When the Gas Industry Says “Full Disclosure,” It Only Means 65%

According to an EneryWire analysis, "at least one chemical was kept secret in 65 percent of fracking disclosures" by companies that publicly disclosed the ingredients in their hydraulic fracturing fluid.

The study supports the claims of critics including Downwinders, that companies who say they're fully disclosing the contents of their fracking fluids aren't really doing so. Downwinders has joined other members of the Dallas Residents at Risk alliance in calling for the City of Dallas to require true full disclosure of all fracking fluids in order to better protect first responders.

Industry claims it has a right to prevent the public, including doctors, firefighters, and police from knowing certain "trade secret" ingredients in their fracking fluids and every clearinghouse for ingredient information – including the much-heralded one established in Texas – allows for the use of this exemption. This trade use exemption is what the EnergyWire analysis tracked.

"It's outrageous that citizens are not getting all the information they need about fracking near their homes," said Amy Mall, who tracks drilling issues for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Companies should not be able to keep secrets about potentially dangerous chemicals they're bringing into communities and injecting into the ground near drinking water."

But companies say they spend millions of dollars researching and developing new formulations of frack fluid and shouldn't have to give away their secret recipes.

"In just the past 18 months, the industry has spearheaded an effort that took us from an idea on paper about disclosure to a fully functional and user-friendly disclosure system," said Steve Everley of Energy in Depth, a campaign of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. "That kind of commitment and progress cannot be overstated in a discussion about industry disclosure."

This is very simple. If your a Dallas firefighter responding to an accident at a gas facility site, you need to know what chemicals are on site, how much of those chemicals are there, and where they're stored. No exceptions.

Study: Dioxin Exposure Can Reach Three Generations into the Future

Via Environmental Health News:

"Pregnant rats exposed to an industrial pollutant passed on a variety of diseases to their unexposed great-grandkids, according to a study published Wednesday. Washington State University scientists found that third-generation offspring of pregnant rats exposed to dioxin had high rates of kidney and ovarian diseases as well as early onset of puberty. They also found changes in the great-grandsons' sperm. The great-grandkids – the first generation not directly exposed to dioxin – inherited their health conditions through cellular changes controlling how their genes were turned on and off, the researchers reported. The dioxin doses used in the study were low for lab rats, but are higher than most people’s exposures from the environment. The study raises questions that won’t be easy to answer about people’s exposure to dioxins from food and industrial sources."

The new study examined how dioxin exposure affects a person’s epigenomea road map of chemical changes to DNA and associated proteins. As a fetus develops, its epigenome is reprogrammed, and it can be permanently altered by exposures. The epigenome is then passed down through generations – along with susceptibility to adult-onset disease.

Cement kilns are a large source of dioxins, which are so toxic they're measured in grams, not pounds or tons. Lead smelters are another large source – the Exide smelter in Frisco has been of the largest dioxin polluters in the state. Any kind of incineration process, especially involving chlorides/plastics will release dioxins. This is why its a bad idea to burn plastic garbage as TXI's cement plant in Midlothian does now, or build a "waste-to-energy" incineratator that burns "un-recyclable plastics," as many of us suspect the City of Dallas want to do in the near future.

However, most people get most of their exposure to dioxin from ealing fatty foods that contain it – dairy products like cheese and milk. It enters the food chain as fallout from thousands of different sources, gets absorbed into the soil and plants, and those plants are then eaten by hungry cows.

The findings are not directly applicable to humans, researchers said. The way the animals were dosed is not the same way people are exposed to dioxins, and the moms were dosed for a few days – roughly similar to the first trimester – which does not mimic typical human exposure that is low and gradual but builds over time, Wolstenholme said. Humans and rats also clear dioxin from their bodies differently, she said.

“We cannot know from these studies if people are similarly at increased risk for the same diseases,” Wolstenholme said.

Still, the researchers wrote that their findings “have implications for the human populations that are exposed to dioxin and are experiencing declines in fertility and increases in adult onset disease, with a potential to transmit them to later generations.”

Report: Texas Doesn’t Monitor the Oil and Gas Industry Very Well

Yesterday, Downwinders at Risk was one of about a dozen groups that  was proud to help release new Earthworks report that shows just much Texas state government is neglecting its duties to protect the public health and safety from the risks posed by oil and gas industry facilities.

"Breaking all the Rules:The Crisis in Oil and Gas Regulation," reveals that states with some of the largest concentrations of those facilities – Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Mexico and Colorado –  fail to enforce their oil and gas development regulations. But you knew that.

What you may not know is the full extent of the problem. Bolstered by interviews with former regulators and a year-long examination of the data, the report concludes that:

  • 296,000 active oil and gas wells in Texas were uninspected in 2011.
  • Companies that are found in violation of regulations are rarely penalized: in 2012, only two percent of violations have been penalized to date.
  • Penalties are so weak that it is cheaper for violators to pay the penalty than comply with the law: the total value of financial penalties in Texas in 2009 was less than the value of the gas contained in a newly drilled gas well.

