Causality or Coincidence: Oil & Gas Agency Info Tech “Stuck in Mid-90’s”

Here's a radio report by KUHF out of Houston that features DFW's own Rita Beving and Rep. Lon Burnam talking about the sorry state of IT at the Railroad Commission. You can't get a good map of a pipeline, look up violations, or report problems in a timely way. One of the RRC Commissioners themselves is quoted as saying their information technology is stuck in the mid-1990's. There was an important election around then that has had a big impact on how state government is run, but we can't quite recall…

The Dose No Longer Makes the Poison, But We Regulate It As if It Does

It may come as a shock, but the EPA and industry view exposures to toxic chemicals in basically the same way that a famous 16th-Century  occultist named  Paracelsus did over 500 years ago: The amount of exposure to a chemical determines its toxicity; the higher the dose, the more toxic it is. The lower the dose, the more benign. "The dose makes the poison." 

This approach says there's a linear one-to-one relationship between volume and harm. It's the basis of all federal, state and local environmental health regulation. It's what drives government "risk assessments." It's what allows there to be such things as "safe levels" of things that don't sound very safe.

But, what if this approach didn't capture all of what was going on physiologically between poison and victim? What if there were different effects happening at the cellular level?  What if, like the Renaissance-born theory of Newtonian physics, it couldn't account for phenomenon on a smaller-scale because it didn't have the ability to see it? What if there were certain poisons that,

"depict a weird world of endocrine disruption that is as different from traditional toxicology as quantum mechanics is from the staid clockwork of Newtonian physics. When even minuscule quantities of BPA and other disrupters interact with hormone receptors at crucial moments in development — activating, jamming, hijacking or otherwise messing with their normal function — they can give rise to strange-looking experimental results, especially when other hormones are thrown into the mix."

From the journal Nature comes a case study in why no self-respecting thinking person would trust the current regulatory system to give them the final word on whether any given chemical exposure is "safe" or not.

A citizen can't underestimate the kind of threat this research presents to the Environmental Industrial and Legal Complex. Every permit ever written and awarded. Every environmental law every passed. They all depend on a Paracelsusian view of the world. Prove a different world exists and it turns everything upside down.

"A growing number of academic researchers are making just such a claim for endocrine disrupters, a large group of synthetic chemicals able to interact with cellular hormone receptors. These compounds, which range from the common weed killer atrazine and the plasticizer bisphenol A (BPA) to the antibacterial agent triclosan (used in cleansers) and the vineyard fungicide vinclozolin, don't play by the usual rules of toxicology. On the basis of conventional high-dose testing, regulators have set maximum acceptable levels for each of them that assume all doses below that level are safe. But academic researchers who have studied a wider range of doses, including very low ones found in the everyday environment, say that their experiments usually do not generate the tidy, familiar 'ski-slope' dose-response graphs of classic toxicology. Instead, most endocrine disrupters have 'non-monotonic' dose-response curves, meaning that their slopes change at least once from negative to positive, or vice versa, forming 'U' shapes, inverted 'U's or even stranger shapes that resemble undulating Chinese dragons."

It's not just endocrine disruptors that are challenging tradition. We're already seeing the contradiction between the latest science and regulations when it comes to old-fashioned poisons like lead and soot. There's a scientific consensus among the frontline researchers that there's no safe level of exposure to either one of these toxic substances, And yet, permits are still being written to allow what regulators claim are "safe levels" of them to be spewed into the air and our lungs.

Locally, UT Southwestern epidemiologist Dr. Robert Haley's groundbreaking work on Gulf War Syndrome has found similar effects in studying exposure of veterans to very low doses of nerve agents. Levels of substances that weren't supposed to make people sick individually seem to have a harmful synergistic effect when combined.

The more we can see what's happening at the smallest levels of things – whether its the vibrations of atoms in the chair you're sitting in, or the nuance of chemicals in the cells of a developing fetus – the more we find out that things are more complicated than they appear. Science is pushing us in the direction of a "Precautionary Principle" approach to regulating human chemical exposure. That's a radically different perspective that undermines the billions invested in the status quo allowing continual low level poisoning. After 500 years, maybe it's time to find a new model.

