Comination Calculators

Shale gas - the issue of the moratorium

Photo: checpitt

The long-term negative impacts of hydraulic fracturing at great depths of the Utica Shale are potentially too devastating: it is necessary that any activity, even exploratory stops NOW! Everybody thought okay, the Charest government shows no signs of wanting to impose a moratorium. Spring is upon us and drilling resumed with a vengeance soon, no doubt. TIME IS RUNNING OUT!

Regarding the issue of a moratorium, we will remember the crisis in the hog industry in Quebec in 1996. The parallels and lessons to be learned are too glaring not to make links. Andre Boisclair and company have declared a moratorium of two years on new hog barns in June 2002. However, during this moratorium, the Quebec pork exports have increased steadily and environmental protection measures have been released. The moratorium ended, poor agricultural practices such as fluid management on farms, feed made from GMO increased under-dosing of antibiotics and too narrow buffer strips are still the norm. Only the hard market has slowed the pork industry in Quebec pig cancer, and our rivers are still polluted. Integrators and pork industry are virtually all subsidies and tax breaks, while our farmers and organic agriculture made otherwise are not always encouraged by the state.

The MRC and municipalities who do not want an intensive pig farms in their territory are still denied the right to ban them. Here you familiar? As

BAPE recommendations on water and on pork production have been put on shelves, allow us to doubt the effectiveness of BAPE on shale gas. Since the moratorium on new hog farms has not changed in Quebec, let us fear that the moratorium on exploration and exploitation shale gas (if we ever get it) will bring nothing new either. That any government direction focuses on the economics in favor of private enterprise at the expense of human rights and environmental protection laws added to the appropriate measure to promote this course which are the source of our problems Quebec.

Our patience and our tolerance begin to fail. We can not say it enough: Without clean water, life is impossible! Photo: marcelluseffect.blogspot.com

Shale gas moratorium - what to make of it

The long term negative impacts of hydraulic fracturing shale Deeply in the Utica are potentially too devastating: all drilling activity, even for exploratory purposes, must STOP NOW ! Everybody in Quebec seems to agree on this, but the Charest Government is not showing any signs of even considering a moratorium. Spring is around the corner and drilling should start again soon. TIME IS RUNNING OUT!

As for the moratorium question: let's not forget the pig crisis in Quebec, well on its way around 1996. The similarities and the lessons to be learned are too obvious to deny. André Boisclair and his cronies declared a 2 year moratorium on new pig barns in June 2002. But while this "moratorium" was on, Quebec pork exports kept going up, and environmental protection measures were relaxed. Once the moratorium over, bad "agricultural" practices are "business as usual": liquid slurry instead of dry bedding (like hay or shavings), feed made of GMOs and peppered with antibiotics, too narrow green belts around fields are still the norm. Only the challenging worldwide pork market kept the pig folly under control. Our waterways are still very polluted. Integrators and their industrially produced pork receive almost all the subsidies and tax incentives, while our organic and friendly farmers are neglected by the state.

The MRCs and towns that don't want pig CAFOs (Confined Animal Feeding Operations) still can't ban them. Doesn't that remind you of anything?

Like the recommendations of the BAPE on water and the BAPE on pig production that are gathering dust, we're afraid that this BAPE on shale gas will suffer the same fate. Like the moratorium on new pig farms didn't change a thing in Quebec (or maybe made things even worse), we feel that the same thing will happen again IF we do finally have a moratorium on shale gas. It is our government policies all aimed at economic benefits for private enterprise at the expense of human rights and environmental protection, with the help of laws made to fit these policies, that are the root causes of our problems here in Quebec.

Our patience and tolerance are running short. We say again: There is no life without clean water! Photo: Voix de l'Est

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Drinking water - do we measure radioactivity?


Une équipe of investigative journalists have questioned whether the environmental measures could see that drinking water was analyzed for radioactive products. It's a very valid question, knowing that we are asking our factories municipal wastewater receiving wastewater from drilling with hydraulic fracturing in the shale, such plants discharge their treated product in our waterways which in turn are used to drinking water for people downstream. The basement contains naturally radioactive materials, and it may well be that what emerges from the depths of the earth is radioactive! Here is a free translation of such a journalistic investigation in the United States. The article is very long and I've translated some passages. I recommend you read the entire article if the subject appeals to you.

Our information team has discovered that the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) does not say everything in its reports on drinking water in the United States. One might be surprised because it was after making quite intentional by the agency that is supposed to protect the nation from contaminated waters.

"I think that the EPA erred in going completely off of certain radioactive materials." said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, a physicist and former science consultant radiation. Makhijani has a PhD in physics from Berkeley and has testified before Congress and appeared as an expert witness in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It administers the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research at the moment: "I told them that their ideas were dated drinking water science in 1959." he said.

However, the post KHOUAS found that the EPA has never updated its laws to ensure that treatment facilities test or measure some types of natural radiation which could expose us to greater doses of radiation and therefore a greater danger to health, such as strontium 90.

For example, lead 210, which is not a form of lead usually found in the rods and other industrial uses, is a very common by-product of radon gas that is itself radioactive. However, EPA does not regulate this element, and in fact misses the threat of this very possibility of contamination of our water.

In a statement sent to our office, the authorities of the agency say they do not regulate lead-210 from natural sources "because the law looks radioisotopes artificial (man made) only." However, lead 210 is a good example of how natural radiation can harm public health more than some types man-made, according to Makhijani. According to his calculations, lead-210 puts our natural bone to radiation almost 7 times higher than strontium 90, a radioactive contaminant made by man that EPA regulates. The two radioactive elements tend to "attack" our bones, cause cancer and other health effects at this location.

In the 1990s, the EPA thought to regulate radioactive lead-210, but was eventually dropped. Upon filing its final legislation in 2000, the agency suggested that it would make the monitoring of the contaminant under another federal program. The EPA has recently confirmed KHOUAS-TV that such monitoring has never occurred.

KHOUAS also found that politics and pressures from suppliers may play a role in the decisions of EPA regulations on drinking water. In some cases, the agency's response to fix a problem of high concentrations of certain radioactive elements in water is not to try to find out.

Take for example radium 224, which emits a form of radiation called alpha particles. In a Federal Register, an entry dated December 7, 2000, EPA reported in its final pier of the law on radiation in drinking water, if the systems Water should be tested for radium 224, it follows that many water systems violate the law. As a result, national laws on testing for alpha radiation does not include appropriate methods that could detect the radiation from radium-224. Ironically, the EPA requires all states and water systems inform the public about the total exposure of alpha radiation. However, because the energy of radium-224 is not included in these measures, the total alpha results disclosed to the public by their water supplier is not at all a total quantity.

But there is another reason why the total radiation alpha you are reported as annual reports of water quality of government and your supplier does not quite complete.

For example, you have just learned that some naturally occurring radioactive elements simply are not tested by the EPA, in other cases, the EPA allows providers to remove certain types of radiation detected by laboratory tests your drinking water.

Many health scientists we spoke to were surprised to learn that the EPA does not regulate uranium in its natural state as a radioactive element. A few years ago, the agency began to regulate uranium as a toxic metal as it does with other metals such as mercury or arsenic. Uranium has a very high toxicity to the kidneys and can hurt you in other ways by increasing your risk of getting cancer. However, the radiological risks remain unregulated and unrecognized by the EPA.

Mr. Makhijani said that uranium naturally ingested bones exposed to a radiation dose nearly 5 times higher than strontium 90, a contaminant artificial (man made) that EPA regulates in drinking water of the nation. He looked at the references EPA to calculate the radiation dose higher uranium compared with strontium 90. The post KHOUAS has revised calculations by some nuclear physicists who are all agreed that Makhijani is right.

Another alpha radiation emitter which is often where there is uranium or radium is radon. During the 1990s, the EPA came very near to require utilities to test for radon in drinking water and establish legal standards that would protect us. The EPA has declined after receiving pressure from utilities concerned about economic impacts of such laws on their finances.

Today, the EPA says on its website Webbed that radon in drinking water is a serious threat to public health.

The agency cited a report by the National Academy of Sciences as the accumulation of scientific data most comprehensive on the risks of radon in drinking water on public health. This report details the risks of radon in drinking water and confirms that there are deaths due to cancer linked to drinking water, mainly because of lung cancer. However, without laws in place, any report received by the public on radon in drinking water do not require these providers to make these reports available public. High rates of detection does not require decontamination, allowing radiation to flow freely.