Go read the whole thing over at Sharon's. Good work.

 

Risks from Freeway Air Pollution “Very Important” to Consider. Will Dallas?

Over the past five years, there's been a significant increase in the amount of scholarship devoted to chronicling what kind of risks are posed by running freeways through communities and exposing adjacent residents to the cumulative air pollution of thousands of tailpipes. For the first time, urban planners are having to consider the public health consequences of transportation choices that still rely on the internal combustion engine.

"Researchers who affirm that children living near freeways are more likely to suffer from asthma are alerting urban planners about the importance of keeping homes away from busy roads.

The asthma-pollution link is especially vital as planners look at clustering jobs, transportation and homes as a way of limiting sprawl, the researchers said in the study published Monday, Sept. 24."

The study in question is from the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine. It found that higher air pollution levels less than 100 yards from freeways caused an estimated 27,000 additional cases of childhood asthma in Los Angeles County in 2007, almost 8% of the County's total that year.

Sarah Katz, a research associate at UC Irvine’s Institute of Transportation Planning, said clustering homes near transit, services and jobs is a newer trend in urban planning.

In view of that, Katz said, the USC report is essential reading for planners. The science on the health effects of roadway pollution is relatively new, and not all planners are familiar with it, she said.

“I hope this report gets a lot attention, because it is very important,” Katz said

Indeed. But is anybody at TXDOT reading these studies and paying attention? If so, why does Austin insist on turning the new CF Hawn freeway project in South Dallas, you know, the fixing of the "deadman's curve," into a 6-lane Carmageddon running straight up the middle of the community instead of the less frantic boulevard concept the neighborhood is requesting?

Because of studies like the one from USC, there's now plainly environmental justice and public health litmus tests that can be applied to every new freeway project. Environmental impact statements should have to take this new evidence of air pollution harm into account. But if government won't do that kind of accounting, then the people who are affected need to do it themselves. South Dallas shouldn't have to settle for a 1960's style concrete conduit that's going to act as one big funnel for air pollution when the trend is away from building such dinosaurs.

More Reaction to Ron Curry EPA Appointment

As news spreads that the Obama administration appointed former New Mexico state environmental chief Ron Curry to take Dr. Al's place as EPA Region 6 Administrator, reaction from stakeholders has been drifting in, including an already suspicious Senator Inhofe (R- Oil and Gas), who says that public comments made by Curry already raise concerns.

Here's an industry take from the Dallas Business Journal that helpfully combines the hucksters at the Barnet Shale Energy Education Council with the Texas Railroad Commission. And here's the Houston Chronicle talking to environmentalists in New Mexico.

While Curry seems to be a good choice, don't expect anything dramatic until after the election. Many observers were surprised the administration acted now to fill the slot instead of waiting until the dust had settled in favor of a second term.

Despite the change, the EPA won't find it any easier to deal with Austin as long as: a) Governor Perry is running for something, and b) Attorney General Greg Abbott is running for governor. Nothing personal Mr. Curry, you're just an ideological cartoon to be used for campaign fundraising.

 

Male Shrinkage: The Gene Pool is Getting Colder

We're still trying to run down the original source for this story, but since it hit the wires last week, we'll reprint what's already out there.

A "study from Italy," no details, concludes that the average size of male genitalia has decreased by 10% over the last 50 years. Weight gain, smoking, drinking, and yes, environmental pollutants are all listed as possible factors.

It isn't exactly headline news that chemicals can mess with your male parts in pretty dreadful ways. Endocrine Disruptors like lead, dioxins, and other poisons provide a whole horror movie worth of case studies where males of all species end up with female characteristics or no characteristics at all. Likewise there are now plenty of studies suggesting that modern sperm counts are not, er, up to past standards.

The latest study, depending on its credibility, would only further confirm that we don't have to blow ourselves up to extinguish the human race. We can just slowly but surely make it impossible to reproduce ourselves through chemical exposures.

As His Replacement is Announced, Dr. Al Speaks Out in Austin

Maybe the EPA knew their former Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz would be doing a one-on-one interview with the New-York Times-connected Texas Tribune as part of its annual festival on Saturday, or maybe it's just coincidence that the Agency named Armendariz's replacement very late Friday evening.

Whatever behind-the-scenes coordination did or did not take place, the appointment of New Mexico's Ron Curry as the new Region 6 chief gave Armendariz a slightly more removed historical perspective, and maybe willingness to talk, than he might have had otherwise.

