energy policy, fossil fuels, national ocean politics, natural resource management

DC Bureau: Obama Administration Says No to Full Environmental Study of LNG Exports

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http://www.dcbureau.org/201304228396/natural-resources-news-service/obama-administration-says-no-to-full-environmental-study-of-lng-exports.html

By Peter Mantius, on April 22nd, 2013
Natural Resources News Service

The Obama Administration is blocking a comprehensive environmental study on the impact of exporting massive quantities of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, on the grounds that new gas drilling induced by the exports is not “reasonably foreseeable.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Energy is resisting calls by Dow Chemical and other manufacturers for a more clearly defined and transparent DOE process for determining whether proposed LNG export projects serve the “public interest.”

Both the DOE and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission face mounting pressure to evaluate the economic and environmental consequences of licensing LNG export facilities. Since the agencies licensed an LNG export terminal in Sabine Pass, La., in 2011, 19 other applicants have lined up with licensing requests.

Sensitive to the potentially huge cumulative impact those projects could have on the U.S. economy, the two agencies suspended approvals pending a two-part economic study by the Energy Information Agency and a private contractor, NERA Economic Consulting.

Both analyses are now finished, and Christopher Smith, a deputy assistant secretary of DOE for oil and gas, testified March 19 that LNG export applications would be considered on a “case-by-case basis” in light of their economic conclusions, which have been sharply criticized.

Consideration of the toll LNG exports have on the environment is still up in the air. “I will be unable to comment today on Š the appropriate scope of environmental review,” Smith added.

Independent studies predict that unfettered LNG exports will drive up the domestic price of natural gas, spur a boom in fracking shale formations and cause a major transfer or wealth from consumers and energy-dependent industries to the natural gas industry and its investors.

While NERA, the DOE’s private contractor, has not disputed those points, its December 2012 report asserts that aggressive LNG exporting would be a net positive for the U.S. economy. “Moreover, for every one of the market scenarios examined, net economic benefits increased as the level of LNG exports increased,” NERA wrote in its policy-driving report.

Response to NERA’s conclusions have been broad and intense. Potential LNG exporters applaud it, but many of the 188,000 comments it triggered were negative.

For example, John Detwiler, an engineer from Pittsburgh, wrote that none of NERA’s scenarios “take a realistic view of the swings in gas supply, demand and pricing in the real world.” Detwiler also charged that NERA has a “consistent public record of advocacy against environmental protections and promoting denial of climate change” and that its lead author, W. David Montgomery, has publicly opposed carbon emission controls and DOE investments in green energy.

While NERA concluded that LNG exports would slightly boost gross domestic product, researchers from Purdue University found the exports would slightly depress GDP. But the two conclusions on GDP were not far apart and were not nearly as important, the Purdue team said, as the wealth-shifting and environmental effects of LNG exports.
“Using the natural gas in the U.S. is more advantageous than exports, both economically and environmentally,” the Purdue report concluded.

While the DOE has listed the environment as one factor it may consider when evaluating the “public interest” of a proposed LNG export project, FERC takes the lead in applying the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In February, FERC granted Cheniere Energy authority to build the Creole Trail Pipeline to connect to its already-approved LNG export terminal in Sabine Pass, La.

The Sierra Club is suing to block the project, alleging that FERC’s failure to require a comprehensive environmental impact statement, or EIS, violates the NEPA law. It argues that FERC’s stance that LNG export-induced gas drilling is not “reasonably foreseeable” collapses in the face of detailed models prepared by the Energy Information Agency. The EIA predicts that an average of 63 percent of exported LNG will come from new gas drilling. Deloitte and other private analysts agree that LNG exports and new gas drilling go hand in hand.

The NEPA law requires a formal EIS whenever there is a “substantial question” about a project’s potential to harm the environment. Since export-induced gas drilling is a given and the preferred modern method of drilling – high-volume hydrofracking – has a controversial environmental record, the FERC staff had no authority to waive a formal EIS, the Sierra Club argument goes.

In fact, the environmental advocacy group claims an LNG-export induced fracking boom would be a calamity for the nation’s water and air quality, and it would exacerbate climate change.

Cheniere responded to the Sierra Club legal challenge April 9, writing: FERC “has previously explained that ‘projections of the locations and amount of future (gas drilling) production would be very speculative if attempted on the basis of’ the Creole Trail Expansion Project. Sierra Club’s mere disagreement with the commission does not entitle it to a stay.”

