In a victory for environmental, health and community activists, fracking has been banned in New York state. That was the conclusion reached at a public, livestreamed meeting of Governor Andrew Cuomo's cabinet in Albany today. Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation Joseph Martens issued the order, following a report on his own findings and a strongly cautionary report from Dr. Howard Zucker, commissioner of the Department of Health, who compared the unknown health impacts of fracking to those of secondhand smoke, once considered benign.
The hearing opened unpromisingly with Cuomo making what sounded like condescending remarks on the issue.
"I’ve been asked about 46,000 times at various decibel levels," he said as he introduced the subject. "The dialogue on fracking is an emotional one, both pro and con. You talk to anti-frackers for 30 seconds and they’re yelling and they’re passionate and emotional and scared and they’re not listening and they’re not hearing and they’re yelling. You listen to pro-frackers and same thing. This is probably the most emotionally charged issue I’ve experienced, more emotionally charged than marriage equality, more emotionally charged than the gun issue, more emotionally charged than the death penalty."
But he added, "I'm not a scientist. I'm not a health expert. I'm not a doctor. I'm not an environmentalist. So let's bring the emotion down and ask qualified experts what their opinions is. My two cents on the matter is I will defer to these two gentlemen."
"Those two gentlemen" he referred to were Martens and Zucker. They spoke following Cuomo's remarks and their conclusion was clear: no fracking in New York.
Martens addressed some of the aspects that made fracking impractical and economically unattractive in the state, including the large areas that would be off limits to fracking due to endangering water supplies or local bans on drilling, which were ruled legal in the state by a court decision in June, finding in favor of the town of Dryden which enacted a ban. He also presented evidence that the highly touted evidence of the economic benefits of fracking to the region was questionable at best.
But it was Zucker who made the most powerful case against letting fracking go forward.
"The questions one would want answered are, is my water safe enough to drink, is my air safe to breath, can I grow vegetables in my garden, the effects on reservoirs that provide drinking water to 9 million people in New York City," he said.
He referred to numerous studies, saying that they raised concerns about water and air contamination, health impacts on those living near wells and the increase in noise, odors, traffic and traffic fatalities.
"There are many red flags, questions that remain unanswered," he said. "Bonafide scientific literature is now emerging. Most studies have been in the last two years. The bottom line is we lack long-term comprehensive studies. They're not yet completed or yet to be initiated. The science isn’t there. These concerns gives me reason to pause."
"Governor, you asked me for my opinion and said, let the science decide," Zucker concluded. "Would I live in a community with high-volume hydraulic fracking, based on facts I have now? After looking at plethora of reports, my answer is no. Until the public health red flags are answered by valid evidence, I cannot support high volume hydraulic fracking in the great state of New York."
Based on that conclusion, Martens said he would issue a legally binding statement prohibiting fracking in the state.
Following their presentations, Cuomo said, "Dr. Zucker, I found your statement especially effective. What I found most powerful in your presentation is you wouldn’t let your family live in an area with high-volume fracking. If you don’t believe your children should live there, your duty is to suggest no child should live there."
Ever the politician, Cuomo wrapped up saying, "This is self-executing between you two gentlemen. I have nothing to do with it."
So he can technically say he didn't ban fracking in New York. But for the foreseeable future, there will be no fracking in New York. The ban makes permanent a moratorium put in place in 2008 that kicked the decision down the road; it was set to expire in 2017. Cuomo said earlier this week a decision would be made by the end of the year, and some activists were afraid the governor favored letting fracking proceed.
Needless to say, environmental groups were elated that they'd won their hard-fought battle.
"Our growing national movement has persevered," said Wenonah Hauter of Food & Water Watch. "We applaud Governor Cuomo for acknowledging the overwhelming science that speaks to the inherent dangers of fracking to public health and the environment. Fracking has no place in New York or anywhere, and the governor has smartly seized a golden opportunity to be a real national leader on health, environmental protection and a future free of polluting fossil fuels."