Groups Petition EPA to Include Frackers in Toxic Release Inventory

A dozen environmental and citizens groups filed a petition with EPA on Wednesday to close a loophole in the law and include oil and gas pollution in the annual system of self-reporting emissions and releases with which most US industrial polluters already have to comply.

The Toxic Release Inventory, or TRI, was created in the wake of the horrible Union Carbide plant accident in Bhopal, India, that killed 2500 people immediately, and caused another 16,000 deaths in the months and years since. It's supposed to keep track of all hazardous and toxic chemicals on-site or released by industry at every facility regulated – power plants, cement plants, refineries, chemical plants of all kinds, lead smelters, etc. TRI numbers are self-reported once a year by the companies operating the facilities, based on EPA formulas. These numbers are then made available to the public via the EPA's own TRI Explorer site, or independent groups like RTK.net run by the OMB Watch folks.

However, the TRI leaves out a very large industrial segment – oil and gas drilling. This exemption might have made some sense 30 years ago, but it doesn't now, especially given the dramatic rise in modern-day fracking techniques that use large volumes of hazardous and toxic materials.

If EPA regulators went along, that would fold in not just drilling but also related activities at the wellhead, before oil and gas is ready for transport to customers and refiners. Under environmentalists’ petition, companies would be forced to report chemicals released in drilling and completing wells as well as compression operations and processing at fractionators that split gas into separate components.

Disclosures also would be required from hydraulic fracturing operations, in which mixtures of water, sand and chemicals are pumped underground to release natural gas and oil from dense rock formations.

Eric Schaeffer, director of the Environmental Integrity Project that spearheaded the campaign, stressed that the foundation of the TRI was a deeply held belief that the public has a right to know what kind of pollutants are being released from neighboring facilities.

We’re asking the EPA to “honor those values,” Schaeffer said. “EPA has the power to add other sectors that ought to be reporting, and we’re asking them today to exercise the authority.”

Jane Davenport, a senior attorney with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said the reporting mandate should apply broadly.

“The oil and gas industry should not get a pass from statutes that apply to other industries,” she said, noting that the industry already enjoys some exemptions from provisions in the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws.

This may not sound like a radical step, but don't discount the power of public disclosure. TRI numbers from the Midlothian cement plant helped Downwiders show that the kilns were the largest industrial and toxic polluters in North Texas, proved the companies were not telling the truth when they said there were no toxic emissions from waste-burning or cement-making, and allowed citizens to track the volumes of pollution coming out of the kilns and analyze those numbers for trends. That's why the oil and gas industry will be fighting tooth and nail to keep the loophole open. Even something as innocuous as disclosing your own chemical information is threatening to operations that have enjoyed historic protections from the public spotlight.

Start the Weekend Off Right: “Don’t Frack My Fairway” Rig Protest Today

Looking for something to do this Friday late afternoon? Why not join concerned Dallas citizens for a fun little encounter with officialdom out at the newly made-over "Luna Vista" municipal golf course by North I-35.

Members of Dallas Residents at Risk – a coalition that includes Downwinders – will be showing up at the grand re-opening of what was formally known as the LB Houston Golf Course with their new 15-foot tall mock drilling rig in tow. They'll be trying to set it up next to the course clubhouse where ceremonies attracting City Councilmember Monica Alonzo, Dallas Park Board Vice President Gabriel Soto and Dallas Park and Recreation officials will be taking place.

The course is city parkland and at least three sites within the course have already been leased by the city to Trinity East for fracking – including one adjacent to the driving range.

After two years and a list of task force recommendations, the Dallas City Council is still wrestling with the problems created in 2006 when they took over $30 million from gas operators for leases on city-owned property. The decision was not publicized and there were no public hearings.

