Fracking: Pennsylvania Gags Physicians

The law, known as Act 13 of 2012, an amendment to Title 58 (Oil and Gas) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, requires that companies provide to a state-maintained registry the names of chemicals and gases used in fracking. Physicians and others who work with citizen health issues may request specific information, but the company doesn’t have to provide that information if it claims it is a trade secret or proprietary information, nor does it have to reveal how the chemicals and gases used in fracking interact with natural compounds. If a company does release information about what is used, health care professionals are bound by a non-disclosure agreement that not only forbids them from warning the community of water and air pollution that may be caused by fracking, but which also forbids them from telling their own patients what the physician believes may have led to their health problems. A strict interpretation of the law would also forbid general practitioners and family practice physicians who sign the non-disclosure agreement and learn the contents of the “trade secrets” from notifying a specialist about the chemicals or compounds, thus delaying medical treatment.

The clauses are buried on pages 98 and 99 of the 174-page bill, which was initiated and passed by the Republican-controlled General Assembly and signed into law in February by Republican Gov.Tom Corbett.

“I have never seen anything like this in my 37 years of practice,” says Dr. Helen Podgainy, a pediatrician from Coraopolis, Pa. She says it’s common for physicians, epidemiologists, and others in the health care field to discuss and consult with each other about the possible problems that can affect various populations. Her first priority, she says, “is to diagnose and treat, and to be proactive in preventing harm to others.” The new law, she says, not only “hinders preventative measures for our patients, it slows the treatment process by gagging free discussion.”

Psychologists are also concerned about the effects of fracking and the law’s gag order. “We won’t know the extent of patients becoming anxious or depressed because of a lack of information about the fracking process and the chemicals used,” says Kathryn Vennie of Hawley, Pa., a clinical psychologist for 30 years. She says she is already seeing patients “who are seeking support because of the disruption to their environment.” Anxiety in the absence of information, she says, “can produce both mental and physical problems.”

The law is not only “unprecedented,” but will “complicate the ability of health department to collect information that would reveal trends that could help us to protect the public health,” says Dr. Jerome Paulson, director of the Mid-Atlantic Center for Children’s Health and the Environment at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Dr. Paulson, also professor of pediatrics atGeorge Washington University, calls the law “detrimental to the delivery of personal health care and contradictory to the ethical principles of medicine and public health.” Physicians, he says, “have a moral and ethical responsibility to protect the health of the public, and this law precludes us from doing all we can to protect the public.” He has called for a moratorium on all drilling until the health effects can be analyzed.

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Tighter Fracking Regulations Favored by 65% of U.S. in Poll

The U.S. public favors greater regulation of hydraulic fracturing, a natural gas drilling technique that has reduced prices for consumers while raising environmental concerns.

More than three times as many Americans say there should be more regulation of fracturing, known as fracking, than less, according to a Bloomberg News National Poll conducted March 8-11. The findings coincide with recent surveys in Ohio and New York where people who believe fracking will cause environmental damage outnumber those who say the process is safe.

“That actually doesn’t surprise me,” Mark Boling, executive vice president for Houston-based Southwestern Energy Co. (SWN), said of the poll results in an interview. “We have been so focused as an industry on figuring out how to crack the code and get these huge volumes of gas trapped in shale formations. We haven’t focused on the things we have to do differently above ground.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-15/tighter-fracking-regulations-favored-by-65-of-u-s-in-poll.html

Natural Gas Industry Gets Water Permits for Fracking While Science and Public Get Ignored

As the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) conducts its quarterly business meeting today, a coalition of organizations strongly criticized the agency for prohibiting public comment at the event and continuing to issue water permits for the natural gas industry without taking measures to prevent negative impacts across the Basin.

In a March 9 letter to SRBC, the groups said that full public participation at all meetings is necessary for the Commission to receive valuable public and expert input, have current information to consider in its permit reviews, and, as a public agency, to maintain transparent decision-making. (The full text of the letter is available by clicking here.)

The Commissioners represent Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania, as well as the federal government through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But at a recent hearing on 40 water withdrawal permits to support the natural gas industry, only the Commission chair (from Pennsylvania) was present and comment was taken by a hearing officer.

This highlighted growing concern that SRBC is violating its mandate to operate on the basis of equal, joint involvement by all member states. SRBC continues to approve permits and will soon put in place weak regulations to promote shale gas development in Pennsylvania—even though the other two members, Maryland and New York, haven’t decided whether to even allow it to occur. And by not conducting any studies to determine the effects of the industry across the Basin over time, SRBC is ignoring its legal requirement for long-term planning. (These points are detailed in a document available here.)

“As drilling explodes across the Basin, communities and the environment are being harmed. It’s no wonder that residents are speaking out, taking a closer look at the work of the SRBC, and turning out for meetings like never before,” says Nadia Steinzor, Marcellus regional organizer for Earthworks’ Oil and Gas Accountability Project. “SRBC should face this new reality and do what it takes to support productive public participation and protect the water resources with which they’re entrusted.”

“The Commissioners should take the time to consider and respond to citizen comments. The public has invested time and expense in coming before the Commission to speak and the public should be heard,” said Thomas Au, conservation chair of Pennsylvania Sierra Club.