"Since there are no standards of tolerance, you do not have to measure them." said Dr. Irina Cech, retired last month after leading the research on radon in drinking water sources in Texas since the 1980s to the Health Science Center at the University of Texas. "If you have water that contains radon, your chances of dying from cancer are much higher." by Cech. Dr. Cech said that regions where there are more cancers are probably caused by some water wells drinking that were drilled close to natural fractures or salt domes where Cech said that some radioactive elements tend to gather. Another problem is that drinking water wells are drilled thousands of wells near oil and natural gas throughout certain areas of Harris County, which facilitates migration of radon gas from underground deposits to the surface, she said. She probably told you breathe radon gas after taking a shower with water that contains. The water vapor that contains radon can breathe directly into your lungs, she said.

But Dr. Cech said that because the lack of federal regulation, the municipal authorities are not legally obliged to do anything, although she believes it is a major public health issue.

"Legally, they do not have to. Morally, yes." she said. Next-Up.org

"I-Team: EPA underreports radiation in America's drinking water Americans Remain Largely

in the Dark About their true exposure to a number of radioactive contaminants That Could Be In Their drinking water. Surprisingly, Because of it's intentional decisions by The Environmental Protection Agency, The Federal Government Office That Is Supposed to Protect the nation from contaminated water.

“Where I think the EPA was wrong was in neglecting some natural radioactive materials altogether,” said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, a physicist and former advisor to the EPA on radiation science. Makhijani, who has a PhD in physics from Berkeley, has testified before Congress, and has served as an expert witness in Nuclear Regulatory Commission proceedings. He now runs the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. “I have told them that their drinking water notions are dating from science from 1959,” he said.

However, KHOU has discovered the EPA never updated its regulations to make sure water utilities test for or measure certain naturally-occurring types of radiation that may actually produce a far greater radiation dose, and thus a greater health risk, than Strontium 90.

For instance, lead 210, which is not the form of lead commonly found in pencils and other industrial uses, is a common by-product of radon gas and is in itself radioactive. However the EPA does not regulate the element, effectively ignoring the threat from the very real possibility of it contaminating your water. In a written statement to KHOU, agency officials said they do not regulate naturally occurring radioactive lead 210, “since the rule covers man-made radionuclides only.” However, lead 210 is a prime example which shows how naturally occurring radiation can harm the public more than certain man-made types, Makhijani said. By his calculation, naturally occurring lead 210 produces nearly seven times the radiation dose to your bones as Strontium 90, the man-made form of radioactive contaminant the EPA does regulate. Both radioactive elements have a tendency to “target” your bones and produce cancer and other health effects there.

Years ago in the 1990s, the EPA considered regulating radioactive lead 210, but eventually decided not to do so. When it finalized changes to its rules in 2000, the agency suggested it would, instead, simply monitor for the presence of the contaminant under another federal program. The EPA recently confirmed to KHOU-TV that no such monitoring ever took place.

KHOU also discovered that politics and pressure from utilities can play a part in the EPA’s regulatory decisions about drinking water. In some instances, the agency’s solution for fixing a problem with high amounts of certain radioactive elements in water is to not look for the problem.

Take radium 224, which emits a form of radiation called alpha particles. In a Federal Register entry dated Dec. 7, 2000, the EPA stated in its final rulemaking on regulating radiation in drinking water that if water systems actually had to test for radium 224, “doing so could cause many systems to find themselves to be out of compliance with the (law).” As a result, national rules for testing for alpha radiation do not include appropriate methods that would pick up radiation from radium 224. Ironically, the EPA mandates that all states and water systems inform the public about their “gross” exposure to alpha radiation. However, because the energy for radium 224 is not included in that measurement, the “gross alpha” result that the public is told about by their water utilities isn’t truly a “gross” number at all.

But there is another reason that “gross alpha” radiation totals you are told about, in required annual water quality reports, are actually being underreported by the government and your utility.

For instance, while you’ve just learned about how some naturally occurring radioactive elements are simply never tested by the EPA to begin with, in other cases, the EPA actually allows utilities to subtract off certain types of radiation labs detect in tests of your drinking water.

Many health scientists we spoke to were surprised that the EPA does not regulate naturally occurring uranium as a radioactive element to begin with. A few years ago, the agency began regulating uranium as a poisonous metal, as it does with other metals like mercury or arsenic. Uranium, which has high kidney toxicity, can harm you in other ways besides increasing your risk of cancer. However, its radiological risk remains unregulated and uncounted by the EPA.

Makhijani said naturally occurring uranium, when ingested, actually produces nearly five times the radiation dose to the surface of the bone as that of Strontium 90, a man-made radioactive contaminant the EPA does regulate in the nation’s water supply. He used the EPA’s own reference documents to calculate uranium’s greater radiation dose compared to Strontium 90. KHOU had the calculations reviewed by several nuclear physicists, who all agreed that Makhijani was correct.

Another alpha radiation emitter that is often found where uranium or radium is present is radon. During the 1990s, the EPA came close to forcing utilities to test for radon in drinking water and implementing legal standards that protect against it. The EPA backed off the proposal after receiving intense pressure from utilities concerned about the financial impact such a regulation could have on them.

Today, the EPA does state on its website that radon in drinking water “is a serious public health threat.”

The agency cited a report by the National Academy of Sciences as the “most comprehensive accumulation of scientific data on the public health risks of radon in drinking water… This report goes on to refine the risks of radon in drinking water and confirms that there are drinking water related cancer deaths, primarily due to lung cancer.” Yet, without regulation in place, any reports utilities receive of radon in drinking water do not have to be passed on to consumers. High readings do not have to be legally cleaned up, allowing the radiation to continue to flow.

“Once there is no standard, you don't have to measure it,” said Dr. Irina Cech, who retired this month after leading research since the 1980s for the University of Texas Health Science Center into radon in Texas water supplies. “If you have water containing radon, your chances of dying of cancer are much increased,” Cech said. Cech said those hot spots are likely caused because the particular water wells were drilled next to natural faults or salt domes, where Cech says some radioactive elements tend to congregate. Another problem is that the water wells are also drilled near thousands of man-made oil and gas wells littered throughout certain areas of Harris County, which help bring the radon gas up from underground deposits, she said.Cech warns, elevated radon levels in area water supplies even affect those residents who don’t drink city tap water. She says you’re likely to breathe the radon gas in after showering in water that contains it. The vapor mist, she says, contains radon which you can inhale directly into your lungs.

But Cech points out that because of the lack of federal regulation, city officials are not legally obligated to do anything about what she believes is a very real public health concern.

“Legally, they’re not required. Morally, yes,” she says."

Excerpts from article written by Mark Greenblatt/11 News published here: http://www.khou.com/news/investigative/116634593.html Photo: Bellona

Kidde Carbon Monoxide Alarm Won't Stop Beeping

Roundup - scientists warn


The pesticide Roundup, a creature of Monsanto, continues to cause controversy: a scientist, a retired pathologist at Purdue University, Professor Don Huber wrote a letter to Tom Vilsack, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to prevent a newly discovered pathogen and widespread growing impact the health of plants, animals and probably humans as well. He said that the pathogen appears to be related to the use of glyphosate, the key ingredient of Roundup.

Prof. Huber leads a committee of the American Phytopathological Society, a creature of the USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System. He has long criticized biotech crops as soybeans and corn "Roundup Ready" Monsanto that have been genetically modified to tolerate applications of Roundup.

In his letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Prof. Huber said the body was found in high concentrations in feed and soybean Roundup Ready corn used to feed livestock. He said laboratory tests confirmed that the body is found in pigs, cattle and other livestock species that have suffered spontaneous abortions and infertility. The organism proliferates

in corn and soybean attacked by diseases by Huber. "I think the threat of this pathogen is unique and has a very high level of risk." he writes. "In other words, we should consider it as an emergency."

Monsanto scans of hand these claims and says its own research and independent studies and field tests of other U.S. universities do not confirm these allegations.

Huber said in his letter of 17 January to USDA that the data are preliminary, but it seems the side effects of glyphosate use could contribute to proliferation of the pathogen, or allows it to cause more harm to plants or animals already weakened. It requires the involvement of the USDA to investigate and demand a moratorium on other permits Roudup Ready crops.

Roundup draws the grumbling of several critics who argue that encourages the proliferation of herbicide resistance in weeds to crops, "super weeds".