"By banning fracking, Governor Cuomo has set himself apart as a national political leader who stands up for people and not for the interests of the dirty fuel lobby," said Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune. "Today’s decision will shake the foundations of our nation’s flawed energy policy, and we can only expect that it will give strength to activists nationwide who are fighting fracking in dozens of states and hundreds of cities and counties. The Sierra Club also extends heartfelt congratulations to all of the passionate anti-fracking activists in New York who were relentless in telling the truth about the dangers of fracking, persevered years of opposition from the oil and gas lobby, and ultimately prevailed."
“This is truly a monumental day," said Earthjustice managing attorney Deborah Goldberg, who represented Dryden in the June decision. "Governor Andrew Cuomo has earned a place in history. Never before has a state with proven gas reserves banned fracking. I believe that future generations will point to this day and say 'This is when the tide began to turn against the dirty, dangerous and destructive fossil fuel industry.’ We hope that this determined leadership Governor Cuomo has displayed will give courage to elected leaders throughout the country and world: fracking is too dangerous and must not continue.”
Other health professionals shared Dr. Zucker's concerns about fracking's health effects.
"Concerned Health Professionals of NY congratulates Governor Cuomo and his administration for listening to the science on drilling and fracking and putting public health first by prohibiting fracking in New York State," said the group's co-founder Dr. Larysa Dyrszka. "As hundreds of peer-reviewed papers have shown, drilling and fracking threaten to have very serious public health and environmental impacts on families and communities. Governor Cuomo put the science first and acted in the best interest of all New Yorkers and future generations. We hope that Governor Cuomo's wise decision will have ripple effects across the country and the world."
And many praised the community activists who organized, protested, rallied and lobbied.
"This victory for health and climate belongs to the thousands of grassroots organizers who led a years long fight to defend their communities from Big Oil and Gas," said 350.org’s fracking campaign manager Linda Capato. "They defeated millions of dollars in lobbying and paid misinformation with grassroots energy and bold organizing. This is also a huge win for the anti-fracking movement nationwide. The same health and environmental concerns that led to the ban in New York are present everywhere. Once they have the facts, people across the country will clearly agree with New Yorkers that it is more important to put the health of our children and climate over industry greed."
350.org founder Bill McKibben added, "This is exactly what happens when people organize with enormous skill and dedication. People, especially scattered in small towns across upstate New York—with some help from the big city—showed the whole movement how it's done. 350.org will be continuing to support the movement to stop fracking in New York and across the United States."
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Though made in large part of plastic, glass, ceramics, gold and copper, they also contain critical resources. The gallium used for LEDs and the camera flash, the tantalum in capacitors and indium that powers the display were all pulled from the ground — at a price for nature and people.
"Mining raw materials is always problematic, both with regard to human rights and ecology," said Melanie Müller, raw materials expert of the German think tank SWP. "Their production process is pretty toxic."
The gallium and indium in many phones comes from China or South Korea, the tantalum from the Democratic Republic of Congo or Rwanda. All in, such materials comprise less than ten grams of a phone's weight. But these grams finance an international mining industry that causes radioactive earth dumps, poisoned groundwater and Indigenous population displacement.
Environmental Damage: 'Nature Has Been Overexploited'
The problem is that modern technologies don't work without what are known as critical raw materials. Collectively, solar panels, drones, 3D printers and smartphone contain as many as 30 of these different elements sourced from around the globe. A prime example is lithium from Chile, which is essential in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles.
"No one, not even within the industry, would deny that mining lithium causes enormous environmental damage," Müller explained, in reference to the artificial lakes companies create when flushing the metal out of underground brine reservoirs. "The process uses vast amounts of water, so you end up with these huge flooded areas where the lithium settles."
This means of extraction results in the destruction and contamination of the natural water system. Unique plants and animals lose access to groundwater and watering holes. There have also been reports of freshwater becoming salinated due to extensive acidic waste water during lithium mining.
But lithium is not the only raw material that causes damage. Securing just one ton of rare earth elements produces 2,000 tons of toxic waste, and has devastated large regions of China, said Günther Hilpert, head of the Asia Research Division of the German think tank SWP.
He says companies there have adopted a process of spraying acid over the mining areas in order to separate the rare earths from other ores, and that mined areas are often abandoned after excavation.
