Corruption, Politics, Big Business and Environmental Injustice
POLITICAL CORRUPTION IS A NATIONWIDE ISSUE AFFECTING ALL OF US. ALABAMA RANKS #5 AS THE MOST CORRUPT STATE. *DOJ 2007 stats Something is very wrong in the Land of Cotton PERTINENT ENVIRONMENTAL AND CORRUPTION ISSUES IN OTHER STATES ARE ALSO DISCUSSED
NO OTHER COMMUNITY, RICH OR POOR, URBAN OR SUBURBAN,BLACK, BROWN,RED, YELLOW OR WHITE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO BECOME AN "ENVIRONMENTAL SACRIFICE ZONE." Dr. Robert Bullard Environmental Justice Movement Founder
After years of "no findings of groundwater contamination" from natural gas drilling, for the first time the EPA now confirms that Ranger Resources hydrofracking has contaminated wells with methane, benzene and toulene in Texas Barnett Shale formations.
Range Resources lives in an alternate universe where saying something makes it true no matter the facts. Range wrote a letter where they claim the EPA met with them and agreed that they were not responsible for the garden hose turned flamethrower in Parker County. Okay, I’ll play: if saying something makes it true, then I’m a ballerina.
She's a feisty one and Texas is lucky to have her fighting for the truth about the big myth that hyrdrofracking is "safe." As usual, Texas state agencies are in denial along with Ranger Resources and the fight is on to have the EPA decide who they are going to believe: their scientific testing or the BS of the usual suspects-- the Texas Railroad Commission, TCEQ and Ranger Resources.
This case has the potential to set precedent on hydrofracking and will be very important to track to its conclusion. We are not holding our breath that the EPA and Texas politicians who write legislation for TCEQ to follow will stand tough on it though because it is political suicide to go up against big gas.
Texas big mule Governor Perry is at war with the EPA over environmental regulations and never met a big polluter he didn't like. He has done more wrong for the Lone Star state during his reign of destruction than even the "I love Halliburton" G.W. Bush did, but he follows in the same pattern of corporate enabler to great faults.
Another fracked up big business republican governor who gets rich off of federal subsidies and big polluters while his citizens suffer. Good job jackalope.
Texas is emboldened by a DC US Appeals Court ruling last Thursday that temporarily blocks the EPA from taking over flexible air permits in Texas after Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot filed suit to block the EPA. It's a momentary victory, but the court issued a warning that the ruling "should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits" of Abbot's appeal.
Texas filed suit to block the EPA's disapproval of flex permits, asserting that there is no legal or technical justification for the federal agency's action.
"It's interesting that these companies are recognizing the EPA's authority when TCEQ isn't," said Elena Craft, a Texas-based scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund. "At least someone is paying attention to the reality of the situation instead of being in this imaginary world where Texas doesn't follow the rules of the rest of the country."
Bill Becker, the executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said Texas is in the minority when it comes to compliance with EPA's climate rules.
"Texas is the only one I've heard who have said, 'Over my dead body,' but most others are trying to make this work," Becker said.
The Lone Star state is dug in and ready for a shootout at the OK Corral with the federal government in defense of big coal. This will be one to watch. Maybe from behind the protection of a large and sturdy Live Oak.
Excerpts of commentary on the recently aired CBS 60 Minutes Marcellus/Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drilling (hydraulic fracturing) segment from the James Howard Kunstler site. Go visit, he has more.
*(video follows below)
"So, last night CBS hauled Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, on board their flagship Sunday infotainment vehicle, CBS 60 Minutes, to blow a mighty wind up America’s ass (as they say in professional PR circles). America is lately addicted to lying to itself, and 60 Minutes has become the “go-to” patsy for funneling disinformation into an already hopelessly confused, wishful, delusional, US public".
"McClendon told the credulous Leslie Stahl and the huge viewing audience that America “has two Saudi Arabia’s of gas.” Now, you know immediately that at least half the viewers misconstrued this statement to mean that we have two Saudi Arabia’s of gasoline."
Translation: don’t worry none about driving anywhere you like, or having to get some tiny little pansy-ass hybrid whatchamacallit car to do it in, and especially don’t pay no attention to them “green” sumbitches on the sidelines trying to sell you some kind of peak oil story….