"Although the evidence is considered preliminary, the potential harm to humans and animals is serious." by Jeffrey Smith, executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology.

There were other warning signals about Roundup, including a report out last year prepared by scientists from Argentina, which advanced as Roundup contribute little to congenital malformations in frogs and chickens.

Monsanto said that the chemical binds tightly to soil particles, is not dangerous and does not harm the crops. But some scientists say there are signs of increased fungal root diseases and nutrient deficiencies in Roundup Ready crops. They say that manganese deficiency in soybeans in particular seem to be a major problem in some agricultural regions

U.S. EPA said last year that the agency could review the adverse effects du glyphosate en tant que révision de protocoles des produits faite à tous les 15 ans.
"Scientist warns on safety of Monsanto's Roundup
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Questions about the safety of a popular herbicide made by Monsanto Co have resurfaced in a warning from a U.S. scientist that claims top-selling Roundup may contribute to plant disease and health problems for farm animals.

Plant pathologist and retired Purdue University professor Don Huber has written a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack warning that a newly discovered and widespread "electron microscopic pathogen appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings." He said the pathogen appears to be connected to use of glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup.

Huber coordinates a committee of the American Phytopathological Society as part of the USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System. He is a long-standing critic of biotech crops, such as Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" soybean and corn, which have been genetically altered to withstand treatments of Roundup herbicide.

In his letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Huber said the organism has been found in high concentrations of Roundup Ready soybean meal and corn, which are used in livestock feed. He said laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of the organism in pigs, cattle and other livestock that have experienced spontaneous abortions and infertility.

The organism is also prolific in corn and soybean crops stricken by disease, according to Huber.

"I believe the threat we are facing from this pathogen is unique and of a high risk status," Huber wrote. "In layman's terms, it should be treated as an emergency."

Monsanto scoffed at the allegations and said its own research as well as independent field studies and tests by multiple U.S. universities do not corroborate Huber's claims.

"Monsanto is not aware of any reliable studies that demonstrate Roundup Ready crops are more susceptible to certain diseases or that the application of glyphosate to Roundup Ready crops increases a plant's susceptibility to diseases," the company said in a statement.

EARLY STAGE FINDINGS

Huber said in his January 17 letter to the USDA that the findings were at an "early stage," but it appeared side effects of glyphosate use may have facilitated growth of the pathogen, or allowed it to cause greater harm to weakened plant and animal hosts.

He requested USDA participation in an investigation, and he urged a moratorium on approvals of Roundup Ready crops.

USDA officials declined to comment about the letter's contents.

"We're reviewing it, and will respond directly to Dr. Huber, rather than responding through the media," said USDA spokesman Andre Bell.

Roundup has long been a draw for critics, who say the herbicide promotes widespread weed resistance, or "super weeds."

"While the evidence is considered preliminary, the potential damage to humans and animals is severe," said Jeffrey Smith, executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology.

There have been other alarms raised about Roundup, including a report last year from Argentine scientists who claimed that Roundup can contribute to birth defects in frogs and chickens.

Monsanto says the chemical binds tightly to most types of soil, is not harmful and does not harm the crops. But some scientists say there are indications of increased root fungal disease as well as nutrient deficiencies in Roundup Ready crops. They say manganese deficiency in soybeans in particular appears to be an issue in key U.S. farming areas.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said last year that it may review glyphosate for any adverse effects as part of a protocol to review products every 15 years.

But the agency had no immediate comment Thursday as to whether or not such a review would be undertaken."

Excerpts of article written by Carey Gillam for Reuters published here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/24/us-monsanto-roundup-idUSTRE71N4XN20110224

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Shale Gas - documents revealed the wastewater by The New York Times

Photo: TXsharon

Voici une traduction libre des paragraphes les plus percutants de l'article publié dans le quotidien The New York Times this weekend.

As we know now, hydraulic fracturing produces wastewater. A well may generate more than one million gallons of wastewater that are often contaminated with corrosive salts, carcinogens such as benzene and radioactive elements like radium, all contaminants that may occur naturally in hundreds of feet deep underground. Other materials may be carcinogenic in wastewater because of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.

Although we know of the existence of such toxic waste, thousands of internal documents obtained by The New York Times by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), state legislators and drilling companies that demonstrate the dangers to the environment and health are much greater than previously thought.

The documents reveal that the sewage that are sometimes transported to processing plants that are not designed to treat and are then discharged into rivers that are sources of drinking water and wastewater that are radioactive to higher levels than we thought, and certainly higher than the level accepted by federal legislators to be manipulated by these treatment plants.

Other documents and interviews show that many EPA scientists are alarmed, notifying us that the drilling wastes are a threat to drinking water in Pennsylvania. Their concerns are based on a 2009 study that was never made public, written by a consultant to the EPA reached the conclusion that some treatment plants wastewater were unable to remove certain contaminants in waste Drilling and probably violated some laws.

The Times also found studies ever reported by the EPA and a confidential study the drilling industry which came to the conclusion that all the radioactivity in the waste drilling could not be completely diluted in rivers and other waterways.

But EPA did not intervene. In fact, federal and state legislators to allow most of the treatment plants that accept sewage wastewater drilling not tested for radioactivity. And most filtration plants that collect water for use in water downstream of these plants wastewater treatment in Pennsylvania, with the approval of lawmakers, have not been tested for radioactivity before 2006 even if the drilling boom started in 2008.

In other words, there is no way to ensure that drinking water all these plants is healthy. And that worries experts.

"We burn the furniture to heat the house." said John H. Quigley, who left his post last month. He was the secretary of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources of Pennsylvania. "By replacing coal with natural gas, we try to have cleaner air, but we produce huge amounts of toxic water containing salts and naturally occurring radioactive materials, and it is not clear whether we have a plan to deal properly this waste. "

The risks are particularly acute in Pennsylvania, which saw a significant increase in drilling, with 71.000 active wells. The level of radioactivity in wastewater are sometimes hundreds, sometimes thousands of times the maximum allowed by federal standards for drinking water. Although people do not drink wastewater from drilling, drinking water standards are used for comparison because there are no standards considered acceptable for radioactivity in the waste water drilling.

drillers were transported by truck at least half of these wastes to sewage treatment plants public waste in Pennsylvania in 2008 and 2009, according to state authorities. Sometimes the trucks transported these materials to other states, including New York and West Virginia.

However, operators of treatment plants wastewater say they are less able to remove radioactive contaminants than most other toxic substances. Indeed, most of these plants can not remove enough radioactive materials to meet federal drinking water standards before discharging treated wastewater into rivers, sometimes only a few miles upstream from water intakes for factories filtration for drinking water. In Pennsylvania, these treatment plants discharge their treated wastewater in several major watersheds in the state. Larger quantities of treated water were discharged into the Monongahela River, which supplies drinking water to over 800,000 people in the western part of the state, including Pittsburgh, and the Susquehanna River, which empties into the Bay Chesapeake and provides drinking water to more than 6 million people, including Harrisburg and Baltimore. Smaller quantities were discharged into the Delaware River which provides drinking water to over 15 million people in Philadelphia and eastern Pennsylvania.

In upstate New York, the wastewater was sent to two treatment plants that discharge into Southern Cayuga Lake near Itaca, and Owasco Outlet, near Auburn. In West Virginia, a factory in Wheeling empties into the Ohio River.

"The impacts of hydraulic fracturing associated with health problems and the large scale contamination of air and water have been reported in at least a dozen states," says Walter Hang, president Toxics Targeting, a company in Ithaca, in upstate New York, which compiles data on gas drilling.

Problems in other regions

Although Pennsylvania is an extreme case, the risk of hydraulic fracturing extend across the country. There were more than 493.000 active natural gas wells in the United States in 2009, almost double 1990. About 90% were fractured to extract more gas, according to the gas industry.

The gas seeped into underground sources of drinking water in at least five states, including Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia, and residents say it is because drilling for natural gas.

The threat of air pollution also increases. Wyoming For example, the air quality did not meet the standards for the first time in its history in 2009, because of fumes containing benzene and toluene generated approximately 27.000 wells, most of which were drilled during the last 5 years.

In the sparsely populated Sublette County in Wyoming, which has the highest density of wells, vapor reacted with the rays of the sun and have contributed to higher ozone alerts than Houstoin or Los Angeles .

