Across the country, millions of people live within half a mile of fracking sites, like this one in Frederick, Colorado. milehightraveler / Getty Images
By Emily Pontecorvo and Naveena Sadasivam
On a spring weekend morning a few weeks ago, Judy Kelly stepped outside of her house in Broomfield, Colorado, to grab the newspaper when her nose perked up. It smelled like something was burning.
<p><br/></p>
<p>Kelly, who's 73, lives in an upscale, 55-and-up retirement community called Anthem Ranch, which sits below the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The 1,300-home development is manicured and quiet, with green lawns and landscaped roads that flower out into smaller cul-de-sacs. Its active residents enjoy their own private fitness center, pool, movie theater, and more than 90 clubs that meet in a central community center. But about a quarter of a mile away from the southern border of this retirement dreamland sits a circle of fortress-like walls that enclose the Livingston fracking site, which contains 18 wells owned by Extraction Oil and Gas.</p><p>Kelly is among <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vLyFee6vdXi_uaZliyDRYTkdKP1wmHoE/view" target="_blank">more than 200</a> Broomfield residents who have submitted complaints to the city since November, reporting chemical smells and symptoms like headaches, burning eyes, and nosebleeds that they believe are caused by oil and gas activity in the area.<span></span></p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI0MDUwMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MjUxNTQzMn0.RVnAakHo_HY7Zn933bFrr_AMoraKwiNnqoH98oIbTkQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="fc523" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="906f763cc7878ec90aea69f45896cd18" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
An excerpt from an email sent to the city by a resident concerned about the Livingston fracking site.
<p>When she notified the city about the smell that morning, she was told that a city inspector had been on the site already and nothing was wrong. But Kelly was on high alert. Just a few days earlier, Extraction had begun "flowback," a part of the fracking process that is <a href="https://coloradosun.com/2019/10/17/oil-and-gas-drilling-health-impacts-colorado/" target="_blank">associated with</a> <a href="https://garfield-county.com/air-quality/files/sites/33/2019/06/Garfield-County-CSU-Final-Report-presentation-06_16.pdf" target="_blank">some of the highest emission</a> rates of carcinogenic chemicals like benzene. Even under normal circumstances, flowback scared Kelly, who had followed the devastation in neighboring Weld County when one of Extraction's wells <a href="https://www.hcn.org/issues/50.18/energy-industry-how-site-workers-and-firefighters-responding-to-a-2017-natural-gas-explosion-in-windsor-colorado-narrowly-avoided-disaster" target="_blank">exploded</a> during the process in 2017, causing a major fire and injuring a worker. Kelly and her husband, who has pulmonary interstitial fibrosis, a lung disease, had planned on leaving town to stay with their son when flowback at Livingston began.</p><p>The COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench in those plans. On March 25, when Colorado Governor Jared Polis issued a statewide stay-at-home order to stop the coronavirus's spread, Kelly and her neighbors were suddenly trapped, trying to avoid one health hazard while worrying about being exposed to another. After all, fracking <a href="https://grist.org/energy/coronavirus-has-states-hitting-pause-except-when-it-comes-to-oil-and-gas-drilling/" target="_blank">remained a "critical" business</a>, according to the state.</p><p>"Where am I going to go?" Kelly asked. "I can't go to a hotel. I can't risk that with my husband. I have nowhere to go now."</p><p>Kelly's dilemma is not unique. Across the country, <a href="https://oilandgasthreatmap.com/threat-map/" target="_blank">millions of people</a> live within half a mile of fracking sites and other oil and gas activity and are exposed to a slew of toxic chemicals in their day-to-day lives. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6616936/" target="_blank">Researchers have found</a> that those living close to fracking are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses — the very underlying conditions that make them more vulnerable to the most severe outcomes from COVID-19. While many residents may have found ways to seek respite from these toxic emissions during normal times — whether it was working or going to school elsewhere, or simply moving in with friends and family during the most intense periods of activity — those options went out the window when state governors began announcing stay-at-home orders.</p><p>For its part, Extraction says that Anthem Ranch residents have nothing to worry about. The company did not respond to Grist's detailed list of questions, but in legal filings and public testimony it has stated that the new technology it uses for flowback has been shown to keep emissions far below the levels associated with traditional techniques. In a complaint filed in a Colorado court, the company's lawyers said that the "anxiety and stress" experienced by Broomfield residents was "self-induced."</p>
Broomfield vs. Extraction
<p>The unsettling bind that the stay-at-home order put many residents in was not lost on Laurie Anderson, a Broomfield city councilwoman who lives just half a mile from the fracking site in another neighborhood called Anthem Highlands. The night Governor Polis' order came down, a special meeting of the city council was scheduled to <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/10m9nX3vilG4IEOl0zJdfMsKIZz68jte8/view" target="_blank">discuss</a> the potential dangers of work continuing at the Livingston site during the pandemic. The council decided to draft a proposal ordering Extraction to postpone flowback — a process where the chemical-laden water used to fracture open the shale flows back to the surface and must be collected, treated, and disposed of — until the stay-at-home order was lifted.</p><p>"The thought was to protect these residents, to delay flowback, understanding that it has to happen because they've already fracked these wells," said Anderson, who is also an organizer for Moms Clean Air Force, a national advocacy group that fights polluters. "It was only going to delay them for a couple weeks."</p><p>Of particular concern was Anthem Ranch, where the median age is 70 years old. The city's public health staff drafted up an order and included <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vLyFee6vdXi_uaZliyDRYTkdKP1wmHoE/view" target="_blank">data</a> showing that people over 65 are more susceptible to COVID-19 complications, that the top symptom reported by older Broomfield residents in the city's <a href="https://broomfield.org/2842/File-an-Immediate-Concern" target="_blank">oil and gas complaint system</a> was "anxiety/stress," and that stress and anxiety are linked to poor health outcomes in general.</p><p>But two days later, before the council could discuss the draft proposal, Extraction headed them off at the pass. The company secured a temporary restraining order from the Seventeenth Judicial District Court in Colorado, which prohibited the city from halting or delaying its operations. According to court documents, Extraction alleged that the city was acting in bad faith, trying to "shut down Extraction's operations not because they pose any real health risk, but because they are unpopular." Then, on March 30, the company filed an official complaint with the district court against the city, seeking damages for a breach of contract.</p><p>It's true that this was far from the first time Broomfield had tried to interfere with Extraction's … extraction. The city has battled the company at every stage of the drilling process in response to complaints from residents about odors, health symptoms, and <a href="https://www.kunc.org/post/broomfield-tried-limiting-oil-and-gas-noise-now-company-pushing-back-0#stream/0" target="_blank">noise</a>.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI0MDUwOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMjcxNTc5OH0.tq-Dc7C2szR3mE0MrYLfio6FLQkNxWLmV20ArQ4zwJg/img.jpg?width=980" id="534dc" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="674f50ef2de67f27aca1a58936eb425e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
An excerpt from an email sent to the city by a resident concerned about the Livingston fracking site.
<p>Several times the city has contacted the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), a state regulatory body, to address those complaints. According to Megan Castle, a COGCC spokesperson, the agency intervened once in response to a noise issue and a second time to request the company swap drilling fluids which were causing odor complaints. Castle said the agency has conducted additional noise monitoring and did not find that the site was out of compliance with state regulations.<br></p><p>Andrew Bare, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said that the nature of some of the complaints — such as odors that would likely have dissipated by the time inspectors reached the site — made taking action against Extraction "difficult." Bare said that the agency sent a mobile air monitoring lab to the site in response to residents' concerns and that the lab will remain near the Livingston site for at least another two weeks.</p><p>In legal documents, Extraction claims it has gone above and beyond the best management practices required by its operating agreement with the city, including investing more than $250 million on a "Next Generation Flowback" system to reduce emissions during the <a href="https://broomfield.org/DocumentCenter/View/29674/Current-Broomfield-Project-Schedule---10-31-19?bidId=" target="_blank">two to three months</a> flowback is expected to last. At the public meeting last month, representatives from the company <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-SOMCErjKsJtHr3mjeBesrKqbwDzvMSt/view" target="_blank">explained</a> to the council that instead of storing and processing the flowback fluid on site, the company would ship it via pipeline to a facility in Weld County. They asserted that the design eliminates "99.9 percent of emissions" and significantly reduces the duration of the flowback phase. Later at the meeting, Barbara Ganong, a petroleum engineer who was hired by the city as a consultant, asserted that Extraction's decision to pipe fracking fluids offsite represented a "paradigm shift."</p><p>Air quality experts hired by the city gave a <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_N4HobIw7JMmHlD9r0kZnLPSjZnKoASR/view" target="_blank">presentation</a> showing that without this new closed system, emissions during flowback could have been 31 times higher than during fracking. Still, when they measured emissions during flowback at another Extraction well in a less populated part of town, they said emissions were still double those during fracking, even with the new system.</p>
<p>Broomfield residents interviewed by Grist were not reassured by Extraction's new technology. Kelly said the company told Broomfield that it was using the latest technology in every step of the process so far, but that the city has nevertheless had to step in multiple times after residents complained of noise and health symptoms.</p><p>"They've done nothing to make me feel like I can trust them and trust what they say," said Elizabeth Lario, who lives with her husband and daughter in the Wildgrass neighborhood a little less than a mile south of the Livingston site. Lario said she and her family have experienced migraines, nose bleeds, stress and anxiety, and throat irritation since drilling began last summer.</p><p>Broomfield fought the company's restraining order, and on April 6, the same judge who originally issued the temporary order agreed to dissolve it. He found that it was granted too soon, considering the city had not even officially taken action to delay or halt Extraction's operations yet. But the judge also issued a warning: If Broomfield exercised its regulatory powers in a way that was "arbitrary and capricious and not rationally related to combating the spread of COVID-19," it would be back where it started, facing more legal action from Extraction.</p><p>The judge's warning created a new problem for Broomfield: The city's order was designed to protect public health, but it had nothing to do with preventing the spread of the virus.</p><p>Two days after the judge dissolved the restraining order, the city council finally put its public health order to a vote, but by that point, it had become harder to justify. Anderson and other city council members tried to rewrite the order in a way that didn't flout the judge's ruling. If they did, they thought Extraction was likely to take them to court again and the restraining order might be reinstated.</p><p>"I kept thinking we'll find a way forward," said Anderson. "But sometime between that Tuesday and Wednesday it became clear that there just wasn't a way forward that wouldn't result in a legal battle."</p><p>Ultimately, Anderson and the majority of the council voted the public health order down 9 to 1.</p><p>It was a devastating blow for Kelly and some other residents. As a member of the League of Oil and Gas Impacted Coloradans, a nonprofit representing community groups and residents affected by fracking, Kelly has been at the forefront of the battle with Extraction, and in the past, the city has taken bold action to protect residents. While her home is about a mile from the Livingston site, she said she's most worried about some of her neighbors who are as close as a quarter-mile from the site.</p><p>"People that I've gotten to know over the last … almost seven years, who I really care about, are very close to it," she said. "And it scares me to death."</p>
‘Why Didn’t You Protect Us?’
<p>Leading up to that final vote, the city council was flooded with emails begging them to forge ahead with the public health order. After it decided to drop the issue, community members were on edge. Kelly said she understands why the city did what it did. But others are incredibly frustrated with the outcome. "I get so many calls from people that say, 'why didn't you protect us?'" she said. "They're so concerned about their health that they would have rather seen us in court."</p><p>One concern is what residents will do in case there is an emergency, like a major emissions release or an explosion like the one in Weld County. The Broomfield police department has told families that live within a half-mile of the site to keep a bag packed in case an evacuation is necessary. But Elizabeth Lario is not sure where her family would go. Under normal circumstances, the city's emergency shelter is its recreation center, but as long as social distancing is necessary, that no longer feels like a safe option. "The evacuation plan is to wait and hear what the evacuation plan is," Lario said.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI0MDU1Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMDg5MjEzMn0.JG28Mziva9UU324p428TQ1zzphopRnHpBOfc0Og5bdY/img.jpg?width=980" id="6d77a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2470d4f20b48740b060fc1e459495de4" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
An excerpt from an email sent to the city by a resident concerned about the Livingston fracking site.
