CCST Report: Fracking pollution poses major risks

CCST Report: Fracking pollution poses major risks

July 15, 2015       Roger Straw   Benicia Independent

[Editor:  Two contrasting reports on a recent California Council on Science and Technology report.  – RS]   
 

Repost from The Center for Biological Diversity

New Study: Fracking Pollution Poses Major Threat to California’s Air, Water

Scientists’ Warnings Come Too Late to Shape State’s Weak Fracking Regulations

 

July 15, 2015     SACRAMENTO, Calif.— A study released today by the California Council on Science and Technology warns that fracking and other oil extraction techniques emit dangerous air pollution and threaten to contaminate California’s drinking water supplies. Millions of Californians live near active oil and gas wells, which exposes them to the air pollutants indentified in the report.

The troubling findings come a week after Gov. Jerry Brown’s oil officials finalized new fracking regulations that do little to address such public health and water pollution risks.

“This disturbing study exposes fatal flaws in Gov. Brown’s weak fracking rules,” said Hollin Kretzmann of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Oil companies are fouling the air we breathe and using toxic chemicals that endanger our dwindling drinking water. The millions of people near these polluting wells need an immediate halt to fracking and other dangerous oil company practices.”

Last week the state’s Department of Conservation began implementing new fracking regulations and finalized an assessment of fracking’s health and environmental risks, even though the science council had not finished evaluating fracking’s dangers. The science council is an independent, nonprofit organization that advises California officials on policy issues.

Today’s report concludes that fracking in California happens at unusually shallow depths, dangerously close to underground drinking water supplies, with unusually high chemical concentrations. That poses a serious threat to aquifers during the worst drought in California history.

Air pollution is also a major concern. In the Los Angeles area, the report identifies 1.7 million people — and hundreds of daycare facilities, schools and retirement homes — within one mile of an active oil or gas well. Atmospheric concentrations of pollutants near these oil production sites “can present risks to human health,” the study says.

But Gov. Brown’s new fracking regulations do not address deadly air pollutants like particulate matter and air toxic chemicals. A recent Center analysis found that oil companies engaged in extreme oil production methods have used millions of pounds of air toxics in the Los Angeles Basin.
Among the science council’s other disturbing findings:

• California places no limits on how close oil and gas wells can be to homes, schools or daycare facilities, which can expose people to dangerous air pollution from fracking and other oil extraction procedures.
• Serious concerns are raised over the oil industry’s disposal of fracking waste fluid and produced water into open pits and the use of oil waste fluid to irrigate crops.
• The health and water pollution impacts of fracking chemicals that could be present in oil waste that’s dumped into open pits “would be extremely difficult to predict, because there are so many possible chemicals, and the environmental profiles of many of them are unmeasured.”
• Wildlife habitat can be fragmented or lost because of fracking and other oil development – and fracking-related oil development in California “coincides with ecologically sensitive areas” in Kern and Ventura Counties.
• Confirmation that many oil industry wastewater injection wells are close to active faults — a practice has triggered earthquakes in other states. The science council identified more than 1,000 active injection wells within 1.5 miles of a mapped active fault — and more than 150 are within 656 feet.

“These troubling findings send a clear message to Gov. Brown that it’s time to ban fracking and rein in our state’s out-of-control oil industry,” Kretzmann said. “California should follow the example set by New York, which wisely banned fracking after health experts there concluded this toxic technique was just too dangerous.”

Contact: Clare Lakewood, (510) 844-7121, clakewood@biologicaldiversity.org
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 900,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

Repost from Public News Service

Report: Fracking Risk to CA is Aquifer Contamination, Not Quakes

By Suzanne Potter, July 10, 2015

PHOTO: A hydraulic fracturing well in Kern County. The safety of fracking is the subject of a new report. Photo credit: California Council on Science and Technology.

SACRAMENTO, Calif – A new report says hydraulic fracturing can contaminate groundwater when the excess water is not properly disposed of, but is not linked to earthquakes in California.

In January, a study by the Seismological Society of America linked a series of earthquakes in Ohio to fracking, and there have been similar claims in other states as well.

The new study released Thursday comes from the California Council on Science and Technology and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Jane Long, the lead scientific researcher, says hydraulic fracturing poses some safety concerns but they’re manageable.

“A lot of things people were concerned about are things that are not as big a problem as they think they are,” says Long. “And some of the practices are things that need to change and need more attention.”

The report says the oil companies should phase out percolation ponds used to dispose of excess water because toxic fracking chemicals can get into the aquifer. And it recommends companies put aside about a third of the chemicals currently in use because there’s not enough data about them.