In Texas, hospitals in 6 counties most drilled, 25% of children suffer from asthma, while the rate of the entire state is only 7%.

The Times has passed through more than 30,000 pages of records from federal, state companies and over 200 wells in Pennsylvania, 40 wells in West Virginia and 20 plants in wastewater treatment for public and private an overview of the wastewater generated by the wells and their dangers. Most information comes from reports of drilling over the last 3 years, obtained by going to regional offices across Pennsylvania, and documents or databases provided by the state and federal legislators to request documents.

The Times found that:

- More than 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater were generated by the wells in Pennsylvania for 3 years, much more than we had previously reported. Most of this water has been sent to treatment plants not equipped to remove many toxic materials that are in the drilling waste.

-At least 12 plants for treating wastewater in 3 states agreed wastewater spilled gas and only partially treated waste into rivers, lakes and streams.

-Among more than 179 wells that have generated highly radioactive waste water at least 116 have reported levels of radium or other radioactive materials 100 times higher than drinking water standards tolerated by the federal government. At least 15 wells have generated wastewater containing more than 1,000 times the amount of radioactive elements considered acceptable. Results came from surveys conducted in the field by legislators from the state or federal, annual reports submitted by companies drilling and tests ordered by the state for public treatment plants. Most of the tests measured the radium in the waste water, or measured the radiation "gross alpha" that usually comes from radium, uranium or other elements. Yet the industry says it is not worried.

The radioactivity in the waste water is not necessarily dangerous for people who are nearby. Even our skin protects us from exposure. But according to the EPA and industry researchers say that the greatest dangers of radioactivity in wastewater are the dangers of contamination of drinking water or to fit into the food chain by fish or agriculture. Once radium enters the body of an individual from food, water or breathing, it can cause cancer or other health issues in several federal studies.

Few tests for radioactivity

Under federal law, testing for radioactivity in drinking water are required only to water filtration plants. But federal and state legislators have given permission for almost all stations that collect drinking water test only once every 6-9 years.

The Times has reviewed data from more than 65 plants taking water downstream of the most drilled in the state. Nobody had done tests to radioactivity since 2008, and most did not do any tests since at least 2005, well before the waste drilling begins.

And in 2009 and 2010, treatment plants wastewater public directly upstream of these core samples of drinking water have accepted wastewater that contained radioactivity levels as high as 2.122 times the acceptable standard for drinking water. But most plants wastewater treatment are not obliged to monitoring radioactive elements in the treated water they discharge. Then there are virtually no data on these contaminants in the water that comes out these plants. Other studies

federal, state and academic have also found problems when it comes to dilution of radioactive waste from drilling.

In December 2009, these risks have prompted scientists at the EPA to advise New York in a letter that the plant wastewater treatment should not accept drilling wastes with radium levels 12 times or more permissible standards for drinking water. The Times has found levels of radium in the waste water that were hundreds of times this standard. The scientists added that the plants should never dump radioactive contaminants higher that drinking water standards.

In 2009, EPA scientists have studied the issue and have also determined that certain rivers of Pennsylvania were unable to dilute wastewater contaminated with radium that is poured inside. When asked about these studies, lawmakers in Pennsylvania said they did not know.

Three months after The Times began asking questions about radioactivity and other toxic products that are pouring in some rivers of the state legislators have placed monitoring station for radioactivity near areas where well water is discharged. The data will not be available until next month, according to state authorities. But

monitoring in the Monongahela is upstream of the 2 treatment plants wastewater according to the state, always pour large amounts of drilling waste "treated" in the river, always leaving the spills of these plants without monitoring and Pittsburgh come to harm.

The plant operators unaware

In interviews, Mr. McCurdy said that its processing plant accepts 20.000 gallons of well water per day. Its plant empties into the Clarion River flowing in the rivers Ohio and Mississippi. As we said many operators in an interview, Mr. McCurdy said that his factory is not equipped to remove radioactive materials and makes no tests to detect them. Documents filed by the state drillers, for example, indicate that in 2009 his factory had received wastewater from wells contaminated with radium at concentrations 275 times the drinking water standards and other types radiation over 780 times the standard allowed.

Little monitoring

contamination of drilling into the environment will also spill. During the past 3 years, at least 16 wells show in their records of high radioactivity levels in their wastewater have also reported spills, leaks or failures of their basins containing fracturing fluids, according to the records of the state. The gas

are left to themselves when it comes to spills. In Pennsylvania, legislators do not do surprise inspections for signs of spills. The gas relate their own spills, write their own emergency plans and conduct their cleanup. These plans approved by the state often seem to be contrary to law. At a drill site where several reversals occurred in a week, including once spilled liquid has resulted in a stream, the operator of the wells had filed an emergency plan that said there is very little chance VAIT that waste ends up in a river.

It is easier and cheaper to dump than to treat. From October 2008 to October 2010, lawmakers have 2 times more likely to issue a warning that imposing a fine for environmental violations or security, according to state data. During this period, 15 companies were fined for violations of drilling in 2008 and 2009, companies paid an average of about $ 44,000 per year. This is

on average less than half the profits of certain companies for a day and a very small fraction of the more than $ 2 million spent annually by some of them to transport and treat such waste. Photo: startelegraph.blogspot.com

"Is Lax Regulation for Water From Gas Wells

The American Landscape Is Dotted With Hundreds Of Thousands of new wells and drilling rigs, As The country scrambles to Tap Into this century's gold rush - for natural gas. The gas has Always been there, of course, trapped deep underground in countless tiny bubbles, like frozen spills of seltzer water between thin layers of shale rock. But drilling companies have only in recent years developed techniques to unlock the enormous reserves, thought to be enough to supply the country with gas for heating buildings, generating electricity and powering vehicles for up to a hundred years.

So energy companies are clamoring to drill. And they are getting rare support from their usual sparring partners. Environmentalists say using natural gas will help slow climate change because it burns more cleanly than coal and oil. Lawmakers hail the gas as a source of jobs. They also see it as a way to wean the United States from its dependency on other countries for oil.

But the relatively new drilling method — known as high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking — carries significant environmental risks. It involves injecting huge amounts of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, at high pressures to break up rock formations and release the gas.

With hydrofracking, a well can produce over a million gallons of wastewater that is often laced with highly corrosive salts, carcinogens like benzene and radioactive elements like radium, all of which can occur naturally thousands of feet underground. Other carcinogenic materials can be added to the wastewater by the chemicals used in the hydrofracking itself.

While the existence of the toxic wastes has been reported, thousands of internal documents obtained by The New York Times from the Environmental Protection Agency, state regulators and drillers show that the dangers to the environment and health are greater than previously understood.

The documents reveal that the wastewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle.

Other documents and interviews show that many E.P.A. scientists are alarmed, warning that the drilling waste is a threat to drinking water in Pennsylvania. Their concern is based partly on a 2009 study, never made public, written by an E.P.A. consultant who concluded that some sewage treatment plants were incapable of removing certain drilling waste contaminants and were probably violating the law.

The Times also found never-reported studies by the E.P.A. and a confidential study by the drilling industry that all concluded that radioactivity in drilling waste cannot be fully diluted in rivers and other waterways.

But the E.P.A. has not intervened. In fact, federal and state regulators are allowing most sewage treatment plants that accept drilling waste not to test for radioactivity. And most drinking-water intake plants downstream from those sewage treatment plants in Pennsylvania, with the blessing of regulators, have not tested for radioactivity since before 2006, even though the drilling boom began in 2008.

In other words, there is no way of guaranteeing that the drinking water taken in by all these plants is safe.

That has experts worried.

“We’re burning the furniture to heat the house,” said John H. Quigley, who left last month as secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. “In shifting away from coal and toward natural gas, we’re trying for cleaner air, but we’re producing massive amounts of toxic wastewater with salts and naturally occurring radioactive materials, and it’s not clear we have a plan for properly handling this waste.”

The risks are particularly severe in Pennsylvania, which has seen a sharp increase in drilling, with roughly 71,000 active gas wells, up from about 36,000 in 2000. The level of radioactivity in the wastewater has sometimes been hundreds or even thousands of times the maximum allowed by the federal standard for drinking water. While people clearly do not drink drilling wastewater, the reason to use the drinking-water standard for comparison is that there is no comprehensive federal standard for what constitutes safe levels of radioactivity in drilling wastewater.