<p>On April 13, the Broomfield Office of Emergency Management held a telephone town hall to present evacuation instructions. Residents told Grist that instructions on where they should go were not very clear, and that the evacuation plan was fluid depending on the scale of emergency and the status of the pandemic. "It was a plan left in chaos, in my opinion, that fortunately hasn't had to be used," said Anderson.</p><p>The Broomfield police department told Grist that it uses a cell phone alert system for emergency notification. An "Emergency Management Update" powerpoint created by the department instructs residents to "follow the instructions you receive" and monitor the situation on the city's social media accounts. In the case of an evacuation, it says to go to the home of a family member or friend — and to go to the recreation center only if needed. The department advises that residents who do elect to evacuate to the recreation center remain in their cars "if quarantined/isolated."</p><p>Not all of Broomfield's citizens are worried about the fracking site. In fact, some actively opposed the city's idea to delay Extraction's work. Anderson said there had been pressure from residents who felt that the city was already wasting too many public dollars on its clashes with the company, and worried that another lawsuit could bankrupt the city. A former council member <a href="https://westernwire.net/broomfield-criticized-for-oil-and-gas-witch-hunt/" target="_blank">accused</a> the city of conducting a witch hunt.<br></p><p>Broomfield has indeed spent a significant amount of money on oil and gas oversight, including hiring additional personnel, outside counsel, and consultants. It has also deployed systems to monitor air quality and noise. The Broomfield Enterprise, a local newspaper, <a href="https://www.broomfieldenterprise.com/2020/01/10/broomfield-to-consider-emergency-noise-ordinance-2/" target="_blank">reported</a> that the city spent $1.8 million in 2018, $1.5 million in 2019, and is expected to spend $3.1 million this year just on oil and gas-related personnel and programs. The city has approved approximately <a href="https://www.broomfieldenterprise.com/2019/12/23/broomfield-air-quality-monitoring-contract-updated/" target="_blank">$1.5 million</a> for air quality monitoring contracts in 2020 alone.</p><p>Broomfield's <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CqZGbwWaZgVMWnTpC1BYfJ1FtcjDlnkp/view" target="_blank">air monitoring system</a> is impressive, given that it's a city of only about 70,000 people. The city currently has 11 new sensors set up to monitor emissions, as well as two mobile air quality laboratories and <a href="https://engr.source.colostate.edu/to-monitor-air-quality-scientists-chase-methane-plumes-in-dead-of-night/" target="_blank">a mobile "plume tracker"</a> — a Chevy Tahoe equipped to measure real-time methane concentrations in the air — from Colorado State University that will be deployed periodically. The city's sensors do not measure the specific amount of benzene and other harmful compounds in the air, but they set off "triggers" to take an air sample any time they register a spike in emissions.</p><p>Anderson hopes that collecting this data will give the town a clearer picture of the public health risks fracking poses to residential communities. She said that part of the reason the town's order was abandoned was due to a lack of data showing that flowback would put residents at greater risk. Now they are collecting that data — but by the time any potential harms come into focus, it will be too late. Residents will have been exposed.</p><p>"This community feels like guinea pigs, and I'm right there with them," she said. "We're doing things that we don't have the data to show that it's safe."</p>
<p class=""><em>This story originally appeared in</em> <a href="https://grist.org/" target="_blank"><em>Grist </em></a><em>and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A gas flare from the Shell Chemical LP petroleum refinery illuminates the sky on August 21, 2019 in Norco, Louisiana. Drew Angerer / Getty Images
By Jessica Corbett
As calls for a People's Bailout in response to the coronavirus pandemic continue to grow across the United States, a new analysis warns that the country's Big Oil companies "stand to reap yet another billion dollar bailout" thanks to the Federal Reserve's plans to buy up to $750 billion in corporate debt.
The analysis (pdf), released Wednesday by the advocacy group Friends of the Earth (FOE), explains that this expected bailout for polluters relates to a controversial $500 billion corporate slush fund included in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that Congress passed in March.
<p>According to FOE's report, <em>The Big Oil Money Pit</em>:</p><blockquote>Of that amount, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin enjoys direct control over a comparatively small $46 billion reserved for aviation and industries deemed essential to "national security." But the remaining $454 billion went to the Federal Reserve, which will use the money to implement emergency lending programs for corporations and municipalities. Secretary Mnuchin must approve these lending programs and wields considerable power over their design, but the money itself will move through the Fed.<br>After weeks of unprecedented human suffering and an ongoing failure to support frontline workers, the Fed announced on April 9, 2020 how it would spend the first $195 billion of the slush fund. A full $75 billion would go to buy corporate debt. But because the Fed can leverage money appropriated by Congress, the real size of this program is $750 billion. Considering that a majority of the money from the first stimulus [is] still unspent, there is plenty of room for this program to grow.<br></blockquote><p>FOE found that the fossil fuel giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Conoco "are together eligible for a maximum $19.4 billion in benefits, based on their credit ratings and outstanding long-term debt."</p>
<div id="0f3d4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ffa4587779be08a5a8dff623feb89e8b"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1250456629532692481" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">NEW ANALYSIS: Trump’s admin just announced a $750 billion corporate slush fund -- money that will enrich oil execs… https://t.co/9fz8NWZzDv</div> — Friends of the Earth (@Friends of the Earth)<a href="https://twitter.com/foe_us/statuses/1250456629532692481">1586967067.0</a></blockquote></div><p>The Fed <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2020/03/24/blackrock-must-manage-climate-risk-it-takes-fed-debt-buyout-program" target="_blank">has hired</a> BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, to administer part of its debt-buying efforts related to the pandemic. "As BlackRock begins purchasing 'high yield' exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to bolster corporate debt markets," FOE warns, "energy companies (predominantly oil and gas) stand to benefit disproportionately as the largest single issuer of junk bonds, at 11% of the entire U.S. market."</p>
<p>Other key takeaways from the report include:</p><ul><li>There are 12 fracking-focused oil and gas companies that could potentially qualify for the new program. Together, they may be eligible for over $24.1 billion in potential benefits.</li><li>Major fracking company Continental Resources, whose debt was recently downgraded to below investment grade by S&P, is potentially eligible for as much as $1.5 billion under new, weaker standards announced by the Federal Reserve.</li></ul>
<p>Echoing climate campaigners' <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/03/we-need-peoples-bailout-not-polluters-bailout-climate-groups-move-preempt-big-oil" target="_blank">comments</a> after President Donald Trump met with fossil fuel executives at the White House earlier this month, FOE senior policy analyst Lukas Ross <a href="https://foe.org/news/new-report-big-oils-money-pit-to-reap-stimulus-billions/" target="_blank">said</a> in a statement Wednesday that "oil company bailouts are simply throwing good money after bad."</p><p>"Congress and the Democrats must stop this endless stream of handouts to an industry that is exploiting a public health crisis for financial gain," Ross declared. "These potential payoffs to major campaign contributors are the least efficient way of re-starting the economy and will just serve to enrich oil executives."</p><p>"Oil companies are trying to punt the financial reckoning of their fracking debacle and Congress should not enable their addiction with public tax dollars," he added. "Instead of pumping money into an irresponsible industry that plays shell games with its debt, Congress should focus on providing direct support to workers and communities on the frontlines of coronavirus."</p><p>As the Trump administration has<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/19/amid-climate-crisis-and-raging-pandemic-trump-blasted-morally-bankrupt-multibillion" target="_blank"> tried</a> to spend billions of taxpayers dollars to "fill up" the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) and major banks are <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/10/critics-decry-massive-step-wrong-direction-big-banks-move-buy-fracking-industry" target="_blank">reportedly preparing</a> to take over fossil fuel assets with CARES Act funding, climate action advocates have <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/03/we-need-peoples-bailout-not-polluters-bailout-climate-groups-move-preempt-big-oil" target="_blank">charged</a> that "we need a people's bailout, not a polluters' bailout!"</p><p>Hundreds of community leaders, lawmakers, and groups—including FOE—have joined the demand for Congress to pursue a <a href="https://thepeoplesbailout.org/" target="_blank">people's bailout</a> guided by five key principles:</p>
<div id="90a82" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d4dd414f6709a83588b90e27c5ce37cb"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1250127963166826497" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">The response to one existential crisis must not fuel another. Let's not perpetuate the status quo of fossil fuel pr… https://t.co/VJPOCAFuxd</div> — Sierra Club (@Sierra Club)<a href="https://twitter.com/SierraClub/statuses/1250127963166826497">1586888707.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>The new FOE report includes some specific calls to action directed at Congress:</p><ul> <li>Prioritize direct aid to still neglected workers and communities on the frontlines of the crisis.</li><li>Engage in aggressive oversight to ensure BlackRock does not benefit unfairly from purchasing its own products or needlessly bolster fossil fuel assets.</li><li>Eliminate Secretary Mnuchin's authority to waive crucial protections banning companies receiving bailouts stock buybacks.</li><li>Make future stimulus aid conditional on new and binding protections for workers and the environment.</li><li>Make oil, gas, and coal companies ineligible for support from existing stimulus programs, unless it is conditioned on a phaseout of existing production and an iron-clad commitment to existing pension and environmental liabilities.</li></ul><p>"Much more work needs to be done, both to support workers and families in the face of COVID-19 and to prevent a runaway bailout of the fossil fuel industry," the report says. "Congress cannot afford to wait."</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/15/amid-calls-peoples-bailout-feds-corporate-debt-buying-could-mean-billion-dollar-big" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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A large fracking operation with Mount Meeker and Longs Peak looming in the background on December 28, 2017 in Loveland, Colorado. Helen H. Richardson / The Denver Post / Getty Images
by Andrea Germanos
The Trump administration on Friday released a new land use plan for southwestern Colorado that community and conservation advocacy groups warn is a "dangerous" pathway towards increased fossil fuel extraction that makes no "climate, ecological, or economic sense."
<p>Published officially Friday in the <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/04/10/2020-07316/notice-of-availability-of-the-record-of-decision-for-the-uncompahgre-field-office-approved-resource" target="_blank">Federal Register</a>, the Bureau of Land Management's "Approved Resource Management Plan" for the Uncompahgre Field Office affects 675,800 acres of public lands and 971,220 acres of federal mineral estate and spans six counties. It gives a 20-year blueprint for how the land can be used for purposes such as oil and gas drilling as well as livestock grazing, and was issued by the Interior Department over objections raised in public comments.</p><p>The advocacy groups opposed to the plan <a href="https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/trump-administration-plan-expands-fossil-fuel-extraction-across-southwestern-colorado-2020-04-09/" target="_blank">say</a> that expanding fracking in the region over the next decades will not only add fuel to the planetary climate crisis, but will also adversely impact local organic agriculture and endangered species.</p><p>"This plan, unconscionable as the connections between fossil fuel emissions and global climate change become clearer every day, has the potential to exponentially increase greenhouse gas pollution in the region over the next decade, when we need to be drastically reducing emissions," said Melissa Hornbein with the Western Environmental Law Center.</p>
<p>According to the groups,</p><blockquote>The plan would allow fracking on more than half of the 675,000 acres of public land and almost a million acres of federal minerals that it covers, and coal extraction on another 371,000 acres. The BLM's environmental impact analysis fails to tally direct and indirect climate pollution that would result from fossil fuel production.<br></blockquote><p>According to Natasha Léger, executive director of Citizens for a Healthy Community, the plan is "exactly the type of federal action that is responsible for accelerating climate and environmental degradation, which cannot be allowed to stand if we have any hope of protecting present and future generations, rare and irreplaceable ecosystems like the North Fork, and meeting Colorado's goals for a clean and renewable energy future."</p><p>The new plan sets up a clash between Colorado's new law calling for a halving of carbon emissions by 2030 and what the advocacy groups say could be a 2,300% increase over the next decade in climate pollution as a result of the BLM's proposal for increased oil and gas extraction.</p><p>"Ultimately," said Rebecca Fischer, climate and energy program attorney for WildEarth Guardians, "the Trump administration is testing Colorado's commitment to its new climate law, and its success depends on the state stepping up to defend bold climate action."</p>
<p class=""><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/10/trump-advances-climate-doom-massive-fracking-expansion-federal-lands-colorado" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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The land around Red Knoll near Kanab, UT that could have been razed for a frac sand mine. Tara Lohan
By Tara Lohan
A sign at the north end of Kanab, Utah, proclaims the town of 4,300 to be "The Greatest Earth on Show."