"It also prepared the public to support whatever Mr. McClendon’s company wants to do, because he says his company will free America from its slavery to OPEC."
"By the way, CBS never clarified these parts of the story by the end of the show."
Good job Mr. Kunstler! If you're offended by salty language, he may not be for you, but the tricks of Big Gas should offend you a whole helluva lot more.
The real story of what happened to the family in Texas that Ms. Stahl did not go into nearly enough. Fracking also reduced their land value from $257,330 on the 2010 tax rolls to its current value of $75,340.
Another valuable tidbit "left out" of the 60 minutes piece is that mineral rights and landownership are separate from each other in some of these shale areas, so theoretically the gas companies can just come in and take your land: September 16, 2009, Christine Ruggiero received a call from her neighbor informing her that her fence had been cut, her horses were loose and there were bulldozers on her property. That's how she learned that Aruba Petroleum was taking almost half of their 10 acres.
They did not need to inform the Ruggiero's of their intentions and dealt only with the mineral lease owners. All they need from the landowner's is surface right's and that's where the campaign of lies begins.
When the industry spins and says they don't exercise Eminent Domain, they're right, they don't in its legally defined use. But they don't tell you why.
Some observations and questions for T. Boone Pickens and his fracked up Pickens Plan:
T. Boone Pickens was on MSNBC'S Morning Joe last week hawking the Pickens Planwith his usual folksy, disarming charm and had them all on his team during the entire 9:00 segment. Not one word was said about the *environmental impacts, but plenty was said about how great and wonderful the Picken's Plan is.
"How can anybody be against this..." the MSNBC cheerleaders rah rah-ed.
...Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens says the United States ought to be producing vehicles to take advantage of domestic shale gas and break its foreign oil dependence. "This is our chance," Pickens told The Philadelphia Inquirer in an interview on the Marcellus shale."I think it's almost divine intervention that we had all this gas show up at this time in the deal."
What happened to the wind farm idea Mr. Pickens? Couldn't seem to get that federal support money huh? Bet you'll get a huge tax write-off from it though. Isn't your wife, Madeline Pickens, a big wild Mustang advocate? That is the Ruby Pipeline she's railing against that's cutting straight through the Mustang herds isn't it?
Don't you two even talk?
One other thing you forgot to mention, you rich old oil dinosaur, is that you are theClean Fuels Energy Corporation (formerly the Pickens Fuel Corp.) which owns and operates natural gas fueling stations from British Columbia to the Mexican border.
But you're not in it for the money? It's a national security issue right? You're in it mostly for the good of America?
Sure you are...
NOT.
Tim Ruggiero speaks for himself and explains the lies of Big Gas: (related video with visuals of the drilling on his property)
Energy experts have long touted natural gas as a cleaner fuel than oil. But while natural gas, as an end product, may be cleaner in many ways, its extraction still creates a great deal of environmental damage.
Though the industry had fought the measure by touting the jobs and wealth it can create for the area, the Pittsburgh council was unswayed. "They're bringing jobs all right," City Council President Darlene Harris told CBS. "There's going to be a lot of jobs for funeral homes and hospitals. That's where the jobs are. Is it worth it?"
*ProPublica's investigative series on gas drilling "Buried Secrets"
"8 by 8" rule for healthy living - drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day.
Compelling investigative reporting by Forrest Wilder of the Texas Observer and Houston's CBS News affiliate KHOU has revealed some grave problems in the Lone Star State's drinking water supply in Harris County, Texas. The investigation found that its been going on for years, since the 1980s, and it appears that the state environmental agency, Texas Commission of Environmental Quality, (TCEQ) has been in on it and kept the public in the dark until they were caught, big time.
A state agency purposefully misleading the public? Hard to believe isn't it? NOT.
Investigation Finds Radiation in Texas Drinking Water
By Forrest Wilder
November 11, 2010
TCEQ was lowballng radiation levels
KHOU-TV in Houston is out with an explosive series on worrisome radiation levels in drinking water. Part I looked at the extent of the problem and what state and federal officials are doing about it.
Hundreds of water providers around the Gulf Coast region are providing their customers with drinking water that contains radioactive contaminants that raise health risks, according to state lab results and public health scientists.