Cheniere is in favored position. It is the only company recently licensed by FERC and the DOE to export LNG to countries that do not have a free trade agreement with the United States (aside from a small facility in Alaska that has been exporting to Japan for decades). Virtually all of the world’s leading LNG importers are non-free trade agreement countries, including Japan, China, India and most of Europe. (Licenses to export to countries with a free trade agreement with the U.S. are routinely granted and are far less valuable.)

Cheniere, which plans to complete export terminal construction at its Sabine Pass facility by early 2017, recently signed a contract to deliver LNG to the United Kingdom.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, Keystone XL, natural resource management, tar sands

Fracktracker,org: US Pipelines Incidents Are a Daily Occurrence

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Matt Kelso, Fracktracker.org, Apr 15 2013
Recently, there has been a lot of attention focused on the Mayflower, Arkansas pipeline failure that resulted in a massive oil spill, particularly as it comes at a time when discussions of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline project are once again heating up. However, the situation is far from unusual.

In fact, according to data downloaded from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), there were 1,887 incidents in the nation’s gathering and transmission, distribution, and hazardous liquids pipelines between January 1, 2010 and March 29, 2013, or an average of 1.6 incidents per day.

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Pipeline incidents from 1/1/2010 through 3/29/2013. Data Source: PHMSA.

Obviously, not all of these failures are on par with the massive spill in Mayflower, and it should be noted that there are a variety of reasons for these lines to fail. Some of these reasons, such as excavation activity in the vicinity of a pipeline, are not necessarily the fault of the pipeline’s operator. The fact that these incidents are commonplace, however, is not one that can be dismissed.

map

Pipeline incidents in the United States from 1/1/2010 through 3/29/2013. Source: PHMSA. Red Triangles represent incidents leading to fatalities, and yellow triangles represent those leading to injuries. To access the active map, legend and other controls, click the map, or here.

It is clear from the map that there a few data entry errors, as a few of the data points draw in locations that aren’t even in the jurisdiction of the United States. However, each entry also contains a city and state that the incident is associated with, and for the most part, the data seem to be fairly reliable.
Source

fossil fuels, tar sands

Forbes.com: Fracking Truck Sets Off Radiation Alarm At Landfill

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2013/04/24/fracking-truck-sets-off-radiation-alarm-at-landfill/

Forbes
4/24/2013 @ 2:44PM

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A gas flare at one of Rice Energy’s Thunder wells in Greene County, PA (Photo: Rice Energy)

A truck carrying drill cuttings from a hydraulic fracturing pad in the Marcellus Shale was rejected by a Pennsylvania landfill Friday after it set off a radiation alarm, according to published reports. The truck was emitting gamma radiation from radium 226 at almost ten times the level permitted at the landfill.

The MAX Environmental Technologies truck was first quarantined at the landfill, which is operated by MAX, and then sent back to the fracking pad-Rice Energy’s Thunder II pad in Greene County-to be redirected to a site that can accept higher levels of radiation.

“It’s low-level radiation, but we don’t want any radiation in South Huntingdon,” Tom Cornell, a township supervisor where the landfill is located, told the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. Versions of the story also appeared today 0n the Akron Beacon-Journal and Marcellus Drilling News (subscription required), a pro-fracking site for landowners.

The cuttings in the truck were found to emit 96 microrem of radiation, and the landfill is required to reject materials that emit more than 10 microrem. The level is far below the EPA’s standard for air pollution: 10,000 microrem (also known as 10 millirem).

Radium 226 is a naturally occurring radioactive material that forms from the decay of uranium-238. It emits alpha and gamma radiation, and it tends to accumulate in bone if inhaled or ingested, according to EPA:

“Long-term exposure to radium increases the risk of developing several diseases. Inhaled or ingested radium increases the risk of developing such diseases as lymphoma, bone cancer, and diseases that affect the formation of blood, such as leukemia and aplastic anemia. These effects usually take years to develop. External exposure to radium’s gamma radiation increases the risk of cancer to varying degrees in all tissues and organs.”
Radium is a well known contaminant in fracking operations, particularly in the Marcellus Shale formation.

“The material in question was radium 226, which is what we expect from shale drill cuttings,” said John Poister, spokesman for Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection. “Every landfill in the state has radiation monitors, and this showed the system did work.”

MAX has applied for a permit to accept a higher level of radiation at its South Huntington landfill.

Pennsylvania claims to be “the only state that requires through regulation that landfills monitor for radiation levels in the incoming wastes.”
“Should waste trigger a radiation monitor, the landfill must use a conservative and highly protective protocol that DEP developed to determine if the amount and concentration of the radioactive material can be accepted. This protocol ensures that the materials, such as Marcellus Shale drill cuttings and other sources of naturally occurring radiation in the waste stream, do not pose a risk to public health during disposal.”