The Center for Biological Diversity points to the finding that oil operations can pollute the air in their immediate vicinity. Long is optimistic that the report will spur further reforms.

“Some of them are going to be recommendations that will be very easy to act on right away and I think they will be acted on and some of them are going to require some process,” she says.

The report was required by the 2013 passage of State Senate Bill 4, which established new safety measures for fracking, rules that went into effect on July 1.

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Crude Oil Trains Run Next to Nuclear Missile Silos

  

Trains Full of Toxic Oil Run Next to Nuclear Missile Silos

Steve Straehley     AllGov   May 18, 2015

On February 16, a train full of toxic oil from North Dakota’s Bakken fields derailed and caught fire in Mount Carbon, West Virginia. It forced the evacuation of hundreds of families and since two cars went into the Kanawha River, two water treatment plants were shut down. The train and its cargo burned for days because there’s not really a protocol for putting out a fire fueled by 3 million gallons of volatile crude.

Believe it or not, that train wreck was a best-case scenario. Earlier in its journey from western North Dakota, that train had passed just a few hundred feet from a fully fueled and armed nuclear missile. The consequences of a similar derailment and fire next to a missile silo could have been a true catastrophe.

One-third of the missiles controlled by Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota are in the Bakken oil field and the trains carrying much of that volatile output pass in close proximity to many missile sites, according to a report (video) on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

Air Force documents obtained by the show highlight the Pentagon’s concern about the problem. A Master Conflict Table (pdf) shows a problem with a Canadian Pacific rail spur that crosses a 1,200-foot easement around a missile launch facility (MLF), or silo. “Construction may cause vibrations that may impact MLFs and includes the presence of civilians adjacent to a MLF, posing potential security concerns. Increases threat from derailment adjacent to MLF. Hazardous contents of rail cars present safety concern within 1,200-foot easement,” the entry reads.

A second table (pdf) puts the danger in more general terms. “Rail oil cars in close proximity to MLFs and MAFs (missile alert facility, or control room) poses a man-made disasters concern,” according to the Air Force.

A nuclear expert quoted in the MSNBC report said, “You have a potential disaster on your hands, with not just casualties in the immediate area, but radioactive contamination and fallout all around.”

-Steve Straehley

 
To Learn More:

U.S. Military Concerned About Oil Train Proximity to Missile Sites (video) “The Rachel Maddow Show,” MSNBC

 

Missile Sites, Oil Wells Co-Existing (by Lauren Donovan, Bismarck Tribune)

 

In West Virginia, a Collective Sigh After the Chaos (by Lexi Belculfine, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

 

Master Conflict Table (pdf) (U.S. Air Force)

 

Master Conflict Table 2 (pdf) (U.S. Air Force)

 

Missile Site Encroachments, Minot Air Force Base Area (pdf) (Minot Air Force Base Joint Land Use Study)

 

With Domestic Oil Production at 27-Year High and Increased Rail Shipments, Rail Accidents are Actually Declining in Frequency (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

 

More Oil Spilled from Trains Last Year than in Previous 37 Years Combined (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

JP3 Launches Vapor Pressure Analyzer to Ensure Low Crude Volatility During Transport

Market Watch     May 18, 2015

 

AUSTIN, TX, May 18, 2015 (Marketwired via COMTEX) -- JP3 Measurement announces the launch of the industry's first in-line, field deployable, optical vapor pressure analyzer -- the Verax VPA(TM). For the first time, operators can measure vapor pressure in condensate and crude oil in real time with no sample conditioning.

Developed specifically to measure the volatility of crude oil, NGL and condensate, the Verax VPA provides real-time measurement of vapor pressure (RVP, TVP or VPCR) during processing or loading operations. The VPA provides operators the ability to measure the vapor pressure of crude before and during loading, thus ensuring that its volatility has been reduced to safe transportation levels. Between 2008 and 2013, the number of crude oil originated rail car loads increased from 9,500 to almost 400,000, according to AAR (www.aar.org).

Matt Thomas, JP3 President and CEO, said, "The Verax VPA is the first technology focused on giving operators more control over the crude and condensate that is being transported on rail or over the road. We are pleased to provide this new analyzer for the oil and gas markets, not only to increase economic efficiency but also to reduce the level of risk during transportation."...   more here
 

Vancouver Energy's CBR capacity would be tops in U.S/ How The Oil Industry Bought And Trashed ND

Proposed oil terminal would be biggest in volume

Vancouver Energy's oil-by-rail capacity would be tops in U.S., analysis shows

The Columbian 11/24/14 

.....at full capacity, the proposal known as Vancouver Energy would handle more oil by rail than any single facility in the United States, according to an analysis of crude-by-rail terminals by The Columbian.

