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Prime Minister Harper’s Inaction on Climate Killed the Keystone XL Oilsands Pipeline
With U.S. President Barack Obama expected to deny a permit to the Keystone XLpipeline this fall, Canada’s oil industry is looking for someone to blame.
The National Post’s Claudia Cattaneo wrote last week that “many Canadians … would see Obama’s fatal stab as a betrayal by a close friend and ally” and that others “would see it as the product of failure by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government to come up with a climate change plan.”
The latter is the more logical conclusion. Obama has made his decision-making criteria clear: he won’t approve the pipeline if it exacerbates the problem of carbon pollution.
Even the U.S. State Department’s very conservative analysis states the Keystone XL pipeline would “substantially increase oilsands expansion and related emissions.” The Environmental Protection Agency has agreed.
While Canada’s energy reviews take into account “upstream benefits” — such as jobs created in the oilsands sector as a result of pipelines — they don’t even consider the upstream environmental impacts created by the expansion of the oilsands.
For all the bluster and finger-pointing, there’s no covering up the fact that Canada’s record on climate change is one of broken promises.
Oil and Gas Regulations Promised Since 2006
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised since 2006 that he’ll regulate oil and gas emissions. Those regulations still haven’t materialized nearly a decade later —and there’s only one person to blame for that.
In recent years, Harper has taken the approach that Canada can’t regulate its oil and gas sector unless the U.S. does too. This argument is fundamentally flawed.
First, it presumes that Canada should outsource its climate policy to another country. On issues from health care to acid rain, Canada has moved independently from the U.S. and prospered as a result.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Teflon Toxin: How Dupont Slipped Past the EPA
The Teflon Toxin: How Dupont Slipped Past the EPA
IKE ROMINE GREW UP in Blennerhasset, West Virginia, not far from DuPont’s Parkersburg plant. Throughout his childhood and young adulthood, Romine was probably exposed through his drinking water to C8, a slippery, soap-like chemical used to make Teflon pans and Stainmaster carpet and hundreds of other products. His home was served by the Lubeck water district, one of six districts near the plant later found to be severely contaminated with the chemical, but his greatest exposure to C8 almost certainly came from working at the DuPont plant, where he was a welding inspector.
Romine spent some of his time in the company’s Teflon division, and he particularly remembers taking part in the “Teflon shut down,” a spring-time ritual. For a few days each year, the company would shut down operations in the plant to prepare for the coming year. Romine helped install new piping. He didn’t know what C8 was at the time, but there was a white powdery substance dusting many of the surfaces in the plant. “It’s on the pipe, on the inside of it,” said Romine. “You don’t all the time have on gloves. It’s on your coveralls.”
Twelve years ago, when Romine was 58, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. No one in his family had ever suffered from this rare disease. Surgeons removed the cancerous organ, leaving Romine with reduced kidney function. Now he has to urinate frequently and his doctors have suggested that he change his diet and refrain from running, an activity that had been a regular part of his life before the surgery. Every six months he must return to the doctor to have his remaining kidney checked.
Today, Romine has mixed feelings about DuPont. He worked for the company full-time as a contractor for eight years, and his best friend was employed in one of DuPont’s labs. “In my heart, I felt I was DuPont,” said Romine, who has enduring respect for the company. “DuPont has really good safety rules, good people, good personnel,” he said. “I enjoyed working down there.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Radioactivity Found in Pennsylvania Creek, Illegal Fracking Waste Dumping Suspected
Recently released testing results in western Pennsylvania, upstream from Pittsburgh, reveal evidence of radioactive contamination in water flowing from an abandoned mine. Experts say that the radioactive materials may have come from illegal dumping of shale fracking wastewater.
Regulators had previously found radioactivity levels that exceeded EPA‘s drinking water standards over 60-fold in waters in the same area, which is roughly 3 miles upstream from a drinking water intake, but those test results were only made public after a local environmental group obtained them through open records requests.
At the end of July, the West Virginia Water Research Institute released the results from its tests of water flowing from an abandoned coal mine.
Most of the sampling results showed no detectable radioactivity, but one test result showed roughly 13 picocuries per liter (pci/l) of gross alpha radioactivity, just below EPA‘s drinking water limits, confirming the presence of radioactive materials in the mine’s discharge.
