Interior Secretary: No one punished for EPA toxic mine spill

The Washington Times

Interior Sally Jewell testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015, before the House Natural Resources Oversight Committee hearing on the Animas River Spill in Colorado. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) more >

By Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times - Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Wednesday she is unaware of anyone being fired, fined or even demoted for the Gold King Mine spill, prompting Republicans to accuse her of taking the EPA off the hook for the toxic blowout.

“So you’re letting the EPA get off scot-free it sounds like. They are not being held accountable,” said Rep. Doug Lamborn, Colorado Republican, at the House Natural Resources Committee hearing.

Republicans took Ms. Jewell to task for the Interior Department’s investigation into the Aug. 5 spill, saying the October report failed to hold anyone responsible for unleashing 3 million gallons of orange, toxic wastewater into the Animas River near Silverton, Colorado.

“You’re directly responsible for this report. The EPA had promised this committee a thorough investigation,” said Rep. Tom McClintock, California Republican. “We have not gotten one. What we have gotten is a complete, deliberate whitewash.”




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New research finds, through their silence, mainstream news outlets are 'legitimating' U.S. military's burn pits on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan

Published on

Friday, October 16, 2015

by

Common Dreams

Study Reveals Corporate Media's Refusal to Acknowledge Civilian Victims of US Wars

by

Sarah Lazare, staff writer

 

 

A U.S. military burn pit at forward operating base Zeebrudge in Helmand province, Afghanistan pictured in March 2013. (Photo: Sgt. Anthony L. Ortiz)

Mainstream media outlets are systematically disregarding the hazardous health impacts of widespread U.S. military burn pits on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, thereby playing a direct role in "legitimating the environmental injustices of war," a harrowing new scholarly report concludes.
"During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the US Department of Defense burned the majority of its solid waste in open-air pits or trenches, producing large amounts of potentially hazardous emissions," noted Eric Bonds, assistant professor of sociology at University of Mary Washington, in his investigation, published in the journal Environmental Politics.

"It is well known that the uncontrolled burning of plastics, Styrofoam, electronics, unexploded weapons, and other manufactured and highly processed materials releases harmful toxins and particulate matter into the air," Bonds continued.

"This echoes the other history of Agent Orange when the U.S. government turned its back on the people of Vietnam and walked away, cleaning up just a handful of contaminated places but never acknowledging harm done to Vietnamese civilians or compensating them for their suffering."
—Eric Bonds, University of Mary Washington

However, when he surveyed major U.S. newspaper stories from 2007 to 2014, Bonds found that discussions of the negative health impacts of these burn pits overwhelmingly focused on the plight faced by U.S. military service members and veterans—but the actual civilians nearby were almost entirely missing from the picture.

"The search produced 49 distinct stories. While five of these stories made passing reference to civilian impacts, and one story mentioned potential impacts to civilians on par with impacts to soldiers, the vast majority of news stories made no mention that Iraqi and Afghan civilians might also have been harmed by the U.S. military's burning of waste," he wrote.

What's more, Bonds noted, "When journalists describe the pollution itself, how it billowed over military bases and covered living quarters with ash and soot, such accounts never mention that this pollution would not have stopped at the cement barricades and concertina wire at base boundaries, but must have also settled over civilians' homes and the surrounding landscapes."

From Balad air base in Iraq to Shindad base in Afghanistan, these sites are in fact located in close proximity to "farmsteads, townships, cities, cropland, orchards, and rivers."

As Common Dreams previously reported, Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, independent environmental toxicologist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has identified a correlation between burn pits and spikes in birth defects among Iraqi communities nearby.

According to Bonds, by failing to tell the stories of the Iraqi and Afghan people impacted, the media has a hand in the injustices committed against them.

"This echoes the other history of Agent Orange when the U.S. government turned its back on the people of Vietnam and walked away, cleaning up just a handful of contaminated places but never acknowledging harm done to Vietnamese civilians or compensating them for their suffering," Bonds told Common Dreams.

