Schlumberger CEO Andrew Gould to investors:
“We’re doing [fracking] by brute force and ignorance.”
CNX knows more than Schlumberger? I expect they know much less.
Frac Bible: Voluntary guidelines, self regulation, voluntary regulation, secrets and lies.
Scientists skeptical of oil and gas company’s claim that its fracking ‘poses no public health risks’ by Reid Frazier, September 18, 2024, The Allegheny Front
Scientists who study public health say they’re skeptical of a company’s claims that its fracking “Poses No Public Health Risks.”
Canonsburg, Pa.-based CNX said that a research project it is conducting as part of a voluntary collaboration with the state of Pennsylvania has found no health risks near its operations.
The project was launched after a state-funded University of Pittsburgh study found fracking was linked to childhood lymphomas, asthma exacerbations and lower than average birth weights.
CNX said health concerns related to fracking are the result of “(u)nfounded accusations and innuendo” that “drive current popular narratives” about the process of fracking.
“(A)gendas of those ideologically or financially opposed” to fracking have led them to use “ambiguous and suspect statistics to goal-seek to their desired conclusions,” the company said, on the project website.
The company said its monitoring showed air pollution levels near its sites were below federal health thresholds for particulate matter and volatile chemicals associated with oil and gas, like benzene, a carcinogen.
“There is no indication that air emissions from natural gas operations have an impact on human health,” concluded a post authored by company chief risk officer Hayley Scott.
The site published air monitoring data collected at over a dozen of the company’s sites–including gas wells and compressor stations in southwest Pennsylvania.
“We are publishing raw, site level data…not relying on statistical associations and assumptions,” company spokesman Brian Aiello said in an email. “(W)e clearly view raw, site level data as the far superior method versus previous studies.”
Public health researchers weigh in
But public health researchers who reviewed the company’s reporting expressed doubts about the company’s project. Among their concerns was that the company’s data had not gone through peer-review, a basic quality assurance mechanism for scientific research.
“I would not say that this follows well-established scientific practices because for that, you’d want their findings to go through something akin to peer review,” said Jennifer Baka, associate professor of geography at Penn State University.
“I am very skeptical when studies have absolute claims like ‘Safe and Poses No Public Health Risks,’” said Lisa McKenzie, associate professor of environmental and occupational health at Colorado University’s School of Public Health, in an email. “This is because it is not scientifically possible to prove that there are no health risks; everything has some level of risk.”
Researchers also said the company did not account for a growing body of research pointing to associations between fracking and public health risks, like increased asthma exacerbations, heart problems, premature death, and childhood cancers.
They also expressed concerns over how the company chose the sites it’s monitoring. Over 14,000 shale gas wells have been drilled in Pennsylvania over the past 20 years.
“I wouldn’t characterize this as a public health study. I would characterize this as a data collection effort,” said Jonathan Buonocore, assistant professor of environmental health at Boston University’s School of Public Health.
“If you wanted to do the study, we would see [more] details,” like methods for determining wind direction and wind speed, and other methodological details, Buonocore said. “There would probably be other things that, if there was a genuine scientific effort, they would do. Whereas this, they just dropped some monitors and put it on a website and called it a day.”
The scientists said that while it’s good to have the data CNX is producing from this limited number of sites, there are several things it needs to do to use the data to determine the relative safety of oil and gas drilling.
“Any efforts to increase the transparency, such as this one, are highly welcomed,” wrote Longxiang Li, assistant professor at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, in an email. “But (with the CNX study) we got more questions/concerns than answers. If CNX can organize their ‘study’ into a peer-reviewed paper, we can better understand what they did and how they interpreted their results. Without these essential details, we cannot give specific comments about its methodology.”
Reporting partnership between CNX and Gov. Shapiro
The project was launched in November, 2023, when CNX and Governor Josh Shapiro agreed to a partnership where the company would allow the state to study two of its well sites. The company also agreed to release air and water quality data around its own well sites publicly, and agreed to voluntarily increase setbacks for its gas wells from buildings and schools. Further, it would provide more information about which chemicals it injects underground during the fracking process, which breaks up tight rock formations thousands of feet underground to send methane gas to the surface.
This agreement was made public a few months after the release of the University of Pittsburgh public health study funded by the state Department of Health. The “Pitt Study” was the result of a campaign by families who had lost children to rare childhood cancers and lived in southwest Pennsylvania near fracking operations.