“There’s something going on there that’s not right,” Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the West Virginia Water Research Institutetold the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “The radiation, together with higher bromide levels than you would expect to see coming out of a deep mine, point to drilling wastewater.”
In April 2014, under pressure from local environmental groups, the state Department of Environmental Protection had taken samples from same mine, the Clyde Mine in Washington County, PA, as it discharged into 10 Mile Creek, a popular destination for boaters and fishermen.
Those tests showed one sample with radioactive materials (specifically radium 226 and radium 228) totaling 327 pci/l at and a second totaling 301 pci/l — in other words, up to 65 times the radium levels that the EPA considers safe in drinking water.
Some had speculated that the 2014 test results could simply have been flukes or false positives, a claim that seems less likely now that the subsequent round of testing by independent researchers also showed the presence of radioactivity.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Renewable Energy: Why Emissions and the Economy Don’t Tell the Whole Story
Renewable Energy: Why Emissions and the Economy Don’t Tell the Whole Story
Last week, President Obama announced the Clean Power Plan, the United States’ strongest climate policy to date. The plan aims to reduce coal-fired power plant emissions by allowing states to devise their own plans to reach federally-mandated emissions reduction targets. This choose-your-own-adventure policy could send states down very different paths, some worse for the environment and community resilience than others.
A bragging point for the Clean Power Plan is its flexibility; all currently identified low-carbon energy sources can play a role in state plans, including natural gas, nuclear, hydropower and other renewables. But despite the low-carbon nature these energy technologies share, they differ greatly in overall community and environmental benefit. Natural gas is abundantly available today due to controversial fracking technology (most of which occurs near rural communities); hydropower requires dam construction (sometimes on massive scales); and nuclear power comes with the risk of disastrous accidents, issues around extraction and long-term storage problems.
The final Clean Power Plan rule does emphasize renewable energy and energy efficiency over natural gas; a “Clean Energy Incentive Program” provides credits that can be traded later as part of emissions trading systems to states that expand wind, solar and energy efficiency efforts in the two years before state implementation plans take effect. However, shifting from coal to natural gas is one of the three building blocks EPA used in calculating state goals, so states are still permitted to emphasize natural gas in their implementation plans, even if it’s not incentivized. Shifting from one fossil fuel to another is not a sustainable energy future for any state, even if it slightly reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
– See more at: http://www.iatp.org/blog/201508/renewable-energy-why-emissions-and-the-economy-don’t-tell-the-whole-story#sthash.efdtxaKW.dpuf
Did The EPA Intentionally Poison Animas River To Secure SuperFund Money?
Did The EPA Intentionally Poison Animas River To Secure SuperFund Money?
A week before The EPA disastrously leaked millions of gallons of toxic waste into The Animas River in Colorado, this letter to the editor was published in The Silverton Standard & The Miner local newspaper, authored by a retired geologist detailing verbatim, how EPA would foul the Animas River on purpose in order to secure superfund money…
“But make no mistake, within seven days, all of the 500gpm flow will return to Cememnt Creek. Contamination may actually increase… The “grand experiment” in my opinion will fail.And guess what [EPA’s] Mr. Hestmark will say then?
Gee, “Plan A” didn’t work so I guess we will have to build a treat¬ment plant at a cost to taxpayers of $100 million to $500 million (who knows).
Reading between the lines, I believe that has been the EPA’s plan all along”
Sound like something a government entity would do? Just ask Lois Lerner…
As we concluded previously,
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Toxic Fallout Continues as Colorado Mine Spill Declared Three Times Larger Than Stated
Toxic Fallout Continues as Colorado Mine Spill Declared Three Times Larger Than Stated
Communities declare states of emergency over toxic wastewater flowing through Colorado and New Mexico, heading for Utah
A warning sign is displayed along the Animas River as it flows through Farmington, New Mexico on August 8, 2015. (Photo: Alexa Rogals/The Daily Times via AP)
The spill which sent toxic waste from an abandoned mine into a Colorado waterway last week released three million gallons of contaminates into the state’s 126-mile Animas River—not one million, as previously announced, according to new estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
As the orange-hued sludge kept flowing through Colorado and into the San Juan River in New Mexico on Monday, the fallout from the massive accident continued to spread, with communities declaring states of emergency and the Navajo Nation vowing to take action against the EPA, which caused the spill.