<p>It's a rare case of truth in advertising.</p><p>Kanab sits just seven miles north of the Arizona state line, at the crossroads of some of the Southwest's most beautiful places. In every direction a geologic wonderland awaits. To the north is Zion National Park with its breathtaking valley of 2,000-foot-tall rust and white sandstone cliffs. The sweeping expanse of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument stretches to the east of town, and just to the south you'll find the Grand Canyon's North Rim.</p><p>You don't even need to leave Kanab, which is ringed by the famously red-hued Vermillion Cliffs, to get socked by jaw-dropping beauty.</p><p>It's this landscape that drew Susan Hand to Kanab 25 years ago when she opened Willow Canyon Outdoor to sell gear, maps, books and coffee to local and visiting adventurers. And it's this landscape and the community's gateway-to-the-wonderland experience, the economic bedrock of this tourism-dependent town, that she worried would be destroyed by a new industrial project proposed for development 10 miles north of town last year.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjU3MTQwNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NzUwMzE4Mn0.j0ue0NpGZ6SmCOp2nsB5Wq5xW_3inxdnj6lisCjvk4Y/img.jpg?width=980" id="5f14e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="086fbe67cfe97cd3f99b7171e9d6166c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Kanab, UT is a popular tourist destination. Tara Lohan
<p>There, a company called <a href="https://www.srsands.com/" target="_blank">Southern Red Sands LLC</a> had announced plans to build a facility to mine and process massive amounts of sand for use by oil and gas companies conducting hydraulic fracturing. The sand is a lesser-known but substantial aspect of the fracking process. Round grains of silica sand serve as a "proppant" to keep underground fissures in the shale open as oil and gas are pumped out. Fracking a single well can require thousands of tons of sand.</p><p>"I really wanted to keep an open mind, but the more I learned about the project, the more concerned I got," Hand told The Revelator when I visited Kanab in September.</p><p>She had reason to be worried. The first decade of the fracking boom relied heavily on so-called "frac sand" sourced mostly from Midwest states like Minnesota and Wisconsin, where mining reduced verdant green hills to piles of dust.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjU3MTQwNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MjM5ODQ5N30.m2MnLpSKNSSqDdHJll878KCLxqnLsIOiUJnLvpzGijI/img.jpg?width=980" id="d4a23" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="eb596df046f7339251d578b504289d6a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Frac sand in Wisconsin. Tara Lohan
<p>But mining in the Midwest has its limits. Sand is expensive to ship across the country, so as fracking has taken off in Utah, Texas and New Mexico, companies have looked to find more local sources to trim costs.</p><p>That's when the proposed mine in Kanab entered the story.</p><p>Southern Red Sands, a two-person start-up backed by Utah real-estate developer Kem Gardner, hoped to establish the region's next frac sand mine in a scenic area of state-owned lands outside Kanab called Red Knoll.</p><p>City and county officials quickly gave their blessing — and a combined 1,200 acre-feet of water rights a year — after only cursory consideration.</p><p>But residents became concerned about impacts to scenic beauty, water resources and local businesses. They teamed up to fight back, forming a community group called <a href="https://keepkanabunspoiled.org/" target="_blank">Keep Kanab Unspoiled</a>.</p><p>It was beginning to feel like a familiar story.</p><p>The struggle between extractive industries and environmental protection is not a new one in Utah. A fight is still raging nearby over the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante, both of which <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2019/08/23/new-grand-staircase-plans/" target="_blank">President Trump slashed</a> in order to increase drilling and mining opportunities.</p><p>Despite public pushback and some legal challenges, though, the frac sand mine seemed to be cruising toward approval as recently as October. It still needed an environmental impact assessment from the Bureau of Land Management, and the two water transfers needed approval from the state engineer. The project definitely wasn't a done deal, but in industry-friendly Utah, it had a good shot.</p><p>So it may have come as a surprise to a number of residents when Southern Red Sands announced at the beginning of January that it was abandoning the proposed project.</p><p>What happened? And are there any lessons that other communities fighting extraction threats can learn?</p><p>"Speak out, pull together like-minded neighbors, organize and don't give up," Hand told me after hearing the news. "But also, try to be nice."</p><p>Surprisingly, it's that last bit that may have made a big difference — along with a good hard look at the economics of the endeavor.</p>The Threats
<p>Von Del Chamberlain is a white-haired, soft-spoken Kanab resident. Born in 1934, he spent his youth exploring the red rock and his career studying the stars. The astronomer and former director of Salt Lake City's Hansen (now Clark) Planetarium retired to his hometown 15 years ago and hoped to start a public observatory.</p><p>He realized that Kanab's prized dark-night skies would be threatened by a 24-7 mining operation. But that wasn't even his biggest concern with the project.</p><p>"The beauty here is the thing that will sustain this area economically for as far in the future as we can possibly see," he said.</p><p>Opponents like Chamberlain usually cited two big concerns: environmental impacts, particularly the threat to water resources, and the local economy. But in Kanab it's hard to separate the two.</p><p>"It doesn't matter what kind of an economy you want to develop here," said Hand. "Even if you have an industrial economy or an extractive economy — if you don't have water, you're out."</p><p>The water supply, which draws on underground aquifers, currently supports the town's tourist-driven economy, ranching, and the county's biggest employer — <a href="https://bestfriends.org/" target="_blank">Best Friends Animal Society</a>, known worldwide through the <em>Dogtown</em> TV series on the National Geographic Channel. The nonprofit owns a 3,700-acre sanctuary, the country's largest no-kill animal shelter, and would have been the mine's closest neighbor.</p><p>Best Friends, which employs 400 locals and draws 35,000 out-of-town visitors a year to its sanctuary, came to see the proposed mine as an existential threat. Their property relies on wells, seeps and springs that come from the same aquifer the project's two wells would tap.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjU3MTQwOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMTM5ODM1Mn0.jYaypt91ZWksmnFyu0MSkj7QBs8R99Wj0-u_2RGmfek/img.jpg?width=980" id="f6ad2" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9b35827fa5c21d58a67f902848aa3318" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Groundwater seeps to the surface at the Best Friends animal sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. Tara Lohan
<p>Last July Kanab's city council approved a 50-year contract for 600 acre-feet a year of water rights for the project and Kane County Water Conservancy District, which oversees water servicing for the unincorporated areas of the county, agreed to provide an additional 600 acre-feet of water. That combined amount equals about 740 gallons per minute, although Southern Red Sands contended it would use only about a third of that.</p><p>Many local residents were shocked by the water-rights transfer. A <a href="https://lpputah.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2016-Water-Needs-Assessment.pdf" target="_blank">2016 water needs assessment</a> found that Kane County Water Conservancy District's reliable supply would be in deficit by 2035. And the district's executive director, former state representative Mike Noel, has been a <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/03/17/in-new-complaint-group-says-utah-rep-mike-noel-hid-potential-conflicts-as-he-sought-lake-powell-pipeline-water-for-land-he-owns/" target="_blank">vocal advocate</a> for a pricy proposed pipeline to send Lake Powell water to southern Utah communities, including near Kanab, under the premise that the region is already running short on water.</p><p>"We knew that it would damage our seeps and our springs, and we weren't sure yet the full impact besides some drawdown to our groundwater, but we were really concerned," Bart Battista, an environmental engineer responsible for facilities management at Best Friends' Kanab sanctuary, told me. "It boggles my mind that the city wasn't as concerned."</p><p>But documents unearthed by local radio station KUER showed that officials at nearby Zion National Park already <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6558286-191002-ZionNationalPark-LetterOfConcern.html" target="_blank"><em>were</em> concerned</a> that the project could reduce flows into the East Fork of the Virgin River, which flows through the park, by reducing the amount of water from underground seeps and springs that feed the river.</p><p>Wanting to learn more about how the project could affect the region's water, Best Friends <a href="https://www.waterrights.utah.gov/docImport/0618/06184902.PDF" target="_blank">commissioned a study</a> from hydrogeologist Kenneth Kolm of Hydrologic Systems Analysis, a firm that's completed water studies for other Utah towns.</p><p>Kolm found that the mine posed the potential for decline in productivity to wells owned by both Best Friends and the city's water supply. The project could also decrease flows into nearby Kanab Creek and dry up perennial streams and springs, including one that feeds an area of habitat that's home to the Kanab ambersnail — currently federally protected as endangered.</p><p>The amount of water being withdrawn wasn't the only issue. The proposed project site and its sandy soil are also vitally important to local hydrology.</p><p>"The sand is the first ticket to collecting water," said Hand. It captures rain and holds it in place long enough for it to sink into the water table and not run off. But the sand is exactly what would be removed from the site, further threatening the region's water supply.</p><p>"I realized for the first time how small and vulnerable our watershed actually is," she added.</p><p>Southern Red Sands hoped to start digging on 640 acres of land around Red Knoll, an aptly name rise of coral-colored rock and sand. The area is managed as part of Utah's School and International Trust Lands Administration (SITLA), where state-owned property can be leased (often for resource extraction), with revenue being funneled to education.</p><p>The operation would have started by bulldozing all the trees, shrubs, grasses and forbs, then scraped up to 30 feet of the earth from the exposed surface. The sand would then be processed — washed with water and chemicals, then dried and sorted — in a facility with up to six 120-foot-tall silos. After that it would be loaded into trucks and hauled out.</p><p>A small fraction of the remaining sediment — mostly the fine silts and clays — would be put back on the land. But that change in geology could mean a big change for the aquifer. How big would depend on the scope of the project, though.</p><p>In addition to the SITLA land, Southern Red Sands had acquired placer claims — mineral exploration rights — for 12,000 surrounding acres managed by the BLM. And although the company said it planned to mine only 700,000 tons a year from the SITLA property, the facility would have had the capacity and water rights to accommodate much more.</p><p>"If they're building a plant with a capacity of 3 million tons a year, that's presumably because they expect to be able to produce that," Dean Baker, a Kanab resident and opponent of the project told me in December. "They may never do that, but you don't build extra capacity without the idea that you might use it."</p>The Resistance
<p>Water issues are paramount in arid Utah, but the mine was likely to come with some other potential problems.</p><p>If Southern Red Sands did build out to end of their claims, they'd be within 10 miles of Zion National Park and workers at Best Friends would be looking over their fence line at the operation — not to mention potentially breathing its dust.</p><p>Mining, processing and trucking frac sand can release tiny particles of crystalline silica into the air. Inhaling those particles regularly can cause lung disease, including cancer and silicosis, a chronic disease that, like "black lung" for coal miners, can be deadly.</p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjU3MTQwOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxODk4ODQ3OX0.w_Q_2eMaoarF3NGk1G4d6v9NcMoZQv9xkGWoSmw5im0/img.jpg?width=980" id="46cd6" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f5f31f858e67ff7bcfc537ff2c59bec4" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p> <em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://therevelator.org/frac-sand-kanab/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/r/entryeditor/2644859821#/" target="_self"></a></em><em></em></p>Dust in the air at a frac sand processing facility in Wisconsin. Tara Lohan
