Blue Marble

"Green completion" equipment in the field

The Obama administration took a heavy swing in the ongoing battle over fracking today by imposing new rules that would, for the first time, restrict the release of smog-causing pollutants from natural gas wells. But the law turns a blind eye to greenhouse gases released by fracking; the EPA admits fracking accounts for 40 percent of the nation's overall methane (an even stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide) emissions.

By 2015, all fracked wells will be required to implement "green completion" equipment, which catches toxic gases like benzene on its way out of the earth and into the atmosphere. But the rule does not directly limit emissions of greenhouse gases.

David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council said the EPA's move to exclude greenhouse gases from the ruling was likely political: "If you're controlling toxic air pollutants, right-wing ideologues are back on their heels, but when the EPA goes after climate change, all the right-wing nuts come out of the woodwork." Still, Doniger stressed that while the rule could have gone further, the mandated equipment would indirectly take a big bite out of methane emissions.

The announcement has already excited many in the areas of Pennsylvania where fracking is a fact of daily life. "As a resident near a gas field, air pollution is way scarier than water well contamination," said Susquehanna County environmental organizer Rebecca Roter, referring to the other major concern many locals have about fracking.

Matt Walker of Pennsylvania's Clean Air Council stressed that while the rule is a boon for health concerns, further regulation was needed to curb the release of gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, that contribute to global warming. "We need to keep pushing," he said. "We hope the EPA will set standards for greenhouse gases in the future."

Gina McCarthy of the EPA said the mandate would yield a 90 percent reduction in air pollutants released as a byproduct of the fracking process at some 13,000 gas wells nationwide.

"Green completion" equipment is already mandatory in some states, and is already in place at nearly half the nation's natural gas wells, McCarthy said, but the three-year rollout period was requested by industry leaders to allow all well operators time to purchase, install, and train employees on it.

[Read more]

• Print
• Email
• Tweet

The Nguyens' daughter, Oanh, shows off a melon. Photo by Kate SheppardGreetings from Vietnam! I'm here for two weeks reporting on climate change adaptation, which can mean many things around the world. In the Thua Duc commune on Vietnam's southeast coast, it's meant the introduction of new watermelons.

Nhan and Chan Nguyen grow melons, peanuts, casava, and turnips here, on a patch of land off a dirt path shooting off of a dirt road that turns off from another dirt road. In other words, they're pretty far out in the rural reaches of Vietnam. Their small, tubular green melons poke out between the vines, shining in the hot afternoon sun. Ditches of stagnant water running beside the field give off a pungent, boggy smell.

For years, the couple used local watermelon seeds. But it's become harder to make money on those plants in recent years. They were prone to disease, and didn't handle screwy rain patterns very well. It used to rain for about six months each year, but now the rains can come for up to nine months out of the year. "In the past the weather was more regular, so we could use the old seeds, no problem," said Nhan. But they realized that growing melons was just getting more difficult. "We were worried and we thought about it a lot. We thought we would have to do something different."

Through a grant from Oxfam, the Nguyens and nine other families were able to start planting a different variety of watermelon instead, a more resilient variety that wouldn't suffer as much in unfavorable weather. And they were able to buy black plastic to cover the rows of seeds after planting, which helps lock water and heat in the sandy soil to coax the vines out of the ground. The project is more about adopting better agricultural methods, something that's needed with or without climate change. But the effect Oxfam is hoping to get from the project is making farmers more resiliant to whatever nature might bring them.

The cost of the projects per family was 3.5 million Vietnamese Dong—which sounds like a lot, but is only about $175 US. But it's a significant amount of money for a farmer who, even when prices are good, can only fetch 5,000 Dong ($0.25) for a kilo of melons. When prices are bad, which they've been recently due to an early storm this year, they can only get about 2,000 Dong, or $0.10. In the first year of the program in 2009, Oxfam worked with 10 families, nine of which were able to turn a profit, ranging from 1.5 million Dong ($75) to 6.9 million ($345). The international aid group has since expanded the project to 50 local families.

The Nguyens were quite excited to show me their products, plucking several small, ripe green melons from the field. They split the sun-warmed melons into eighths, dripping sweet pink juice as they passed them to eagerly awaiting visitors.

The Nguyens' watermelon field: Kate Sheppard

Nhan cuts up melon.: Kate Sheppard

• Print
• Email
• Tweet

Corexit® dispersed oil residue accelerates the absorption of toxins into the skin. The results aren't visible under normal light (top), but the contamination into the skin appear as fluorescent spots under UV light (bottom).