Here's a live blogging of the interview that the Tribune's Evan Grant did with Armendariz from the Tribune festival itself in the middle of a forum on energy and the environment (11 am to 12 noon). Elizabeth Souder's recap for the Dallas Morning News is behind the paper's paywall, but here's a peak:

Former EPA regional admin Armendariz said anti-EPA court cases delay the inevitable

AUSTIN — Recent court cases striking down Environmental Protection Agency rules are just delaying the inevitable, said former regional EPA administrator Al Armendariz, who quit after a video surfaced showing him comparing his approach to Roman crucifixion.

Armendariz, who resigned as Region 6 administrator earlier this year and now works on an anti-coal campaign with the Sierra Club, said the agency will just re-write and re-apply the cross-state air pollution rule on coal plant emissions and its rejection of Texas’ flexible air permit rules. Some conservative Texas politicians regarded court decisions knocking down those rules as major victories.

Further, Armendariz said, the court decisions don’t show that the EPA was wrong. No, he said, the decisions show that the courts are wrong.

“They point out to me the importance of getting the President to appoint justices on the federal judiciary that will follow the law,” Armendariz said at a conference held by the Texas Tribune.

“I’m confident those actions, as written, were written completely in compliance with the law, and when those rules are revised that the agency is going to win any future litigation,” he said.

Armendariz defended his former employer and praised his successor at the Saturday appearance. He said the EPA and the White House have been working to implement the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, laws passed by Congress decades ago but never fully applied.

He criticized Texas environmental regulators who enable polluters, and called on energy regulators and lawmakers to create a plan to meet the state’s electricity needs with renewables.

Armendariz resigned in April after criticism over his comments in a video. In the video, he makes an analogy about his philosophy of enforcement. He said: “It was kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw and they’d crucify them. And then, you know, that town was really easy to manage for the next few years.

“And so you make examples out of people who are in this case not compliant with the law. Find people who are not compliant with the law, and you hit them as hard as you can and you make examples out of them, and there is a deterrent effect there.”

Arendariz on Saturday said he had apologized because his analogy offended people, which wasn’t his intent. But he didn’t back off the idea of deterring illegal polluting by punishing lawbreakers.

“I do stand behind the concept of my comments,” he said. “When you find someone who is violating the law, you do, within the boundaries of the law, vigorously prosecute.”

He said doing so ensures that illegal polluters don’t gain an unfair advantage over companies following the rules.

Texas Tribune chief executive Evan Smith said some people regarded the video as confirmation that Armendariz had it in for the energy industry.

Armendariz said such criticism was unfair, since in the video, he says his enforcement philosophy is for companies breaking the law.

Nor did he act alone by going after polluters. He said EPA administrator Lisa Jackson and her Washington staff had been “very involved with what we were doing in Texas.”

But he said leadership at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state regulatory arm of the EPA, is lax.

“There are some fantastic staff at TCEQ, and I think they’ve got poor leadership. I think the Governor’s appointees at that commission are preventing the staff from doing its job,” he said.

TCEQ chairman Bryan Shaw has criticized the EPA’s recent rules that would tighten regulations on coal plant pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

And he praised his successor at the EPA, Ron Curry, the first non-Texan to lead the region that covers Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. The president announced the appointment last week.

“Ron is pragmatic, he’s very smart. He understands the need for conservation and the need for economic development,” Armendariz said.

Armendariz also said people who don’t believe in climate change are doomed to become irrelevant, just as doctors who don’t believe smoking causes cancer.

“I think the science of climate change is really irrefutable and those folks who are continuing to deny that climate change is a problem are really on the wrong side of history,” he said.

Now, Armendariz leads the Sierra Club’s anti-coal campaign, which aims to keep coal in the ground. He said so-called clean coal plants, which pollute less than traditional coal plants and capture greenhouse gases, are too expensive to justify coal mining. 

“Clean coal I think is technically feasible, but I think it’s completely unnecessary,” he said.

He conceded the country will continue to use coal for the next decade. But he said coal isn’t necessary to keep the lights on.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas has said the state is in danger of outages in the next few years because power plant developers haven’t build enough new generation to keep up with growing demand. The prospect of shutting down coal plants because of stiffer environmental regulations has left some regulators nervous about blackouts.

Armendariz said the reliability problem is due to a “complete lack of leadership and forethought.” He called on regulators and lawmakers to solve the problem with long-term planning and a vision centered on renewables, such as wind and solar.

Obama Names First EPA Region 6 Administrator from New Mexico

In a Friday news dump, and a sign the administration must feel good about its chances of winning in November, former New Mexico Secretary for the Environment Ron Curry was appointed to be the new EPA Region 6 Regional Administrator, replacing Dr. Al Armendariz who resigned in April.