“The SRBC needs to stop the premature authorization of growth-inducing actions like the shale gas-related water withdrawals on March 15th’s docket,” said Guy Alsentzer, staff attorney for Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper. “The Commission must first take the initiative to study shale gas development’s impacts on water resources and water resources management on a Basin-wide scale and incorporate those findings into its decision-making. Only by doing so can it fulfill its Compact and regulatory duties to preserve water quantity and quality for present and future generations.”

“SRBC should stop rushing to judgment on these huge water withdrawal permit applications. These proposed withdrawals are not happening in isolation,” said Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania State director for Clean Water Action. “SRBC needs to stop approving individual permits and conduct a study on the cumulative impact of full scale gas extraction on the entire Susquehanna watershed. These decisions affect residents in three states and should not be made without conducting real, science-based study.”

“The routine approval of water withdrawals for drilling and fracking in the Susquehanna River Watershed by the SRBC is resulting in water and air pollution and community degradation, and yet the SRBC is not addressing the outcomes from their decisions. They cannot bury their heads in the sand while the air and water of the Basin are polluted and people are getting sick,” said Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper. “The SRBC should not approve the proposed water withdrawals and instead enact a moratorium while they address the damaging fallout from gas extraction and put in place a plan to protect and restore the Susquehanna River Watershed. The degradation from gas in the Susquehanna affects us all and it’s time to stop it.”

http://ecowatch.org/2012/natural-gas-industry-gets-water-permits-while-science-and-public-get-ignored/

Gov. Hickenlooper's Fracking Ads For Colorado Oil And Gas Industry Draw Heat From Environmentalists

At first blush a fairly innocuous ad: everyone involved gets a pat on the back, especially the fiercely opposed conservation and gas industries.

But environmentalists have been quick to call shenanigans. Thirteen advocacy groups have sincesent Hickenlooper a letter highlighting the danger "accidental spills, corroded tanks and pipelines, and leaking containment pits" pose to Colorado's groundwater in addition to the dangers of fracking itself. Indeed, the Denver Post reports that since 2000 there have been more than 3,900 such spills.

An Executive Order signed in the midst of this has done little to quell the controversy. The order creates a commission to clarify the power local governments have in regulating oil and gas operations. "Once one county wants their own regulations, every county's going to want their own regulations, and that's going to force the oil and gas industry out of Colorado," Hickenlooper explained to Fox31.

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Fracking Democracy: Why Pennsylvania's Act 13 May Be the Nation's Worst Corporate Giveaway

Pennsylvania, where the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were signed and where the U.S. coal, oil and nuclear industries began, has adopted what may be the most anti-democratic, anti-environmental law in the country, giving gas companies the right to drill anywhere, overturn local zoning laws, seize private property and muzzle physicians from disclosing specific health impacts from drilling fluids on patients. 

The draconian new law, known as Act 13, revises the state’s oil and gas statutes, to allow oil companies to drill for natural gas using the controversial process known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking, where large volumes of water and toxic chemicals are pumped into vertical wells with lateral bores to shatter the rock and release the hydrocarbons. The law strips rights from communities and individuals while imposing new statewide drilling rules.

 

“It’s absolutely crushing of local self-government,” said Ben Price, project director for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which has helped a handful of local communities—including the city of Pittsburgh—adopt community rights ordinances that elevate the rights of nature and people to block the drilling. “The state has surrendered over 2,000 municipalities to the industry. It’s a complete capitulation of the rights of the people and their right to self-government. They are handing it over to the industry to let them govern us. It is the corporate state. That is how we look at it.”

 

“Now I know what it feels like to live in Nigeria,” said recently retired Pittsburgh City Council President Doug Shields. “You’re basically a resource colony for multi-national corporations to take your natural resources, take them back to wherever they are at, add value to them, and then sell them back to you.”

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Appalachia banks on natural gas, chemical plants

The mining and manufacturing industries have a checkered environmental record in the Appalachians, with watershed contamination, chemical spills and river dumping.

Rivers and forests have been degraded by mountaintop removal mining in which the tops of mountains are shaved off to get to the coal below, sending debris into to the valley.

"Don't get me wrong, I want jobs, but I don't want an environmental wasteland when the chemical plants leave," said Steve Terry, a laborer in Moundsville, West Virginia. "I want this area to prosper, not go to hell."

Despite the plans, some are not convinced ground will be broken for the Shell chemical plant, citing decades of broken economic promises to Appalachia by politicians and corporations.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/12/us-appalachia-chemicalplant-idUSBRE82B06820120312

Judge's ruling limits shale developer's drilling rights

Nunner said while Chesapeake can vertically extract gas and oil from underneath the hunt club's 187 acres of woods and fields, the energy company can't use the land to drill sideways to get at reserves from adjacent land.

He ordered Chesapeake, a dominant player in Ohio's shale production, to stop horizontal drilling that extends beyond Jewett's property line unless it gets the club's permission to go ahead.

Extracting natural gas and oil from shale formations depends on lateral drilling to carry millions of gallons of water under intense pressure to fracture surrounding rock. Horizontal bores can extend up to 10,000 feet, or almost two miles, from the drill hole. Chesapeake already had poured a 12-acre concrete pad for rigs but has sunk no wells.

"They don't have a right to come in and destroy our surface without fair compensation," said Jewett club president John Harris.

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