As in Vietnam, people in Iraq and Afghanistan are demanding acknowledgment of—and reparations for—the harm done by U.S. burn pits and toxic munitions.

Iraqi civil society groups including the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq and the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq have organized within their communities and levied international demands for the U.S. to clean up its burn pits, depleted uranium, white phosphorous, and other toxic waste which is creating an ongoing public health crisis in Iraq.

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Monsanto and its Promoters vs. Freedom of Information

 

October 2, 2015

Ralph Nader  

Consumer advocate, lawyer and author

Next year, the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) will celebrate its 50th anniversary as one of the finest laws our Congress has ever passed. It is a vital investigative tool for exposing government and corporate wrongdoing.

The FOIA was championed by Congressman John E. Moss (D-CA), who strove to "guarantee the right of every citizen to know the facts of his Government." Moss, with whom I worked closely as an outside citizen advocate, said that "without the fullest possible access to Government information, it is impossible to gain the knowledge necessary to discharge the responsibilities of citizenship."
All fifty states have adopted FOIA statutes.

As the FOIA approaches its 50th year, it faces a disturbing backlash from scientists tied to the agrichemical company Monsanto and its allies. Here are some examples.

On March 9th, three former presidents of the American Association for the Advancement of Science - all with ties to Monsanto or the biotech industry - wrote in the pages of the Guardian to criticize the use of the state FOIA laws to investigate taxpayer-funded scientists who vocally defend Monsanto, the agrichemical industry, their pesticides, and genetically engineered food. They called the FOIAs an "organized attack on science."

The super-secretive Monsanto has stated, regarding the FOIAs, that "agenda-driven groups often take individual documents or quotes out of context in an attempt to distort the facts, advance their agenda, and stop legitimate research."

Advocates with the venerable Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) do worry that the FOIA can be abused to harass scientists for ideological reasons. This is true; for example, human-caused global warming deniers have abused the FOIA against climate scientists working at state universities like Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University.



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Fears mount that the USDA's organic certification process is being hijacked by corporate interests

 

 

 Natural News

..

 

Wednesday, September 23, 2015 by: J. D. Heyes

 

 

(NaturalNews) Some organic food experts are worried that the term used to describe non-genetically modified crops and produce may soon become nearly meaningless, thanks in large part to undue (read corporate) influence on the Department of Agriculture.

According to Jerome Rigot, PhD, writing in a blog posted at the Cornucopia Institute, which promotes food safety backed by science, it may no longer be accurate to rely on the USDA's "organic" labeling as remaining "true to its mandate of assuring consumers that food under this label is truly healthy and grown or raised with minimal impact to the environment," as well as respecting "the health and well-being of the workers and animals involved."

Rigot notes that, among other concerns, Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, recently downgraded its rating of the Agriculture Department's organic seal and label. The director of the Consumer Safety and Sustainability Center for the magazine, Dr. Urvashi Rangan, testified to the National Organic Standards Board in late 2014: "Organic is slipping. And as a result, we have downgraded its rating from highly meaningful to meaningful." He further noted that the rule of the magazine "is to help educate people about what organic means as well as what it doesn't mean."
Regarding these concerns, Rigot wrote:

As an example, the Cornucopia Institute filed formal legal complaints with the USDA in December 2014 against 14 giant poultry and dairy CAFOs (read: concentrated animal feeding operations or "factory farms") for allegedly violating the USDA organic regulations requiring outdoor and pasture access. Each complaint was summarily dismissed, without an investigation, by the enforcement division of the National Organic Program (NOP), which stated, "The NOP has reviewed these complaints and has determined that investigation is unwarranted."

Inept, corporatists or lobbyists

The determination was odd, says Rigot, because literally hundreds of high-res photos, satellite imagery and state regulatory documents were submitted as evidence to the NOP which, together, should have produced more than enough doubt to motivate someone to launch an investigation.
A former NOSB board member who manages the country's first certified organic dairy farm, Kevin Englebert, was clearly disappointed by the NOP decision, seeing it as a lapse of the organization's responsibilities.