CNX’s website criticized the Pitt study, saying it suffered “fatal flaws,” and that it “ignored key influential factors” that might have led to observed health impacts. The company faulted the researchers because it said they “never visited shale gas sites, refused opportunities to do so, didn’t take air or water samples, or generate any new, original data or measurements.” The company concluded that in the Pitt study, “(s)tatistical speculation trumped actual measurement” and that it found “very weak associations” between natural gas development and health outcomes of asthma and childhood lymphoma.
Pitt researchers did not return requests for comment made to the university’s graduate school of public health.
Local reaction to the CNX data
Heaven Sensky, of the Center for Coalfield Justice called on Gov. Shapiro to do more to protect families living near fracking sites.
“It is critical that the Pennsylvania Department of Health, under the direction of Governor Shapiro, take meaningful action to stop the harm and listen to community members as they plead for real support and action to merely protect their families and their children’s playsets with a reasonable setback,” she said.
Lauren Camarda, a spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Protection called the collaboration between the state and CNX “an important step forward in improving transparency within the natural gas industry.”
But she cautioned that the data from CNX’s monitoring “is only indicative of one small sample over a short period of time and does not reflect the department’s findings. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is preparing to conduct its own long-term independent study at two future CNX well sites as part of the collaboration.”
Camarda said DEP is also requiring companies to disclose fracking chemicals before they start drilling a well, not after.while able to keep trade secrets (which frac’ers need to prevent harmed families from proving frac contamination in their blood, water, homes, land, etc.
A familiar narrative
Baka, the Penn State scientist, compared the CNX project to other industry-led efforts to cast doubt on the public health effects of smoking and the link between climate change and fossil fuel pollution, as outlined in the 2010 book “Merchants of Doubt.”
“That’s what this seems to me, that it’s a ‘Merchants of Doubt’-style analysis,” Baka said. “We have some data coming out of a reputable academic institution that followed well-established scientific procedures for looking at this relationship (between fracking and health effects.) And this is an industry-funded study that is trying to peddle doubts.”
The company said the results indicate that if people who live near fracking get sick, “then we must look elsewhere to understand the causation and remedy.” It also said that its air monitoring results mean more regulations for the industry aren’t necessary.
“Pennsylvania policy should follow the measured data, which indicates that there is no need for additional setbacks or other restrictions,” according to the company’s website.
SEHN@SEHNetwork Aug 16, 2024:
“It is entirely disingenuous for CNX—which is in business to extract gas—to accuse independent researchers of using ‘ambiguous and suspect statistics to goal-seek to their desired conclusions.’” Re: PA #fracking company saying only their study is good.
“‘They’re only considering a handful of pollutants they’ve measured around just a few select wells that they chose,’ said Shannon Smith, the executive director of @FracTracker
Alliance…”
“‘They don’t mention a single chemical that they used to frack. There’s nothing in this report that talks about #water quality or #radioactivity,’ said Dr. Ned Ketyer, who is a pediatrician and the president of @PSRPennsylvania.”
“On the contrary, scientists have sought, in highly challenging circumstances… to shed light on what is, in fact, a massive experiment being conducted on Pennsylvania residents without their consent, and with few precautionary protections.”
Dr. Sandra Steingraber @ssteingraber1 Aug 17, 2024:
200+ peer-reviewed studies directly show the opposite. Like the ones finding childhood leukemia clusters near fracking wells. A couple hundred more indirectly support those. Like the ones finding leukemia-causing benzene in the air near wells and in the urine of fracking workers.
2014: Benzene Exposure Near the US Permissible Limit Is Associated With Sperm Aneuploidy
Matt GazTech@techgazmatt:
Shapiro admin’s lack of commitment to regulating the oil/gas industry is appalling. CNX’s “safe” fracking operations report is a joke, contradicting hundreds of studies on the industry’s harm to public health.
Robert Johnson@Johnson_Concert:
I’m with you on this one. We need more truth-telling about the oil and gas industry’s impact on our health.
After Partnering With the State to Monitor Itself, a Pennsylvania Gas Company Declares Its Fracking Operations ‘Safe’, Environmentalists say a new report from CNX Resources’ monitoring program, created as part of a collaboration led by Gov. Josh Shapiro, is full of misinformation by Kiley Bense, August 16, 2024, Inside Climate News
On Wednesday, the natural gas company CNX Resources released the initial results from its environmental monitoring collaboration with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, a partnership predicated on “radical transparency” around fracking operations that Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration announced in November.
CNX’s natural gas development “poses no public health risks,” the company said,
and CEO and President Nick Deiuliis said in an accompanying press release that natural gas drilling “done the CNX way” is “safe and inherently good for the communities where we operate.”