Drillers trucked at least half of this waste to public sewage treatment plants in Pennsylvania in 2008 and 2009, according to state officials. Some of it has been sent to other states, including New York and West Virginia.

Yet sewage treatment plant operators say they are far less capable of removing radioactive contaminants than most other toxic substances. Indeed, most of these facilities cannot remove enough of the radioactive material to meet federal drinking-water standards before discharging the wastewater into rivers, sometimes just miles upstream from drinking-water intake plants. In Pennsylvania, these treatment plants discharged waste into some of the state’s major river basins. Greater amounts of the wastewater went to the Monongahela River, which provides drinking water to more than 800,000 people in the western part of the state, including Pittsburgh, and to the Susquehanna River, which feeds into Chesapeake Bay and provides drinking water to more than six million people, including some in Harrisburg and Baltimore. Lower amounts have been discharged into the Delaware River, which provides drinking water for more than 15 million people in Philadelphia and eastern Pennsylvania.

In New York, the wastewater was sent to two plants that discharge into Southern Cayuga Lake, near Ithaca, and Owasco Outlet, near Auburn. In West Virginia, a plant in Wheeling discharged gas-drilling wastewater into the Ohio River.

“Hydrofracking impacts associated with health problems as well as widespread air and water contamination have been reported in at least a dozen states,” said Walter Hang, president of Toxics Targeting, a business in Ithaca, N.Y., that compiles data on gas drilling.

Problems in Other Regions

While Pennsylvania is an extreme case, the risks posed by hydrofracking extend across the country.

There were more than 493,000 active natural-gas wells in the United States in 2009, almost double the number in 1990. Around 90 percent have used hydrofracking to get more gas flowing, according to the drilling industry.

Gas has seeped into underground drinking-water supplies in at least five states, including Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia, and residents blamed natural-gas drilling.

Air pollution caused by natural-gas drilling is a growing threat, too. Wyoming, for example, failed in 2009 to meet federal standards for air quality for the first time in its history partly because of the fumes containing benzene and toluene from roughly 27,000 wells, the vast majority drilled in the past five years.

In a sparsely populated Sublette County in Wyoming, which has some of the highest concentrations of wells, vapors reacting to sunlight have contributed to levels of ozone higher than those recorded in Houston and Los Angeles.

Industry officials say any dangerous waste from the wells is handled in compliance with state and federal laws, adding that drilling companies are recycling more wastewater now. They also say that hydrofracking is well regulated by the states and that it has been used safely for decades.

But hydrofracking technology has become more powerful and more widely used in recent years, producing far more wastewater. Some of the problems with this drilling, including its environmental impact and the challenge of disposing of waste, have been documented by ProPublica, The Associated Press and other news organizations.

And recent incidents underscore the dangers. In late 2008, drilling and coal-mine waste released during a drought so overwhelmed the Monongahela that local officials advised people in the Pittsburgh area to drink bottled water. E.P.A. officials described the incident in an internal memorandum as “one of the largest failures in U.S. history to supply clean drinking water to the public.”

In Texas, which now has about 93,000 natural-gas wells, up from around 58,000 a dozen years ago, a hospital system in six counties with some of the heaviest drilling said in 2010 that it found a 25 percent asthma rate for young children, more than three times the state rate of about 7 percent.

“It’s ruining us,” said Kelly Gant, whose 14-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son have experienced severe asthma attacks, dizzy spells and headaches since a compressor station and a gas well were set up about two years ago near her house in Bartonville, Tex. The industry and state regulators have said it is not clear what role the gas industry has played in causing such problems, since the area has had high air pollution for a while.

“I’m not an activist, an alarmist, a Democrat, environmentalist or anything like that,” Ms. Gant said. “I’m just a person who isn’t able to manage the health of my family because of all this drilling.”

And yet, for all its problems, natural gas offers some clear environmental advantages over coal, which is used more than any other fuel to generate electricity in the United States. Coal-fired power plants without updated equipment to capture pollutants are a major source of radioactive pollution. Coal mines annually produce millions of tons of toxic waste. But the hazards associated with natural-gas production and drilling are far less understood than those associated with other fossil fuels, and the regulations have not kept pace with the natural-gas industry’s expansion. Pennsylvania, Ground Zero

Pennsylvania, which sits atop an enormous reserve called the Marcellus Shale, has been called the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.

This rock formation, roughly the size of Greece, lies more than a mile beneath the Appalachian landscape, from Virginia to the southern half of New York. It is believed to hold enough gas to supply the country’s energy needs for heat and electricity, at current consumption rates, for more than 15 years.

Drilling companies were issued roughly 3,300 Marcellus gas-well permits in Pennsylvania last year, up from just 117 in 2007.

This has brought thousands of jobs, five-figure windfalls for residents who lease their land to the drillers and revenue for a state that has struggled with budget deficits. It has also transformed the landscape of southwestern Pennsylvania and brought heavy burdens.

Drilling derricks tower over barns, lining rural roads like feed silos. Drilling sites bustle around the clock with workers, some in yellow hazardous material suits, and 18-wheelers haul equipment, water and waste along back roads.

The rigs announce their presence with the occasional boom and quiver of underground explosions. Smelling like raw sewage mixed with gasoline, drilling-waste pits, some as large as a football field, sit close to homes.

Anywhere from 10 percent to 40 percent of the water sent down the well during hydrofracking returns to the surface, carrying drilling chemicals, very high levels of salts and, at times, naturally occurring radioactive material.

While most states require drillers to dispose of this water in underground storage wells below impermeable rock layers, Pennsylvania has few such wells. It is the only state that has allowed drillers to discharge much of their waste through sewage treatment plants into rivers.

Regulators have theorized that passing drilling waste through the plants is safe because most toxic material will settle during the treatment process into a sludge that can be trucked to a landfill, and whatever toxic material remains in the wastewater will be diluted when mixed into rivers. But some plants were taking such large amounts of waste with high salt levels in 2008 that downstream utilities started complaining that the river water was eating away at their machines.

Regulators and drilling companies have said that these cases, and others, were isolated.

“The wastewater treatment plants are effective at what they’re designed to do — remove material from wastewater,” said Jamie Legenos, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, adding that the radioactive material and the salts were being properly handled.

Overwhelmed, Underprepared

For proof that radioactive elements in drilling waste are not a concern, industry spokesmen and regulators often point to the results of wastewater tests from a 2009 draft report conducted by New York State and a 1995 report by Pennsylvania that found that radioactivity in drilling waste was not a threat. These two reports were based on samples from roughly 13 gas wells in New York and 29 in Pennsylvania.

But a review by The Times of more than 30,000 pages of federal, state and company records relating to more than 200 gas wells in Pennsylvania, 40 in West Virginia and 20 public and private wastewater treatment plants offers a fuller picture of the wastewater such wells produce and the threat it poses.

Most of the information was drawn from drilling reports from the last three years, obtained by visiting regional offices throughout Pennsylvania, and from documents or databases provided by state and federal regulators in response to records requests.

Among The Times’s findings:

¶More than 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater was produced by Pennsylvania wells over the past three years, far more than has been previously disclosed. Most of this water — enough to cover Manhattan in three inches — was sent to treatment plants not equipped to remove many of the toxic materials in drilling waste.

¶At least 12 sewage treatment plants in three states accepted gas industry wastewater and discharged waste that was only partly treated into rivers, lakes and streams.

¶Of more than 179 wells producing wastewater with high levels of radiation, at least 116 reported levels of radium or other radioactive materials 100 times as high as the levels set by federal drinking-water standards. At least 15 wells produced wastewater carrying more than 1,000 times the amount of radioactive elements considered acceptable. Results came from field surveys conducted by state and federal regulators, year-end reports filed by drilling companies and state-ordered tests of some public treatment plants. Most of the tests measured drilling wastewater for radium or for “gross alpha” radiation, which typically comes from radium, uranium and other elements. Industry officials say they are not concerned.

“These low levels of radioactivity pose no threat to the public or worker safety and are more a public perception issue than a real health threat,” said James E. Grey, chief operating officer of Triana Energy.

In interviews, industry trade groups like the Marcellus Shale Coalition and Energy in Depth, as well as representatives from energy companies like Shell and Chesapeake Energy, said they were producing far less wastewater because they were recycling much of it rather than disposing of it after each job.

But even with recycling, the amount of wastewater produced in Pennsylvania is expected to increase because, according to industry projections, more than 50,000 new wells are likely to be drilled over the next two decades.