“On paper, it’s the biggest facility of that type,” said Sandy Fielden, director of energy analytics for Texas-based consultant RBN Energy. “As far as I’m aware, there’s not an existing terminal that handles that type of capacity.” .... read more here

 

 Over 865,200 Gallons of Fracked Oil Spill in ND

How The Oil Industry Bought And Trashed North Dakota

Daily Kos 11/23/14

....As thoroughly reported in this morning's New York Times, North Dakota, like Kansas, offers us a clear picture of what the country would look like under industry-coddling Republican domination.

 One environmental incident for every 11 wells in 2006, for instance, became one for every six last year, The Times found. 

Through early October of this year, companies reported 3.8 million gallons spilled, nearly as much as in 2011 and 2012 combined.

Over all, more than 18.4 million gallons of oils and chemicals spilled, leaked or misted into the air, soil and waters of North Dakota from 2006 through early October 2014. (In addition, the oil industry reported spilling 5.2 million gallons of nontoxic substances, mostly fresh water, which can alter the environment and carry contaminants.)

Here is the map detailing the number of spills and instances of contamination in North Dakota from 2006-2014. They include the largest on-land oil spill in American history, by the Tesoro corporation, which actually felt confident enough in its relationship with state regulators not to disclose it publically at all:  .....  read more here

Air Pollution From Fracking May be Life-Threatening/ Fracking Waste in CA Aquifers

New Study Finds Life-Threatening Formaldehyde Levels at Fracking Sites

by Amanda Frank, 11/5/2014   Center for Effective Government

People living near fracking sites have reported health problems for years, with symptoms ranging from respiratory ailments to birth defects. But because air and water quality are often not monitored near fracking sites, surprisingly little is known about the overall public health impacts of the gas drilling process. To help fill the knowledge gap, a new study explores air quality at fracking sites across several states and finds numerous instances of toxic chemicals above national safety standards.
Coming Clean and Global Community Monitor conducted the air quality study in six states – Arkansas, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Wyoming. It is the first peer-reviewed study on air pollution from fracking that uses samples from multiple U.S. sites.

 

Breathing Toxic Air

Local residents collected air samples near fracking wells and production pads, as well as wastewater pools and processing stations. (In New York, for example, samples were collected near compressor stations on natural gas pipelines, as the state currently has a moratorium on fracking.)
An accredited laboratory analyzed the samples for the presence of nearly 100 toxic chemical compounds, with alarming results. Twenty-nine out of 76 samples analyzed (38 percent) found toxic chemicals at levels that exceed federal health and safety standards. Those chemicals included:

• Hydrogen sulfide, a deadly gas that has killed oil workers in the field
• Formaldehyde, a known cancer-causing substance
• Benzene, also known to cause cancer
• 1,3-butadiene, a skin and eye irritant that can also effect the neurological system
• Toluene, which can cause neurological effects
• Ethylbenzene, which can affect development
• Mixed xylenes, which can bring on headaches and respiratory problems
• N-hexane, which is found in crude oil and is capable of causing neurological and reproductive issues

In Wyoming, seven sites tested positive for hydrogen sulfide at levels two to 660 times what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers life-threatening.

In Arkansas, seven samples tested positive for formaldehyde at levels up to 60 times what EPA classifies as cancer-causing.

Two other states also had chemicals at levels exceeding these standards, including hydrogen sulfide in Colorado and formaldehyde and benzene in Pennsylvania.... read more here

Waste Water from Oil Fracking Injected into Clean Aquifers

California Dept. of Conservation Deputy Director admits that errors were made

By Stephen Stock, Liza Meak, Mark Villarreal and Scott Pham   11/14/14    NBC Bay Area 

--video also at site--

State officials allowed oil and gas companies to pump nearly three billion gallons of waste water into underground aquifers that could have been used for drinking water or irrigation.

Those aquifers are supposed to be off-limits to that kind of activity, protected by the EPA.

“It’s inexcusable,” said Hollin Kretzmann, at the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco. “At (a) time when California is experiencing one of the worst droughts in history, we’re allowing oil companies to contaminate what could otherwise be very useful ground water resources for irrigation and for drinking. It’s possible these aquifers are now contaminated irreparably.”.... read more here

also see this October Blog post: 

California aquifers contaminated with billions of gallons of fracking wastewater