Butyl acrylate in water — obscene
February 16th, 2023
Do tell, what amount is “SAFE,” pray tell? Vinyl chloride? Butyl acrylate? Other chemicals?”
I’d guess that this will go beyond civil suits, administrative requirement of clean up (as if that’s possible) and that there will be criminal charges.
The impacts of the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment, tank ruptures, and explosion continue, and it’s showing up in nearby water supplies:
Ohio city says butyl acrylate tested positive in water intake
The NOAA modeling has disappeared, it’s not at any of the links I’ve found. HERE IS SOME REDDIT on this model, and note of its disappearance. I gave up looking, it’s GONE.
Angry and scared, Ohio residents question response to toxic derailment
In a letter to Shaw this week, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) accused the rail company of giving him and other officials inaccurate information as they were trying to decide whether to allow toxic vinyl chloride from five rail cars to be released into the air — and said the company’s mismanagement of the immediate response put first-responders and residents at risk.
As Ohio Gov. DeWine says Ohio doesn’t need federal help:
Pa. governor accuses train company of mishandling Ohio derailment
Life After the Ohio Train Derailment: Trouble Breathing, Dying Animals, and Saying Goodbye:
After an initial $25,000 donation to the community, the company said they would give $1,000 “inconvenience checks” to residents within the evacuation zone; the company also has offered to reimburse expense receipts for residents within East Palestine
$1,000 down payment and reimbursement to residents, a start towards what will be a very high bill.
‘This is absurd’: Train cars that derailed in Ohio were labeled non-hazardous
Frac waste injection, seismic activity, and agency subpoenas
September 3rd, 2016
BIG earthquake in Oklahoma today, and are we surprised? Naaaaah… Here’s the info, including location, economic impacts, etc., from USGS:
CLICK HERE: USGS Pawnee, OK Earthquake Page
In the news, and they’re making the link between gas wells and earthquakes:
Earthquake Rattles Oklahoma; One Of Strongest Recorded In State
Earthquake Shakes Swath of Country Where Wells Have Drawn Scrutiny
IMPORTANT: The Oklahoma Corporation Commission takes action!
Oklahoma Corporation Commission orders disposal wells shut down near quake epicenter
Consider why fracking and injection of frac waste is allowed… Why is a pipeline route through earthquake prone area considered? The impacts of fracking and waste injection is one thing they do NOT want to acknowledge. From KOTV in June 2014 — USGS should know better:
And when searching, look at this — can you believe:
OGS: Earthquake risk low for proposed disposal wells in Yukon
When the topic of earthquakes and other seismic activity comes up, I always recommend the “bible” of injection into the earth, because this is not a new phenomenon and we’re making this happen, putting people and our water supply at risk:
When I got this book, it was an older edition, though pricey, but with patience, it could be had for $20. For about a decade now I’ve been recommending this book, and look at the price now. Out of bounds for most of us… funny how that works. I’d guess a library could find a copy, and here it is on google books, “only” $224.00 (GRRRRRRRRRR):
Gas migration: events preceding earthquakes
Elisa Young, a cohort in Ohio, has lived in the epicenter of frack injection triggered earthquakes around Youngstown. There, after so many earthquakes, the causal connection was acknowledged, but it took too long. Here’s a Legalectric post from four years ago:
Ohio Earthquakes & Fracking
And now for a complicated sidebar. Elisa Young asked today how to get the state and federal agencies to communicate about this problem and take action. How? Damned if I know — impacts of injecting gas and liquids into the earth are well known. Yet federal and state agencies are in serious state of denial. And it’s very difficult at times to get the agencies to show up, to do their job. It’s even difficult to get their analysis, their own reports, into project permit dockets. I get really tired of this…
How to get them to weigh in? In Public Utilities Commission dockets in Minnesota, I’ve had a hard time with state agencies, initially. For example, in Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project docket, there was a claim that coal gasification was “clean” yet the Minnesota Pollution Agency had not, and would not, weigh in on the emissions projected for this coal gasification power plant. WHAT? We pushed and pushed, threatened to subpoena, raised this at a PUC meeting, and finally, the PUC issued an Order and wrote a letter to the PCA Commissioner requesting the MPCA lend its expertise to the Commission and show up!
And a Legalectric post about later subpoena requests on the Mesaba Project:
And subpoena and Data Practices Act requests in that same docket for financial information:
I’ve had similar issues in transmission dockets, where the DOT and DNR would file Comments on environmental scoping, and/or the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, but those Comments would only be sent to the Dept. of Commerce, and were not posted in the PUC docket, so parties and the public had no idea the concerns the agencies may have. NOT OK. During the first CapX 2020 routing docket, Brookings 08-1474, it was so egregious, I asked the DOT General Counsel who was present to make comments at the public hearing, and to submit a copy for the routing docket record (the route ultimately turned on DOT easements and that DOT would not allow the transmission line to be built over those easements). The matter was remanded by the Commission for rehearing based on their routing quandry. Shortly after, on behalf of No CapX 2020, I subpoenaed testimony and Comments.