The revelations came to light during a four-month KHOU-TV investigation, which examined thousands of state laboratory tests from water providers across Texas. The data, provided by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), ranged from 2004 to the present.
The radiation was first discovered as a part of required testing, under federal regulations, of all drinking water provided by community water systems in America.
It's important to note that the radiation levels in the drinking water are extremely low, on the order of parts per trillion. However, as KHOU reports, the tendency among environmental health experts and the EPA, is to regard any level as potentially dangerous to human health.
Part II aired last night and it reveals what appears to be scientific malpractice on the part of Texas Commission on Environmental Quality scientists. One expert in the KHOU story called it a "cover-up."
How can TCEQ defend this? Well, judging from the interview TCEQ staffer Linda Brookins gave KHOU they can't. Take a look.
KHOU:"What would you tell me if I told you that I have talked with numerous scientists across the nation that would say that what TCEQ did was bad science?"
Brookins: "Well, I guess I would have no comment on that."
"I do not believe that what TCEQ was doing at that time has impacted human health," she added.
KHOU also asked Brookins about the state’s continued subtractions for margin of error, even after the EPA published a federal rule banning the practice.
KHOU: "Did you happen to skip over page 76,727 of the federal rule? Because right here in 2000 EPA told you, ‘don’t subtract margin of error.’ Did you skip that part?"
Brookins:"It doesn’t say not to subtract."
KHOU:"It doesn’t?"
Brookins:"It is silent."
KHOU: "I’d like you to hold this in your hand for a moment and read the part underlined in blue."
Brookins:"I’m not going to do that on camera."
# # # The problem is not confined to Harris County, Texas alone:
One particular type of radiation that popped up again and again, in water provided by utilities all across Texas, was something called alpha radiation, which public health scientists say can be particularly problematic when consumed.
“The alpha particle -- this is the 800-pound gorilla of radioactive particles,” said Dr. David Ozonoff, an environmental health professor and the chair emeritus of the Boston University School of Public Health.
We're not surprised to hear of ineptness on the part of these state environmental agencies who are, more or less, purely figurehead entities who work in concert with the big polluters they make millions from. But, therein lies the problem as we have said before: How do you effectively regulate and enforce violations from these entities (many are known to the agencies as serial violators) when you are handsomely profiting from their emissions, discharges and permit fees?
ADEM and TCEQ are the poster children of state agencies gone nuts.
It's like one long and winding crazy train with the inmates running the asylum in Texas (TCEQ) and Alabama (ADEM) and unfortunately they've punched all of our tickets and won't let us off.
Governors Perry of Texas and the recently elected "Fife-ish" Bentley of Alabama, have made their positions clear on the EPA stepping in and attempting to force both states to comply with the federal laws (hum to the tune and tone of Barney Fife's famous "citizen's arrest" phrase):
"State's rights! State's Rights!"
Kudos once again to Wilder, the Texas Observer and KHOU's Mark Greenblatt.
The Wise County Messenger published a story in their Sunday Edition paper on September 26, 2010 that disputes Big Gas claims of the process being "clean and safe"--for this particular family it's hell on earth and their mounting health ailments have forced them to flee their home in order to save their own lives.
They're not alone in their plight because Big Gas' invasive and controversial methods affects communities all across America that are unlucky enough to be victims of Mother Nature's geography that draws the energy giants to destructively assail her and wrest the rich deposits of gas she holds deep in her arms. They aren't kind in their methods and more often than not they cause collateral damage that has grave consequences from their desire to have their way with the earth.
But they'll tell you "everything we do is regulated and completely harmless--the country needs this product and it brings good paying jobs to the local economy." That makes a few casualties and whole range of suffering a fair trade-off in these soulless bastards minds and we are convinced that is precisely what they are the more we listen to their propaganda and see the real effects of what they do.
From the story:
"I started to get a little sick," she said. "I thought I was getting the flu. I was just tired and achy and started going through some little problems. "
"Then I started breaking out in a rash. It literally covered my entire body - my scalp all the way down to the bottoms of my feet," Parr recalled. "I made multiple trips to the emergency room. I had six doctors working on me, and they couldn't figure out what it was."
Today, her arms and legs bear pock-like scars from rashes.
Lisa first felt sick in fall 2008. As the immense trees across her 40-acre homestead dropped pecans, Lisa accumulated a host of unexplained ailments. The typical remedies didn't work.
Lisa was treated by eight different doctors over the course of a year. A source of the sickness was never determined. In June 2009, after exhausting everything he knew medically, her internal specialist suggested that something in the environment might be causing her various ailments.
In early fall 2009, she visited an environmental doctor who confirmed the presence of neurotoxins in her blood that matched chemicals used in natural gas production.
Toxic plume
Medical tests confirmed the toxins in Lisa's system matched toxins found in the atmosphere in an air-quality investigation conducted by the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ) at a nearby gas well site.
On the evening of July 25, 2010, the Parrs smelled a strong odor emanating from a frac tank at a site operated by Aruba Petroleum of Plano. They reported it to TCEQ. Investigators arrived within hours to capture air samples.
Odors were detected up to a quarter-mile from the well site. The investigator, Damon Armstrong, reported that a "plume" wafting from the tank was "visible with the naked eye."The petroleum-like odor was so intense the investigator himself felt sick in the short time he was there, noting dizziness and sore throat.
The analysis found five compounds that exceeded safe values for short-term health effects, and another 20 exceeded safe levels for long-term effects.
The investigation found elevated levels of ethane, pentane, hexane, octane, xylene and nonane, all potentially toxic chemicals.
Four days later, a medical test discovered the same chemicals inside Lisa.
Her husband and her 7-year-old daughter, Emma, felt sick as well.
"My daughter began having severe nosebleeds," she said. "She'd wake me up at 6 a.m., crying, covered in blood."
Emma was just diagnosed with asthma. She'd never had any respiratory problems. Emma also started breaking out in rashes and having stomach problems.
Bob also suffered from nosebleeds.
"I'm 50 years old and probably haven't had more than three or four nosebleeds in my entire lifetime," Bob said. "All of a sudden I'm getting them three times a week. It was odd."
"I hired someone to do water and air sampling at the home," she said. "The methane level in my daughter's room was at asphyxiation levels. And it was barely lower than what it was outside our home."
She showed the results to her doctor, who told her to leave her home within 48 hours.
"The doctor told me right then," she said, pausing as her voice cracked and a tear streamed across her left cheek, "I had to move immediately. Because if I did not, we would have to spend more time and money on hospitalization, on chemotherapy and morticians for my whole family."
On Saturday, Aug. 28, the Parrs said goodbye to their formerly idyllic home and moved into Bob's office in Denton. They don't know how long they'll have to stay.
"What we are going through is one of the worst things a family could have to go through," she said. "Having to leave this house and explain to my 7-year-old daughter that we've been run out of our house."
Bob and Lisa Parr aren't the sickly type. Bob built his home in 2001. He's enjoyed a long career in stone masonry and raising cattle. His home reflects the rugged, outdoor lifestyle he enjoys. Walls bear the trophies of big-game hunting in the wilds of Alaska. Black bear, mountain lions and elk are mounted on high wooden walls.
"We love it here," Lisa said while sitting in a wooden rocking chair on the back porch and gripping her husband's hand. "We're secluded, private. We just wanted to be left alone, and we've been run out of our house. It's not right. What's even more not right is we thought *TCEQ would come out and help us - they would clean up this mess."
*(The state regulatory and enforcement agency that compares notes on inefficiency with ADEM)
"We've had no help. We have someone who is contaminating our air. It has affected our cattle. We've lost pets. We've lost chickens. We're all sick, and we've gotten no help," she said. "I want them to fix it so we can come home. I just want to come home."
Several doctors had told Lisa for some time she needed to leave her home, but she couldn't convince herself to do it until the symptoms began affecting her husband and daughter.
"It had only been affecting me, so we stayed," Lisa said. "They thought I was super-sensitive. They called me the canary."
"I told them, 'That wasn't funny because eventually the canary died."
It's enough to make one wax nostalgic for the days of the Old West when disputes were settled in much more direct ways and men who caused harm to women and children realized swift justice from a society that gave a damn in more ways than we do today in the Lone Star State.
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