The radioactivity in the wastewater is not necessarily dangerous to people who are near it. It can be blocked by thin barriers, including skin, so exposure is generally harmless.

Rather, E.P.A. and industry researchers say, the bigger danger of radioactive wastewater is its potential to contaminate drinking water or enter the food chain through fish or farming. Once radium enters a person’s body, by eating, drinking or breathing, it can cause cancer and other health problems, many federal studies show.

Little Testing for Radioactivity

Under federal law, testing for radioactivity in drinking water is required only at drinking-water plants. But federal and state regulators have given nearly all drinking-water intake facilities in Pennsylvania permission to test only once every six or nine years.

The Times reviewed data from more than 65 intake plants downstream from some of the busiest drilling regions in the state. Not one has tested for radioactivity since 2008, and most have not tested since at least 2005, before most of the drilling waste was being produced.

And in 2009 and 2010, public sewage treatment plants directly upstream from some of these drinking-water intake facilities accepted wastewater that contained radioactivity levels as high as 2,122 times the drinking-water standard. But most sewage plants are not required to monitor for radioactive elements in the water they discharge. So there is virtually no data on such contaminants as water leaves these plants. Regulators and gas producers have repeatedly said that the waste is not a threat because it is so diluted in rivers or by treatment plants. But industry and federal research cast doubt on those statements.

A confidential industry study from 1990, conducted for the American Petroleum Institute, concluded that “using conservative assumptions,” radium in drilling wastewater dumped off the Louisiana coast posed “potentially significant risks” of cancer for people who eat fish from those waters regularly.

The industry study focused on drilling industry wastewater being dumped into the Gulf of Mexico, where it would be far more diluted than in rivers. It also used estimates of radium levels far below those found in Pennsylvania’s drilling waste, according to the study’s lead author, Anne F. Meinhold, an environmental risk expert now at NASA.

Other federal, state and academic studies have also found dilution problems with radioactive drilling waste.

In December 2009, these very risks led E.P.A. scientists to advise in a letter to New York that sewage treatment plants not accept drilling waste with radium levels 12 or more times as high as the drinking-water standard. The Times found wastewater containing radium levels that were hundreds of times this standard. The scientists also said that the plants should never discharge radioactive contaminants at levels higher than the drinking-water standard.

In 2009, E.P.A. scientists studied the matter and also determined that certain Pennsylvania rivers were ineffective at sufficiently diluting the radium-laced drilling wastewater being discharged into them.

Asked about the studies, Pennsylvania regulators said they were not aware of them.

“Concerned? I’m always concerned,” said Dave Allard, director of the Bureau of Radiation Protection. But he added that the threat of this waste is reduced because “the dilutions are so huge going through those treatment plants.”

Three months after The Times began asking questions about radioactive and other toxic material being discharged into specific rivers, state regulators placed monitors for radioactivity near where drilling waste is discharged. Data will not be available until next month, state officials said.

But the monitor in the Monongahela is placed upstream from the two public sewage treatment plants that the state says are still discharging large amounts of drilling waste into the river, leaving the discharges from these plants unchecked and Pittsburgh exposed.

Plant Operators in the Dark

In interviews, five treatment plant operators said they did not believe that the drilling wastewater posed risks to the public. Several also said they were not sure of the waste’s contents because the limited information drillers provide usually goes to state officials.

“We count on state regulators to make sure that that’s properly done,” said Paul McCurdy, environmental specialist at Ridgway Borough’s public sewage treatment plant, in Elk County, Pa., in the northwest part of the state.

Mr. McCurdy, whose plant discharges into the Clarion River, which flows into the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, said his plant was taking about 20,000 gallons of drilling waste per day.

Like most of the sewage treatment plant operators interviewed, Mr. McCurdy said his plant was not equipped to remove radioactive material and was not required to test for it. Documents filed by drillers with the state, though, show that in 2009 his facility was sent water from wells whose wastewater was laced with radium at 275 times the drinking-water standard and with other types of radiation at more than 780 times the standard. Part of the problem is that industry has outpaced regulators. “We simply can’t keep up,” said one inspector with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection who was not authorized to speak to reporters. “There’s just too much of the waste.”

“If we’re too hard on them,” the inspector added, “the companies might just stop reporting their mistakes.”

Recently, Pennsylvania has tried to increase its oversight, doubling the number of regulators, improving well-design requirements and sharply decreasing how much drilling waste many treatment plants can accept or release. The state is considering whether to require treatment plants to begin monitoring for radioactivity in wastewater.

Even so, as of last November, 31 inspectors were keeping tabs on more than 125,000 oil and gas wells. The new regulations also allowed at least 18 plants to continue accepting the higher amounts set by their original permits.

Furthermore, environmental researchers from the University of Pittsburgh tested wastewater late last year that had been discharged by two treatment plants. They say these tests will show, when the results are publicly released in March, that salt levels were far above the legal limit.

Lax Oversight

Drilling contamination is entering the environment in Pennsylvania through spills, too. In the past three years, at least 16 wells whose records showed high levels of radioactivity in their wastewater also reported spills, leaks or failures of pits where hydrofracking fluid or waste is stored, according to state records.

Gas producers are generally left to police themselves when it comes to spills. In Pennsylvania, regulators do not perform unannounced inspections to check for signs of spills. Gas producers report their own spills, write their own spill response plans and lead their own cleanup efforts.

A review of response plans for drilling projects at four Pennsylvania sites where there have been accidents in the past year found that these state-approved plans often appear to be in violation of the law.

At one well site where several spills occurred within a week, including one that flowed into a creek, the well’s operator filed a revised spill plan saying there was little chance that waste would ever enter a waterway.

“There are business pressures” on companies to “cut corners,” John Hanger, who stepped down as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in January, has said. “It’s cheaper to dump wastewater than to treat it.”

Records back up that assertion.

From October 2008 through October 2010, regulators were more than twice as likely to issue a written warning than to levy a fine for environmental and safety violations, according to state data. During this period, 15 companies were fined for drilling-related violations in 2008 and 2009, and the companies paid an average of about $44,000 each year, according to state data.

This average was less than half of what some of the companies earned in profits in a day and a tiny fraction of the more than $2 million that some of them paid annually to haul and treat the waste.

And prospects for drillers in Pennsylvania are looking brighter.

In December, the Republican governor-elect, Tom Corbett, who during his campaign took more gas industry contributions than all his competitors combined, said he would reopen state land to new drilling, reversing a decision made by his predecessor, Edward G. Rendell. The change clears the way for as many as 10,000 wells on public land, up from about 25 active wells today.

In arguing against a proposed gas-extraction tax on the industry, Mr. Corbett said regulation of the industry had been too aggressive.

“I will direct the Department of Environmental Protection to serve as a Partner with Pennsylvania Businesses, Communities and Local Government, "Mr. Corbett says one historical Web site. "It should return to core mission icts Protecting the environment based on Sound Science." Excerpts from

Written by Ian Urbina article published in The New York Times here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/ 27/us/27gas.html Photo: runningwater.us

Quote To Insurance Model Letter

dam demolition South Carolina

Photo: IndependentMail.com

United States, areas heavily polluted by the industries that need to be rehabilitated and are baptized " Superfund Site "and thus receive funding and legal support from the federal to restore the premises. Here is the story of two dams that were demolished and a stream that contains the natural after such cleaning, South Carolina.

The demolition of the dam at Cateechee.

J. G. Ross Anderson Jr., U.S. District Judge advance in his wheelchair to see better work on the dam that blocked the road from Twelve Mile Creek for over a century in Pickens County. Anderson pushes a button that activates a siren, and the starting signal, a pneumatic drill, a bulldozer began to attack the book and the work of cement. For the next 90 days, the dam will be completely demolished and removed, her songs transported to a landfill nearby. "I did not see the light." said Ross, 82. "Now we see the river take its natural course."

The purpose of removing the dam Woodside I and another further downstream, Woodside II, is to repair the damage to the watershed when the plant condensers Pickens has thrown more than 400,000 pounds of toxic wastewater in Town Creek, a tributary of Twelve Mile. Even more toxic, polychlorinated biphenyls, were infiltrated into the rivers, from landfills with leak located around the plant Sangamo Weston Pickens. Sangamo Weston used PCBs between 1955 and 1977, the date that the chemical carcinogen, so popular because it absorbed so much heat, has been banned. Schlumberger Technology Corp.