The Surfrider Foundation has released its preliminary "State of the Beach" study for the Gulf of Mexico from BP's ongoing Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Sadly, things aren't getting cleaner faster, according to their results. The Corexit that BP used to "disperse" the oil now appears to be making it tougher for microbes to digest the oil. I wrote about this problem in depth in "The BP Cover-Up."

The persistence of Corexit mixed with crude oil has now weathered to tar, yet is traceable to BP's Deepwater Horizon brew through its chemical fingerprint. The mix creates a fluorescent signature visible under UV light. From the report:

The program uses newly developed UV light equipment to detect tar product and reveal where it is buried in many beach areas and also where it still remains on the surface in the shoreline plunge step area. The tar product samples are then analyzed…to determine which toxins may be present and at what concentrations. By returning to locations several times over the past year and analyzing samples, we've been able to determine that PAH concentrations in most locations are not degrading as hoped for and expected.

Worse, the toxins in this unholy mix of Corexit and crude actually penetrate wet skin faster than dry skin (photos above)—the author describes it as the equivalent of a built-in accelerant—though you'd never know it unless you happened to look under fluorescent light in the 370nm spectrum. The stuff can't be wiped off. It's absorbed into the skin. 

And it isn't going away. Other findings from monitoring sites between Waveland, Mississippi, and Cape San Blas, Florida over the past two years:

1. The use of Corexit is inhibiting the microbial degradation of hydrocarbons in the crude oil and has enabled concentrations of the organic pollutants known as PAH to stay above levels considered carcinogenic by the NIH and OSHA.
2. 26 of 32 sampling sites in Florida and Alabama had PAH concentrations exceeding safe limits. 
3. Only three locations were found free of PAH contamination.
4. Carcinogenic PAH compounds from the toxic tar are concentrating in surface layers of the beach and from there leaching into lower layers of beach sediment. This could potentially lead to contamination of groundwater sources. 

The full Surfrider Foundation report by James H. "Rip" Kirby III, of the University of South Florida is open-access online here.

• Print
• Email
• Tweet

Energy issues are shaping up to be a major focus of this year's presidential election, and from the looks of it, oil, gas, and coal interests are willing to do whatever it takes to shape the debate to their liking: A new analysis by the Center for American Progress finds that groups supported by those industries' money have already spent a whopping $16.75 million on energy-related ads in 2012. How does that compare with the Obama campaign and its backers? So far, they've spent just a tenth of that amount—$1.67 million—defending the administration's energy record. Ouch.

Here's a breakdown of some of the biggest anti-Obama spenders and the ads they financed:

• Crossroads GPS, the Karl Rove-linked PAC, has spent $2.85 million since January on ads, including $1.7 million on ads criticizing Obama's energy policies. This one that proclaims "No matter how Obama spins it, gas costs too much"—never mind that the president has essentially no impact on gas prices in the short-term.

• The Koch-financed PAC Americans for Prosperity is spending $6 million on an ad hyping the much-discussed bankruptcy of the solar company Solyndra, raising the spectre of "FBI raids" and implying that Obama approved the grant—which was initially advanced by the Bush administration—in order to satisfy major campaign contributors. At the end of the ad, the narrator says "Tell President Obama: Workers Aren't Your Pawns"—rich coming from a group that's sought to undermine worker protections at every opportunity.

• The American Petroleum Institute, the primary mouthpiece for the oil industry, has spent $4.3 million since January, according to reporting by the Washington Post—a figure which puts them ahead of everyone but a few super PACs in terms of campaign spending. One typical ad asks viewers to stop "another bad idea from Washington"—the "bad idea" being putting an end to oil industry tax breaks—while others simply beat the oil-and-gas-jobs drum. If you haven't noticed the API stamp on many ads, it's because they tend to run under innocuous-sounding names like "Energy Nation," "Energy Citizens," and "EnergyTomorrow," with the API acknowledgement in fine print.

• The American Energy Alliance, which also receives funding from the Koch brothers, has spent around $3.6 million on ads warning that "nine dollar gas" is on the horizon as a result of Obama administration policies and dropping in sensationalist references to Solyndra, Keystone, and (gasp!) Europe—none of which has anything to do with the hike in gas prices.

And there's more where that came from: The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity has pledged to spend $40 million on ads touting the benefits of clean coal—despite the fact that clean coal technology doesn't actually exist, and isn't likely to anytime in the near future—while groups like the US Chamber of Commerce have bankrolled ads for candidates who favor oil interests.

Elizabeth Wilner, a political ad expert with Kantar Media/Campaign Media Analysis Group, told the Los Angeles Times that the Center for American Progress' numbers may already be out of date. On target or not, the real figures are sure to grow as the campaign ad wars ramp up. Stay tuned.

• Print
• Email
• Tweet