"They are no longer viable for agricultural use," Hilpert said. "Nature has been overexploited."
China is not the only country with low environmental mining standards and poor resource governance. In Madagascar, for example, a thriving illegal gem and metal mining sector has been linked to rainforest depletion and destruction of natural lemur habitats.
States like Madagascar, Rwanda and the DRC score poorly on the Environmental Performance Index that ranks 180 countries for their effort on factors including conservation, air quality, waste management and emissions. Environmentalists are therefore particularly concerned that these countries are mining highly toxic materials like beryllium, tantalum and cobalt.
But it is not only nature that suffers from the extraction of high-demand critical raw materials.
"It is a dirty, toxic, partly radioactive industry," Hilpert said. "China, for example, has never really cared about human rights when it comes to achieving production targets."
Dirty, Toxic, Radioactive: Working in the Mining Sector
One of the most extreme examples is Baotou, a Chinese city in Inner Mongolia, where rare earth mining poisoned surrounding farms and nearby villages, causing thousands of people to leave the area.
In 2012, The Guardian described a toxic lake created in conjunction with rare earth mining as "a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge water loaded with chemicals used to process the 17 most sought after minerals in the world."
Local residents reported health issues including aching legs, diabetes, osteoporosis and chest problems, The Guardian wrote.
South Africa has also been held up for turning a blind eye to the health impacts of mining.
"The platinum sector in South Africa has been criticized for performing very poorly on human rights — even within the raw materials sector," Müller said.
In 2012, security forces killed 34 miners who had been protesting poor working conditions and low wages at a mine owned by the British company Lonmin. What became known as the "Marikana massacre" triggered several spontaneous strikes across the country's mining sector.
Müller says miners can still face exposure to acid drainage — a frequent byproduct of platinum mining — that can cause chemical burns and severe lung damage. Though this can be prevented by a careful waste system.
Some progress was made in 2016 when the South African government announced plans to make mining companies pay $800 million (€679 million) for recycling acid mine water. But they didn't all comply. In 2020, activists sued Australian-owned mining company Mintails and the government to cover the cost of environmental cleanup.
Another massive issue around mining is water consumption. Since the extraction of critical raw materials is very water intensive, drought prone countries such as South Africa, have witnessed an increase in conflicts over supply.
For years, industry, government and the South African public debated – without a clear agreement – whether companies should get privileged access to water and how much the population may suffer from shortages.
Mining in Brazil: Replacing Nature, People, Land Rights
Beyond the direct health and environmental impact of mining toxic substances, quarrying critical raw materials destroys livelihoods, as developments in Brazil demonstrate.
"Brazil is the major worldwide niobium producer and reserves in [the state of] Minas Gerais would last more than 200 years [at the current rate of demand]," said Juliana Siqueira-Gay, environmental engineer and Ph.D. student at the University of São Paulo.
While the overall number of niobium mining requests is stagnating, the share of claims for Indigenous land has skyrocketed from 3 to 36 percent within one year. If granted, 23 percent of the Amazon forest and the homeland of 222 Indigenous groups could fall victim to deforestation in the name of mining, a study by Siqueira-Gay finds.
In early 2020, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed a bill which would allow corporations to develop areas populated by Indigenous communities in the future. The law has not yet entered into force, but "this policy could have long-lasting negative effects on Brazil's socio-biodiversity," said Siqueira-Gay.
One example are the niobium reserves in Seis Lagos, in Brazil's northeast, which could be quarried to build electrolytic capacitors for smartphones.
"They overlap the Balaio Indigenous land and it would cause major impacts in Indigenous communities by clearing forests responsible for providing food, raw materials and regulating the local climate," Siqueira-Gay explained.
She says scientific good practice guidelines offer a blueprint for sustainable mining that adheres to human rights and protects forests. Quarries in South America — and especially Brazil — funded by multilaterial banks like the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group have to follow these guidelines, Siqueira-Gay said.
They force companies to develop sustainable water supply, minimize acid exposure and re-vegetate mined surfaces. "First, negative impacts must be avoided, then minimized and at last compensated — not the other way around."
Reposted with permission from DW.