Air Plan

No sooner had we posted the summary of a Monday New York TImes article on a new policy by the Department of Agriculture to require extensive environmental reviews of those property owners holding gas leases seeking federal loans than the Administration turned tail and ran away from that decision as fast as it could. News came today  that USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack decided to reverse his own staff, saying that he’ll specifically authorize an “Administrative Notice” that rural loans are categorically excluded from the National Environmental Policy Act. In the Times article, USDA lawyers argued that not subjecting the loans to the review could be illegal and subject the Agency to lawsuits, so it’s not clear if such a move will prevent that fate. Meanwhile, “Gasland”  filmmaker Josh Fox sent out an SOS to try and save the review policy: “In a move that has angered hydrofracking opponents, the USDA did an about face and reneged on earlier statements hat its popular rural housing loans on properties with gas drilling leases would have to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and today authorized an Administrative Notice stating that rural housing loans would be excluded from NEPA.  On Monday, The New York Times had reported the USDA was planning on issuing an Administrative Notice to the opposite effect, telling staff that loans on properties with gas leases must undergo a full environmental review as required by NEPA before mortgage loans are made or guaranteed by the agency. Excluding NEPA review of fracking’s environmental impacts is a significant move.  It means that environmental review of rural housing loans would be limited to the EPA’s far less comprehensive national study of fracking, which is focused exclusively on drinking water and does not admit public comment.   Doing a NEPA analysis would have ensured that federal agencies issuing loans are complying with the law.  In fact, officials expressed concern the agency would be vulnerable to lawsuits if they didn’t conduct the NEPA reviews thoroughly enough.  But exempting rural housing loans from NEPA means that gas drilling leases will also be exempt from legal recourse and other basic public interest protections the law was meant to provide.  It also means that when property values drop precipitously due to contamination from gas drilling, sometimes to as low as 10% of their original value as we’ve seen in Pennsylvania, the American Taxpayer is going to be left holding the bag. Not only is this is unlawful, it’s just not right. Call President Obama and tell him: “Please do not allow the USDA to exempt housing loans from a full NEPA review. White House Phone numbers:  202-456-1111 and 202-456-1414.”

Eagle-eyed readers will have already noticed that, starting today, along with a flier for the March 27th citywide organizing meeting on gas drilling in Dallas, this front page also gives you the opportunity to download a resolution that states your group’s support for the Five Basic Protections the Dallas Residents at Risk alliance is advocating to add to the City’s new drilling ordinance.  We’re asking that you download this resolution, fill in your organization’s name, pass it at your next meeting, and let us know so we can add you to the group of supporters. What are these Five Basic Protections? 1) Larger Buffer Zones. 1000-foot buffer zones between a gas well and homes, schools, hospitals and other “protected uses,” along with restoration of a ban on any drilling on city park and or in the Trinity River floodplain. Right now, the city is recommending they be allowed as close as 500 feet. 2) Dallas Water for Dallas Drinking. Charge more for water that can never be used again. Ban the taking of Dallas water for frack jjobs in other cities, and ban water for fracking at Stage III drought conditions. 3) Don’t Make Bad Air Worse. Dallas has promised to help led the effort to clean the air in DFW. It can’t do that without making sure the increases in air pollution from drilling are off-set by reductions in air pollution someplace else in Dallas. We must make sure that new pollution caused by heavy industry is balanced by industry-funded measures to cut this same kind of pollution. 4) Full Disclosure of ALL Chemicals to First Responders BEFORE an Accident. Even under a new state law that supposedly makes this information public, companies are still allowed to keep “trade secrets” from first responders until after an accident. This isn’t fair or safe. Our front line defenders must have all the knowledge they need to handle an emergency situation at a gas well, including knowing how much of what potentially dangerous chemicals are on site. 5) Industry-funded city oversight that is well-staffed and well-equiped. Neither the state nor EPA can be relied upon to timely answer a Dallas resident’s call for help when something goes wrong at a gas well – and it will. the city must have its own response team and full-time oversight to ensure compliance with the law and public safety. Look, there are lots of reasons to be skeptical of fracking. Lots. Some we know about. Some we’re still learning about. These are the five things that citizens following the process for almost two years have decided to spotlight based on their ability to prevent harm before it happens. You may think there are stronger measures to be taken. And you’d be right. Feel free to add those as an addendum to the resolution we offer. But please take this opportunity to show the Council there’s a strong grassroots desire to strengthen the safeguards surrounding how drilling is done in Dallas. And then join us at the March 27th organizing meeting.