. a company supplier of oil wells whose headquarters is in Houston, has inherited the site when the company purchased Sangamo Weston Inc. in the 1970s, according to Craig Zeller, manager of EPA in Atlanta working with Schlumberger "They were very good partners to do the job most of the time, especially since it is not they who made this crap." Zeller provides.

EPA said the plant site of compensating for large 228 acres, more landfill sites and polluting the watershed that covers 1,000 acres from Lake Hartwell downstream, a Superfund site in the 1990s. To do the job of cleaning the site was divided into two: the contaminated soil and polluted water. Cleaning takes place for 10 years now, under the supervision of the EPA, according to Zeller, and will last for several more decades.

The destruction of 2 dams of Woodside is part of a separate decision, ruled against Schlumberger to offset 6 states and federal agencies for damages caused to natural resources in the region. Judge Anderson gave the order for work in 2006 and when the work had not started yet 3 years later, he declared he would oversee the project itself.

In July 2009, Anderson gave Schlumberger 12 months to remove the dams, "I have been as forgiving as one can be vis-à-vis a criminal" Anderson said at the time, adding " I'm not an engineer. But that's what you deserve when try you to fool the federal court. "

After years of planning and environmental tests, the first visible signs of progress appeared a year ago when a landfill was opened near the dam Cateechee. Approximately 220.000 cubic yards of toxic sludge that had accumulated behind the dam have been dredged since the beginning of 2010 and transported to the landfill. Once made, a series of filters separates water sediments. The sediments are buried and the water returns to Twelve Mile Creek after being treated.

By removing the dams, the natural flow of the river will resume, which will transport sediment downstream to Lake Hartwell, covering the PCB-laden sediments deeper into the lake bottom. "This is the only known method for disposing of PCBs, cover" says Anderson.

Resident Cateechee Rodney Ladd said that the removal of sediment created rapids upstream of the dam near its waterfront land: "I could hear water gurgling over the rocks the other night." Ladd said. "It will be peaceful once the tractors are gone." adds his son Adam.

Larry Dyck, a retired biologist, says he would prefer that more sediment to be removed from the banks of streams, now exposed to air. Bands of darker sediment now visible on the banks probably contain PCBs, he said. "It would be irresponsible to leave the full contents of PCBs there. "

Rod Nelson, vice president of communications Schlumberger, came by plane from Houston to witness the demolition of the dam:" This project will make history. "Nelson said" We are proud to see it happen. It is the largest rehabilitation project in which Schlumberger is involved. "

Although the figures of the company are not available, EPA Zeller said that Schlumberger has probably spent about $ 100 million on plant Sangamo Weston and its plume of pollution in soil and surface water in the region.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
Dam’s demolition begins in Cateechee

U.S. District Judge G. Ross Anderson Jr. leaned forward in his wheelchair overlooking a dam that has choked Twelve Mile Creek in southwest Pickens County for more than a century. Anderson pressed a button wired to a foghorn, and with that signal, a jackhammer affixed to the business end of an earthmover fired up Tuesday morning and started an hour-and-half long assault on the cement structure. Over the next 90 days, the dam will be removed entirely and its rubble carried to a landfill nearby. “I never thought I’d live to see this day,” said Ross, who is 82. “Now we will get the river back to its natural state.”

The aim of removing this dam, Woodside I, and another downstream, Woodside II, is to compensate for ecological damage the watershed incurred when a capacitor manufacturing plant in Pickens discarded more than 400,000 pounds of toxic wastewater into Town Creek, a tributary of Twelve Mile. Still more of the toxin — polychlorinated biphenyls — has worked its way into the watershed from leaky landfills at and around the old Sangamo Weston plant in Pickens. Sangamo Weston used PCBs between 1955 and 1977, after which the use of the carcinogenic chemical, popular because it absorbed heat in capacitors, was outlawed.

Schlumberger Technology Corp., an oilfield service company based in Houston, inherited the site and its pollution when it purchased Sangamo Weston Inc. in the 1970s, said Craig Zeller, an Atlanta-based Environmental Protection Agency project manager working with Schlumberger. “For the most part, they have been real good partners to work with, considering they didn’t do it,” Zeller said.

The EPA declared the 228-acre site of the capacitor plant, its landfills and the watershed it polluted — which stretches from Town Creek to about 1,000 acres of Hartwell Lake downstream — a Superfund site in the 1990s. Divided into two pieces — the polluted land and the polluted water — the Superfund site’s cleanup has been under way for 10 years under EPA oversight, Zeller said, and will likely continue “for decades.”

Destroying the two Woodside dams is part of a separate ruling against Schlumberger to compensate six state and federal agencies for damage to natural resources in the region. Judge Anderson issued a consent decree for the work in 2006 and, when the work had failed to begin three years later, declared he would oversee the project personally.

In July 2009, Anderson gave Schlumberger 12 months to have the dams gone. “I’ve been as lenient as I have with any criminal,” Anderson said at the time, adding, “I’m not an engineer. But this is what you get into when you stoop to fooling a federal court.”

After years of planning and environmental tests, the first visible signs of progress started about a year ago with the creation of a landfill within sight of the Cateechee dam. About 220,000 cubic yards of toxic mud that had built up behind the dam has been dredged since early 2010 and piped uphill to the landfill. Once there, a series of filters has separated water from sediment. The sediment is buried, and the treated water returned to Twelve Mile Creek.

With removal of the dams, the natural flow of the creek will resume, which will carry sediment downstream to Hartwell Lake — burying PCB-laden sediment ever deeper on the lake bottom. “That’s the only method known to man to get rid of PCBs — to cover them up,” Anderson said Tuesday.

Cateechee resident Rodney Ladd said the sediment removal has revealed rapids upstream from the dam next to his creek-side property. “I could hear the water babbling over the rocks the other night,” Ladd said. “It will be peaceful once they get these tractors out of here,” Ladd’s son, Adam, added.

Retired Clemson biologist Larry Dyck said he’d prefer that more sediment be removed from the newly exposed creek banks. Bands of darker sediments now visible in those banks, he said, likely contain more PCBs. “It would be irresponsible to leave PCB-laden material behind,” Dyck said.

Rod Nelson, Schlumberger’s vice president for communication, flew in from Houston to view the dam’s demolition. “This project is historic,” Nelson said. “We are happy to see it get done. It’s the biggest recovery project Schlumberger has ever done.”

Though figures from the company were unavailable, the EPA’s Zeller said Schlumberger has probably spent about $100 million dealing with the old Sangamo Weston plant and its plumes of pollution into the region’s ground and surface water."

Excerpts from article written by Anna Mitchell here: http://www.independentmail.com/news/2011/feb/22/dams-demolition-begins-cateechee/ Photo: Sefton Ipock

Pay Bills Online Aetna

Shale Gas - impacts on fisheries



Pendant que les législateurs de la Virginie Occidentale préparent un projet de loi qui encadrerait les drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus shale, a question becomes increasingly clear: the process and its relationship with water. The water is collected from waterways, and water, once used, could be contaminated with toxic chemicals and metals, and water, if it ever escapes, the same could contaminate rivers from which it was drawn.

"I do not think the average citizen of West Virginia include the phenomenal amount of water required for these wells," said Frank Jernejcic, a district biologist for the Division of Natural Resources of the state (DNR). "It takes 1 to 5,000,000 gallons per well. Most trucks can hold 4.5 gallons. If a well needs one million gallons, the driller would need 220 trucks to transport water to the well site. If the well needs 5 million gallons, it takes about 1,000 truck trips to do the job. "

Water is used for a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Drillers add chemicals to the water and pump it into the well under high pressure to fracture the deep layers of rock and helps to release additional volumes of gas. The companies already drill in the Marcellus formation, and larger volumes of water they use is pumped from waterways near wellheads. Many of these rivers are fairly small.