Despite not drilling on those sites in the intervening period, gas operators are continuing to seek permission to exploit them. Many of those leases are either in parkland like the Luna Vista sites, or in the Trinity River floodplain. City Council member Sheffie Kadane and others have endorsed park drilling, saying the land is underutilized.

Yes, it's going to be a little chilly. But we need to confront City Hall at every opportunity and this is a prime one. None of the city's press materials that feature beautiful pictures of the course mentions that those views will be marred by taller-than-15-foot drilling rigs. It's up to citizens to raise these issues.

When: 4:30 – 5:30 today/Friday       Where: Luna Vista Golf Course Clubhouse, 11223 Luna Road, Dallas

Bi-Annual Sierra Club Legislative Self-Defense Class

Texas environmentalists are a hardy lot. They have to be given the state's political leadership over the last two decades. Being from Texas, we know what lost causes look like, and how to most gloriously lose them. Being environmentalists, we understand that you have to wade through a lot of biowaste to get any energy produced.

In fact, what's really remarkable about the last 20 years is not how many times environmentalists have been defeated in Texas, but how much they've won through opportunistic skirmishes and battles. We could be much worse off than we are if it hadn't been for citizens fighting back against the very worst ideas and planting seeds of change that have grown and taken root enough to hold when floods of foolishness threaten them.

And of course, there's hardly any bigger flood of foolishness in Texas these days than the convening every two years of the Texas Legislature.

Schools are falling apart, medical care coverage is sketchy, and we'll all be paying toll fees to match our cable bill soon, but never fear, the Legislature will find a way to take a perfectly sensible idea like "sustainable energy" or "environmental health" and make it an object of scorn and ridicule for 120 days.

That's why it's important to be prepared and arm yourself with knowledge about the Lege in advance of its next get together this coming January through May. For a very long time now, the most inexpensive and painless way to do that has been to attend the Sierra Club's bi-annual one-day legislative workshop in Austin. This year it's on Saturday, November 10th – just days after the election.

For only $25 bucks ($5 for students) – and that includes lunch – you can learn all you wanted to know but were afraid to ask about how Texas legislative sausage will get made in 2013. This year, both the Public Utility Commission and Railroad Commission are up for Sunset Review. That means their organizational charters and missions are being looked over from scratch, and all kinds of opportunities for mischief and good stuff present themselves. For people in the Barnett and Eagle Shale plays, the RRC process could make their lives a little better or much, much worse. Same is true for the PUC, which is now backsliding on renewable energy goals.

Even if you don't think you have a dog in this next year's fight, you can always count on some industry-friendly lawmaker throwing a grenade that many of us will have to fall on or disarm to prevent something more dreadful than what we have from happening. Be parepared and be effective. It's only a tank of gas and $25. Register here

Coming Soon: Be You Own Air Monitoring Station

When the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster struck Japan last year, there was a lot of gaps in information about radiation levels, and a lot of public distrust with official pronouncements about those levels.

As a way of getting around this, some entrepreneurs teamed up with software and hardware engineers and started building small portable Geiger counters that could be used by members of the public themselves. That's how the company Safecast was born. To date, the company's monitoring equipment has generated 4 million data points in Japan – reading that helped generate confidence about contamination levels.

After Fukushima, the company looked at other opportunities in the marketplace to fill a gap in consumer environmental health information. It decided that air quality reporting in the US and elsewhere suffered from a lot of the same problems as radiation reporting in Japan.  The data is often licensed, unavailable, or just too slow to do much good. For example, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality issues its "red" day ozone or smog alerts fully 2-3 hours after the first dangerous ozone readings are recorded at a local air monitor. You cannot get this information in real time – when it might do you and your children much more good.