The county of La Plata and the city of Durango, both in Colorado, each declared a state of emergency at noon on Sunday.
La Plata County manager Joe Kerby said in a statement: “This action has been taken due to the serious nature of the incident and to convey the grave concerns that local elected officials have to ensure that all appropriate levels of state and federal resources are brought to bear to assist our community not only in actively managing this tragic incident but also to recover from it.”
Water quality tests along the rivers were still being conducted as of Monday afternoon. According to preliminary data released by the EPA on Sunday, arsenic levels in the Durango area were, at their peak, 300 times higher than normal. Lead was 3,500 times higher than normal. The waste also includes copper, zinc, aluminum, and cadmium.
Meanwhile, the mine continues to discharge at 500 gallons per minute. Although the EPA maintains that the waste is unlikely to have harmed wildlife in the area, local officials in affected areas have advised residents not to use the river for agricultural or recreational purposes or to allow their pets to drink the water.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Social Cost of Capitalism
The Social Cost of Capitalism
Few, if any, corporations absorb the full cost of their operations. Corporations shove many of their costs onto the environment, the public sector, and distant third parties. For example, currently 3 million gallons of toxic waste water from a Colorado mine has escaped and is working its way down two rivers into Utah and Lake Powell. At least seven city water systems dependent on the rivers have been shut down. The waste was left by private enterprise, and the waste was accidentally released by the Environmental Protection Agency, which might be true or might be a coverup for the mine. If the Lake Powell reservoir ends up polluted, it is likely that the cost of the mine imposed on third parties exceeds the total value of the mine’s output over its entire life.
Economists call these costs “external costs” or “social costs.” The mine made its profits by creating pollutants, the cost of which is born by those who had no share in the profits.
As this is the way regulated capitalism works, you can imagine how bad unregulated capitalism would be. Just think about the unregulated financial system, the consequences we are still suffering with more to come.
Despite massive evidence to the contrary, libertarians hold tight to their romantic concept of capitalism, which, freed from government interference, serves the consumer with the best products at the lowest prices.
If only.
Progressives have their own counterpart to the libertarians’ romanticism. Progressives regard government as the white knight that protects the public from the greed of capitalists.
If only.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Natural Gas Needs To Clean Up Its Act
Natural Gas Needs To Clean Up Its Act
To call natural gas ‘clean’ would be a misnomer. Natural gas is a fossil fuel that emits carbon dioxide when burned and is an important contributor to climate change. The general consensus, however, is that when compared to oil (and petroleum products) or coal, natural gas it is by far the ‘cleaner’ choice for providing base-load power generation, heating homes, and for a series of other industrial and transport applications.
Still, the debate over methane emissions from natural gas production, transport, and distribution calls into question this assumption.
A new study by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) examined the methane emissions from natural gas production on federal and tribal lands. The study found that total natural gas loss, including flaring, amounted to 65 billion cubic feet (bcf) in 2013, or enough to meet the heating and cooking needs of around 1.6 million homes.
The implications of the study are serious. Not only does natural gas loss represent a waste of finite natural resources but it makes a significant and unnecessary contribution to the already seemingly impossible task of combating climate change.
Related: Can This Next Shale Hotspot Live Up To The Hype?
While methane (the major component of natural gas) has a far shorter lifespan than carbon dioxide, it is more efficient at trapping radiation, making the impacton climate change 25 times greater over a 100 year period. Over 20 years, methane’s warming potential is 84 times greater than CO2.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), methane accounts for around 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, almost 30 percent of which came from the production, transport, and distribution of oil and natural gas.
The latest study is part of a much broader effort by the Environmental Defense Fund to measure methane emissions across the United States, not just on federal and tribal lands. In an earlier study released last year, the EDF argued that adoption of existing technologies and operating practices, as simple as more frequent inspections, could help the U.S. reduce methane emissions by 40 percent by 2018.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
New York State Ban On Fracking Made Official
“After years of exhaustive research and examination of the science and facts, prohibiting high-volume hydraulic fracturing is the only reasonable alternative.”