"For the NOP to not even investigate these facilities means one of three things: 1) the personnel who made that decision are inept, 2) they are too close and friendly with corporate lobbyists and multimillion-dollar certifiers that are involved in the process, or 3) the most likely scenario, corrupt politicians are preventing them from enforcing the law," he said, as quoted by Rigot, who intimated that elements of all three reasons might be at play.

He noted that the National Organic Program is a very small part of the Agriculture Department. However, many large corporations have a significant vested interest in organic foods, especially the processed foods industry (including General Mills, Smuckers, Coca-Cola, etc.), and similar to GMO corporations, they'll do whatever it takes to expand their bottom line.

"Circumstantial evidence makes it reasonable to conclude that the same type of undue industry influence that appears to have prevented Vilsack and the USDA from acting quickly to end the Salmonella outbreak [in 2014] and limit the health toll is behind efforts to dilute the federal organic standards, control the NOP leadership, and limit or obstruct the ability of the congressionally authorized National Organic Standard Board from doing its job efficiently and with integrity," Rigot wrote.

For more breaking news regarding organic agriculture, check out Organics.news, powered by FETCH.news.

Compromised board members

In September 2014, we reported that the Cornucopia Institute had conducted a study to examine the voting records and backgrounds of the 15 members of the NOSB.

The board is an advisory body created by the secretary of agriculture to make recommendations aimed at preserving and protecting the organic farming industry. What's more, the board is also required to maintain and update the National List of Approved and Prohibited Substances – a list that identifies substances and other compounds that cannot be used in organic crop and livestock production.

The NOSB's seats are supposed to be filled with members representing farmers, environmentalists, public interest advocates, handlers, retailers, scientists and a USDA certifying agent. However, Cornucopia found in its study that corporate representatives were filling seats intended for farmers and other independent organic industry stakeholders, often leading to decisions that were not beneficial to the organic food and livestock industry.

Details surrounding that study are posted here.

Sources:
Cornucopia.org
NaturalNews.com
AMS.USDA.gov

Investigative report reveals Gov. Tomblin shut out environmentalists, public health officials to closed-door policy meetings following Elk River chemical spill

Published on Wednesday, February 5, 2014 by Common Dreams

In Post-Spill West Virginia: Polluters' Input Welcome, Health Advocates Shut Out

- Lauren McCauley, staff writer

West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin speaking at a press conference following the Jan. 9 Elk River spill. (Photo via The Lincoln Journal)Seeking the opinions of 'stakeholders' for new proposed legislation meant to prevent future toxic chemical leaks like the January 9 Elk River spill, West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin invited a host of industry leaders and trade associations to weigh in.
However, notably absent from the talks were any environmentalists or public health officials, according to an investigative report by the Charleston Gazette published Tuesday.
West Virginia journalist Ken Ward Jr. reports:

The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce was invited. So were the Oil and Gas Association and the Coal Association. Trade associations representing grocers, manufacturers, trucking firms and energy companies were included, according to the Governor's Office.
But the chief lobbyist for the West Virginia Environmental Council — the environmental community's umbrella lobby group at the Capitol — said that his organization wasn't included in the governor's meeting.
"Neither I nor anyone else I know of in the environmental community knew about that meeting," Garvin said Monday. "You telling me about it is the first I've heard about that meeting."

