Clean Air Council
A water and methane geyser, bubbling water and mud volcanoes have Pennsylvania shale-field residents scared and demanding answers. A number of dramatic methane emissions were reported to have begun in Leroy Township, Bradford County on May 19, 2012. Initial reports from residents suggested that there may have been a substantial loss of control of natural gas from one or more of the shale gas wells in the area. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) detected methane in nearby residents’ water wells, about one half mile from the Chesapeake-owned Morse well pad. Last week, there was a large methane and water geyser reported near one of Shell’s wells in Tioga County.
While PA DEP and Chesapeake monitored the Bradford County site, they have not yet released this data to the public. Area residents demanded third-party independent testing be performed. In response to residents’ requests, Clean Air Council, a Penssylvania clean air group, commissioned Gas Safety Inc. to monitor for potential methane leakages associated with the gas bubbling in Leroy Township.
“We’re concerned about the possibility that fracking is causing increased methane leakage from natural fault lines that previously emitted methane in much smaller amounts,” Clean Air Council Executive Director Joseph Otis Minott said.
While studies have estimated the amount of methane that is leaked or vented from natural gas equipment, Gas Safety claims that there is little to no data on how much is being emitted every day through naturally occurring fault lines that may have been altered by fracking.
“Two methane plumes were detected,” said Dr. Bryce Payne, environmental scientist and author of the report. “One larger plume substantially increased in size over a few hours, which suggests large amounts of methane were being emitted into the air. A smaller plume was also detected about 2 miles west of the larger one. The data and observations suggest natural gas has spread through an extensive underground area beyond where the plumes were found.”
“The International Energy Agency recently recommended in their Golden Rules for a Golden Age of Gas report that drilling companies need to carefully survey the geology of the region to avoid fault lines,” said Payne. “With the already-fractured geology of Pennsylvania and parts of New York, our methane measurements demonstrate that this may prove impossible to do.”
“There are some places that you just shouldn’t drill. Scientists must continue collecting data to answer whether or not the Marcellus Shale can be responsibly drilled or even meet minimal compliance with the EIA’s recommendations.”
While no isotopic testing has confirmed the methane source, the report points out that the sustained and elevated levels of methane were indicative of a fugitive source of upwind methane. The report also states that bubbling gas in Towanda Creek was consistent with how fugitive gas from shale wells would travel through faults, fractures, and groundwater aquifers. Researchers also found extremely high methane levels on the banks of the Towanda Creek and nearby residential water wells that were heavily contaminated with methane.
The results from this monitoring effort may shed light on the broader debate about the natural gas industry’s potential impact on climate change and even potential regional impacts on public health.
“Area residents and the Council are concerned about the potential health impacts from ground-level ozone, which is created when large quantities of methane mix in the air with other pollutants. Methane is also 21 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and the natural gas industry is the largest human-made source of global emissions. This could have a very fast and powerful impact on warming our planet,” Clean Air Council Outreach Coordinator Matt Walker said.
The Gas Safety report stated that the methane levels found in residents’ water were high enough to pose asphyxiation hazards if the water was used for showering or other high water uses in close quarters. Residents reported experiencing symptoms associated with asphyxiation.
Sherry Vargson, a Granville Summit resident, said “It makes me anxious because I don’t believe most of us know how to handle air issues. It’s not like you can put a filter on the air you breathe outside. Considering it’s a hazard, we should be made aware of what precautions we should take. I’d love to hear an answer.”
The Council shared the sampling data with the north-central regional offices of PA DEP, as well as PA DEP Secretary Michael Krancer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 3 and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Region 3.
Gas Safety used a portable instrument called a Cavity Ring-Down Spectrometry for sampling methane. The device generates a high quantity of highly reliable methane measurements on a continuous basis.
Visit EcoWatch's FRACKING page for more related news on this topic.
Though made in large part of plastic, glass, ceramics, gold and copper, they also contain critical resources. The gallium used for LEDs and the camera flash, the tantalum in capacitors and indium that powers the display were all pulled from the ground — at a price for nature and people.
"Mining raw materials is always problematic, both with regard to human rights and ecology," said Melanie Müller, raw materials expert of the German think tank SWP. "Their production process is pretty toxic."
The gallium and indium in many phones comes from China or South Korea, the tantalum from the Democratic Republic of Congo or Rwanda. All in, such materials comprise less than ten grams of a phone's weight. But these grams finance an international mining industry that causes radioactive earth dumps, poisoned groundwater and Indigenous population displacement.
Environmental Damage: 'Nature Has Been Overexploited'
The problem is that modern technologies don't work without what are known as critical raw materials. Collectively, solar panels, drones, 3D printers and smartphone contain as many as 30 of these different elements sourced from around the globe. A prime example is lithium from Chile, which is essential in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles.