Those were the words many activists in New York never expected to hear from Joe Martens, head of the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, but they were included in a statement released today as New York made thestate’s ban on fracking official.
This step in the process was expected after the release in May of the massive 1,448 page report on fracking that was seven years in the making which also was preceded by the Cuomo administration announcing they planned to ban fracking back in December.
While there had been some mentions in the media that the recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report on fracking and drinking water contamination might cause trouble for the Cuomo administration, it appears that trouble was limited to predictable Republican statements about Cuomo’s decision being based on “controversial scientific studies.”
As explained in detail in this DeSmog piece by Sharon Kelly, if you read the EPA report and didn’t just rely on headlines in the New York Post to get your information, the report actually provides support for New York’s decision for a fracking ban.
New York now is the only state with known large amounts of shale deposits that has enacted a ban on fracking. In the past week, the state has also released a new energy plan with goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% (below 1990 levels) by 2030 and 80% by 2050 and to produce 50% of its electricity from renewables by 2030.
As the oil industry prepares to roll out fracking technology around the globe, New York has taken an important step in showing the world what a “reasonable alternative” looks like.
As DeSmogBlog concluded in our 2011 report Fracking the Future
EPA’s New Fracking Study: A Close Look at the Numbers Buried in the Fine Print
EPA’s New Fracking Study: A Close Look at the Numbers Buried in the Fine Print
When EPA’s long-awaited draft assessment on fracking and drinking water supplies was released, the oil and gas industry triumphantly focused on a headline-making sentence: “We did not find evidence of widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.”
But for fracking’s backers, a sense of victory may prove to be fleeting.
EPA’s draft assessment made one thing clear: fracking has repeatedly contaminated drinking water supplies (a fact that the industry has long aggressively denied).
Indeed, the federal government’s recognition that fracking can contaminate drinking water supplies may prove to have opened the floodgates, especially since EPA called attention to major gaps in the official record, due in part to gag orders for landowners who settle contamination claims and in part because there simply hasn’t been enough testing to know how widespread problems have become.
And although it’s been less than a month since EPA’s draft assessment was released, the evidence on fracking’s impacts has continued to roll in.
A study in Texas’ Barnett shale found high levels of pollutants – volatile organic compounds, heavy metals, and known carcinogens – in many people’s drinking water, based on testing from over 500 water wells. The contaminants found were associated with the shale drilling industry, but the researchers cautioned it was too soon to say whether the industry actually caused the contamination.
But the association was strong, the researchers said. “In the counties where there is more unconventional oil and gas development, the chemicals are worse,” lead researcher Zachariah Hildenbrand told Inside Climate News. “They’re in water in higher concentrations and more prevalent among the wells. As you get away from the drilling, water quality gets better. There’s no doubt about it.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Massive Budget Cuts Looming For EPA As Republicans Seek to Limit Rules on Air and Water Pollution
Massive Budget Cuts Looming For EPA As Republicans Seek to Limit Rules on Air and Water Pollution
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was dealt a massive blow this week by the House Appropriations committee, where the Republican majority voted to further cut the agency’s budget and reduce its authority to enforce laws safeguarding our air, water and health.
The House committee voted on Tuesday to slash the EPA’s budget by 9%, or $718 million. This is in addition to a dramatic 20% reduction in overall funding that has taken place since the control of the House of Representatives switched to the Republican Party in 2011. This new reduction will put EPA funding at its lowest level since 1989.
The cuts are part of the 2016 Interior and Environment Funding Bill, which will head to the full House for a vote soon.
The budget is not the only thing that the Appropriations committee is taking a shot at; they also want to curtail the agency’s authority to enforce rules. Specifically, the new budget would prevent the agency from enforcing water pollution standards as well as the new emissions standards for coal-fired power plants.
The attacks on the EPA’s budget are part of a broader plan by the Republican Party to thwart the agency’s attempts to pass rules aimed at reducing the effects of climate change and reigning in industry pollution.
As The Hill points out, it will take significant support from members of the Democratic Party in order for these plans to reach fruition, and few defectors have come forward, with the notable exception of Democratic Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia.
