NY Assembly Legislators Err

Is the cautious approach to regulating natural gas extraction preventing a public health catastrophe?

The New State Assembly felt that it is. On Wednesday March 5^th, they voted to extend a moratorium that will continue to put on hold the development of New York State’s natural gas resources utilizing High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing.

When asked about the vote, most legislators cited a list of potential negative impacts. Their action inadvertently offered an incomplete picture.

According to the legislators, regulatory decisions should rest solely on potential negative impacts; this stance unfortunately ignores any benefits.

There is a cost to the delay. At the current air pollution rate, health conditions associated with the inhalation of ultrafine soot or particulate matter (PM_2.5) will remain (28,000 premature deaths in United States, Canada and Cuba (WHO Global Burden of Disease study) and 3,200 in New York City (NYC’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene)).

Three years ago a study by the Environmental Defense Fund (“The Bottom of the Barrel: How the Dirtiest Heating Oil Pollutes Our Air and Harms Our Health.” 16 December 2009) identified how PM_2.5-related negative health impacts could be reduced by replacing heating systems with cleaner burning alternatives like natural gas.

Utilizing this information, New York City issued a mandate that required polluting heating systems to be “cleaned” up. A decision that will save lives and reduce emergency room visits.  

This was good news to the 300,000 children in NYC diagnosed with asthma. What about the asthmatic children living in the rest of the state? When will they hear good news?

Natural gas resources can be developed responsibly and safely by systematically addressing factual concerns. If natural gas is utilized as a cleaner fuel across the state, it can be anticipated that health indicators will improve. 

Uni Blake is an Environmental Consultant who resides in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. She has been studying water and air quality monitoring strategies that can be utilized to ensure the protection of human health and the environment.

Taking on fabricated words

When trying to spread a message quickly and effectively, it helps to have buzz words for maximum impact. It helps even more if you can coin and define your own words. This allows you the control on how the word is utilized; especially if the word represents something “new” in the public arena. This strategy challenges those opposed to your view. It puts them at a serious disadvantage. They first have to interpret a word that has no real known or defined meaning and then find a counter argument. Now, if the word is ill-defined and has a kaleidoscope of characteristics they (the opponents or proponents) end up with a sort of Don Quixote’s tilting at windmills moment. 

Case and point the word “fracking.” The original word frac’ing, was used within the industry to describe a specific technology; “hydraulic fracturing.” In this highly technical process, millions of gallons of water along with a measured amount of chemicals are injected into a well. The well which is drilled vertically then laterally into a shale formation utilizes the water to "hydraulically" fracture the formation leading to the flow of the naturally occurring hydrocarbons that were trapped in the shale. However, “fracking” as it is used commonly takes on varying meanings that are dependent on what the user is trying to illustrate, mostly representing a negative connotation.
The generalizations hidden in this word are vast; its use leads to fuzzy lines between rhetoric and fact. When representatives of the media or self-proclaimed bona fide movement leaders fall into the trap of using this word loosely to increase their appeal, they show a complete lack of intellectual honesty. 

Open Letter to the Oil and Gas Industry

I couldn't help it...

Dear Oil and Gas Industry,

After centuries of living with and around the technology and chemicals that your industry has helped develop, we have decided that we have had enough. The word “chemical” and anything related to it is no longer something we feel comfortable about. Since your industry utilizes and produces chemicals in large quantities, you are no longer welcome.  Don’t get us wrong, we completely understand the role that chemicals have in our lives. However, by dividing them into good and bad chemicals, we can get rid of what we feel are the bad chemicals.  We will utilize our innate sense of toxicology, our feelings and our opinions to determine which are good and which are bad. Then, we will redefine the word “chemical” to only mean the “bad” chemicals.

If we feel or if it is our opinion that a substance is safe and is useful; we will call it by its name. For example, milk, water, iPads, caffeine, aspirins, IV  tubing, hand soaps, shampoo (actually most personal care products), and gasoline (at the gas station, only) are all useful and from now on they will no longer be associated with the word chemical.

Chemicals by our definition are substances that people in white lab coats deal with; they are produced in large menacing factories that have smoke billowing from smoke stacks. They are extracted from the deep bowels of the earth or are harvested in large quantities on the surface; both processes scar and damage Mother Earth. Mother Earth needs to be honored and protected. Therefore, chemicals are substances that have to be avoided.  They are dangerous and toxic.  Form what I read in the newspaper and see on TV, they are associated with cancer; and NOBODY likes cancer.

The word technology is still acceptable, unless it has anything to do with chemicals. Then the process can no longer be associated with the word technology. It has to be known by whatever name we feel we should call it. For example, “fracking” is more fitting and we like that word better than the words “hydraulic fracturing” which sound too mundane.