Jernejcic and his colleagues believe that collect too much water, or pump during periods of drought, some streams could dry to the point that fish and aquatic life would perish. "Right now, we have no laws that regulate water withdrawals from streams, and we desperately need." Jernejcic said. "The Division of Environmental Protection (DEP) has an interactive water withdrawals on its Web site that gives advice to drillers when a stream is too dry pipe the water, but it really only suggestions without teeth. "

Janet Clayton, a biologist with the DNR research specialized on mussels, said that several colonies of mussels were dry last summer in streams where it was pumped to the Marcellus. "We can not be sure if the pump was the cause, but companies taking water from these rivers during drought." Clayton said. "We can not drain a river and expect that aquatic life continues to survive. "An endangered species of mussels found in the watersheds of the Little Kanawha River and the Middle Island Creek, two regions where gas exploitation is intensive. A second common species in these streams is currently under observation and could also be found on the endangered species list. "In theory, if a company pump enough water to kill any of these mussels may be in violation of federal law in endangered species." according to Clayton.

Biologists are also concerned that the quantities of sediment are stirred up by activities related to gas operations, such as construction of access roads, traffic in streams and construction sites drilling. Scientists fisheries issues and conservation groups are concerned: drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale could impact fisheries, particularly in small streams, especially in the watersheds of the Little Kanawha Tygard and where it is a lot of drilling at this time.

"There are very serious things happening right now," said Jernejcic. "The best example is what happened in the basin of Fish Creek in Wetzel County. One company built a road right on the creek called Blake Run. Buldozer They fell and we made the filling. It is a road now. EPA federal investigation that case at this time. "

Larger rivers like the Ohio and Monongahela seem more conducive to environmentally speaking sites bulk water, but Jernejcic said that these watersheds have a few points against them." First, it are transport costs. "he says." It takes a lot less fuel for 200 trucks that shuttle between a small creek that sending 25 to 30 miles to a big river. "And there are concerns about potential losses of water that would feed the rivers navigable. The U.S. Corps of Engineers has already ruled against the removal of water from lakes Tygart and Stonewall Jackson. "

Another problem associated with fisheries is the potential for water pollution caused by spills of water fracturing. 20% to 50% of the water used to fracture wells returned to the surface. The companies that transport water by truck to a storage site or a treatment center, the pump in small reservoirs built for that, or re-inject the hollow in the earth beneath the water table known.

The proposed laws will focus primarily on issues of transport by truck. Larry Orr, an assistant vice president for environmental Trout Unlimited, Kanawha Valley area, would prefer that one focuses on the quantity of water withdrawn and the prevention of contamination of rivers by sewage fracturing. "From a viewpoint of a fisherman, quantity and water quality are of paramount importance," said Orr, a chemical engineer at retirement. "I am concerned about how they manage all these brines. I worry that they want to start everything here reinjected underground without treating them first. They say it will never return to the surface. I have a hard time believing that. "

While legislators are stuck with all this companies building the infrastructure necessary to provide the operation of Marcellus in even greater scale. "Some of these companies dig huge ponds where they can store millions of gallons of water." Jernejcic said. "They build pipelines to get the water out of rivers. In Wetzel County, there are at least a dozen of these ponds dug. They cover five acres and are 30 am 40 feet deep.

" And companies continue to apply for permits to drill. These permits are good for 2 years, then you have accountants in corporate offices who decide where drilling will be watching where they could get X million gallons water. I visited one of these drill sites perched on a slope of a steep cliff. I asked the boss why they chose this place, and he told me that someone in Oklahoma City had sent him the GPS coordinates. "

" It boils down to saying that people outside of Virginia Western make decisions about what will happen here, and we have no coherent legislative framework in place. We need it. We need a benchmark so that if someone makes a gaffe, the authorities may see. "


Effect of Marcellus drilling is West Virginia Fisheries could be profound

As West Virginia's lawmakers work on a bill that would regulate natural-gas drilling in the state's Marcellus Shale deposits, one point has become abundantly clear: The process revolves around water - water that would be pumped from creeks and rivers; water that, once used, would be polluted with chemicals and toxic metals; water that, if later allowed to escape, could contaminate the very streams and rivers it was drawn from.

"I don't think the average West Virginian understands the sheer amount of water required for these wells," said Frank Jernejcic, a district fisheries biologist for the state Division of natural Resources. "It takes 1 million to 5 million gallons per well. Most tanker trucks hold about 4,500 gallons. If a well needs a million gallons, the driller would need 220 trucks to transport the water to the well site. If the well needs 5 million gallons, it's going to take around 1,000 truckloads to do the job."

The water is used for a process called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." Drillers add chemicals to the water and pump it into the well under intense pressure, where it fractures deep-lying rock strata and frees up additional volumes of gas. Companies are already drilling in the Marcellus formation, and much of the water they're using is pumped from streams located near wellheads. Many of those streams are quite small.

Jernejcic and his colleagues believe too much pumping, or pumping during dry spells, could dewater some streams to a point where fish and other aquatic life would die. "We currently have no law regulating water withdrawal from streams, and we need one," Jernejcic said. "The [Division of Environmental Protection] has an 'interactive water withdrawal tool' on its website that recommends to drillers when a stream is too low to pump from, but it's really only a suggestion and it has no teeth."

Janet Clayton, a DNR biologist who specializes in mussel research, said several beds of mussels were left high and dry last summer on streams where Marcellus pumping was taking place. "We don't know definitively if pumping led to those mussel beds being stranded, but companies were removing water from those streams during a drought," Clayton said. "You can't dewater a stream and expect aquatic life to live." One endangered mussel species - the clubshell mussel - is known to exist in the Little Kanawha River and Middle Island Creek watersheds, both Marcellus-drilling hotspots. A second species common to those streams, the snuffbox mussel, is currently under consideration for endangered status. "Theoretically, a company withdrew enough water from those streams to kill a snuffbox or a clubshell, the company would be in violation of the federal Endangered Species Act," Clayton said.

Biologists also worry about the amount of sediment being stirred up by Marcellus-related activity by road building, stream crossings and well-site development. Fisheries scientists and conservation groups worry that gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale might affect fishing, particularly in small streams and more particularly in the Tygart and Little Kanawha river watersheds, the current hotbeds of Marcellus activity.

"Some of the stuff that's going on is pretty bad," Jernejcic said. "The big, bad example is in the Fish Creek drainage of Wetzel County. One of the companies built a road right up the streambed of a little stream named Blake Run. They bulldozed a waterfall and filled it in. It's a road now. The [federal] EPA is investigating that one."

Large rivers such as the Ohio and Monongahela would appear to be environmentally friendlier water-withdrawal sites, but Jernejcic said those watersheds have a couple of strikes against them. "First there are the transportation costs," he explained. "It takes a lot less fuel to move 200 trucks a few miles from a little headwater stream than it would take to move them 25 or 30 miles from a major river. "And then there concerns about the potential loss of water that could be used to supplement river flows for navigation. The [U.S. Army] Corps of Engineers has already expressed misgivings about having water taken from Tygart and Stonewall Jackson lakes."

Yet another fisheries-related concern is the potential for water pollution caused by escaped frack water. Twenty to 50 percent of the water used to frack a well returns to the surface. Companies can truck that water to storage or treatment facilities, pump it to small reservoirs built for that purpose, or re-inject it into the earth deep below existing water tables.

The legislation under consideration largely deals with issues related to truck transportation. Larry Orr, acting environmental vice-president for the Kanawha Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited, would rather see it focus on the amount of water being withdrawn and with preventing frack water from poisoning streams. "From a fisherman's point of view, water quantity and quality have to be the main concerns," said Orr, a retired chemical engineer. "My concern is how they handle all that [frack water] brine. My concern is that they want to start injecting it underground without treatment. They say it isn't ever going to [resurface]. I have a problem believing that."

Even as the legislative wrangling takes place, companies are building the infrastructure needed to support Marcellus drilling on an even larger scale. "Some of the companies are building big pits where they can store millions of gallons of water," Jernejcic said. "They're building pipelines so they can pump the water up from the rivers. In Wetzel County, there must be dozens of those pits. They're up to 5 acres in size, and 30 to 40 feet deep. Photo: Google Earth

"And the companies are continuing to apply for drilling permits. Those permits are good for two years, so you have accountants in corporate offices deciding where to drill based on where they can get X million gallons of water. I visited one well site perched way up on the side of a steep slope. I asked the boss why they chose that spot, and he told me someone in Oklahoma City had sent him the [GPS] coordinates.

"The bottom line is that people outside West Virginia are making decisions about what is going to be done here, and we don't have a coherent regulatory apparatus in place. We need one. We need a bottom line so if someone messes up, [state officials] can give them a proper kick in the ass."

Excerpts from article written by John McCoy published in The Charleston Gazette here: http://wvgazette.com/Outdoors/201102192178