote Mike Paque, director of the Ground Water Protection Council, an association of state oil and gas regulators, to Senate staff in a 2002 letter advocating for the exemption, "because it is part of the well completion process, does not 'dispose of fluids' and is of short duration, with most of the fluids being immediately recovered."
But, that's not what is happening. Substantial amounts of water is being left in the ground. Much of the water that comes back out of the ground is disposed of without adequate treatment.
What can be done to address this?
It will fall to Congress -- and then to the EPA -- to decide whether that is truly the case. Sponsors of the Frack Act hope for a vote this spring. If it passes, and if the EPA finds reason to change the conclusions it reached in 2004, the agency would then have to decide exactly how fracturing will be addressed by the Safe Drinking Water Act.
"The thinking we did then, the study that we did then, we were really looking at a different set of circumstances," said Heare, the EPA's Drinking Water Protection Division director. "The agency has not investigated the impacts of hydraulic fracturing in other settings such as shale gas production and at this time is unable to quantify the potential threat."
Every legislator, state-wide elected official and congressperson from W.Va. should be personally embarrassed to read these opening lines in Saturday's NY Times article by Charles Duhigg, Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering:
Jennifer Hall-Massey knows not to drink the tap water in her home near Charleston, W.Va. In fact, her entire family tries to avoid any contact with the water.
A few paragraphs later, we're reminded this is not some third world remote village we're talking about (emphasis mine):
"How can we get digital cable and Internet in our homes, but not clean water?" said Mrs. Hall-Massey, a senior accountant at one of the state's largest banks.
She and her husband, Charles, do not live in some remote corner of Appalachia. Charleston, the state capital, is less than 17 miles from her home.
"How is this still happening today?" she asked.
When Mrs. Hall-Massey and 264 neighbors sued nine nearby coal companies, accusing them of putting dangerous waste into local water supplies, their lawyer did not have to look far for evidence. As required by state law, some of the companies had disclosed in reports to regulators that they were pumping into the ground illegal concentrations of chemicals - the same pollutants that flowed from residents' taps.
But state regulators never fined or punished those companies for breaking those pollution laws.
Biggers: What impact do you think the Times piece will have on the WVDEP in addressing the water issue?
Louis-Rosenberg: I think the article has the potential to be a great weapon for us here in Charleston. I spent all day lobbying in the Capital today to line up sponsors for a bill to ban coal slurry. We took around copies of the NY Times article and boy did people's ears perk up when they found out about it.
Articles with an international audience focus the attention of West Virginia politicians. If West Virginia wants to avoid the further embarrassment of a federal takeover of the WV Department of Environmental Protection, we would do well start enforcing regulations to make sure no other communities suffer the fate of Prenter.
In one superheroic feat worth $2 million of your hard earned tax dollars, Governor Joe Manchin just relieved Massey Energy Co., Omar Mining Co., Independence Coal Co., Elk Run Coal Co. (doing business as Black Castle Mining Co.) and Pine Ridge Coal Co. LLC. from much of their liability for poisoning the aquifer supplying water to the communities of Prenter and Seth, WV.
Wouldn't it have been far cheaper for MoJo to have simply required the WV DEP to do the right thing in the first place?
For a decade, the EPA has turned a blind eye to the potential hazards of coal slurry. After the massive coal slurry spill, many are calling for a much closer look at this potential hazard. So far, that closer looks isn't pretty.
West Virginians eager to know what's in the slurry that coal companies pump into worked-out underground mines will have to wait until May for the state's answers, but preliminary independent tests suggest it contains heavy metals they wouldn't want to drink.
Lab results, shared with The Associated Press by citizen activists with the Sludge Safety Project who plan to make their findings public Thursday, detected arsenic, lead and several other metals at levels exceeding federal drinking water standards.
Slurry, a byproduct of washing coal, is what's left after operators remove clay, dirt, sulfur and other impurities to meet demand for coal that burns efficiently.
For decades, slurry has been injected into abandoned mines in Appalachia as a cheap alternative to massive dams or filtration and drying systems. But hundreds of coalfield residents are now suing coal companies, claiming that waste has leaked into aquifers, contaminated well water and caused health problems from kidney disease to cancer.
[snip]
West Virginia regulators permit 15 companies to inject slurry, but the practice of injecting waste is broader: A 2008 report cites 50 injection sites for slurry and sludge, with a total of 600 pipes into the ground.
The growing concern in West Virginia has legislators and the state Department of Environmental Protection focused on a potential public health problem that for years only mattered to people with black and orange water spewing from their taps.
To comply with a legislative inquiry on whether underground injection is safe, the DEP is testing water and slurry samples from six sites in Monongalia, McDowell, Raleigh, Nicholas, Kanawha and Boone counties.
Those results will be made public in early May, DEP spokeswoman Kathy Cosco told the AP this week. Then the Department of Health and Human Resources will decide if there is a potential health threat.
But DEP also shared samples with scientists at Wheeling Jesuit University, who sent them to Heidelberg University's National Center for Water Quality Research in Tiffin, Ohio.