People living within a half-mile of oil- and gas-well fracking operations were exposed to air pollutants five times above a federal hazard standard, according to a new study by the University of Colorado School of Public Health. As a result, cancer risks were estimated to increase by at least 66% for those residents. Scientists found toxic and smog-forming Volatile Organic Compounds such as trimethylbenzenes, aliphatic hydrocarbons, and xylenes at elevated levels as far as 2640 feet away from fracking sites over the last three years in Garfield County, Colorado. Those chemicals can have non-cancerous neurological or respiratory effects that include eye irritation, headaches, sore throat and difficulty breathing. “Non-cancer health impacts from air emissions due to natural-gas development is greater for residents living closer to wells,” the report’s press release says. “We also calculated higher cancer risks for residents living nearer to the wells.” The report is believed to be the longest-term study yet of gas field air pollution risks but did not look at the full range of chemicals released from fracking operations, which also includes diesel fumes and methane, or impacts beyond a half-mile. “Our data show that it is important to include air pollution in the national dialogue on natural-gas development that has focused largely on water,” said Lisa McKenzie, the study’s lead author. Most DFW cities have setbacks, or buffer zones surrounding gas wells of only 300 to 1500 feet, with most providing “variances” that allow drilling even closer to homes, schools and businesses. This report should cause all those previous distance requirements to be re-examined and is acutely embarrassing for most of the members of The Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force, who voted to roll back a recommended 1000-foot buffer zone to 500 feet only a couple of weeks ago. That decision looks even more seriously wrong-headed in light of this data. Downwinders at Risk board and Dallas Task Force member Cherelle Blazer kept insisting during the proceedings that there was plenty of evidence to show public health harms as far as a mile away from a fracking site. Here’s one more piece. Over at Bluedaze, Sharon cites a local air monitoring study in the Bartonville-Argyle area just south of Denton where baseline testing when drilling was just getting started showed 7 detects of the 84 chemicals  typically tested for by TCEQ. After drilling took off there, testing showed 65 detects of the 84 chemicals typically tested for by TCEQ. This was on the lot where the high school band practices, about a half-mile from gas wells. Gas wells are toxic facilities that should not be allowed to operate in residential areas or close to people under any circumstances. Don’t want to see the same threat to your family’s health in Dallas? Come on out to next Tuesday’s citywide organizing meeting on Gas Drilling in Dallas, 7 pm, at 2900 Live Oak in the Center for Community Cooperation. Download the flyer and resolution on this page.

We’re pleased to announce that Dallas Council member Scott Griggs has agreed to open up the March 27th citywide organizing meeting on Gas Drilling in Dallas, sponsored by the Dallas Residents at Risk coalition that includes Downwinders, the Sierra Club, Texas Campaign for the Environment, Dallas Residents for Responsible Drilling and the Mountain Creek Neighborhood Alliance. Griggs is the freshman Council member from Oak Cliff who upset incumbent Dave Neumann last year, and anti-gas drilling momentum in the district was one reason why. The meeting is from 7 to 8:30 pm at the Center for Community Cooperation, 2900 Live Oak in Old East Dallas and will also feature Dallas gas Drilling Task Force members Terry Welch and Cherelle Blazer, as well as Ft. Worth activist Gary Hogan. Nothing wold please the gas industry more than for Dallas to use Ft. Worth as its template and Gary speaks eloquently as to why that’s a really bad idea. You’ll not only hear a review of where we stand after the disastrous last Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force meeting, but you’ll be able to help plan how we get to 8 or more votes for the five priority protections we need the City to adopt as part of the new re-written gas drilling ordinance. Whether you’re concerned about drilling in parks, the toxic air pollution caused by drilling, the amount of water and water contamination caused drilling demands, the incredible Greenhouse gas pollution that will force Dallas to abandon its commitment to clean air – whatever the issue, now is the time to come together and mobilize. A council vote could happen as soon as April. This is the most important environmental issue Dallas faces since the lead smelter fights of the 80’s and 90’s. Don’t be MIA. 

We’ve done something we’ve never done before with this front page. Down there at the bottom of the page, right below the last blog post, we’ve added a little Acrobat pdf icon that says ” 3.27 community meeting 1.0.” Click on it and you’ll be able to download a one-sided flier for the March 27th Citywide Organizing Meeting on Dallas Gas Drilling at the Center for Community Cooperation at 2900 Live Oak In Old East Dallas from 7 to 8:30 pm. Just like the one above, only full size. This meeting is your opportunity to come and learn more about the issue of fracking, and find out how to plug into the effort to make the new Dallas drilling ordinance stronger. We need folks from all over Dallas to help because the council vote on this new ordinance will be very close. This is the most important environmental issue within the Dallas city limits in the last 20 years. Don’t sit it out. 

