PUBLIC COMMENT

12/20/10

* Helen Slottje, Esq. of CEDC speaks on prohibiting gas drilling through local land use, 12-8-10

VIDEO ADDRESS 12-8-10
"Just say no," says Helen Slottje, Esq., to gas drilling via local land use

Legal expert from Community Environmental Defense Council (CEDC), Helen Slottje, Esq. argues for using local land use control to prohibit industrialization by the shale gas industry. Though Ms. Slottje is discussing NY state, much of what she says likely pertains to PA as well. In PA, based on numerous precedent-setting court cases, local townships are able to control through zoning regulations where, if anywhere, drilling is done, but towns cannot regulate how the drilling is done. That technical regulation is left to the PA DEP (video 29 mins). CEDC website for further information is here.

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BRADFORD COUNTY USA: HERE COMES . . . . OUR FUTURE

SANDRA STEINGRABER & JANNETTE BARTH BLOW AWAY PRO-GASSERS IN TV DEBATE

SHALE GAS: CLIMATE MENACE?

In a Pittsburgh news conference 1-18-12, a Cornell research team warned -- again -- that increased reliance on shale gas will help cause catastrophic climate change within 15 to 35 years due to the drilling industry's leaks and venting of methane, one of the most potent agents to worsen the greenhouse effect.

Far from being a "clean" fuel, even called "green" by some industry lobbyists, gas drilling is filthy -- even dirtier than coal -- when it comes to climate, creating about 16% of the country's greenhouse gases, and that figure could increase to nearly 25% at the rate shale gas development is growing in Pennsylvania, nationwide and worldwide, says Robert Howarth, ecology and environmental biology professor at Cornell. His team has faced questions about its short-term focus of 20 years, but they point to a growing body of research emphasizing the short-term effects of methane release. Another Cornell scientist Anthony Cathles thinks shale gas is less dirty than coal overall. Still the Howarth team's essential finding holds when he says: "Shale gas is a really poor bridge fuel to the future because of the potency of methane and the urgent need to get methane under control," said Howarth. (Read more)

Think of shale gas as a rope bridge in the jungle -- shaky, temporary and dangerous.

See Report on shale gas greenhouse footprint, an independent peer-reviewed study by Cornell's Robert Howarth & his team.

Below is video clip of Prof Howarth at 2010 EPA conference in Binghamton, previewing the above report:

Video by Dissenta (Jane Prettyman)

THE NIGHTMARE: HERE'S WHAT FRACKING LOOKS LIKE AND SOUNDS LIKE

We see (and hear) the giant Halliburton pressurizing machines that inject the water, sand and toxic chemical mixture into the well to shatter the shale and release the gas. We see the bright lights illuminating the scene. We see the water and sand trucks lining up to deliver the ingredients for fracking (millions of gallons of water per day, thousands of tons of sand and hundreds of tons of chemicals whose identity Halliburton won't tell us). We see the home directly across the road. We hear the voice of Vera Duerga, the intrepid reporter who has captured so many video documentations of this travesty called shale gas drilling (fracking), until now abstract but now we see and hear the nightmare for what it really is. This is the process former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney used his office as Vice-President to get exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act and other federal regs because he knew fracking would violate them.

Here's another video of a frack site from two months earlier:

NY Times says "not a single well should be drilled . . ."

"Sewage treatment plants are not equipped to handle toxic [fracking flowback] waste from shale gas drilling; open pits are out of the question; and surface storage — even in airtight steel tanks — may be no more than a temporary solution. NY state officials concede that they don’t have an answer, but until they do, not a single well should be drilled." NY Times 12-12-11

The analogy with nuclear waste is clear: there's no place to put it that is safe. Just as many have argued that therefore nuclear energy should be banned, for similar reasons shale gas drilling should be banned until its flowback waste can be managed safely.

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INCREASED RADON IN OUR KITCHENS?

Increased amounts of radon, known to cause lung cancer under prolonged exposure, is brought by shale gas into close proximity of consumers in their homes. Read this gripping report published 1-10-12 by Marvin Resnikoff, Ph.D. Small amounts have always been found in natural gas but apparently much higher concentrations are being found in shale gas, especially from the Marcellus Shale.

Last year Prof. James W. Ring, Professor Emeritus of nuclear physics at Hamilton College, confirmed, in his testimony to the NYS DEC, the dangers of inhaled radon and the likelihood that shale gas extracted from the Marcellus will deliver radon into residences at point of use in family homes (two articles here and here) 10-8-11.

WHAT COMPRESSOR STATIONS ARE LIKE

Compressor stations leak toxic vapors contaminating the air in local communities documented by infrared cameras. Compressor stations introduce high noise levels into the area. Studies have shown that low-frequency noise vibrations on a constant basis day and night can cause vibro-acoustic disease that can bring increased irritability, aggressiveness, a tendency for isolation, and decreased cognitive skills. Explosions sometimes occur at compressor stations.

In Dallas Twp, PA, Chesapeake wanted to locate a compressor station only 1600 feet from a local school. Citizens banded together to fight it and the station was moved to a far more remote location away from houses, schools or other habitations.

Near top of this column, the video "Bradford County USA" features a compressor station taken in March 2011. Listen to the constant whirring sound.

In our hometown of Honesdale, the zoning ordinance should include ample setbacks of compressor stations, connection pipelines, drilling rigs, storage tanks, open-air waste water pits and other drilling-related structures, machinery and equipment far enough back from schools, homes, churches, hospitals, stores and residences not to be heard or smelled and not close enough to expose leaking gas and toxic vapors to animals or humans. (See article about a compressor station close to a school that was successfully relocated). 500 feet mentioned in current "model template" zoning ordinance for Honesdale will not be far enough to protect Honesdale citizens from noisy, smelly and air-polluting compressor stations, nor from drilling pads.

PA CONSTITUTION: ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT

Natural Resources and the Public Estate:
"Article I, Section 27: The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people."

Yet nearly one-third of Penn's public forests have already been leased to private gas drillers (by Rendell admin) to help close the state's budget gap. While the shale gas industry (and politicians who support the industry) argue the sell-off of mineral rights of public forest lands is "for the benefit of all the people" because of promised jobs and other economic benefits, that assertion is rebuttable as the industrial intensity of drilling activities spoils the "clean air, pure water, and the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values" of public forest lands, rendering the main benefits of the Amendment useless.

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12/20/10