<p>The facility would likely run with lights and noise 24-7, which could be <a href="https://therevelator.org/fracking-wildlife/" target="_blank">detrimental to wildlife</a>. And adding more diesel-spewing, slow-stopping big rigs hauling 50,000 pounds of sand down the town's one main road concerned residents, too.</p><p>With so much at risk, opponents employed a number of tactics to try to fight the mine.</p><p>Keep Kanab Unspoiled held community meetings. They invited Kolm, the geologist who did the independent study, to report his findings, and started <a href="https://www.change.org/p/gardner-company-stop-the-zion-kanab-frac-sand-mine" target="_blank">an online petition</a> to discourage the company from moving forward.</p><p>Best Friends — an established national nonprofit with considerably more financial resources — took the lead role in mounting legal challenges. The organization filed an appeal of a conditional use permit approved by the county and formally objected to the water transfers, which needed to be approved by the state engineer.</p><p>But during the fall, Best Friends decided to shift tactics. Lawsuits could just lead to years of legal battles, something beyond the organization's longstanding mission.</p><p>"We might alienate our donors and members," Battista explained. "The appeal of Best Friends crosses party boundaries — animal welfare is something everybody can support." Apparently environmental action is not.</p><p>They decided the best approach was to sit down and talk with the company and its backers.</p><p>Battista couldn't disclose details of the negotiations — which went on for months — but on Jan. 9 Best Friends and Southern Red Sands released a <a href="https://therevelator.org/joint-statement-from-southern-red-sands-and-best-friends-animal-society/" target="_blank">joint statement</a> saying that the company "had decided not to pursue its business ventures in Kane County."</p><p>The members of Keep Kanab Unspoiled were elated by the news.</p><p>"It's so heartening how so many people from our community came together to amplify a voice that is seldom acknowledged by our elected representatives and institutions," Hand tells me. "I'm relieved that an area I love won't be sacrificed on the altar of fossil fuel consumption. I'm grateful that this threat to our travel and tourism economy is diminished."</p><p>It would be comforting to think that the driving force behind the decision boiled down to preserving the scenic beauty or the region's groundwater resources, but it's more likely it had to do with money.</p><p>"Economics played some role," Battista said. "The market for frac sand has changed and [Best Friends] had financial viability assessments of the project to show that the mine wouldn't be a good idea. Economically it just didn't make sense to any of us. I think that our studies corroborated that."</p><p>This was a main talking point of Keep Kanab Unspoiled, bolstered by research done by Baker, who also happens to be <a href="http://cepr.net/about-us/staff/dean-baker" target="_blank">an economist and cofounder</a> of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.</p><p>The frac sand industry — and the larger fracking industry — is volatile. The number of rigs drilling for oil tends to fall when prices get low. Rigs plunged with falling prices from 2014 to 2016 and last year saw <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-rigs-baker-hughes/u-s-drillers-cut-oil-rigs-for-record-11th-month-baker-hughes-idUSL2N27A0L0" target="_blank">record declines</a> in rig numbers. In addition, fracking costs more than traditional drilling — and the industry has also been overspending to keep the fracking boom from going bust.</p><p>A research organization in Norway found that the amount of money being spent to drill for oil by 40 U.S. shale oil companies outpaced the money being made by selling that oil. That deficit cost companies almost $5 billion in just the first quarter of 2019, <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/08/08/bleak-financial-outlook-us-fracking-industry" target="_blank">DeSmog reported</a> in August.</p><p>It's a scenario that's happened before.</p><p>With oil prices now around $60 a barrel, the industry is hanging on. If prices dip much lower, it could be trouble. A decade into the fracking frenzy, investors are worried that the best spots have been drilled and many debts won't be paid.</p><p>There's even more uncertainty when it comes to producing and selling the sand. Companies used to rely almost exclusively on Midwest sand, but now more areas are getting in on the game.</p><p>The consequences of failures in the fracking business model are real.</p><p>Falling oil prices and a shifting market for frac sand recently took down Emerge Energy Services — owner of eight frac sand facilities in Wisconsin — which <a href="https://www.wpr.org/frac-sand-producer-wisconsin-declares-bankruptcy" target="_blank">filed for bankruptcy</a> last summer and left behind unsafe levels of <a href="https://www.wpr.org/arsenic-levels-bankrupt-frac-sand-mine-7-times-higher-state-cleanup-standards" target="_blank">arsenic and heavy metal contamination</a> for the community to clean up.</p><p>That's a scenario that Baker worried could happen in Kanab. Southern Red Sands said their intended market was in Utah's Uintah Basin 350 miles north, but a new frac sand mine just opened in the basin. "It's almost inconceivable they'd be able to compete with them because the biggest cost with frac sand is the shipping," said Baker. "There are some operations in the San Juan basin [in New Mexico and Colorado] but it's not clear to me that they could beat those out either."</p><p>Even though economics played a role in halting the project, he believes community efforts were important, too.</p><p>"The fact they faced serious legal obstacles at every step in their path had to be a factor," he said. "It is a nice, and unfortunately rare, victory for the environment."</p><p>Best Friends worked to ensure the hard-earned victory wasn't short-lived, either. It also purchased Southern Red Sands' 12,000 acres of mineral rights.</p><p>"We want to make sure that no one else comes in here in two years if the market's better and tries to put in another sand mine, we just don't think that it's the right thing for this area," said Battista. "We want to make sure that in perpetuity, there's not a threat to the sanctuary."</p><p>As for Hand, she's now looking at the bigger picture. She saw the fight over frac sand in Kanab as a microcosm of the global fight over fossil fuels and climate change.</p><p>"While we can embrace a sense of triumph, it's likely to be brief," she said. "When it comes to protecting wild places and using our resources carefully, our work will never be done. The next development project is already bubbling. I do feel more hopeful for each success, but climate change marches on."</p>From Your Site Articles
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Green Groups Sue to Stop Trump Admin From Allowing Fracking on 1 Million+ Acres of California Public Lands
15 January
Fracking
A pump jack and frac tanks stand in a field being developed for drilling next to a farm over the Monterey Shale formation on March 24, 2014 near Lost Hills, California. David McNew / Getty Images
Environmental groups are suing to stop the Trump administration from fracking in California.
<p>The suit, <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/complaint-california-fracking-20200114.pdf" target="_blank">filed in Los Angeles Tuesday</a>, comes in response to the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) decision to open more than a million acres of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands" target="_self">public lands</a> to oil and gas leasing, <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Groups-sue-to-stop-California-oil-leases-citing-14975432.php" target="_blank">the San Francisco Chronicle reported</a>. The decision was finalized in December and covers eight Central California counties as well as land bordering <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/national-parks" target="_self">national parks</a>.</p><p>"Trump's illegal, deeply unjust fracking plan would be a disaster for Central Valley communities, as well as our <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/climate-change/" target="_self">climate</a>, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife" target="_self">wildlife</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/water" target="_self">water</a>," Clare Lakewood, a senior attorney at the <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/" target="_blank">Center for Biological Diversity</a> (CBD) said in a press release received by EcoWatch. "We need to phase out fracking and oil drilling, not throw open our public lands to polluters. The future of our beautiful state and our children depends on it."</p>
<p>CBD is joined in the suit by the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/" target="_blank">Natural Resources Defense Council</a>, the <a href="https://ccejn.org/" target="_blank">Central California Environmental Justice Network</a>, <a href="https://lpfw.org/" target="_blank">Los Padres ForestWatch,</a> the <a href="https://www.npca.org/" target="_blank">National Parks Conservation Association</a>, the <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/?_ga=2.165394431.1575656929.1579079993-187939755.1579079993&_gac=1.48574932.1579079993.Cj0KCQiAjfvwBRCkARIsAIqSWlPJZ8FCeVHpjbIwZjoBjpzUXTU-To-2EgXiD_GuBcGUOXVsqlVPfS4aAhZlEALw_wcB" target="_blank">Sierra Club</a>, <a href="http://www.patagoniaworks.com/" target="_blank">Patagonia Works</a> and the <a href="https://www.wilderness.org/" target="_blank">Wilderness Society</a>. <a href="https://earthjustice.org/" target="_blank">Earthjustice</a> is representing them. The groups contend that the plan is illegal because the BLM failed to consider the harm fracking in the region could do to public health, recreation, groundwater, air and the climate. They also warn of the potential for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/earthquakes" target="_self">earthquakes</a> caused by the extraction technique.</p><p>BLM spokeswoman Serena Baker told the San Francisco Chronicle that the agency's plan simply opened the lands to a variety of uses. Any specific plans to drill for oil or frack would have to be approved or denied based on their economic viability and environmental impact.</p><p>The plan would allow fracking in Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tulare and Ventura counties, as well as on parcels of land near the Carrizo Plain National Monument, Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks and within 10 miles of Yosemite National Park.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation" target="_self">Conservation</a> groups are worried about how this could impact the region's already troubled air quality, <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/14/conservation-groups-sue-trump-administration-over-california-fracking-plan/4467511002/" target="_blank">USA Today pointed out</a>. Three cities in the area, Fresno, Bakersfield and Visalia, were <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-americans-2635507557.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2" target="_self">listed</a> among the American Lung Association's latest tally of the five cities with the worst year-round particulate matter <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution" target="_self">air pollution</a>. The pollution could also impact national park visitors. Sequoia National Park already had 296 more unhealthy air days over a nine-year period than Los Angeles.</p><p>"Throughout this planning process, the Trump administration has ignored our warnings about the long-term impacts to nearby communities and national parks, in favor of short-term gains for oil and gas developers," Mark Rose, Sierra Nevada program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, said in the press release. "This plan could allow drilling near several of our most cherished public lands, like Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and Cesar E. Chavez National Monument, which already suffer from some of the worst air quality of any park units in the country."</p><p>The administration's plans also run counter to California's own desires for its state's energy policy. In November 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-in-california-2641413784.html" target="_self">announced a moratorium</a> on fracking permits until they were reviewed by independent scientists. He also banned a new well-drilling technique linked to a leak that spilled 1.3 million gallons of oil and water in the Central Valley in the summer of 2019.</p>
<p>"BLM's ill-considered plan to fling wide the door to fracking on public lands is yet another assault on California's efforts to protect its environment and move away from dirty <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" target="_self">fossil fuels</a>," Ann Alexander, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in the press release. "Gov. Newsom just announced curbs on oil drilling, but BLM is charging full speed ahead with it. California is trying to find a way to rationally address its limited water supply, and now BLM is greenlighting activities that can contaminate it with toxic chemicals. This federal war on California really needs to stop."</p><p>The federal government hasn't sold any oil and gas leases in the state since 2012, when a federal judge ruled that a plan to issue oil leases in Monterey County had not considered the environmental impacts of fracking. But the Trump administration is trying to change that, both with its Central California plan and with a separate push to open 725,500 acres along the Central Coast and in the Bay Area to fracking. The second plan is being challenged by a lawsuit filed in October.</p>
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As Fracking Companies Face Bankruptcy, U.S. Regulators Enable Firms to Duck Cleanup Costs
24 December 2019
Fracking
Heavy equipment sits on the edge of a rocky stream bank as part of U.S. Bureau of Land Management-Forest Service reclamation efforts for abandoned oil and gas wells in the eastern U.S. Bureau of Land Management
By Justin Mikulka
In over their heads with debt, U.S. shale oil and gas firms are now moving from a boom in fracking to a boom in bankruptcies. This trend of failing finances has the potential for the U.S. public, both at the state and federal levels, to be left on the hook for paying to properly shut down and clean up even more drilling sites.