In preparation for what could be a vote on a new ordinance as soon as April, The Dallas Residents at Risk Alliance, which includes Downwinders, is hosting a 4-Alarm, All Points Bulletin, city-wide organizing meeting on Gas Drilling in Dallas, 7 to 8:30 pm Tuesday, March 27th at the Center for Community Cooperation, 2900 Live Oak in Old East Dallas. We’ll go through a brief overview of why fracking in densely urban areas is an especially bad idea, look at what the current situation is with gas well sites already in the pipeline, as well as what we know about the location of current gas leases. We’ll have members of the Dallas Gas Drilling Task Force who were our reliable allies in the process. We’ll look ahead at the work we have to do to get the industry-fueled last-minute rollback of protections set-aside by the Council in favor of more adequate safeguards. It doesn’t matter what part of Dallas you live in – you’ll be affected by gas drilling and your council member will be voting on a new ordinance governing how it should be done. Think climate change is an important issue? You can’t make a better investment of your time on the issue than seeing that Dallas requires mitigation of gas industry Greenhouse Gas pollution. Want to protect water supplies? Preventing a water-intensive industry from robbing Dallas blind of its own water and then causing spills and leaks that will contaminate surface sources of water is worth your effort for the next two months. Want to see less smog? According to the state of Texas, local gas industry sources now emit more smog-forming Volatile Organic Compounds than all the cars and trucks n DFW. Just about any global or national environmental problem you can think of has a connection, or is made worse, by fracking in Dallas. We need your help now. This is not a drill. Mark it on your calendar and be one of the active citizens that keeps this intrusion from becoming a takeover.