U.S. News and World Report spells out the problems facing Republicans in the form of Democratic opposition:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
EPA Study: Fracking Puts Drinking Water Supplies at Risk of Contamination
The Environmental Protection Agency has released its long awaited draft assessment of the impacts that fracking has on the nation’s drinking water supplies — confirming that the process does indeed contaminate water.
“From our assessment, we conclude there are above and below ground mechanisms by which hydraulic fracturing activities have the potential to impact drinking water resources,” the EPA wrote.
The impacts take a variety of forms, the EPA wrote, listing the effects of water consumption especially in arid regions or during droughts, chemical and wastewater spills, “fracturing directly into underground drinking water resources,” the movement of liquids and gasses below ground “and inadequate treatment and discharge of wastewater.”
The agency wrote that it had documented “specific instances” where each of those problems had in fact happened and some cases where multiple problems combined to pollute water supplies.
Environmental groups welcomed the agency’s central conclusion as vindication.
“Today EPA confirmed what communities living with fracking have known for years,” said Earthworks policy director Lauren Pagel. “Fracking pollutes drinking water.”
But they also cautioned that the EPA‘s assessment seemed likely to understate the risks associated with fracking, in part because it relied heavily on data that was self-reported by the drilling industry.
So, just how badly has the process contaminated America’s water already, and how big are the risks from more fracking? The EPA can’t say, the draft report concluded.
“We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States,” the EPA wrote.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Systemic Corruption Has Destroyed America
Systemic Corruption Has Destroyed America
Preface: It’s been less than a month since we last posted on this topic … but, sadly, we’ve got many more examples.
The Cop Is On the Take
Government corruption has become rampant:
- Senior SEC employees spent up to 8 hours a day surfing porn sites instead of cracking down on financial crimes
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission workers watch porn instead of cracking down on unsafe conditions at nuclear plants
- An EPA employee who downloaded 7,000 porn files, then spent 2-6 hours each workdaywatching porn. He’s been doing it for years … but the EPA never fired him. Another EPA employee harassed 16 women co-workers … and then was promoted to a higher-paying jobwith more responsibility, where he harassed more women
- NSA spies pass around homemade sexual videos and pictures they’ve collected from spying on the American people
- NSA employees have also been caught using their mass surveillance powers to spy on love interests, such as girlfriends, obsessions or former wives … and to eavesdrop on American soldiers’ intimate conversations with their wives back home. And see this (“routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted” … “‘Hey, check this out … there’s good phone sex’”)
- An employee of the Transportation Security Administration admitted that TSA agents share – and laugh at – nude scans of passengers. Another TSA employee says that screeners make excuses so they can grope and fondle travelers that they’re attracted to (maybe that’s why the TSA failed to find mock explosives or banned weapons going through checkpoints in 95% of trials)
- Investigators from the Treasury’s Office of the Inspector General found that some of the regulator’s employees surfed erotic websites, hired prostitutes and accepted gifts from bank executives … instead of actually working to help the economy
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Coal Is Doomed Even If It Wins Against EPA In Courts
Coal Is Doomed Even If It Wins Against EPA In Courts
The controversy over the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan has become the latest chapter in the chronicle of President Obama’s so-called ‘war on coal’. The plan promises many things, chief among them the health and climate benefits accrued by switching to cleaner burning fuels. But a case before the DC Circuit Court has the potential to derail the plan before it even comes into effect, with implications for US coal producers and the national clean energy debate.
The new regulations have their critics, led by coal companies and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R- KY), who has personally urged the nation’s 50 governors to ignore the rules. While this may seem like just another example of partisan politics, the latest case, if successful, could seriously curtail the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) powers. A victory for coal would be a blow for the environmental lobby and the federal government.
The dispute over the Clean Power Plan centers on its proposal to cut pollution from power plants by assigning tough emissions reductions targets on a state-by-state basis. The goal is to reduce carbon pollution from the power sector by 30 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels. Existing coal-fired plants, as the biggest polluters, will be the most affected. Opponents argue that the federal government is overreaching its regulatory authority prescribed under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. The EPA is expected to release the final rules midsummer this year.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