Radium is also perceived as a threat to water quality. The brine that returns to the surface after hydraulic fracturing has been found to contain up to 16,000 picoCuries per liter of radium-226 (pdf). The discharge limit in effluent for Radium 226 is 60 pCi/L, and the EPA’s drinking water standard is 5 pCi/L.

In January the Pennsylvania DEP announced it would undertake a year-long peer reviewed study of radiation contamination associated with fracking wells.

“The agency will collect samples of flowback water, rock cuttings, treatment solids and sediments at well pads and wastewater treatment and waste disposal facilities,” according to a DEP news release. “The study will also analyze the radioactivity levels in pipes and well casings, storage tanks, treatment systems and trucks.”

Follow Jeff McMahon on Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, or email him here.
Special thanks to Richard Charter.

fossil fuels, marine pollution, national ocean politics, natural resource management, ocean pollution, offshore oil

Common Dreams: ‘People’s History’ of Gulf Oil Disaster Reveals Deadly Truth Behind Dispersant Corexit; Sign petition to end use of Corexit

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/04/19-4

I encourage everyone to sign this petition now! Read the full report and sign the petition at: http://www.whistleblower.org/program-areas/public-health/corexit DeeVon

Published on Friday, April 19, 2013 by Common Dreams

Report released on eve of Deepwater Horizon anniversary tells of BP lies and government collusion in oil ‘clean-up’
– Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

A dispersant plane passed over an oil skimmer in the Gulf of Mexico ten days after Deepwater Horizon explosion (Patrick Semansky / AP)

Not only is the chemical dispersant that was used to “clean up” the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster of 2010 extremely dangerous, it was knowingly used to make the gushing oil merely “appear invisible” all the while exacerbating levels of toxicity in the Gulf waters, according to a report released Friday, the eve of the third anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, by the Government Accountability Project.

According to the report, Deadly Dispersants in the Gulf: Are Public Health and Environmental Tragedies the New Norm for Oil Spill Cleanups?, Corexit-the dispersant chemical dumped into the Gulf of Mexico by oil giant BP and the U.S. government in the spill’s aftermath-was widely applied “because it caused the false impression that the oil disappeared.”

“This report is a people’s history to rebut a false advertising blitz by BP, enabled by government collusion.”
-Tom Devine
Government Accountability Project

As GAP states: “In reality, the oil/Corexit mixture became less visible, yet much more toxic than the oil alone. Nonetheless, indications are that both BP and the government were pleased with what Corexit accomplished.”

The Corexit/oil combination is highly toxic and will continue to cause “devastating long-term effects on human health and the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem” for a long time into the future, the report warns.

GAP spent 20 months collecting evidence from “over two dozen employee and citizen whistleblowers who experienced the cleanup’s effects firsthand,” and from extensive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

“This report is a people’s history to rebut a false advertising blitz by BP, enabled by government collusion,” stated GAP Legal Director Tom Devine, co-author of the report. “Gulf workers and residents who are still suffering deserve justice, and the public deserves the truth.”

“The price for making the spill appear invisible has been deadly,” he said. “It is time to stop covering up the truth about the deadly effects of the chemical cover-up Corexit.”
“Taken together, the documents and the witnesses’ testimony belie repeated corporate and government rhetoric that Corexit is not dangerous. Worse than this, evidence suggests that the cleanup effort has been more destructive to human health and the environment than the spill itself,” the group stated Friday.

The report includes first hand accounts from cleanup workers, divers, local doctors, and residents.

The findings also include “higher than normal frequency of seafood mutations,” and “pockets of ‘dead’ ocean areas where life was previously abundant.”
“Through their testimony and emerging science, the truth about the spill response’s toxic legacy is beginning to surface as the third anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion approaches,” GAP stated.