It was the entirety of the last ten years of the Barnett Shale compressed, geologic-like, into one meeting. There were the traditional clean air allies melting into the woodwork when it came time to not only protect the air, but the water, and people affected by gas pollution. There was the Big Green, conflicted environmental group representative shuffling between voting for industry and with citizens. There was the transparent duplicity of public officials. There were the minority of steadfast Cassandras, trying to explain over and over again why putting a 25,000 tons-a-year polluting compressor station 500 feet away from a home is a bad idea. There were the angry residents on the outside looking-in, complaining that their voices were not being heard over the din of drilling rigs. And there was the industry, happy to lead a last-minute assault on all the previous protections citizens had won in prior meetings. In the end, the majority of Dallas gas drilling task force members decided they wanted the city to learn about the Shale the hard way. The way that rural Wise and Parker County residents have learned. The way that residents of Ft. Worth, Arlington, and Grand Prairie have learned – by experiencing the poisoning and industrialization of their communities up close and personal. It was truly hard to watch Chairwoman Lois Finkelman, in perhaps her last civic role for the City, transform herself from a long-time clean air advocate to someone who rode roughshod over recommendations that would make Dallas air dirtier, and DFW smog thicker. She voted with industry when it would otherwise would have lost, and abstained from voting when it meant citizens might win. But she often seemed so embarrassed by what was taking place that she appeared to almost gag in announcing the results of votes, or often didn’t bother to announce the results at all. Joining her was former Dallas County Judge, and green cement advocate, Margaret Keliher, who had previously argued that gas drilling in the Trinity Floodplain was OK because it had always been used as a dumping ground anyway. Even Dr. Ramon Alvarez with the Austin-based Environmental Defense Fund chimed in and helped industry roll back various protections depending on whether it was drilling in parks (for), or reducing the original setback from schools (against). But none of them matched the 9th circle of Hell soul-selling of Joan Walne, President of the Dallas Parks and Recreation Board (originally appointed by Council member Jerry Allen), who in almost consecutive sentences, first protested that she had, of course, never been in favor of allowing drilling on city park land, and then proceeded to offer a motion to do just that. As she began to do so, a handful of Occupy Dallas members stood up and began one of their “mic checks,” i.e. a call and response. Finkelman directed the police squad that was already lining the conference room wall in anticipation of such an outburst to please remove the People Who Were Talking Too Loudly and then led the whole task force membership in a hasty run out of the room and into a hallway like frightened little children. It as an embarrassing overreaction.They were followed by Downwinders Director Jim Schermbeck, equipped with a digital camera, to make sure no official business was being done while the rabble was being cleared. Awkward, but necessary as it turns out because that was the first instinct of a couple of industry reps before Finkelman reminded them they couldn’t talk shop in the hallway. Rabble cleared, and reconvening, the vote was taken, and Walne’s motion to allow drilling in parks, with council approval, passed 8 to 3. That’s when Schermbeck began Talking Too Loud in complaining that they had just rolled back a protection that had passed unanimously only two months earlier with no real reason for doing so other than industry’s complaint that prohibiting parks removed too many potential drilling sites. Apparently his arguments were so compelling that the police got caught up in the moment and failed to shuffle him out of the room as fast as Finkelman wanted. “Can you move more quickly to end the disruption,” she scolded the cops. He sat out the rest of the meeting watching it on Dallas City Hall TV at an undisclosed location (and for the record, had a very congenial talk about drilling in Dallas with the nice officer who escorted him out of the building) After that, it was one a steady whittling away of one protection after another. Instead of a solid 1000-foot buffer zone, or setback, for “protected uses” like homes, schools and parks, there is now a less protective sliding 500 to 1000 foot zone. Instead of the straight-ahead 300 foot property line-to- property line setback for business and offices, there is now a 300 foot setback from structure-to-structure, meaning you could be soon looking out your office window at a gas rig next door. And so forth. What does it say about the quality of this entire last-minute policy reversal when you know in advance that your decisions will be so unpopular as to require police protection? There were a few bright spots. There are now more “protected uses” like churches, and hospitals, and such…even though they’re less protected than they were when the meeting started. Thanks goes to Downwinders board member Cherelle Blazer, who fought valiantly on behalf of residents, as did attorney Terry Welch, and Dr. David Sterling of the UNT Health Science Center.  Also, to their credit, Finkelman and Keliher did bequeath an opportunity to begin looking at ways to address the huge amounts of Greenhouse Gas emissions produced by the gas industry at all phases of production by supporting a “suggestion” to the council to explore the issue. While short of an official recommendation, this does give the Council a chance to clean-up the gas industry the way it cleaned-up the cement industry with passage of the nation’s first green cement procurement policy in 2007.  Gas drilling is the Keystone Pipeline of Dallas. It’s the local in the “think globally, act locally” cliche. An innovative policy that would require gas companies to reduce as much GHG pollution as they generate in Dallas has the potential to be a huge incentive to reduce pollution of all kinds from the gas industry and other sources. This tantalizing possibility and all the rest of the Task Force recommendations now go to the council. There could be a vote as soon as April. This is going to be an issue where the margins are going to be 1 or 2 votes. We need your help as a Dallas citizen….. Now is the time to become active in this issue if you don’t want Dallas to suffer the same fate as its sister cities in the Shale. The Dallas Residents At Risk alliance is sponsoring a city-wide organizing meeting on Gas Drilling in Dallas on Tuesday March 27th, from 7 to 8 pm at the Center for Community Cooperation at 2900 Live Oak in Old East Dallas. Representatives from neighborhoods, civic groups, PTAs, and churches are invited to attend. We’re going to be laying out what issues we need to concentrate on and what strategies we need to pursue to win back the protections we must have for urban drilling in Dallas. Please come and plug-in to the largest and most important environmental fight in Dallas’ city limits since West Dallas residents rose up in revolt over inner city lead smelters in the 1980’s and 90’s. They did their part then. We need to do ours now. Only you can prevent this environmental disaster.

Remember when we only had to worry about smog during the 7-month “ozone season?” Those were the days. Now, thanks to the natural gas industry, people who live in the West also have to worry about it during the other five months of the year. First discovered in Wyoming, then Colorado, and now Utah, “wintertime ozone” is showing up regularly in places that have a lot of gas wells and also have a lot of snow that reflects sunlight. Ozone is created by a combination of either Nitrogen Oxides or Volatile Organic Compounds, time, and exposure to the sun. Diesel engines from gas drilling often release tons of Nitrogen Oxides, but it’s the tons and tons of escaping VOCs from gas fields that seem to be at the heart of wintertime ozone. “We are finding a huge amount of methane and other chemicals coming out of the natural-gas fields,” said Russell Schnell, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In 2011, the Utah basin being studies had some of the highest ozone readings in the country – over 130 parts per billion. Even with our worst ozone season in five years, DFW never came close to those kinds of smog levels in 2011. Although industry says its spent a lot of money adding controls in Wyoming trying to take care of the problem, smog levels there still peaked over 120 parts per billion. In North Texas we don’t have the snowfall necessary to make wintertime ozone a realty, but we have as many or more gas wells than Utah and Wyoming gas fields and many citizens believe they play a larger role in our own local summertime ozone smog levels than the state or industry would like to admit. There’s no reason to think that gas wells produce any fewer VOCs in the summertime, and in fact heat tends to accelerate fugitive releases from tanks because heat cause pressure to build inside of them. What’s causing ozone problems in the wintertime in Utah and Wyoming is most likely causing ozone probelms in DFW in the summertime too.