"If you want a bill that protects clean water, you should probably listen to people who advocate for clean water, not the polluters," said West Virginia Sierra Club leader Jim Kotcon at a public hearing Monday night.
At the same meeting, West Virginia Coal Association Vice President Chris Hamilton said that he and other industry leaders "stand ready to offer our resources and expertise" in crafting the legislation.
The Gazette learned of the Jan. 20 closed-door meeting through documents released in a Freedom of Information Act Request about the proposed legislation.
The bill reportedly creates a new regulatory program for aboveground chemical storage tanks—such as the Freedom Industries tanks from which 10,000 gallons of coal cleaning chemicals spilled into the regional water supply.
Also included in the documents were "email messages in which several prominent industry lawyers and lobbyists offered suggestions for the governor's legislation," Ward reports.
Both the governor's bill, introduced on Jan. 22, and one passed a week later by the state Senate included versions of those recommendations.

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.....

February 4, 2014

Tomblin meeting on chemical tank bill excluded environmentalists

By Ken Ward Jr.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Two weeks ago, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin held a news conference to announce his legislative response to the Elk River chemical leak. The governor unveiled proposed legislation aimed at creating a new regulatory program for aboveground chemical storage tanks.
"This proposed legislation includes reasonable, commonsense provisions to regulate aboveground storage tanks across the state, including those located in areas of critical concern near our public water supply and distribution systems," the governor said at the Jan. 20 news conference.
A day earlier, a select group of business lawyers and industry lobbyists met with the governor's staff and officials from the state Department of Environmental Protection to go over the governor's bill.
"See everyone there and please be prepared to discuss the bill section by section," Jason Pizatella wrote in an email message announcing the meeting.
Pizatella called the event a meeting "with the stakeholders."
The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce was invited. So were the Oil and Gas Association and the Coal Association. Trade associations representing grocers, manufacturers, trucking firms and energy companies were included, according to the Governor's Office.
But the chief lobbyist for the West Virginia Environmental Council -- the environmental community's umbrella lobby group at the Capitol -- said that his organization wasn't included in the governor's meeting.
"Neither I nor anyone else I know of in the environmental community knew about that meeting," Garvin said Monday. "You telling me about it is the first I've heard about that meeting."
Asked what discussions the environmental council had about the governor's bill prior to its unveiling at that news conference, Garvin said, "There were none."
Garvin said that environmental group lobbyists weren't asked by the Governor's Office for their input as the bill was developed, and had only brief, informal discussions with DEP officials prior to the legislation being introduced.
"I've had some just offhand discussions with DEP," Garvin said. "Other than that, we really weren't given an opportunity to just sit down and tell the DEP or the governor what we thought."
Pizatella's announcement of the "stakeholders" meeting, held at the state Lottery Commission building on Pennsylvania Avenue on a Sunday afternoon, was among the records released by the Governor's Office in response to a Freedom of Information Act request about the chemical tank legislation.
Also included were email messages in which several prominent industry lawyers and lobbyists offered suggestions for the governor's legislation -- before the bill was finalized Jan. 20 or introduced Jan. 22.


Read More Here

.....

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• Chemical tanks ordered removed in West Virginia after spill
• West Virginia chemical spill cuts water for up to 300,000
• West Virginia Governor Starting To Feel Like Maybe Rivers Shouldn't Be Filled With Poison
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Obama Approves Major Border-Crossing Fracked Gas Pipeline Used to Dilute Tar Sands

Although TransCanada's Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has received the lion's share of media attention, another key border-crossing pipeline benefitting tar sands producers was approved on November 19 by the U.S. State Department.

Enter Cochin, Kinder Morgan's 1,900-mile proposed pipeline to transport gas produced via the controversial hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") of the Eagle Ford Shale basin in Texas north through Kankakee, Illinois, and eventually into Alberta, Canada, the home of the tar sands. 

Like Keystone XL, the pipeline proposal requires U.S. State Department approval because it crosses the U.S.-Canada border. Unlike Keystone XL - which would carry diluted tar sands diluted bitumen ("dilbit") south to the Gulf Coast - Kinder Morgan's Cochin pipeline would carry the gas condensate (diluent) used to dilute the bitumen north to the tar sands.

"The decision allows Kinder Morgan Cochin LLC to proceed with a $260 million plan to reverse and expand an existing pipeline to carry an initial 95,000 barrels a day of condensate," the Financial Post wrote. 

"The extra-thick oil is typically cut with 30% condensate so it can move in pipelines. By 2035, producers could require 893,000 barrels a day of the ultra-light oil, with imports making up 786,000 barrels of the total."

Increased demand for diluent among Alberta's tar sands producers has created a growing market for U.S. producers of natural gas liquids, particularly for fracked gas producers.

"Total US natural gasoline exports reached a record volume of 179,000 barrels per day in February as Canada's thirst for oil sand diluent ramped up," explained a May 2013 article appearing in Platts. "US natural gasoline production is forecast to increase to roughly 450,000 b/d by 2020."

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• Obama Approves Major Border-Crossing Fracked Gas Pipeline Used to Dilute Tar Sands
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• Obama approves Kinder Morgan's Cochin pipeline expansion
• Obama Approves Major Fracked Gas Pipeline

The Legacy of Fracking : How the Gas and Oil Industry are making a buck by poisoning our water with the help of corrupt politicians and agencies

Bloomberg News

Radiation in Pennsylvania Creek Seen as Legacy of Fracking

By Jim Efstathiou Jr. October 02, 2013

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A natural gas drill is viewed at a hydraulic fracturing site in South Montrose, Pennsylvania. Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Naturally occurring radiation brought to the surface by gas drillers has been detected in a Pennsylvania creek that flows into the Allegheny River, illustrating the risks of wastewater disposal from the boom in hydraulic fracturing.
Sediment in Blacklick Creek contained radium in concentrations 200 times above normal, or background levels, according to the study, published today in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. The radium, along with salts such as bromide, came from the Josephine Brine Treatment Facility about 45 miles (72 kilometers) east of Pittsburgh, a plant that treats wastewater from oil and gas drilling.
“The absolute levels that we found are much higher than what you allow in the U.S. for any place to dump radioactive material,” Avner Vengosh, a professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University and co-author of the study, said in an interview. “The radium will be bio-accumulating. You eventually could get it in the fish.”
Hydraulic fracturing or fracking has been blamed for contaminating streams and private water wells after spills from wastewater holding ponds or leaks from faulty gas wells. Today’s report exposes the risks of disposing of the surging volumes of waste from gas fracking. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is developing new standards for disposing of gas drilling waste.

Commercial Treatment

For decades Pennsylvania disposed of wastewater from oil and gas drilling at commercial treatment plants that discharged into rivers and streams. A natural-gas boom brought on by fracking in a geologic formation called the Marcellus Shale led to a 570 percent increase in the volume of drilling wastewater since 2004, according to Brian Lutz, assistant professor of biogeochemistry at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.
In fracking, millions of gallons of chemically treated water and sand are forced underground to shatter rock and free trapped gas. As much as 80 percent of the fluid returns to the surface along with radium, and salts such as sodium, calcium, magnesium, chlorine, bromide.


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East Bay Express

Fracking Jerry Brown

The governor signed a bill that likely will expand fracking in California after taking $2.5 million in contributions from oil and natural gas interests.

By Robert Gammon @RobertGammon

Wikimedia Commons

• Occidental Petroleum, which has extensive holdings in the state, is Brown's largest industry donor.

 