<p>Expect these companies to try reducing their debt through the process of bankruptcy and, like <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/01/business/murray-energy-coal-bankruptcy-pension/index.html" target="_blank">the coal industry</a>, attempting to get out of environmental and employee-related financial obligations.</p>
<h3>The Bankruptcy of EP Energy</h3><p>In October, EP Energy — one of the largest oil producers in the Eagle Ford Shale region in Texas — <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2019/10/07/major-eagle-ford-player-declares-bankruptcy.html" target="_blank">filed for bankruptcy</a> because the firm couldn't pay back almost $5 billion in debt, making it the largest <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/ep-energy-files-largest-u-s-energy-bankruptcy-since-2016-11570204927" target="_blank">oil and gas bankruptcy</a> since 2016.</p><p>EP Energy hasn't produced a profit since 2014 and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-04/apollo-and-elliott-team-up-to-save-ep-energy-stake-in-bankruptcy" target="_blank">Bloomberg reported</a> that the company would need oil to be at "a price closer to $70 per barrel" for EP to be profitable. Oil has not come close to averaging over <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart" target="_blank">$70 a barrel</a> since 2014.</p><p>Despite its financial struggles at current low oil prices, the company plans to continue operating after restructuring and eliminating up to $3 billion in debt. However, EP has not identified any funds that it would be setting aside for well cleanup, which is not unusual for an oil and gas company.</p><p>In response, <a href="https://cases.primeclerk.com/EPEnergy/Home-DocketInfo?DockRelatedSearchValue=182" target="_blank">as part of the bankruptcy proceedings,</a> the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/EP%20Energy%20Govt%20Objections.pdf" target="_blank">U.S. Department of the Interior filed a document</a> arguing that EP Energy is still responsible for its obligations to assure the "decommissioning, plugging, and abandonment" of any of the EP Energy wells that are located on leased federal and tribal lands.</p><p>Ideally, that would mean EP Energy sets aside funds for the proper cleanup and end-of-life processes for its oil and gas wells, which number <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:i3sPT5lEYgAJ:https://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2019/10/07/major-eagle-ford-player-declares-bankruptcy.html+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" target="_blank">more than 800 in the Eagle Ford region</a>.</p><p>However, the federal government hasn't even named a number yet for how much that should be. The Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Indian Affairs "are currently still assessing the status of reclamation and plugging and abandonment obligations across the Debtors' onshore federal and Indian leases," writes the Interior Department.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">In EP Energy <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/bankruptcy?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#bankruptcy</a>, US Interior Department wants to make sure that enough money is set aside for cleanup. For financially struggling companies, cleanup is becoming the tail that's wagging the dog. <a href="https://t.co/LDrnMr01rn">https://t.co/LDrnMr01rn</a></p>— Clark Williams-Derry (@ClarkWDerry) <a href="https://twitter.com/ClarkWDerry/status/1195714652543471616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>The federal government is only getting around to assessing EP Energy's potential liabilities once the firm is already in the bankruptcy process, revealing one of the flaws in the current system. Federal and state governments have not been holding fracking companies fully liable for the environmental damage and cleanup costs of their drilling activity.</p><p>Joshua Caleb Macey, a visiting assistant professor at Cornell law school who specializes in bankruptcy and energy law, told DeSmog that the situation with EP Energy was "frustrating and completely normal."</p><p>According to the Interior Department filing, "Regardless of its bankruptcy, the Debtor is required to comply with all applicable federal laws."<br><br>As <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/10/18/public-paying-cleanup-fracking-boom-oil-gas-bonds" target="_blank">I've reported before</a>, oil and gas companies are legally required to hold a certain amount of funds to pay for well cleanup costs, a process known as bonding that varies by state and for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands">public lands</a>.</p><p>Because companies are rarely required to have those funds available before they start drilling (and thanks to industry-friendly regulators and politicians), in reality oil and gas companies can walk away from cleanup obligations with relative ease, which has become the pattern for bankrupt <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a> companies.</p>
<h3>Including Cleanup Costs Would Make Extraction 'Uneconomic'</h3><p>Federal and state regulators have been failing to require companies to <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/10/18/public-paying-cleanup-fracking-boom-oil-gas-bonds" target="_blank">fully fund expected cleanup liabilities</a>, which helps mask the true cost of oil and gas production. Passing environmental cleanup costs on to the taxpayer amounts to a backdoor subsidy for the oil and gas industry.</p><p>Requiring oil and gas companies to pay for shutting down and cleaning up wells would greatly increase the cost of drilling for many oil and gas wells. The fracking industry already <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/finances-fracking-shale-industry-drills-more-debt-profit" target="_blank">can't make money</a> pumping <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">fossil fuels</a> out of shale in the U.S., and that's without these firms coming even close to fully <a href="https://bismarcktribune.com/bakken/as-abandoned-oil-wells-climb-regulators-consider-ways-to-stop/article_58c39a16-73a1-5592-ba5f-fc7c9c50cbcd.html" target="_blank">funding their cleanup costs</a>.</p><p>However, <a href="https://www.aberdeennews.com/news/sd-environmental-board-waits-to-plug-abandoned-natural-gas-wells/article_d0a4518b-1733-5a7a-b5f3-65508e26ad66.html" target="_blank">more state governments</a> are realizing <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/06/758284873/cleaning-up-abandoned-wells-proves-costly-to-gas-and-oil-producing-states" target="_blank">the scale of this problem</a> and starting to look at increasing and enforcing bonding requirements for oil and gas well cleanup. However, in oil-rich places like Alberta, Canada, and Alaska, regulators are realizing that <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-alberta-ignores-the-ticking-time-bomb-of-orphaned-oil-and-gas-wells-at/" target="_blank">the money just isn't there</a>.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Hey <a href="https://twitter.com/jkenney?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jkenney</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Alberta_UCP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Alberta_UCP</a> after your sustained attacks on the Liberal government, why are you now begging for taxpayer money to clean up Alberta's abandoned oil wells? Oil companies must pay for that. Not us. Hands off our tax dollars. The oil shareholders should pay. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/cdnpoli?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#cdnpoli</a></p>— Trish Palmer (@TrishPalmerYVR) <a href="https://twitter.com/TrishPalmerYVR/status/1201196546563248129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 1, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>In 2018, the natural gas driller Amaroq Resources <a href="https://www.petroleumnews.com/pntruncate/771890741.shtml" target="_blank">acquired the Nicolai Creek assets</a> in southwest Alaska from the bankrupt Aurora Gas. This transaction was delayed when the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC) announced $7 million in bonding required for the gas wells associated with the purchase. This is the point where the state government had the power to make Amaroq provide adequate bonding for well cleanup.</p><p>The AOGCC then agreed to reduce that amount to $200,000 and the deal went ahead.</p><p>Since that deal, the commission increased the minimum statewide bonding level to $400,000 per well for the first one to 10 wells. Amaroq would be required to abide by these new regulations and has appealed this decision. Company president Scott Pfoff explained that these new bonding requirements make the business "uneconomic."</p><p>And that is the reality. If oil and gas companies were required to pay for the full end-of-life cost of their wells, much of their inventory becomes uneconomic. This is where taxpayers come in.</p>
<h3>Fracking Industry Wants to Dump Wastewater in Streams and Rivers to Save Money</h3><p>Failure to require <a href="https://medium.com/westwise/new-analysis-taxpayers-could-be-on-the-hook-for-billions-to-clean-up-abandoned-oil-and-gas-wells-b0e1e28d20c2" target="_blank">adequate bonding for oil and gas cleanup</a> costs is just one of many backdoor government subsidies for the oil and gas industry. The failure to regulate <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/01/29/fracking-industry-gas-flaring-problem" target="_blank">flaring and venting of the potent greenhouse gas methane</a> during oil drilling is another example.</p><p>Fracking firms, which spend a lot of borrowed money to pump out a lot of oil and gas for not much (or any) profit, are experiencing a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/frackers-face-harsh-reality-as-wall-street-backs-away-11551009601" target="_blank">collapse in financing</a>. Thanks to the industry's failed business model, these companies are desperate for ways to cut costs.</p><p>One of the major costs associated with hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/09/18/fracking-industry-waste-water-nightmare" target="_blank">acquiring, pumping and disposing of water</a>, which, after a driller is finished with it, typically contains corrosive levels of salts and contaminants including naturally occurring radioactive materials, chemicals and oil residues. This area has become a major target for the industry to save money.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMjIxMDU3My9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNjE2Njg2Mn0.lMtMV5SmNv1KnJe05RVbuXuKPfhX1WhynPydQ0AKag8/img.png?width=980" id="a58de" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="74142d5134868c830b71c57da8431b80" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A graphic showing the water cycle during hydraulic fracturing. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2016
<p>As <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/fracking-is-not-the-cause-of-quakes-rather-its-frackings-wastewater/2015/04/27/e87a6e82-e9f4-11e4-aae1-d642717d8afa_story.html?utm_term=.9934b60ef334" target="_blank">The Washington Post pointed out in 2015</a> (and as I highlighted last year), when it comes to fracked shale oil and gas production, "currently there is no way to treat, store, and release the billions of gallons of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wastewater">wastewater</a> at the surface." The industry's current range of (legal) approaches to <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/09/18/fracking-industry-waste-water-nightmare" target="_blank">disposing of its massive amounts of wastewater</a> involves injecting it underground, which in some cases is tied to increased earthquake activity, using it to irrigate crops or de-ice roads, and sending it to municipal water treatment plants lacking equipment to properly treat it.</p><p>Treating oil and gas drilling wastewater is possible, but expensive. As S&P Global Platts <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/en/research-insights/articles/us-oil-drillers-face-growing-issue-of-water-disposal-fuel-for-thought" target="_blank">recently reported</a>, according to a study by the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers and Independent Petroleum Association of America, for Permian drillers in Texas, "Economically, treatment costs must come down."</p><p>The study concludes that dealing with wastewater is already a limiting factor in this prolific region: "Some Permian sub-basins are currently constrained due to insufficient injection well capacity. Projected production growth will worsen the situation."</p><p>With this glut of wastewater combined with high costs, the industry is looking for a cheap alternative. The latest preferred approach seems to be lobbying governments to change the rules to allow dumping wastewater with limited treatment into <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/rivers">rivers</a> and streams.</p><p>In November, E&E News reported that there's movement to allow or expand such wastewater dumping in <a href="http://www.eenews.net/stories/1061525917" target="_blank">Oklahoma</a>, Texas, <a href="https://www.koat.com/article/sides-clash-over-benefits-drawbacks-of-fracking/30126134" target="_blank">New Mexico</a> and <a href="http://www.eenews.net/stories/1061647463" target="_blank">Pennsylvania</a>, all states with major fracking industries. "Within a year, Oklahoma could get approval from EPA to start issuing permits that will allow the oil industry to dispose of briny oil field waste in waterways," E&E wrote.</p><p>As space for injection wells becomes scarce, the industry hopes to dump its wastewater in streams and rivers, once again passing on potential environmental and financial liabilities to the public.</p><p>A 2017 working group looking for alternatives for Oklahoma oil field wastewater (also known as "produced water") found "the most cost-effective means of reducing disposal is for oil companies to treat and clean that produced water so it can be reused for things like fracking," <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/2017/04/27/the-most-practical-alternative-to-quake-causing-disposal-wells-is-reusing-wastewater-research-group-finds/" target="_blank">reported NPR's StateImpact Oklahoma</a>.</p><p>However, recycling produced water to again frack wells results in more toxic produced water, which can't be recycled indefinitely. With injection wells increasingly unable to handle the volume of water produced by the industry, shale firms have been seeking cheap alternative disposal methods, including dumping the water in rivers and streams.</p><p>However, the 2017 analysis concluded that treating produced frack water to the point it could be safely dumped into rivers or used to irrigate agriculture wasn't economically viable.</p><p>Owen Mills, the director of water planning for the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, explained to StateImpact Oklahoma why this wasn't an option for the industry: "It's incredibly expensive to do that and it takes a lot of energy."</p><p>To properly treat the fracking wastewater to the point it is no longer a threat to human health and the environment would be incredibly expensive, and that is why the industry is lobbying to change the rules about disposing its wastewater. If it succeeds, expect the eventual clean up costs — also incredibly expensive — to be billed to the American public.</p>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/12/20/fracking-oil-gas-bankruptcies-cleanup-costs-regulators" target="_blank">DeSmogBlog</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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The message of the global movement to ban fracking and get off fossil fuels envisions a different future, one that starts with cutting off pollution at the source. cta88 / iStock / Getty Images Plus
By Wenonah Hauter
Donald Trump's scheduled visit to a fracking industry gathering in Pittsburgh this week is a hugely symbolic moment for the 2020 election campaign, as well as the urgent battle to contain climate catastrophe.