Safecast plans to launch an effort that will more or less crowdsource air quality and fix that problem by giving real time, instantaneous information to users. It's a DIY approach to air pollution using the latest micro technology. The company hopes to create an international citizen-operated network of air quality monitors. It just received $400,000 from the Knight Foundation to work on prototypes and testing. All of the companies schematics will be available at no charge for easier distribution to citizens. Los Angeles is the first US city to get to use the new devices, but we'll be following their progress closely, hoping to bring this new grassroots effort to DFW, where we still suffer one of the nation's most serious and chronic smog problems.

EPA Interpretation of Soot Regs Under Fire

In an important challenge to the way EPA has gone about regulating the tiniest and most harmful forms of soot, or "Particulate Matter" pollution, attorneys for environmental groups seem to making some headway in the courts.

Currently, EPA is about to recommend new PM pollution rules that will reportedly lower the exposure standard for "PM 2.5" – that is, soot that's 2.5 MICRONS or less in size.  A human hair is about 10 microns wide, so we're talking incredibly small particles that can easily find their way into your lungs, and then pass through directly into your blood stream.

However, when the Clean Air Act was amended in the early 1990's, the danger of PM pollution was confined to "PM 10" – particles 10 microns or less in size. So called "Coarse PM." But research over the last 20 years has pointed to the greatest danger to human health coming from the smallest kinds of PM pollution – the stuff that's 2.5 or smaller. It's been linked at very low levels of exposure not only to respiratory disease, but to heart attacks, strokes, and brain diseases similar to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. In fact, the consensus among researchers now is that there is no level of exposure to PM 2.5 pollution that's not capable of doing some harm, that is, there is no "safe level" of exposure.

In another example of how regulations don't keep pace with science, EPA is still regulating PM 10 standards stricter than they are PM 2.5 standards, even though we now know that it's the smallest stuff that is more harmful. EPA is actually using another part of the Clean AIr Act to regualte PM 2.5 pollution than it uses to regulate PM 10 pollution. And the provision it uses for PM 2.5 allows states a lot more wiggle room than the tougher PM 10 provisions.

PM 10 pollution pouring out of a smokestack includes all PM 2. 5 pollution. But "PM 2.5 polluiton"excludes the larger coarser soot. Clear?

One of the three judges of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, David Tatel, had a hard time with the fact that EPA went outside it's own PM 10 rules to regulate a sub-set of more dangerous PM 10.

"I don't see why it makes much sense to separate out the fine particles," Tatel said. "I don't understand why the agency would do this.' Tatel indicated he did not believe the Clean Air Act required EPA to handle fine particulate matter differently than the coarser pollutants. References in the statute to PM 10 seemed to indicate Congress was referring to particulate matter in general, which would include PM 2.5, Tatel said."

This is exactly the argument EarthJustice lawyers were using. When the Clean Air Act says "fine particles" it means PM 10 and PM 2.5 – you can't regulate PM 10 without also regulating PM 2.5. But this is a law of physics that EPA is trying to undo. The Agency is actually arguing that Congress only meant to apply the standards to PM 10 pollution and no other "fine particles." It's also arguing that the challenge is a decade too late, since the original rules were passed in 1997. The judges didn't seem to be buying that defense either.

With brand new EPA regs for PM pollution expected to be announced shortly, one could reasonably assume this is mostly an academic exercise. but it's not. First, these old rules will still be in play for some time as the new ones are phased-in. It's important to get it right in the intervening period. These old regs affect PM emissions from cement kilns, boilers of all types, power plants and even cars and the public health impact of a stricter standard could be significant. Second, the interpretation EPA uses to establish the new rules could rest on whether the courts agree that it used the right provisions and language last time out.

We've been saying this a lot lately, but it's true. PM pollution is the most insidious, dangerous, and widespread form of air pollution in the world today. It is the ozone of the 21st Century in terms of how pervasive its effects are, and the size of the regulatory response to counter that harm.

Shocking Study: Air Pollution Regulations Improve Public Health

One of the most basic arguments of industry opponents of clean air regulations is that they really don't do that much to improve public health. Given all the studies concluding that increases in air pollution lead to increases in illness and death, this argument is every bit as plausible as denying global warming at this point. But that doesn't stop industry and their supporters in elected office quit trying.