So, please, you are not welcome here. We can do without you and your chemicals.

Sincerely,

John and Jane Q Public

A Reality Check: Hazardous Wastewater Treatment

Forget about rationality, subjectivity, objectivity, apologist studies, and the rest of the words used to describe various points of view, opinions and rhetoric. How about one simple word – Reality! Chemicals are everywhere. In our homes, in industry, in agriculture, in our cars, virtually everywhere; look around you. This offers numerous pollution opportunities.

According to the USEPA the average U.S household generates more than 20 pounds of household hazardous waste annually. While all industrial facilities are regulated on how and where they should dispose of waste, households are not. EPA developed a household waste EXEMPTION. The exemption allows us to perform our routine maintenance tasks around the house without applying for a disposal permit. It allows us to have solvents, paints, pesticides, fertilizer, rodent poisons, grease, oven cleaners, drain openers, used oil, antifreeze, batteries, lighter fluids, cosmetics, nail polish, insecticides, household cleaners…. all defined as hazardous in our homes. Based on 20 pounds of hazardous waste per household and there are 7,482 households in Schuyler County (Census 2006-2010) then approximately 150,000 lbs. of hazardous waste produced is produced annually. This doesn’t even include the sanitary waste which may contains metabolized and un-metabolized highly stable and hazardous pharmaceuticals that end up in septic systems and wastewater treatment plants. This is a definite, this is reality; not a potential, not a probable, this is happening. Our homes may as well be mini-industrial facilities.

Cuyahoga River Burning (image NOAA)

Somehow, we have taken care of all this exempted household waste and our waterways are not degrading. 

Environmental history shows us that the Clean Water Act (CWA) arose out of need to end the degradation of our national waterways back in the early 1970s (remember the Cuyahoga River burning?). 

"Devastation" "Toxic" and other buzz words

Toxic has to do with poisons/toxins... Toxic has to do with concentrations, exposure length, exposure route, and related health effects. 

I didn't make this up; Paracelsus said it...

"All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous."

So, your coffee… hopefully at the concentration you are drinking it at... isn’t a poison or isn’t toxic (apparently that is an arguable point).  So, is flowback toxic? Produced water toxic? Are the chemicals used to stimulate shale toxic?  Toxic to who or to what? What are the concentrations used?  Will anyone be exposed? How will they be exposed? At what concentrations will they be exposed at? Will is cause a health effect? Many questions, many different answers…  Is it simply easier to say toxic when information is complex then to spend the time & effort looking/learning? Believe it or not, there are people that have been working on these questions for a long time; they do it with every industry that has waste water.

 "Devastated" PA Countryside (Taken 08/10/2012)

My thirty minutes on “Up with Chris Hayes” went as expected. I am not really one for interviews/panels etc. I prefer talking to people one on one; to that end I met some great people had some great conversations off the air. Chris was cordial.  

Reality Check- Are We Guinea Pigs for Hydrocarbon Development?

Opponents of hydrocarbon development say that we should wait until gas development can be done 100 percent safely. 

Reality check:  If we had waited for transportation to be 100% safe, we would still be waiting. No automobiles, no trains, no planes… nothing. Opponents also claim that companies and regulators that support the development of hydrocarbons treat communities as a giant lab experiment with the residents being guinea pigs.

Experience shows that regulations, safety and best practices evolve with technology,knowledge and experience. Did anyone complain about being a guinea pig when they were little as they rode in the back of a car standing on the hump between the seats… with no seat belt and a solid metal dash board? Were we guinea pigs for future generations or victims of time?

1960 Child Car Seat

Unraveling the Common Denominator to the Health/Environmental Impact Preconception

Green Plan’s Ted Fink, the author of two CommunityImpact Assessments (CIA), paid a visit to Otsego County’s Natural Gas Advisory Committee meeting on Friday October 26^th. His visit which was set into motion by a County Board Member, who had hoped Fink could persuade the committee that a similar Assessment would benefit Otsego County. Fink utilizes a “build-out” analysis to depict how much land within the county or town could be impacted by gas development under current zoning regulations. According to my understanding, a build-out analysis is a tool that can be used to evaluate the demands that a future development project could have on the land. It has been used effectively for brick and mortar structures such as housing developments, and new roadways, but only recently has it been used to chart the impact of natural gas development.  A build-out analysis is normally paired with different development scenarios that can then be utilized to determine what land use patterns a community would prefer to see. If utilized properly, without bias, a CIA can be a very useful tool for localities who wish to see the overall big picture and plan accordingly.

How some people see gas development in their backyards.

 Scroll down to see a more realistic picture

However, I am very skeptical of Green Plan’s Community Impact Assessments. Not because of the funding sources but because of the land use assumptions applied.