It's also an indication of how much less political clout Texas has these days. Ever since there have been regional administrators at EPA, there's been a Region 6 that includes,Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Louisiana and there's always, always been a Texan in charge. The number of EPA-regulated facilities in Texas dwarfs all the other state's combined, but it was the state's once-powerful Congressional delegation and the influence of those facilities in Austin and DC that kept natives form the Lone Star State in the Regional Administratorship, no matter their political affiliation. But no more. Curry is the first person outside of Texas to ever be named Region 6 Regional Administrator. And he comes from the only state in the region likely to go blue in November.

Curry is a strong choice for environmentalists. He was a close runner up to Armendariz in 2009, and has the endorsement of New Mexico's environmental community. His term as New Mexico environmental chief coincided with Bill Richardson's two terms as Governor. He is a confident progressive, an experienced environmental attorney, and described by New Mexico's Democratic Senator Tom Udall as a "pragmatic thinker."

Curry will certainly have his work cut out for him dealing with Governor Rick Perry and his alter ego, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which has been waging an all out jihad against EPA ever since Obama took office and selected a grassroots favorite in Armendariz to head up Region 6. With signs pointing to Perry running for Governor again, chances are things won't get any easier. According to this account in the Texas Tribune, Curry was involved in implementing groundbreaking climate change programs in New Mexico, a sure way to endear him to Perry and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.

ADHD Symptoms More Likely in Children with Lead or Mercury Exposures

This in directly from Environmental Health News:

Children exposed to higher levels of mercury or lead are three to five times more likely to be identified by teachers as having problems associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, according to a scientific study published today.

The study, of Inuit children living in Arctic Canada, is the first to find a high rate of attention-deficit symptoms in children highly exposed to mercury in the womb.

In addition, the Inuit children more often had hyperactivity symptoms if they were exposed to the same low levels of lead commonly found in young U.S. children.

Laval University scientist Gina Muckle said the findings are important because they show for the first time that the effects of mercury in children are not just subtle, but are actually noticeable to teachers. They “may be clinically significant and may interfere with learning and performance in the classroom,” the study says.

For lead, the school teachers reported much more frequent ADHD symptoms at levels far below the CDC's newly developed health guideline. Dr. Bruce Lanphear, of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, said evidence is mounting that toxic compounds are “shifting children’s behavior...There seem to be a whole host of different toxicants that are associated with ADHD."

One of the most intriguing findings was that mercury was linked to attention deficits while lead was associated with hyperactivity. The difference may be the timing of the exposures: in the womb for mercury and during childhood for lead. The findings "suggest the brain may be sensitive to different environmental chemicals at different times in development," said Harvard epidemiologist Joe Braun.

First, there are no safe levels of lead, but teachers being able to identify ADHD behavior among kids who have levels of exposure "far below" even the new CDC recommendations is disconcerting indeed.

Second, this is why coal plant and cement plant rules to reduce Mercury and lead emissions as much as possible are a good thing and must be implemented ASAP, not delayed.

Third, none of these symptoms have ever been included in an official risk assessment of any cement plant, lead smelter, gold mine, coal plant or any other facility releasing lots of these metals into the environment. EPA regulations lag decades behind the science in terms of plugging in toxicological effects identified in the scientific literature. Over-regulated? No, not even close when you have no idea what kind of health problems your facility is causing.

Finally, the country is seeing an epidemic of ADHD. We express official dismay at this, but as far as we know, little if any attention is being paid by industry or government to try and prevent the condition through limiting exposure to toxins that can cause it, even though, "there seem to be a whole host of different toxicants that are associated with ADHD."

This is not a fatal condition. It's not a disease like cancer, or as serious as a heart attack or stroke. But does anyone doubt the challenges facing a child with moderate to severe ADHD symptoms?

This is one more consequence of pollution you never see in the paperwork, only in real life.

The High Cost of Fracking

Yesterday, Environment Texas released a new compilation report in Dallas, titled, "The Costs of Fracking." There's not a lot of new information, but it does serve as a convenient catalog of the disadvantages of inviting the gas industry to town, as the Dallas City Council is considering via a new gas drilling ordinance. Every city council member should take a look, although we doubt they will.

The report covers the impact of fracking on public health, water, air, as well as the infrastructure demands of the gas industry. Among the tidbits:

"The truck traffic needed to deliver water to a single fracking well causes as much damage to local roads as nearly 3.5 million car trips. The state of Texas has approved $40 million in funding for road repairs in the Barnett Shale region, while Pennsylvania estimated in 2010 that $265 million would be needed to repair damaged roads in the Marcellus Shale region."

Fracking can affect the value of nearby homes. A 2010 study in Texas concluded that houses valued at more than $250,000 and within 1,000 feet of a well site saw their values decrease by 3 to 14 percent.

The average public health costs of air pollution from fracking operations in Texas’ Barnett Shale region reach $270,000 per day during the summer smog season.

Here's the press release. Here's the report.