Subpoena requests sent! (DOT & DNR)
Subpoena plot thickens (Agreement to testify)
Subpoena request for US Fish & Wildlife
Subpoena Denied(tried to get USFWS, didn’t work. USFWS Comments had been hidden in EIS Comments)
Notes from Friday
In the Goodhue Wind docket (permit granted, and then much later revoked!):
Goodhue Wind Truth – Subpoena Requests for Bjorklund and Bull
ALJ Sheehy’s Letter to Overland – Denial of Subpoena Requests
When this was attempted in the Sandpiper Pipeline docket, the ALJ denied the Subpoena request. WHAT?
And an interesting back and forth with a hearing officer about getting information into the record and whether it would take a subpoena to get it, where ultimately, the ALJ agreed that the primary documents would be entered in the record:
And here’s an aside, use of subpoena regarding Xcel’s plans for coal, served by NY’s A.G.:
New York A.G. serves Xcel with subpoena
Ohio Earthquakes & Fracking
January 1st, 2012
Earthquake in Youngstown, Ohio, the epicenter just a hop, skip and a jump from the D&L Injection Well, pictured above.
Elisa Young in Youngstown sent me this link this morning, noting that “on this Diane Rehm segment the industry specifically states on the air that earthquakes of 2.0 or less (like they can control an earthquake in progress) are beneficial to the drilling company because it shows them the fracking is working. …but fracking and injection don’t induce seismic activity in Ohio… ” The section on earthquakes starts at 28:12.
If you don’t have a copy yet, if you haven’t read it, get with it, learn about gas migration and earthquakes, errrrr… seismic events (copies are getting harder to find, price is going up, but I’m glad because it means that people are paying attention and reading this MUST READ book):
Earthquakes have becoming more and more common in Ohio, as in Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and yes, there is a trend, a connection, and it’s GAS. In this Youngstown, OH case, it’s related to injecting fracking waste into the ground near a fault. How on earth did they get a permit to do this, anyone with half a brain would know that if you’re pumping in, there is bound to be a response!
Ohio’s “Are you ready for an earthquake?” page!
Here’s a sample, from the Columbus Dispatch:
State links quakes to work on wells
By Joe Vardon
The Columbus Dispatch Sunday January 1, 2012 11:34 AM“The 5-mile radius, we were told by our geologists, is an adequate buffer zone” for the fault line, Zehringer said. “There are four other wells, none of them active, but we’re not going to allow any activity to take place in these wells.”
Michael Hansen, of the Ohio Seismic Network, said that even though Northstar No. 1 was shut down Friday, there is still potential for more quakes, although the magnitude of yesterday’s quake may have relieved some of the pressure near the fault line.
There are 177 injection wells throughout the state. Zehringer and other officials, speaking on a New Year’s Eve conference call, said the single Youngstown well is the only one of its kind that’s been related to seismic activity since the state started using them in the 1970s.
Kasich officials also stressed that the months-long shaking in Youngstown is not a result of hydraulic fracking — a procedure used to extract oil and gas out of rock formations such as the Marcellus and Utica shale. Discoveries of oil and gas in the shale rock in eastern Ohio has sparked hopes for an economic boon in the state’s Appalachian region.
State Rep. Robert F. Hagan, D-Youngstown, called for a statewide moratorium on injection wells. Hagan said he asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to intervene because of the possibility of another quake.
“We don’t want to overreact,” said Zehringer, who suggested that a wider moratorium in well activity “could devastate the economic livelihood of thousands of Ohioans.”
The magnitude 4.0 quake that struck yesterday afternoon in McDonald, outside Youngstown, is the largest of the 11 quakes that originated there, Hansen said.
Residents said a boom accompanied the shaking yesterday. Sheriff’s dispatchers from several counties in the area said there were no immediate reports of damage.
Rick Simmers, chief of oil and gas management for the ODNR, said a daily average of about 5,000 42-gallon barrels of brine water — a byproduct of oil and gas drilling — were pumped into the well, down to 9,200 feet. He said a majority of the water comes from Pennsylvania wells.
Gov. John Kasich, who is vacationing with his family in Florida for the holidays, was in constant contact with Zehringer and other senior staff members throughout the day yesterday, communications director Scott Milburn said. “The governor directed director Zehringer to put public health and safety first and to make a response that is reasonable and appropriate and based on science,” Milburn said.
The well’s owner, Northstar Disposal Services LLC, which agreed to stop injecting brine into the well on Friday, applied for and received licensing under the Strickland administration, Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said. The No. 1 well has been active since December, 2010, according to Nichols.
Information from The Plain Dealer was included in this story.