Before Jerry Brown signed legislation last month that promises to greatly expand fracking in California, the governor accepted at least $2.49 million in financial donations over the past several years from oil and natural gas interests, according to public records on file with the Secretary of State's Office and the California Fair Political Practices Commission. Of the total, $770,000 went to Brown's two Oakland charter schools — the Oakland School for the Arts and the Oakland Military Institute. The other $1.72 million went to his statewide political campaigns for attorney general and governor, along with his Proposition 30 ballot-measure campaign last year.
The governor signed Senate Bill 4 into law despite widespread opposition from the environmental community. The bill, which underwent major changes in the last week of this year's legislative session after intense lobbying from the oil and gas industry, requires state regulators to approve all fracking permit requests in California for the next two years — as long as oil and gas companies disclose to state officials what chemicals they're using during hydraulic fracturing.
Fracking, a controversial process that involves shooting massive amounts of water and toxic chemicals deep into the earth in order to release otherwise trapped oil and natural gas deposits, has been linked to groundwater and air pollution, and there's evidence that it causes earthquakes. But the oil and gas industry views California and its giant Monterey Shale deposit as the next big boon for domestic fossil fuels. The underground deposit is estimated to contain 15 billion barrels of extractable oil and natural gas.
Several environmental groups, including Sierra Club California, have called for a ban or a moratorium on fracking in the state. And SB 4 originally created a division in the environmental community — with several groups opposing it because they contended that it was too weak, while other groups backed it for fear that the state would end up with no regulations at all. However, some of these latter groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the California League of Conservation Voters, withdrew their support for SB 4 after the oil and gas industry successfully pushed for last-minute changes to it.
SB 4 also originally sparked opposition from within the Brown administration not long after state Senator Fran Pavley, a Southern California Democrat, introduced it earlier this year. In May, the state Department of Finance issued an official opposition letter on SB 4, essentially contending that the legislation was too tough on oil and gas companies and that it threatened to stifle the economic boom that fracking may create in California. At the time, the bill proposed a moratorium on fracking while the state conducts a full environmental analysis of the oil and natural gas extraction method. "This bill could result in significant negative impacts to California's economy," Brown's Department of Finance argued back then. "A moratorium would likely result in a significant loss of jobs and tax revenues."

The oil and natural gas industry also adamantly opposed SB 4 throughout much of 2013. But after behind-the-scenes lobbying, Pavley agreed on September 6 to amend her legislation. Rather than imposing a temporary moratorium, SB 4 instead forces state regulators to approve all fracking requests. The bill also could undermine aspects of the California Environmental Quality Act.


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Radiation Found in Penn. Watershed 300 Times Over Normal Levels

 

Radium 226RA was found in a local Penn. watershed, raising concerns amongst Americans across the country.

By Shepard Ambellas
Intellihub.com
October 2, 2013

WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENN. — The disposal of toxic chemical byproducts used in U.S. oil and gas production (i.e. fracking) has led to the poisoning of our watersheds and water supplies in some areas of the country. In fact, in some instances the gaseous chemical byproducts have been so heavy  they have made their way into homes. It has even been documented that peoples sink faucets have ignited into flames right at the kitchen tap. However, flames aren’t enough anymore, the corporations doing the fracking keep pushing for profits and now our water supply is at stake.
Runoff from chemical plants threaten all animal, plant and human life more than ever now as radiation has been discovered in the local Westmoreland County watershed.
The official website for the Blacklick Creek Watershed Association  describes what the area is supposed to be, “The Blacklick Creek watershed is 420 square miles in Indiana and Cambria counties. The largest streams are Blacklick, Twolick and Yellow Creeks.  These and other streams are degraded by severe acid mine discharges.  Many streams within the watershed are polluted with high levels of metals and acidity.  There are many discharges from abandoned underground mines, poorly reclaimed surface mines and coal refuse piles”_[1]
The journal for Environmental Science and Technology published a peer-reviewed study which yielded findings showing very high levels of Radium (226RA) exist in the Westmoreland County Watersheds, Blacklick Creek, which flows into the Allegheny River. “This study examined the water quality and isotopic compositions of discharged effluents, surface waters, and stream sediments associated with a treatment facility site in western Pennsylvania.”, reads an excerpt from the study entitled, Impacts of Shale Gas Wastewater Disposal on Water Quality in Western Pennsylvania._[2]
The study concluded that chemicals used in the fracking process have ended up in the watershed, posing a great risk. The study documents how Radium “226Ra levels in stream sediments (544–8759 Bq/kg) at the point of discharge were 200 times greater than upstream and background sediments (22–44 Bq/kg) and above radioactive waste disposal threshold regulations, posing potential environmental risks of radium bioaccumulation in localized areas of shale gas wastewater disposal.”_[2]


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Examiner.com

Cheneyesque fracking loophole leaves home and land owners uncertain (Video)

Karen HansenEnvironmental News Examiner

Play

The recent Colorado floods revealed the dangers of oil and water. (YouTube/ ClimateState)

September 30, 2013

A Cheneyesque fracking loophole in California’s recent SB4 fracking legislation re-sets the national tone of the oil & gas industry towards home and land owner’s properties to 'uncertain.'
The “Golden” state, known for leading the way in its renewable portfolio standards to 33% by 2020, may now instead be marred with the unintended consequences of ‘green lighting,’ rather than abating the practice of fracking. Vice President Cheney originally set the ‘fracking loophole’ into motion to skirt the Clean Water Act given the Bush Energy Policy of 2005.
“The loopholes,” writes Sofia Plagakis from the Center for Effective Government, “regarding waivers of an environmental impact analysis leave the legislation ineffective in protecting public health and the environment for the next two years. Environmental groups and communities are calling on Brown and state lawmakers to fix these provisions and to impose a moratorium until the state can full assess the threats of fracking and acidization to California’s air, water, and communities.”
Despite an applauded-by-activists planned online disclosure of what is contained in the chemical cocktail being injected into the subsurface; under the new legislation, fracking will not be regulated by the State Water Quality Control Board’s underground injection program, but instead given to the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR), potentially circumventing California’s Environmental Quality Act (CEQA.)
“The big picture,” per Adam Scow, California Director for Food and Water Watch, “is that SB4 never did anything to make fracking safer or to slow it down.”
Disclosure of anything material to a prospective home, land buyer meets standard of care
Disclosing any information ‘material’ to the sale of a home or land constitutes California’s standard of care. Residential and Commercial Real Estate Disclosure giant First American Real Estate Disclosures JCP-LGS division currently produces an environmental screening report that discloses the location of active and abandoned oil and gas wells within ¼-mile of the sale property.
The firm's licensed geologist Patrick McClellan released the statement, “We are evaluating the availability and usefulness of data from the California Department of Conservation to determine whether a property-specific disclosure of fracking operations is feasible.”
The California Association of Realtors said they were looking into the issue.
Already per the South Coast AQMD Rule 1148.2 Well Stimulation notifications mapping project, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) has implemented noticing and reporting requirements for oil and gas wells within its district. This is called rule 1148.2 and requires oil operators to submit specific reports of well activity related to well stimulation and drilling. The type of well stimulations reported include Hydraulic Fracturing (fracking), Acidizing (acid-fracking) and gravel packing (smaller-scale fracking). Along with these reports, chemical notification is also required.
Wait a minute, I thought the California Democratic Party’s position on fracking was to support a moratorium, something like in New York
What changed? The California Democratic party passed several resolutions saying no to fracking at its heavily attended convention in Sacramento only just in April. Tenoch Flores, Communications Director for the party simply responded with an honest, “I don’t know,” then forwarded this link to the actual fracking resolution adopted.
Amendment 24
And then they came, 4 last minute amendments; Amendment 24, the worst of them. Like something out of a Dick Cheney horror flick to environmentalists- in came the actual language:
Where the supervisor determines the activities proposed in the well simulation treatment permit or the combined authorization have met all of the requirements of Division 13 (commencing with Section 21000), and have been fully described, analyzed, evaluated, and mitigated, no additional review or mitigation shall be required.”
Climate Hawks react to fracking regulation
RL Miller, Chair of the California Democratic Party’s Environmental Caucus, and founder of the Climate Hawks SuperPac rekindled what occurred from her perspective as a leader on the fracking issue in the Earth Island Journal : “A California Fracking Moratorium Post-Mortem.
“The September 6 amendments were so bad that the CA League of Conservation Voters, NRDC, Environmental Working Group, and Clean Water Action pulled their support of SB4. However, they didn’t send out their big press release until mid-morning Wednesday, September 11 around the same time as the Assembly began voting on SB4. A couple of Assemblymembers stated on Twitter that they didn’t know that support had been pulled until after they voted.”
"Under the new changes," notes Miller, “fracking would be able to continue without permits until 2015. Yes, you read that right — the bill intended to make frackers get permits now says that the state regulatory agency shall allow all of the currently ongoing, unpermitted fracking and acidizing to keep on fracking and acidizing without permits until regulations are written in 2015.”
Propaganda Fracking Wars
Miller recalls, “Some troubling signs appeared up right away. A lot of stories and columns and op-eds extolling the financial benefits of the Monterey Shale popped up in a lot of strange places. It was almost as though a wealthy industry was gearing up a sophisticated yet stealthy public relations campaign in anticipation of a tough public fight.
Miller refers to Governor Jerry Brown as a ‘former environmentalist ‘who called fracking a “fabulous economic opportunity” and signaled that he would not impose a moratorium. A state senator told Miller: “Governor Brown has cut a deal with the oil companies.” “Sure enough,” Miller writes, “they had rounded up a million dollars to give to his Proposition 30 last year. Then Occidental maxed out donating his 2014 reelection campaign in June 2013 — almost as if Oxy were sending a signal that it approved of his activities on its behalf.”
Lastly she reported, “A report mostly funded by the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) predicted billions of dollars and millions of jobs from California’s next black gold rush. I’m told that a Brown staffer shoved the report down the throat of any recalcitrant legislator interested in a moratorium. By the way, WSPA is California’s biggest spending lobbyist. Chevron is number six.