Below is a small selection of some of the voices included in the report:
As an environmental scientist, I look at the way the government and BP are handling, describing and discussing the spill Š [T]he government did not account for the increased toxicity of the combined oil and Corexit.
– Scott Porter, Diver, Marine Biologist
[W]hen a BP representative came up on the speedboat and asked if we need anything, I again explained my concerns about breathing in the Corexit and asked him for a respirator Š He explained ‘If you wear a respirator, it is bringing attention to yourself because no one else is wearing respirators, and you can get fired for that.’
– Jorey Danos, Cleanup Worker
What brought all of these individuals into the same pool was the fact that their symptoms were almost identical, and were different from anything that I had ever observed in my 40 plus years as a physician Š However, until people are educated about the symptoms associated with exposure to toxic waste from the spill, we cannot assume they will make the connection. I continue to witness this disconnect and these symptoms on a daily basis.
– Dr. Michael Robichaux, Physician
They hired people from all over who didn’t know about the conditions and real safety hazards, but you did what you had to do; you had to take the job and deal with it because you didn’t have money to go home Š There was a safety culture of, ‘hush hush, it didn’t happen.’
– Anonymous Cleanup Worker
EPA and BP knew of the health impacts associated with [Corexit and oil] Š The issue was responding to an oil spill of this magnitude, with unprecedented quantities of Corexit, including novel subsurface application. Gulf coastal communities, and individuals who consume gulf seafood or recreate in the gulf, are the guinea pigs left to deal with the consequences and will be feeling the full effect in years to come.
– Dr. Wilma Subra, Chemist, MacArthur Genius Award Recipient

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, marine pollution, ocean pollution, offshore oil

Care2.com: 10 Oil Spills in a Single Month That Have Been Covered Up

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by Kevin Mathews
April 15, 2013
6:00 am

As politicians take steps to advance the Keystone Pipeline project, oil spills and accidents continue to occur throughout North America. In the past month alone, there have been well over a dozen harmful oil incidents.

While a recent devastating pipeline burst in Arkansas has attracted a moderate amount of attention, most such accidents are swept under the rug. Claims that pipelines are highly safe and rarely malfunction are false, and there is a lack of evidence to prove them. Just because most pipeline incidents receive minimal media attention doesn’t make them any less true.

Here are 10 oil leaks from the past month that have been mostly covered up by the corporate media:

1. For the fourth time in just two years, a leak was found in Canada’s Norman Wells pipeline on March 19. In total, the pipeline has leaked 1 million liters of oil. Although the pipeline has been patched up each time, the fact that it keeps breaking has locals calling the repairs “a quick fix.”

2. Almost 1,000 barrels of crude oil leaked from Shell’s West Columbia pipeline near Houston, Texas. The massive spill was found on March 29, but not before over 50 barrels worth ran into nearby Vince Bayou.

3. A leak in a gas treatment plant’s pipeline in Parachute, Colorado continues to contaminate the local water supply over a month after it was discovered. As a result, harmful toxins have been found in Parachute Creek, which flows directly into the Colorado River. An estimated 30 million people live downstream of the leak and rely on the water supply. State law limits the maximum fine for “environmental mishaps” to just $10,000 total.

4. On March 31, the Lansing Board of Water and Light found that 3,000 gallons of oil leaked into the Grand River. Cleanup of the spill took nearly two weeks.

5. A March 18 pipeline crack leaked 21,000 gallons of fuel into the wetlands of Utah’s Willard Bay State Park. Some of the missing oil is still not accounted for, and the park will remained closed through Memorial Day.

6. A Canadian Pacific Railway train carrying fuel to Chicago derailed, spilling 15,000 gallons of oil in Minnesota on March 27. According to officials, the cold weather made cleanup efforts particularly difficult.

7. Repsol, a Spanish oil company, had its second oil spill in about a year in North Slope, Alaska. Though nearly 7,000 gallons sprayed on to the nearby terrain on April 9, an oil commissioner seemed unimpressed. “It wasn’t a big event. They had a hose rupture. How many times have you watered your garden and had a leak in your hose?”

8. On April 4, an S&S Energy oil and gas well in Damascus, Ohio exploded. A representative for the firefighters who came to put out the blaze said that this type of accident “is not unusual.”

9. A natural gas explosion occurred at a plant in Langston, Oklahoma on April 4. While no one was hurt, the gas line had to entirely burn off before firefighters could put out the resulting inferno.

10. After already demonstrating a spotty safety record, Suncor Energy acknowledged that 225 barrels of oil leaked in Port Moody, British Columbia on April 7, with a small portion of the fuel making its way to the water in the Burrard Inlet. Though Suncor managed to keep the accident a secret for four days, the incident was eventually exposed.

Unfortunately, oil spills are not isolated incidents as the corporations and mainstream media would like you to believe. If these 10 leaks aren’t enough to convince you of the Keystone Pipeline’s potential dangers, just wait until next month.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/10-oil-spills-in-a-single-month-that-have-been-covered-up.html#ixzz2QquSwndy

"Be the change you want to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi