Event tomorrow, crucial need for your comments, a lousy piece of legislation, State College rally
RDA - Responsible Drilling Alliance
Dear RDA Members and any former military psy-ops officers who now work for the gas companies monitoring us,
In this vital week for the future of Pennsylvania, we focus on an upcoming seminar, a crucial need for public comment, a lousy piece of legislation and a rally in State College.
PROTECTING THE AIR WE BREATHE – an evening of education and empowerment
Please join us this Thursday evening, November 17, from 6pm – 8pm in Room G11 of Lycoming College's Heim Science building, for a seminar on the environmental and health impacts that gas industry operations have on our air. You'll learn what to be concerned about and how to monitor and participate in fighting for air quality in your region. Presented by Matt Walker of the Clean Air Council, admission is free and open to the public. The event is hosted by the Responsible Drilling Alliance and the Clean Air Council. If you're coming straight from work and need a bite to eat, relax - we'll have some snacks on hand.
Extremely critical ACTION STEP needed now!
Sorry to deluge you with these calls to arms lately, but the industry is weighing in hard once again and we need to counter. If you attend the workshop Thursday, this topic will become much clearer. Essentially, DEP is looking for comments on a critical area of gas development, a technical guidance document on aggregation of gas industry compressor facilities. In December of 2010, a newly instituted technical guidance on the issue, which was much more protective of public health and safety than the old, was rescinded. Essentially, the replacement technical guidance does not provide the DEP Bureau of Air Quality with the ability to adequately protect our air resources.
Effectively, only compressor stations within one quarter mile of each other, which are owned by the same company and have the same industry code will be considered to be aggregated for emissions. The industry published a "white paper" on aggregation in September of 2010. The new technical guidance, now open to comment, is scarily similar in content to that white paper.
The formation of ground level ozone, which is a precursor for smog, is our concern for both permitted emissions from compressor facilities and the massive amounts of fugitive methane emissions which even the industry admits is around 3% of their operations. If you live in an area prone to fog, or a hollow, or valley with a watercourse or lake in it, emissions may be prone to travel and stall in these places. We, the breathing public, and the DEP currently have no idea of how many compressor stations and compressor engines we can expect to have in any given area. Reality based aggregation of facilities is a huge fight on the federal and state levels. Please understand that in addition to the major compressor facilities, compressor engines may be placed on poorly producing wells, or well sites as the field depletes.
With proper aggregation, these sites would be required to use more effective air quality control devices and thus have lower emissions. If stations were required to have adequate spacing requirements, there may be a good opportunity for emissions to adequately disperse. In WV people are already reporting health problems that adequate aggregation may have prevented. In WY there are nonattainment areas for ground level ozone/smog and many health related complaints.
The new technical guidance relies on judicial rulings formulated in the early 1980s before shale gas was exploitable. The guidance is not written for the amount of gas pipeline infrastructure, compression, and gas fields so close to homes as we will end up with here. It is not written for many different companies operating their own compressor stations within close proximity.
If you are not able to understand this issue fully, please contact us with questions but, please, take the time and write a public comment. E-mail us: in...@responsibledrillingalliance.org or better yet, attend the workshop Thursday.
The industry is pulling out all stops to get what suits their bottom line, obviously the Governor, the clueless head of the DEP, and legislature are all deluded on this issue. Industry already succeeded in having this guidance proposal reflect their white paper very closely. We need to send emails and regular mail to the DEP, PRONTO! With a sufficient quantity of personal letters, it will be hard for DEP, even under Michael Krancer, not to address the issue in a way that offers more protection for our health.
THIS IS AN ISSUE WE CAN GAIN GROUND ON, IF WE ALL WEIGH IN. Please send this information on to your sphere of influence.
RDA thanks Emily Krafjack of Wyoming County for her tireless efforts on this issue, and for informing us of this comment opportunity.
WHERE TO SEND YOUR COMMENTS: Submit written comments on this interim final technical guidance document by November 21, 2011. The Department will accept comments submitted by e-mail, but comments submitted by facsimile will not be accepted. A return name and address must be included in each e-mail transmission. Written comments should be submitted to Krishnan Ramamurthy, Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Air Quality, P.O. Box 8468, Harrisburg, PA 17105-8468 or email krama...@pa.gov.
EMAIL FORMAT
TO: krama...@pa.gov
SUBJECT: Air Aggregation for Oil and Gas INTERIM TECHNICAL GUIDANCE DOCUMENT
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Your Name
Street Address
LEGISLATING OUR FUTURE AWAY
On November 15th, the Senate passed a lousy piece of legislation, SB1100. This bill effectively eliminates one of the most basic principles of democracy – the right of a free people to self determination at the local level.
We can't emphasize enough our loathing toward this industry-led dilution of the local control over the placement of gas industry operations.
Myron Arnowitt, State Director for Clean Water Action succinctly summed up the assault on local control, "Unfortunately, the State Senate passed SB 1100 Tuesday night, by a vote of 29-20. The vote was largely party line. Included in the bill was language that greatly restricts municipal rights to enact zoning ordinances for gas drilling.
SB 1100 has a new set of requirements for any local zoning ordinance, including requiring townships to allow drilling in all zones, including in residential areas. While most of the press on this focused on the new role of the Attorney General in determining the legality of zoning ordinances, it is the new strict requirements for any zoning ordinance that are disastrous. Many townships will find their current ordinances declared illegal if SB 1100 is signed into law.
In further bad news (sorry – I'm just the messenger!), debate on the House side on HB 1950 continued. A Republican amendment was passed (110 – 85) which removed the complete prohibition on local ordinances from the bill. However, it replaced it with language that was reported to be very similar to what is in SB 1100. This is hardly a step forward, and in fact sets the stage for an agreement between House and Senate on restricting local zoning.
"What next? The House will likely complete work on HB 1950 with a final vote on Wednesday sometime. We need to keep pushing House members to vote NO on HB 1950, and to support any amendments that would take out the language restricting municipal ordinances.
If the House ends up passing HB 1950, there will likely be some kind of closed door negotiating between House and Senate (and Governor) to come up with some common bill that will go back to both chambers for another vote. This would likely be the week of December 5, as the Senate won't be back in session until then. So, we will have more time to work on creating some backlash between now and then."
MARCELLUS PROTEST: Nov. 18 – State College PA
"Power to the People NOT the Corporations ", a protest by citizens from all over the state will be held at the Penn State University main campus this Friday. A rally will be held on the steps of Old Main from noon until 1:00pm. This permitted event will celebrate the efforts of several local groups to pass a voter referendum on November 8th that affirms the State College community's environmental rights and bans any future natural gas drilling in State College. UPDATE: The referendum passed by an overwhelming 71%!
Speakers include RDA's own Barb Jarmoska. An open letter to the Penn State Board of Trustees will be delivered expressing concerns about the large amounts and non-disclosure of funding that the University has accepted from the natural gas industry and its effect on the objectivity of this taxpayer-funded state university.
A second rally, from 1:30 – 3:30pm, will be held at the Penn State Conference Center, which will be hosting the Marcellus Summit 2011 sponsored by Range Resources and Chesapeake Energy, among others.
PS: If you fail to grasp the significance of the salutation of this newsletter, here's some interesting reading: Drillers' use of 'counterinsurgency' tactics against opponents ...