Out of New York and via the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology comes a three year study (2004-2006) that tracks decreases in ozone pollution to increases in public health, specifically fewer hospital admissions for respiratory problems. Overall, a decrease of about 9% in ozone pollution lead to an 11% decrease in hospitalizations. That's significant, bordering on one-to-one percentage point drop.

The study followed the progress of the EPA's NOx Budget Trading Program (BTP), a cap and trade system established for East Coat states to help them reduce their ozone, or smog pollution, that ran from 2004 to 2008, when it was replaced by the older, Bush-era version of the EPA's cross-stare pollution rules. It looked at all of New York in terms of eight regions throughout the state. Drops in smog averaged 9% but were substantially lower during the critical summer "ozone season."

According to the folks at the Environmental Health News:

"Regulations do work to lower pollution, which in turn can improve respiratory health.

Ozone levels decreased across the state of New York and hospital admissions for respiratory disease dipped in half of the regions studied after the EPA's regulatory program started. There were also notable decreases in hospital admissions for certain respiratory illnesses, most age groups and most health insurance groups.

The reduced admissions for those on public assistance suggests that low income residents may have benefited the most from air quality improvements. This would be an important achievement since this group often experiences the highest air pollution exposures.

These results are consistent with the limited number of other studies that compare pollution levels and health before and after required air pollution reductions."

It says more about the opposition to new regulations that we still have to have studies proving that less crap in the air means less illness and death. This has been a settled scientific fact for some time. But Industry pays big money for it to be a still-disputed political fact.

“You got your fracking fluid in my cement!” Kiln Disposal of Drilling Wastes.

It was inevitable. Like chocolate and peanut butter. Like rats and the plague.

Two notoriously polluting industries find solace in each other's ability to scratch each other's dirty, irritating itches.

Cement plants are always looking for ways to get paid to burn other people's garbage. It takes a lot of energy to fire a 20-foot flame at 2000 degrees 24/7 in order to cook rock. It also takes a lot of "additives". That's why cement plants started burning other companies' hazardous wastes in the 70's and 80's. Because of a loophole in federal law, 50-year old cement plants with no modern pollution controls were allowed to charge for burning highly toxic wastes from refineries and chemical plants that were otherwise supposed to be going to fully-regulated hazardous waste disposal sites.

But those official sites cost more to use, and the cement plants cost so little. That's right, cement plants charged these polluters to dispose of their wastes, but not more than the incinerators or landfills with all the bells and whistles of "regulation." In this way, cement plant operators double dip – they don't have to shell out as much for fuel they'd have to buy, and they get paid a profit to be a Dispos-All for industry. And by the way, industry calls this "recycling."

Because of the persistence of Downwinders at Risk and other citizens' groups, this loophole has been slowly but surely closing, meaning less and less hazardous waste is being burned in US cement kilns. From a peak of almost 30 kilns burning toxics in the in the 1990's, we're now down to less than a dozen. But to take the place of this lucrative lost market, cement plants across the country are turning to "non-hazardous" waste to burn. Tires, but also municipal garbage, plastic wastes, used oils, shingles, car parts and other kinds of wastes. TXI's new permit allows the burning of a dozen different kinds of industrial wastes at its huge kiln in Midlothian. 

While these wastes are classified as "non-hazardous," when they come in the front gate of a kiln, it turns out they can release a lot of toxic pollution when they're incinerated. Metals like lead and cadmium and arsenic that don't burn (consult your High School physics textbook) are present. So are PCB's that have Dioxin. But burning plastic or chlorinated wastes means you can generate Dioxins even without having them present in the wastes to begin with. There's also Mercury in some of the wastes from cars that TXI and other kilns wants to burn.

So you have the release of exactly the same kinds toxic pollution you were concerned about with the burning of officially-classified hazardous wastes. But now, it's taking place "legally," – or at least it is until the law hasn't catches-up with the consequences of this kind of low-rent disposal operation. Have a waste you want to get rid of? Send it to your local neighborhood cement plant. They'll burn anything.