Read More Here


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• Ohio: Shale drillers must report chemicals locally
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Ecuador Takes on Chevron

freespeechtv·

Published on Sep 24, 2013

 

Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño discusses his government's involvement in two closely watched environmental legal battles. An Ecuadorean court has ordered the oil giant Chevron to pay $19 billion to indigenous and rural Ecuadoreans for the dumping of as much as 18.5 billion gallons of highly toxic waste sludge into the rainforest. But Chevron has refused, winning a partial victory last week when an international arbitration panel based in the Hague delivered an interim ruling questioning the validity of the original 2011 verdict.

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Ecuador Takes on Chevron, Global Indifference in Controversial Fights to Protect Rainforest

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  Chevron to Pay $2 Million for 2012 Refinery Fire in Richmond, CA; 200 Arrested at Protest

Guests

Ricardo Patiño, Ecuador’s Foreign Minister.

Mar 14, 2012 | Story

During a visit to New York City for the United Nations General Assembly, Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño joins us to discuss his government’s involvement in two closely watched environmental legal battles. An Ecuadorean court has ordered the oil giant Chevron to pay $19 billion to indigenous and rural Ecuadoreans for the dumping of as much as 18.5 billion gallons of highly toxic waste sludge into the  rainforest. But Chevron has refused, winning a partial victory last week when an international arbitration panel based in the Hague delivered an interim ruling questioning the validity of the original 2011 verdict. Patiño also addresses why Ecuador recently dropped a plan to preserve swaths of the Amazon rainforest from oil drilling by having wealthy countries pay them not to drill, an effort that the Ecuadorean government says failed to attract sufficient funding. Leading environmentalists, including Vandana Shiva, Naomi Klein and James Hansen, recently wrote an open letter to President Rafael Correa asking him not to forsake the initiative, saying: "Along with thousands of other world citizens, we look to the Yasuní-ITT initiative as a pioneering step in the international struggle for a post-fossil-fuel civilization. We have been inspired by the determination of the Ecuadorean public to rejuvenate the initiative following your government’s recent decision to abandon it."


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