<p>Trump will give the keynote address at the Shale Insight conference, a regular get-together for gas industry heavyweights. If he manages to stay on message — no small feat — he will tout his support for fracking and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" target="_self">fossil fuel</a> projects in Pennsylvania and Ohio, two states that are absolutely critical to his re-election. Promoting dirty energy, so the conventional wisdom goes, delivers votes. But there's no reason to believe this is true.</p><p>Trump's trip to Pittsburgh underscores his administration's vision for long-term fossil fuel dependence, along with increased pollution and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/plastics" target="_self">plastics</a> production. The gas industry has the exact same agenda, and it desperately needs a Trump re-election to maintain profitability. Several leading candidates pursuing the Democratic nomination, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, offer a distinctly different vision: A rapid shift away from fossil fuels and towards a strong Green New Deal that would ban fracking.</p><p>Fossil fuel corporations have an alarming plan for the future of Pennsylvania, the Appalachian region and the rest of America: A massive buildout of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/pipelines" target="_self">pipelines</a>, power plants and petrochemical 'cracker' plants that turn fracked gas into plastic. Our recent report, "<a href="https://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/insight/fracking-endgame-locked-plastics-pollution-and-climate-chaos" target="_blank">The Fracking Endgame</a>," finds there are more than 700 of these projects planned or underway. This all adds up to increased greenhouse gas emissions, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution" target="_self">worsening air quality</a> in vulnerable communities and generating more of the single use plastics choking our oceans and waterways.</p><p>The message of the global movement to ban fracking and get off fossil fuels envisions a different future, one that starts with cutting off pollution at the source. You cannot do that with cap and trade plans or voluntary agreements with polluters; we must stop the drilling, and building the pipelines and power plants that last for decades.</p><p>Republicans and shadowy fossil fuel-funded front groups are eager to hammer the message that taking action to save our climate will cost jobs — and, more importantly to them, will hopefully cost Democrats votes on Election Day. Unfortunately, this trope is embraced by some Democrats too, who seem to think that swing state voters care more about the profits of the fracking industry than the health of their communities or the future of the planet.</p><p>In reality, Democratic voters overwhelmingly back the calls to ban fracking: a new AP/NORC poll found that just 9 percent of Democrats support policies that would encourage more fracking; independent voters are close behind. Under any conventional theory of politics, candidates would be wise to listen. And what about a heavily fracked state like Pennsylvania? <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2018/03/29/poll-most-pennsylvania-voters-say-climate-change-causing-problems-now/" target="_blank">55 percent of respondents in one poll</a> said the negative environmental impacts of gas drilling were not worth the supposed economic benefits. This is a stunning turnaround from the results the same poll recorded just a few years ago. Pennsylvanians have seen for themselves that fracking has delivered water contamination, air pollution and an array of public health problems.</p><p>So, while Trump takes the stage in Pittsburgh to tout fracking and taunt those of us fighting for a livable future, Americans should see it for what it is: A preview of one part of the White House's desperate re-election scheme. While Donald Trump will run as the champion of a disastrous addiction to fossil fuels and fracking, Democrats should proudly champion a different vision: Cutting off fossil fuels, a fair and just transition for workers, meaningful collaboration with affected communities, and massive investments in renewables. We can deliver desperately-needed jobs in Appalachia building our clean energy future, instead of relying on petrochemicals and dirty energy infrastructure that jeopardize local health and safety.</p><p>Presidential candidates who call for an end to fracking are not pursuing a dangerous policy that will cost them votes. They are doing precisely what is necessary for this moment. They should welcome the contrast with Trump's energy agenda.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Can the Environmental Movement Carry a ‘Green Wave’ Into #2020? <a href="https://t.co/sqV5qV9K8f">https://t.co/sqV5qV9K8f</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Revelator_News?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Revelator_News</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/sunrisemvmt?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@sunrisemvmt</a></p>— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) <a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/1128042329162620930?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 13, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p><em><br/>Wenonah Hauter is the executive director of the consumer advocacy group Food & Water Action. </em></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/10/22/trump-seeks-frack-2020-election#" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>Related Articles Around the Web
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Cleanup costs for abandoned oil and gas wells once the producers have moved on could fall heavily on the public.
Susan Vineyard / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Susan Vineyard / iStock / Getty Images Plus
By Justin Mikulka
Increasingly, U.S. shale firms appear unable to pay back investors for the money borrowed to fuel the last decade of the fracking boom. In a similar vein, those companies also seem poised to stiff the public on cleanup costs for abandoned oil and gas wells once the producers have moved on.
<p>"It's starting to become out of control, and we want to rein this in," Bruce Hicks, assistant director of the North Dakota Oil and Gas Division, <a href="https://bismarcktribune.com/bakken/as-abandoned-oil-wells-climb-regulators-consider-ways-to-stop/article_58c39a16-73a1-5592-ba5f-fc7c9c50cbcd.html" target="_blank">said in August</a> about companies abandoning oil and gas wells. If North Dakota's regulators, some of the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/10/01/whistle-blower-lehto-oneok-north-dakota-gas-plants-spill" target="_blank">most industry-friendly in the country</a>, are sounding the alarm, then that doesn't bode well for the rest of the nation.</p><p>In fact, officials in North Dakota are using Pennsylvania as an example of what they want to avoid when it comes to abandoned wells, and with good reason.</p><p>The <a href="https://aoghs.org/petroleum-pioneers/american-oil-history/" target="_blank">first oil well</a> drilled in America was in Pennsylvania in 1859, and the oil and gas industry has been drilling — and abandoning — wells there ever since. Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) says that while it only has documentation of 8,000 orphaned and abandoned wells, it estimates the state actually has over a half million.</p><p>"We anticipate as many as 560,000 are in existence that we just don't know of yet," DEP spokesperson Laura Fraley told <a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2019/03/11/state-reaches-7m-agreement-over-1400-abandoned-oil-and-gas-wells/" target="_blank">StateImpact Pennsylvania</a>. "There's no responsible party and so it's on state government to pay to have those potential environmental and public health hazards remediated."</p><p>According to StateImpact, "The state considers any well that doesn't produce oil and gas for a calendar year to be an abandoned well."</p><p>That first oil well drilled in Pennsylvania was 70 feet deep. Modern fracked wells, however, can be well over 10,000 feet in total length (most new fracked wells are drilled vertically to a depth where they turn horizontal to fracture the shale that contains the oil and gas). Because the longer the total length of the well, the more it costs to clean up, the funding required to properly clean up and cap wells has grown as drillers have continued to use new technologies to greatly extend well lengths. Evidence from the federal government points to the potential for these costs being shifted to the tax-paying public.</p><p>The Government Accountability Office (GAO) <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-19-615?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=usgao" target="_blank">released a report this September</a> about the risks from insufficient bonds to reclaim wells on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands">public lands</a>. It said, "the bonds operators provide as insurance are often not enough to cover the costs of this cleanup." The report cited a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) official's estimate of $10 a foot for well cleanup costs.</p><p><a href="https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2019/03/11/state-reaches-7m-agreement-over-1400-abandoned-oil-and-gas-wells/" target="_blank">StateImpact Pennsylvania</a> noted that costs to reclaim a well could add up to $20,000, and DEP spokesperson Fraley said they could be "much, much higher." The <a href="https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-19-615?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_campaign=usgao" target="_blank">GAO report </a>noted that "low-cost wells typically cost about $20,000 to reclaim, and high-cost wells typically cost about $145,000 to reclaim."</p><p>In North Dakota, where state regulators have raised concerns about this growing problem, one of the top industry regulators, State Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms, estimated that wells there cost<a href="https://bismarcktribune.com/bakken/as-abandoned-oil-wells-climb-regulators-consider-ways-to-stop/article_58c39a16-73a1-5592-ba5f-fc7c9c50cbcd.html" target="_blank"> $150,000 to plug and reclaim.</a></p><p>And this problem isn't just in the U.S. Canada is facing a similar cleanup crisis. </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We always talk about the oil biz in Canada as BIG MONEY on the one hand, environmental issues on the other. But this episode taught me that cleaning up abandoned oil wells will soon COST Canada $50 Billion+. So....? <a href="https://t.co/qcn3d2invI">https://t.co/qcn3d2invI</a></p>— Jesse Brown (@JesseBrown) <a href="https://twitter.com/JesseBrown/status/1128353492345720832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 14, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<h3>Financial Bonding Requirements for Well Cleanup</h3><p>Legally, oil and gas companies are required to set aside money to pay for well cleanup costs, a process known as bonding. These requirements vary by state and for public lands, but in all cases, the amounts required are so small as to be practically irrelevant.</p><p>The GAO report reviewed the bonds held by the Bureau of Land Management for wells on public lands and found that the average bond per well in 2018 was worth $2,122.</p><p>The Western Organization of Resource Councils <a href="http://www.worc.org/media/Bonding-Amount-Matrix-3.pdf" target="_blank">summarized bonding requirements </a>by state, and none of them came even close to being adequate to cover estimated costs to deal with old wells. In North Dakota, a $50,000 bond is required for a well. But a $100,000 bond can cover up to 6 wells, which comes out to $16,667 per well — or approximately one tenth of the estimated cost to reclaim a well in that state.</p><p>North Dakota has a history of bending to oil and gas industry pressure when it comes to regulations. While North Dakota's bonding rules fall far short of what's needed to actually cover full cleanup costs, the reality on the ground is much worse. Regulators allow companies to "<a href="https://www.prairiebusinessmagazine.com/news/government-and-politics/4665276-north-dakota-regulators-talk-abandoned-oil-wells-ahead-hearings" target="_blank">temporarily abandon</a>" wells, which requires no action from companies for at least seven years. Wells can hold this "temporary status" for decades. And another practice in the state allows a company to sell old, under-performing wells to another company, passing along the liability but not the bonding funds.</p><p>By any measure, the amount of private money currently allocated in the U.S. to plug and reclaim oil and gas wells is a small fraction of the real costs. That means oil and gas wells — and the U.S. had <a href="https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/wells/" target="_blank">one million active wells in 2017</a>, and even more abandoned — will either be left to fail and potentially contaminate the surrounding water, air and soil, or the public will have to pick up the tab. This represents just one of the many ways the public subsidizes the oil and gas industry.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Statewide, 639 oil wells are considered abandoned. <br><br>The fund has a balance of $22 million, yet Helms estimates the state could potentially be on the hook for a far greater amount.<a href="https://t.co/58Oz4rrQ5i">https://t.co/58Oz4rrQ5i</a></p>— TXsharon (@TXsharon) <a href="https://twitter.com/TXsharon/status/1179547951846350848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 3, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<h3>A South Dakota Case Study</h3><p>South Dakota allows companies to post a $30,000 bond for as many wells as the company chooses to drill. Spyglass Cedar Creek is a Texas-based company that was operating in South Dakota and recently <a href="https://rapidcityjournal.com/news/opinion/editorial/ours-state-needs-larger-bonds-from-energy-companies/article_c3bb4f3a-73f5-5711-98a7-529935917c6f.html" target="_blank">abandoned 40 wells</a>, which the state has estimated will have a cleanup cost of $1.2 million.