"No one, not even within the industry, would deny that mining lithium causes enormous environmental damage," Müller explained, in reference to the artificial lakes companies create when flushing the metal out of underground brine reservoirs. "The process uses vast amounts of water, so you end up with these huge flooded areas where the lithium settles."
This means of extraction results in the destruction and contamination of the natural water system. Unique plants and animals lose access to groundwater and watering holes. There have also been reports of freshwater becoming salinated due to extensive acidic waste water during lithium mining.
But lithium is not the only raw material that causes damage. Securing just one ton of rare earth elements produces 2,000 tons of toxic waste, and has devastated large regions of China, said Günther Hilpert, head of the Asia Research Division of the German think tank SWP.
He says companies there have adopted a process of spraying acid over the mining areas in order to separate the rare earths from other ores, and that mined areas are often abandoned after excavation.
"They are no longer viable for agricultural use," Hilpert said. "Nature has been overexploited."
China is not the only country with low environmental mining standards and poor resource governance. In Madagascar, for example, a thriving illegal gem and metal mining sector has been linked to rainforest depletion and destruction of natural lemur habitats.
States like Madagascar, Rwanda and the DRC score poorly on the Environmental Performance Index that ranks 180 countries for their effort on factors including conservation, air quality, waste management and emissions. Environmentalists are therefore particularly concerned that these countries are mining highly toxic materials like beryllium, tantalum and cobalt.
But it is not only nature that suffers from the extraction of high-demand critical raw materials.
"It is a dirty, toxic, partly radioactive industry," Hilpert said. "China, for example, has never really cared about human rights when it comes to achieving production targets."
Dirty, Toxic, Radioactive: Working in the Mining Sector
One of the most extreme examples is Baotou, a Chinese city in Inner Mongolia, where rare earth mining poisoned surrounding farms and nearby villages, causing thousands of people to leave the area.
In 2012, The Guardian described a toxic lake created in conjunction with rare earth mining as "a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge water loaded with chemicals used to process the 17 most sought after minerals in the world."
Local residents reported health issues including aching legs, diabetes, osteoporosis and chest problems, The Guardian wrote.
South Africa has also been held up for turning a blind eye to the health impacts of mining.
"The platinum sector in South Africa has been criticized for performing very poorly on human rights — even within the raw materials sector," Müller said.
In 2012, security forces killed 34 miners who had been protesting poor working conditions and low wages at a mine owned by the British company Lonmin. What became known as the "Marikana massacre" triggered several spontaneous strikes across the country's mining sector.
Müller says miners can still face exposure to acid drainage — a frequent byproduct of platinum mining — that can cause chemical burns and severe lung damage. Though this can be prevented by a careful waste system.
Some progress was made in 2016 when the South African government announced plans to make mining companies pay $800 million (€679 million) for recycling acid mine water. But they didn't all comply. In 2020, activists sued Australian-owned mining company Mintails and the government to cover the cost of environmental cleanup.
Another massive issue around mining is water consumption. Since the extraction of critical raw materials is very water intensive, drought prone countries such as South Africa, have witnessed an increase in conflicts over supply.
For years, industry, government and the South African public debated – without a clear agreement – whether companies should get privileged access to water and how much the population may suffer from shortages.
Mining in Brazil: Replacing Nature, People, Land Rights
Beyond the direct health and environmental impact of mining toxic substances, quarrying critical raw materials destroys livelihoods, as developments in Brazil demonstrate.
"Brazil is the major worldwide niobium producer and reserves in [the state of] Minas Gerais would last more than 200 years [at the current rate of demand]," said Juliana Siqueira-Gay, environmental engineer and Ph.D. student at the University of São Paulo.
While the overall number of niobium mining requests is stagnating, the share of claims for Indigenous land has skyrocketed from 3 to 36 percent within one year. If granted, 23 percent of the Amazon forest and the homeland of 222 Indigenous groups could fall victim to deforestation in the name of mining, a study by Siqueira-Gay finds.
In early 2020, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed a bill which would allow corporations to develop areas populated by Indigenous communities in the future. The law has not yet entered into force, but "this policy could have long-lasting negative effects on Brazil's socio-biodiversity," said Siqueira-Gay.
One example are the niobium reserves in Seis Lagos, in Brazil's northeast, which could be quarried to build electrolytic capacitors for smartphones.
"They overlap the Balaio Indigenous land and it would cause major impacts in Indigenous communities by clearing forests responsible for providing food, raw materials and regulating the local climate," Siqueira-Gay explained.
She says scientific good practice guidelines offer a blueprint for sustainable mining that adheres to human rights and protects forests. Quarries in South America — and especially Brazil — funded by multilaterial banks like the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group have to follow these guidelines, Siqueira-Gay said.
They force companies to develop sustainable water supply, minimize acid exposure and re-vegetate mined surfaces. "First, negative impacts must be avoided, then minimized and at last compensated — not the other way around."
Reposted with permission from DW.