Enter the Natural Gas industry. They've been getting a lot of bad PR lately about their own waste problems. They have billions of gallons of what they like to call "fracking fluid,"  and what the rest of us would call "hazardous wastes" that's so toxic it must be disposed of in a deep underground injection well after only being used once, isolated from the rest of the earth's environment forever.  But because of some well-placed loopholes, this "fracking fluid" is not considered "official" hazardous waste under federal rules. It will just unofficially injure you with its toxins.

As it turns out, injecting billions of gallons of "non-hazardous" toxic liquid under extremely high pressure near deep underground faults is a sure way to generate earthquakes. And that's what's been happening. Not only in North Texas, but other places where there are lots of injection wells. There was another small one last night in Midlothian, right down the highway from a large deep injection well near Venus. Along with the fact that most fracking fluid cannot be or is not "recycled" now and can  only be used once before disposal, the fracking fluid generated by the gas industry has turned into an embarrassing sore point.

If only there was some other way the gas industry could dispose of their drilling wastes. If only they could appear to be more environmentally-friendly and save money at the same time……

And there you have the genesis of a happy marriage made in polluter heaven. I have a facility that needs stuff to burn and mix, and I'm not that particular about what the stuff has in it. You have lots of stuff that needs to be burned, er, "recycled" and you spend less when you send it to a facility like mine not specifically built to do that job. Everybody wins!

"The use of drilling wastes and muds is most preferable in cement kilns, as a cement kiln can be an attractive, less expensive alternative to a rotary kiln. In cement kilns, drilling wastes with oily components can be used in a fuel-blending program to substitute for fuel that would otherwise be needed to fire the kiln.

Cement kiln temperatures (1,400 to 1,500 degrees C) and residence times are sufficient to achieve thermal destruction of organics. Cement kilns may also have pollution control devices to minimize emissions. The ash resulting from waste combustion becomes incorporated into the cement matrix, providing aluminum, silica, clay, and other minerals typically added in the cement raw material feed stream.

Recent studies have shown that it is feasible to use such drilling waste as substitute fuel in a cement plant. The drilling mud can be processed by a centrifuge to separate remaining water, compressed by a screw into a solid pump and conveyed.

The cement companies can contribute to sustainability also by improving their own internal practices such as improving energy efficiency and implementing recycling programs. Businesses can show commitments to sustainability through voluntary adopting the concepts of social and environmental responsibilities, implementing cleaner production practices, and accepting extended responsibilities for their products."

For veterans of The Cement Wars of the 1990's this rhetoric is certainly recycled. Cement Plants are Long, Hot and Good for America! Cement plants are the best disposal devices ever. They just make everything go "poof." That's why they were built specifically to dispose of wastes of all kinds  – oh wait. nope. They were built to make cement. But how great is it that they can make an entire sideline business out of dealing with, and spewing toxic chemicals into the environment?

Even though the specific article deals with the Middle East, is there any question that a cement plant in Texas or Pennsylvania, or Ohio won't try to make the case for accepting drilling wastes, if they haven't already? The permit modification TXI received to burn plastics and car wastes from the State of Texas required no public notice at all. Citizens only found out after the fact. There are only about a dozen players left in the international cement market. If they're discussing this in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, chances are they're talking about it in Zurich, Heidelberg, and Midlothian too.

Developments like this are why its important to tell the EPA it's making a big mistake to delay and change its cement plant toxic emission rules. The industry's "inputs" are changing rapidly. Two years is too long. We need the protection of those new rules now.  If you haven't already clicked and sent EPA an e-mail saying you oppose this delay, the "official" comment period is over, but it couldn't hurt for the folks in DC to see your "unofficial" opposition.

It's also a lesson in why "everything is connected." Don't live near a gas well? If you live in DFW, chances are you live downwind of a kiln that could be burning the wastes of gas wells.