</p><p>However, there is a twist to this story. That $30,000 bond doesn't really exist. The owners of the company had put $20,000 of it into a Certificate of Deposit. But when the state went looking for that money, the owners said they had cashed it in 2015 because, as reported by the <a href="https://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/purpose-of-natural-gas-project-bond-was-forgotten-company-says/article_df7d21c8-c5dc-5925-82ea-6df4caa037ca.html" target="_blank">Rapid City Journal</a>, "company officials did not remember what the money was for."</p><p>Spyglass Cedar Creek does not have the money set aside that was required to clean up these wells, the state does not have recourse to get that money, and some of the wells are reportedly leaking. So, what can be done?</p><p>According to Doyle Karpen, member of the South Dakota Board of Minerals and Environment, the answer is for the taxpayers of that state to cover the cost.</p><p>"I think the only way we can correct this is go to the Legislature and ask for money," Karpen <a href="https://www.aberdeennews.com/news/sd-environmental-board-waits-to-plug-abandoned-natural-gas-wells/article_d0a4518b-1733-5a7a-b5f3-65508e26ad66.html" target="_blank">said earlier this year.</a></p><h3>Following the Coal Industry Business Model</h3><p>What is starting to unfold with the oil and gas industry is very similar to what has already been playing out with the U.S. <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" rel="noopener noreferrer">coal</a> industry.</p><p><a href="https://publicintegrity.org/environment/while-zombie-mines-idle-cleanup-and-workers-suffer-in-limbo/" target="_blank">According to a Center for Public Integrity investigation</a>, more than 150 coal mines (and dozens of uranium mines) have been allowed to idle indefinitely, enabling their owners to avoid paying for the costs of cleanup.</p><p>In April, the Stanford Law Review published the paper, "<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3136711" target="_blank">Bankruptcy as Bailout: Coal Company Insolvency and the Erosion of Federal Law</a>," which notes that almost half the coal mined in the U.S. is done so by companies that have recently declared bankruptcy.</p><p>The paper notes how the bankruptcy process is used by coal companies to rid themselves of environmental cleanup liabilities and pension costs "in a manner that has eviscerated the regulatory schemes that gave rise to those obligations."</p><p>Yet coal company executives often receive <a href="https://grist.org/climate-energy/coal-company-paid-its-execs-8-million-in-bonuses-just-before-filing-for-bankruptcy/" target="_blank">healthy bonuses</a>, even as they are driving companies into <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/westmoreland-paid-millions-in-executive-bonuses-in-year-before-bankruptcy-1541804141" target="_blank">bankruptcy.</a></p><p>This summer, Blackjewel famously failed to pay its coal miners, and even pulled funds out of their bank accounts, after the company suddenly declared bankruptcy in July. That prompted workers to sit on train tracks in Kentucky, blocking a $1 million shipment of coal, in a <a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2019/09/26/eastern-kentucky-coal-miners-end-blackjewel-railroad-blockade-protest/3775735002/" target="_blank">two-month protest</a>. And Blackjewel is poised to leave behind <a href="https://southerlymag.org/2019/08/25/blackjewel-left-coal-miners-without-pay-now-it-might-leave-appalachia-thousands-of-acres-of-land-to-clean-up/" target="_blank">thousands of acres of mined land in Appalachia</a> without adequate reclamation.</p><h3>Privatize the Profits, Socialize the Losses</h3><p>The mineral extraction business model in the U.S. is set up to maximize profits for executives, even as they lose investor money and bankrupt their companies. That is true of the coal industry and <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/05/29/flip-well-fracking-shale-halcon-resources-floyd-wilson" target="_blank">that is true of the shale oil and gas industry</a>.</p><p>At the same time, the regulatory capture by these industries at both state and federal levels allows private companies to pass on environmental cleanup costs to the public, and the inadequate bonding system for oil and gas well reclamation represents just one more example.</p><p>The so-called fracking revolution in America has resulted in many new records: <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/09/23/us-exporting-fracking-oil-gas-climate-catastrophe" target="_blank">record amounts</a> of U.S. oil and gas exported (to the detriment of a livable climate), new levels of human <a href="https://www.westword.com/news/long-awaited-colorado-health-study-finds-significant-risks-from-fracking-11516032" target="_blank">health impacts</a> on surrounding communities, record numbers of industry-induced <a href="http://oklahoman.com/earthquakes" target="_blank">earthquakes</a>, record amounts of flaring <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/01/29/fracking-industry-gas-flaring-problem" target="_blank">natural gas</a> in oil and gas fields, and record-breaking <a href="https://marcellusdrilling.com/2017/05/great-scott-eclipse-drills-new-longest-lateral-in-world-in-utica/" target="_blank">depths and lengths of wells.</a></p><p>And the cleanup costs for the fracking boom are also poised to be staggering.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Abandoned Texas oil wells seen as "ticking time bombs" of contamination <a href="https://t.co/ilukEcTWBC">https://t.co/ilukEcTWBC</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/TexasTribune?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TexasTribune</a></p>— lifeintheshale (@lifeintheshale) <a href="https://twitter.com/lifeintheshale/status/1135978911349858304?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 4, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/10/18/public-paying-cleanup-fracking-boom-oil-gas-bonds" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">DeSmogBlog</a>.</em></p>Related Articles Around the Web
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Trending
Fracking Study Shows Toxic Chemical Exposure 2,000 Feet From Drilling Sites
18 October 2019
Fracking
A fracking well looms over a residential area of Liberty, Colorado on Aug. 19. WildEarth Guardians / Flickr
A new multiyear study found that people living or working within 2,000 feet, or nearly half a mile, of a hydraulic fracturing (fracking) drill site may be at a heightened risk of exposure to benzene and other toxic chemicals, according to research released Thursday by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE)
<p>The <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pO41DJMXw9sD1NjR_OKyBJP5NCb-AO0I/view" target="_blank">study</a> concluded that people living within almost a half-mile radius of a fracking well have an increased risk of feeling the effects of chemical exposure though headaches, nausea, dizziness, nosebleeds and respiratory trouble, according to <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/17/colorado-oil-gas-health-risks-study/" target="_blank">The Denver Post</a>.</p><p>Until now, Colorado has had a 500-foot minimum distance that drilling wells can be from homes. The <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pO41DJMXw9sD1NjR_OKyBJP5NCb-AO0I/view" target="_blank">study</a> found that, in certain conditions, toxic <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/chemicals" target="_self">chemicals</a> like benzene, toluene and ethyltoluenes could be up to 10 times the recommended levels at a 500-foot distance. As you move away from the fracking site, the chemicals dissipate, but could still be at unsafe levels at 2,000 feet away, as <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/colorado-fracking-study-shows-toxic-chemicals-2000-feet-away-drilling-sites-1466091" target="_blank">Newsweek</a> reported.</p><p>That takes into account only the chemicals that are known. Some chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process are trade secrets. As <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/colorado-fracking-study-shows-toxic-chemicals-2000-feet-away-drilling-sites-1466091" target="_blank">Newsweek</a> reported, a recent <a href="https://www.pfpi.net/secret-fracking-chemicals-threaten-ohioans-health-drinking-water" target="_blank">study from the Partnership for Policy Integrity</a> noted that natural gas drillers use a law that allows some of their chemicals to remain secretive.</p><p>"Secret exposure to chemicals that our own EPA reports as a potential hazard to human health is unconscionable," said Alan Lockwood, MD, of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) to <a href="http://newsweek/" target="_blank">Newsweek</a>. "Healthcare professionals can't possibly treat patients properly, make protective public health plans and decisions, and protect first responders without knowing what chemicals are in the environment."</p><p>The <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pO41DJMXw9sD1NjR_OKyBJP5NCb-AO0I/view" target="_blank">CDPHE report</a> strengthens Governor Jared Polis' argument that emissions from Colorado's powerful oil and gas industry need to be reined in. The finding also helps explain the complaints 750 residents living near oil and gas facilities made to the state's health department, said state toxicologist Kristy Richardson, as <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/17/colorado-oil-gas-health-risks-study/" target="_blank">The Denver Post</a> reported. Around 60 percent of those complaints involved symptoms commensurate with chemical exposure, such as headaches, dizziness and difficulty breathing.</p><p>Computer modeling from the study is expected to help regulators set new standards for the minimum distance a drilling site can be from a home.</p><p>"This study is the first of its kind because it used actual emissions data to model potential exposure and health risks," said CDPHE environmental programs director John Putnam, according to <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/17/colorado-oil-gas-health-risks-study/" target="_blank">The Denver Post</a>. "While we pursue further research, we won't delay enacting stricter emissions standards for chemicals that cause human effects, ozone pollution and climate change. This study reinforces what we already know: We need to minimize emissions from oil and gas sources."</p><p>State regulators insisted they would start to take a close look at all new applications for drilling within 2,000 feet of any residence and that they would start testing air emissions around industry wells. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission said it would start to use its money to test air quality around homes near gas wells, according to <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/17/colorado-oil-gas-health-risks-study/" target="_blank">The Denver Post</a>.</p><p>Community activists praised the findings and insisted that state lawmakers need to prioritize community health and rein in oil and gas industry pollution.</p><p>"Dozens of children living in close proximity to oil and gas have already documented off-the-charts levels of benzene in their blood," said Colorado Rising spokeswoman Anne Lee Foster, as <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/10/17/colorado-oil-gas-health-risks-study/" target="_blank">The Denver Post</a> reported. "Considering this and the corroborative data of the study, the state must pause oil and gas permitting and ensure that public health and safety is protected — as new legislation mandates."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">"There is no evidence that <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/fracking?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#fracking</a> can operate without threatening public health directly" <a href="https://t.co/9c3wXGzba6">https://t.co/9c3wXGzba6</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/FrackAction?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FrackAction</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Frack_Off?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Frack_Off</a></p>— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) <a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/1142628425582227456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 23, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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Well Blowout
A fracked natural gas well in northwest Louisiana has been burning for two weeks after suffering a blowout. A state official said the fire will likely burn for the next month before the flames can be brought under control by drilling a relief well.
Well Blowout
<p>DeSmog obtained drone video footage shot 13 days after the blowout, which occurred early in the morning on August 30, the day after the well was hydraulically fractured. A tower of flames reportedly shot into the air that could be seen from more than 30 miles away. While the flames are no longer as intense, the fire is still visible from a distance of more than a mile. GEP Haynesville, LLC, the well's operator, told <a href="https://www.kpvi.com/news/national_news/multi-well-natural-gas-fires-continue-to-burn-in-coushatta/article_c5778d02-afeb-5728-b067-3dbaff892351.html?fbclid=IwAR2sROJHdxV9zUD9s-azyXuf2bMrly_950ChIPkr1myWNwJ2H7tuiFsmL20" target="_blank">local ABC affiliate KPVI </a>that the fire started during flow-back operations, but the exact cause has not been determined yet.</p><p>Experts have voiced concerns over the pollution being released, especially given the length of time this <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">fossil fuel</a> well has been leaking and burning.</p><p>"Blowouts are (unintended) large, uncontrolled pollutant sources with potentially significant health and environmental consequences," Gunnar W. Schade, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University, told me via email after viewing the drone video obtained by DeSmog. "Blowouts need to be shut down as soon as possible."</p><p>Sharon Wilson, Texas coordinator of environmental advocacy group Earthworks, outlined what happens during well blowouts like this.</p><p>"The gas is under pressure so if they lose control, the gas, frack fluid, produced water, and oil/condensate all blast out of the hole," Wilson said during a call after viewing the video. "They have to get specialized teams to come shut the well in." </p>Air Quality Impacts?