Those tests found six metals -- antimony, arsenic, lead, barium, cadmium and chromium -- in levels that exceeded federal standards for primary drinking water at one or more sites, said chemist Mary Ellen Cassidy and biologist Ben Stout.
[snip]
Though federal regulations don't apply to unregulated, private wells, Cassidy and Stout argue it's fair to hold industry to them: DEP said in documents last year that it would deny injection permits "if an existing mine pool is being used as a potable water source for even one person.''
[snip]
There is no consensus on the chemical composition of slurry or whether it is hazardous to human health if ingested over decades, as some coalfields residents believe they have done. Nor can state or federal regulators say how much slurry has been pumped underground.
Last week, state Sen. Randy White, saying he was frustrated by delays in DEP's research, introduced legislation that would ban slurry injection starting May 1. So far, no action has been taken on the Webster County Democrat's bill.
Thank you to the alert reader for the email tip on this story.
It's official: The first shot has been fired in the legislative battle to end the devastating practice of mountaintop removal mining in central Appalachia.
With the quickly growing and extraordinary nationwide support of over 115 co-sponsors, including 17 members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the United States House of Representatives, US Rep. John Yarmuth from Kentucky's embattled state of coal joined US Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Republican US Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA) in reintroducing the Clean Water Protection Act today.
The Clean Water Protection Act was introduced originally to challenge the outrageous executive rule change by the Bush administration to redefine "fill material" in the Clean Water Act, which has since allowed coal companies to blast hundreds of mountains to bits, dump millions of tons of "excess spoil" into nearby valleys, and bury hundreds of miles of streams. An estimated 1,200 miles of waterways have been destroyed by this extreme mining process.
The end result: Toxic black waters and poisoned aquifers that have denied American citizens in the coalfields the basic right of a glass of clean water.
[snip]
"Congress meant for the Clean Water Act to protect our nation's water resources; the Administrative rule change endangers those resources," said Rep. Pallone, who is the heroic author of the legislation. "The dangerous precedent set by the Bush Administration's rule change undermines the Clean Water Act."
[snip]
As blasting continues to shatter peace and prosperity in the coalfields of West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee today, anti-mountaintop removal advocates also continue to make their appeal to President Barack Obama, who told a campaign rally in Lexington, Kentucky, on August 27th, 2007, "We're tearing up the Appalachian Mountains because of our dependence on fossil fuels."
So, the big question is: will the bill have enough support to finally make it to the floor and pass this year?
West Virginia University law professor Bob Bastress doesn't think the state Supreme Court is "as accessible or as good" as it was 10 years ago.
He said he is seeking a seat on the court this year to bring back the luster and respect he feels the court has lost.
"Part of my decision to run is based on my concerns about the current board," Bastress said. "It's not as accessible or as good as it was in the past.
"Its reputation has taken a hit in recent years, and I believe the people with ability should step forward."
He pointed out that the court has taken fewer cases up for review in recent months. "And not the ones they should have," Bastress said.
"The number of their signed opinions is way down," he noted. "The court lacks the luster is had 10 to 12 years ago. It had better judgment when (former justices) Tom Miller and Frank Cleckley were on the board."
?Merle Wertman, now 62, was diagnosed with Polycythemia Vera five years ago. He had no idea what Polycythemia Vera was. That isn't surprising, considering less than one in 100,000 Americans a year are diagnosed with the extremely rare form of bone marrow cancer, that causes an abnormal increase in blood cells. What is surprising is that Wertman is one of 131 people near his hometown of Tamaqua, Penn., now battling this rare cancer.
In eastern Pennsylvania's Carbon, Luzerne, and Schuylkill counties, that surround the Tamaqua borough, the rate of the rare blood cancer is 4.5 times the national rate, according to data from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a federal public health agency of the Dept. of Health and Human Services. The cancer "cluster" (shown on the map below) follows along Ben Titus Road, next to the Big Gorilla coal combustion waste dump of the Northeastern Power Co. The area is also home to the Superfund sites McAdoo Associates, Air Product & Chemicals Inc., Expert Management Inc. and ICI Americas Inc.
[snip]
While multiple environmental factors could well be at play, much evidence points to the waste produced by coal-fired energy plants. "Although the ATSDR did not report a specific link between polycythemia vera and fly ash [a type of coal ash]," said Dante Picciano, a local scientist and environmentalist active on the issue of coal ash dumping, "we believe that the relationship between the two should be at the top of the list for any investigations into the specific cause of the rare cancer."
[snip]
According to the Environmental Protection Agency's own research, coal ash dumping can lead to higher rates of cancer, developmental problems in children and adverse effects in women of child-bearing age. Despite the fact that coal ash contains mercury, lead, arsenic, chromium, cadmium, selenium, beryllium, and other toxic metals, the EPA has yet to categorize coal ash as hazardous waste. In addition, coal ash has been found to be up to 100 times more radioactive than nuclear waste, due to the concentrations of uranium and thorium that increase 10-fold after coal is burned.