<p>The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) has determined that the blowout and fire present no major air quality concerns. "LDEQ responders consider this a very low-impact event," Greg Langley, LDEQ spokesperson, said via email. "The well is clean, it's gas and what is being released is being consumed in the fire." </p><p>"LDEQ is receiving daily air monitoring results from the environmental response contractor hired by the well owner," Langley explained. "The company set up four air monitors to test for sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, volatile organic compounds, and lower explosive limit. LDEQ also does periodic air monitoring with our own equipment. All meter readings have been below detection limits." </p><p>Most of the air monitoring is being done with a chemical detector called MultiRAEs, according to Langley. When asked which <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/clusters/fallon/glossary-voc.pdf" target="_blank">volatile organic compounds</a>, a class of air pollutants that includes the carcinogen benzene, were present, Langley replied, "Nothing was detected." </p><p>"It's laughable that they say there are no air impacts from this event," Wilson said. She frequently monitors oil and gas industry sites with an optical gas imaging camera that detects leaking <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/methane">methane</a> and other pollutants invisible to the naked eye. Wilson's videos have been instrumental in identifying numerous leaking wells in various shale regions across the United States, including Louisiana's Haynesville Shale, where this blowout is burning. Wilson reports her findings to state regulatory agencies, which on occasion have fined operators for the leaks she flagged. </p><p>"Even without my optical gas imaging camera, I know there are air impacts because I can see them with my naked eyes. You can see that the gas coming up is not all being burned off and the plume of smoke and gases is traveling a very far distance," Wilson said, based on the drone footage.</p><p>Wilson recommends placing air sampling equipment on a drone to survey the area above the fire and leaking well.</p><p>"The problem is the plume is up much higher than an LDEQ inspector standing on the ground holding a MultiRae meter," she said.</p><p>Wilma Subra, a technical advisor for the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, agrees that using drones would be advisable and that air canister testing should be done too. This latter approach captures air samples over a period of days and measures how much of each compound is present. Subra thinks air canister testing is the best way to know if the emissions around the blowout are a threat to human health.</p>Louisiana’s Response and Oversight
<p>The Louisiana State Police's hazmat (hazardous materials) team and the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR), which regulates oil and gas production, are also monitoring the blowout.</p><p>Like LDEQ, these two agencies concluded the accident did not warrant alerting nearby residents of potential health concerns. A few people live within a mile and a half of the site.</p><p>"Any time there is a loss of well control, there is a concern about environmental impacts," Patrick Courreges, communications director for LDNR, told me. DNR's "first concern is for the physical safety of the workers on site and for any people potentially affected in nearby homes and businesses," but in this case the site is fairly remote and air monitoring, in place since the first day of the blowout, hasn't indicated any potential immediate impacts of harmful gases, he explained.</p><p>"Currently, well control contractors are on site, under the supervision of the operator and State Police Incident Command to keep the impacts contained as much as possible, using water to help control the heat and potential spread of flame," Courreges said. "While there is no good news in a blowout, the fire does actually help with lessening the impact of the escaping methane by burning much of it off, though obviously the goal is to get the flow of methane stopped and the fire out as soon as possible."</p><p>"The longer-term solution is likely to be the drilling of wells to intercept the affected wellheads and stop the flow of gas in the damaged wellheads," he told me. That might take a month. A design for a relief well has not been submitted yet to DNR, though one is being planned. Drilling a relief well was the same basic approach which ultimately stopped the flow of oil from BP's Macondo well blowout deep under the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.</p><p>"Full-on blowouts in hydraulically fractured Haynesville Shale wells are rare," Courreges said. "While there have been instances of valves or piping giving way over the years that required emergency response, I don't recall any blowouts on this scale from those type of wells."</p><p>Wilson is skeptical of that response. "We don't know how common this is because the industry tries very hard to keep these events quiet," Wilson said. "If they happen in a remote area, no one finds out. They are always downplayed and the regulators help with the deception." She believes that "there has never been a system in place to adequately regulate this industry, so they are allowed to self-regulate by doing their own testing."</p><p><span style="background-color: initial;">"</span>For decades we have endured these oil and gas disastrous accidents that have harmed health and pushed us into a <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate crisis</a>," Wilson said, "but we don't have to put up with this anymore because the technology to transition to clean renewable energy is available today and it's cheaper. The only thing holding us back is the political will."</p>Natural Gas Blowouts
<p>Methane, the main component in natural gas, is a greenhouse gas that is <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-bad-of-a-greenhouse-gas-is-methane/" target="_blank">up to 86 times more potent </a>than carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after entering the atmosphere. A study organized by the Environmental Defense Fund (<span style="background-color: initial;">EDF</span>) and published in June last year reports that the U.S. oil and gas supply chain is <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/06/21/methane-leaks-oil-gas-60-higher-epa-estimates-science-study-edf" target="_blank">leaking roughly 60 percent more </a>methane than previous Environmental Protection Agency (<span style="background-color: initial;">EPA</span>) estimates, which largely relied on industry self-reports.</p><p>Wilson compared this blowout to the 2015 <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/03/23/aliso-canyon-disaster-phmsa-natural-gas-storage-regulation" target="_blank">Aliso Canyon</a> catastrophe in southern California and the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-exxon-xto-natgas-ohio/exxons-xto-caps-leaking-ohio-gas-well-20-days-after-blowout-idUSKCN1GJ355" target="_blank">2018 XTO blowout in Ohio</a>, which both gushed large amounts of methane. "This blowout is a huge deal," Wilson said. "We are at the climate breaking point and no one can even say how much methane is blasting into the air."</p><p>Schade told me that estimating the amount of pollutants released from the "flare" (the industry term for intentionally burning natural gas in oil fields) is possible by looking at data from the <a href="https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/eog/viirs/download_global_flare.html" target="_blank">National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)</a>. This source will show data about the flare detected by satellite, allowing the atmospheric scientist to calculate the estimated amount of heat and emissions. </p><p>After reviewing the satellite data available so far, Schade reported the heat generated from this burning Louisiana well is at least three times the magnitude of the largest flares in the Permian oil fields of neighboring Texas. According to his estimates, this burning well may be releasing approximately 8,700 pounds of <a href="https://www3.epa.gov/region1/airquality/nox.html" target="_blank">nitrogen oxides</a>, pollutants that lead to smog and acid rain, each day.</p><p>"The emissions from such a source can be enormous," said Schade.</p>From Your Site Articles
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Babies Born Near Oil and Gas Wells Are 40 to 70% More Likely to Have Congenital Heart Defects, New Study Shows
22 July 2019
Energy
A new fracking rig and a pumping rig stand beside a house Feb. 10, 2016 in an Oklahoma City, Oklahoma neighborhood. J Pat Carter / Getty Images
By Julia Conley
Proximity to oil and gas sites makes pregnant mothers up to 70 percent more likely to give birth to a baby with congenital heart defects, according to a new study.
<p><br/></p>
<p>Led by Dr. Lisa McKenzie at the University of Colorado, researchers <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-07/uoca-gpo071819.php" target="_blank">found</a> that the chemicals released from oil and gas wells can have serious and potentially fatal effects on babies born to mothers who live within a mile of an active well site — as about 17 million Americans do.</p><p>The researchers studied more than 3,000 newborns who were born in Colorado between 2005 and 2011. The state is home to about <a href="https://corising.org/colorado-map-oil-gas-wells/" target="_blank">60,000 fracking sites</a>, according to the grassroots group Colorado Rising. In areas with the highest intensity of oil and gas extraction activity, mothers were 40 to 70 percent more likely to give birth to babies with congenital heart defects (CHDs).</p><p>"We observed more children were being born with a congenital heart defect in areas with the highest intensity of oil and gas well activity," said McKenzie in a statement.<br></p><p>The study was more precise than previous reports about the link between oil and gas extraction and CHDs. The researchers studied families in which the pregnant mother lived near an active oil or gas well up to the second month of pregnancy, when fetal cardiac development takes place.</p><p>They also estimated the level of intensity of the oil and gas activity, determined exactly how close the pregnant mothers lived to the well sites, and ensured there were no other significant <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/air-pollution">air pollution</a> sources which could skew their results.</p><p>One science journalist, on social media, called the study "extremely convincing."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This study that found a 40-70% increased risk of congenital heart defects in children born close to oil and gas infrastructure is extremely convincing. They adjusted for all the things I wondered about when I first saw the headlines.<a href="https://t.co/Unccpzi9MD">https://t.co/Unccpzi9MD</a></p>— Dave Levitan (@davelevitan) <a href="https://twitter.com/davelevitan/status/1152226809238478853?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 19, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This study that found a 40-70% increased risk of congenital heart defects in children born close to oil and gas infrastructure is extremely convincing. They adjusted for all the things I wondered about when I first saw the headlines.<a href="https://t.co/Unccpzi9MD">https://t.co/Unccpzi9MD</a></p>— Dave Levitan (@davelevitan) <a href="https://twitter.com/davelevitan/status/1152226809238478853?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 19, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>Biologist Sandra Steingraber was among the experts on the dangers of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">fossil fuel</a> extraction who pointed to the study as the latest evidence that allowing oil and gas wells to operate, especially near communities, is a public health hazard.</p><p>"It's a strong study," Steingraber wrote on Twitter after reading the paper, noting that the researchers built on knowledge scientists already have about chemicals that are known to be harmful to prenatal health and that are released during <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fracking/" rel="noopener noreferrer">fracking</a>.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">2/ First of all, the link makes sense. We know that these specific birth defects, which affect the valves and great arteries of the heart, are associated w prenatal exposure to benzene/diesel exhaust, and we know that benzene/diesel exhaust are found in air near fracking sites.</p>— Dr. Sandra Steingraber (@ssteingraber1) <a href="https://twitter.com/ssteingraber1/status/1152205104453496832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 19, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p>Previous studies about the effects of oil and gas drilling on cardiac health of newborns "did not take into account stage of pregnancy or what was happening at the wellpad during that window of time," <a href="https://twitter.com/ssteingraber1/status/1152207596918595584" target="_blank">wrote</a> Steingraber. "This matters because the cardiac structures form very early in development — during the first two months. If fracking is literally wrecking the hearts of unborn babies it has to do so in early pregnancy."</p><p>"Looking at where mothers lived immediately before pregnancy and during the first critical weeks after conception and what was going on at nearby fracking wells, researchers found startling patterns," she <a href="https://twitter.com/ssteingraber1/status/1152208690025549826" target="_blank">added.</a></p><p>CHDs are the leading cause of death in infants who have birth defects. Babies born with CHDs are more likely to show a "failure to thrive," experience brain injury and exhibit developmental challenges.</p><p>The study comes as President Donald <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Trump</a> plans to open up <a href="https://www.thecalifornian.com/story/news/2019/05/13/trump-administration-california-central-coast-public-lands-oil-gas-fracking/1189281001/" target="_blank">725,000 acres of public land</a> in California to oil and gas companies. The president has <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/17/trumps-drilling-leases-public-lands-could-release-47b-metric-tons-carbon-more-all-28" target="_blank">offered</a> a total of 378 million acres of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands" rel="noopener noreferrer">public land</a> and water for oil and gas drilling activities since taking office.</p><p>Steingraber called on opponents of fossil fuel extraction to speak out about their opposition by appealing to lawmakers and in letters to the editor, noting that McKenzie has been targeted by oil and gas giants for years as they fight research revealing the public health dangers they pose.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Study: Babies With Low Birth Weights More Likely Near Pennsylvania Fracking Sites <a href="https://t.co/vqOPN7KLVU">https://t.co/vqOPN7KLVU</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/foodandwater?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@foodandwater</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/greenwatchdogNY?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@greenwatchdogNY</a></p>— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) <a href="https://twitter.com/EcoWatch/status/941501836187656192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 15, 2017</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/19/babies-born-near-oil-and-gas-wells-are-70-more-likely-have-congenital-heart-defects?cd-origin=rss" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em><br/></p>From Your Site Articles
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