Okay, so far no big surprise, right? Coal ash is bad stuff. Read the whole article... you won't even be surprised to find out that the Bush-Capito Republican administration has ignored all evidence linking coal ash dumping to health hazards.
Now, here's the really bad part. Do you think "clean coal" technology makes this environmental hazard better or worse?
The solid waste side of coal is being overlooked as environmentalists focus their attention on air pollution and as government agencies and coal companies push "clean" coal technologies. "Cleaner" coal technologies actually produce more toxic coal ash in the resulting solid wase than "dirty" coal technologies, says Jeff Stant of the Clean Air Task Force. These technologies pulverize low-grade fuels in a way that releases fewer pollutants into the air. But those pollutants have to go somewhere, and they end up as ash.
Stant was a contributing author for a recently released report investigating 15 mine disposal sites in Pennsylvania, most of which are dumping sites for ash from Fluidized Bed Combustion (FBC), a "clean" coal technology.
The study, entitled "Impacts on Water Quality from Placement of Coal Combustion Waste in Pennsylvania Coal Mines," found coal ash to be contaminating the groundwater and surface water at levels exceeding federal drinking water standards by 30 to 40 times.
"Clean" FBC plants produce at least five times more coal ash by volume than standard plants do. These plants inject limestone into the burn chamber to capture more emissions and therefore release fewer emissions-thus the misnomer, "clean." But, the limestone leaves behind a burned residual, which ends up in the ash. The bigger problem is that "clean" plants burn more waste-coal than actual coal. Waste-coal consists of the impurities removed from coal in addition to some coal itself, and it contains an ash content that's three times higher than regular coal. Most of the new "clean" coal plants proposed in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and other states will be located next to mines expected to serve as dump sites for coal ash.
Here's one progressive organization's review of Gov. Manchin's State of the State address and the upcoming 2008 West Virginia legislative session. (Received via email.)
2008 Session Kicks-Off by Gary Zuckett, garyz@wvcag.org
Its Baaack! The 2008 session kicked off this week with the governor's State of the State speech to a packed House gallery Wednesday evening. The real struggle began days before when lawmakers rolled into town for the last Interim session on Sunday. Bills that emerge from Interims get first in line for introduction during the session.
The Tier 2.5 list actually emerged with the number of protected streams increased. In a surprise move, Del. Mike Burdiss (D-Wyoming), a former UMWA lobbyist, proposed an amendment increasing the stream list from 157 to 309. He jumped up holding out a large map showing all the 2,000+ streams in the state. Entreating his fellow lawmakers, he stated, "We have a fiduciary responsibility for clean water for our state. It's time to stand up!" Delegate Talbott (D-Webster) supported the amendment saying, "Water is WV's most important asset, more than timber, more than coal..." (see www.wvgazette.com/section/News/2008010819).
We need more spunky lawmakers with the courage to stand up for citizens' interests against corporate lobbyists who want to strip any protections from our environment, civil justice & insurance systems, or anything else that gets in the way of their bosses' increased profits!
This is now the second session with the new House leadership. We are all hopeful they have now settled into their positions and are ready to pass several progressive bills that have been stalled for years, such as the aforementioned Clean Stream List, Clean Elections legislation and the Bottle Bill. We'd also like to see serious consideration of the new Surface Owners' Bill of Rights. It is like a breath of fresh air on the House side as the previous iron rule has been lifted and a more open dialogue is taking place. Let's now see some results!
In his speech, Governor Manchin mentioned "Energy" 19 times (www.wvgazette.com/section/News/200801091 ) but only used the phrase "climate change" once - in the same sentence as the oxymoron "clean coal." The WV Environmental Council released a "Citizens'' Energy Plan" in response at a Thursday press conference. It is a wealth of sensible suggestions for a new direction for WV. Read it here: www.wvecouncil.org .
Meanwhile, the governor's pro-recycling ads saturate TV and radio these days. He continues to ignore the economic incentives of a bottle bill - placing a 10 cent deposit on all single-use beverage containers - to clean up our highways quickly and provide hundreds of new jobs in redemption centers. Even the Farm Bureau likes this idea. It's time for Governor Manchin to take the lead on this common sense proposal. Joe, you can even say it was your idea!
While our legislature makes laws, our nation continues to make war. The cost of war is the "elephant in the living room" that our policy makers ignore while it silently steals funding from all our domestic needs such as schools, libraries, police & fire protection etc. to the tune of a $1.2 billion cost for WV through 2007 (www.nationalpriorities.org) . One of our efforts this session is to introduce a resolution calling for an end to the Iraq occupation as quickly as possible.
Here at the office we're optimistic about the potential for positive, progressive changes in WV and the nation in 2008. It won't be easy - there's a lot of hard work to be done and no guarantees that we'll be any better off this time next year. But with your support and assistance we'll give it our best shot and see what comes about.
Like a lot West Virginians, I get my water from a well. Probably, many of your reading this do, too.
What would you do if your well dried up or the water went bad? What would you do if you couldn't afford to dig a deeper well? How much would it lower the value of your home to lose your source of water?
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