That’s what all frac’ers say to bamboozle social licence from the communities they intend to rape and pillage, and rape and pillage again and again and again. Frac’ers are never satisfied; they’re more addicted than heroin addicts.
This contention is at odds with hundreds of studies on the impacts of the unconventional gas industry on health, the environment and the climate. The ninth and most recent edition of a compendium of scientific, medical and media findings related to fracking found “no evidence” that fracking can be done in a way that “does not threaten human health directly.” Much of this research has focused on Pennsylvania.
In 2023, Shapiro said the partnership would “advance commonsense measures to defend public health and safety while protecting jobs” and would help set a “new standard for Pennsylvania’s natural gas to be produced in the most responsible and sustainable way anywhere in the world.” No fossil fuel can be produced or used in responsible or sustainable ways.
As part of the collaboration, the company agreed to increase setbacks from drilling sites from 500 to 600 feet and to 2,500 feet for sites near schools and hospitals and to “engage in intensive air and water quality monitoringas long as the company gets to do the monitoring and is free to fudge the results and the public pays for the monitoring..” The administration agreed to consider this data before recommending changes to policy.
Since November, Liar and repeat polluter and law violator CNX says it has collected more than 100,000 “data measurements” of emissions from 14 sites. The company measured concentrations of PM2.5, or fine particulate matter, and BTEX compounds, a group of toxic chemicals associated with fossil fuel production that includes benzene, a known carcinogen. The company said its measured emissions “fall well below science-based air quality standards.”
Is it wise to believe words spewed by a proven liar and law violator?
CNX reserved the right to delay or suspend its air quality data “at its discretion” and its agreement with the government covering disclosures of chemicals used in the fracking process does not mean they were required to share information about trade-secret chemicals that fall under the “Halliburton loophole.”
For anti-fracking activists citizens and families concerned with health and protecting their environment, communities and drinking water and environmental groups in Pennsylvania, the CNX report is just the latest sign of the Shapiro administration’s lack of serious commitment to regulating the oil and gas industry in the state—and a confirmation that their initial disappointment and anger over the government’s partnership with the company was justified.Commitments are a tool used by corrupt politicians, companies, addicts, harm enabling deregulating regulators to keep stealing and or enabling the rich to keep stealing from the commons. I’ve never yet observed a frac’er’s commitment become reality.
“When you look at this report, there’s really not a whole lot that’s transparent about it. They don’t mention a single chemical that they used to frack. There’s nothing in this report that talks about water quality or radioactivity,” said Dr. Ned Ketyer, who is a pediatrician and the president of Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania.
“Why the DEP and the governor would trust CNX to do the right thing and to do it in a fully transparent way—it just boggles the mind.” $$$$$$$$$$$$ laundering and Power – Shapiro is ambitious. He gets the state to give mega bucks and breaks to frac’ers like CNX, they turn around and donate mega bucks back into financing his ambitions.
The Shapiro administration did not respond to requests for comment.
Ketyer and others have pointed out the hundreds of violations CNX has been assessed by DEP since 2020 and criminal charges against the company filed by then Attorney General Shapiro for violating the Air Pollution Control Act in 2021. In January, Deiuliis published a letter addressed to Ketyer in response to comments he made to the Wall Street Journal about fracking. Deiuliis accused Ketyer of being “anti-science” and said critics of the natural gas industry carry “a shrill fanaticism of a virulent religion.”Ya ya ya, heard all those smears again and again against scientists and or medical doctors/researchers warning of the endless health harms caused by frac’ing. I am a scientist. When I sent AER documented evidence of Encana breaking the law in my community – Encana’s own documented evidence, the regulator ignored the evidence and instead told the media I was that “crazy woman at Rosebud” then smeared me further to me being a criminal and a threat to their staff and the public, later escalated their smears to me being a terrorist, all without any evidence except of a frac’er breaking the law.
Advocates say CNX’s data is cherry-picked as they only measured a small number of the hundreds of chemicals that are associated with unconventional gas drilling and development, and they chose which sites to monitor (the company operates more than 500 gas wells as of December 2023).The arrogance and stupidity of CNX monitoring their own pollution while violating laws left and right, is astounding. Many rural Albertans would believe it, good thing Pennsylvanians are not.
“They’re only considering a handful of pollutants they’ve measured around just a few select wells that they chosealways upwind or when their wells were shut in?,” said Shannon Smith, the executive director of FracTracker Alliance, a nonprofit based in Pennsylvania that analyzes and tracks the impacts of oil and gas development.
Smith said CNX’s report is “full of outrageous claims and misinformation,” noting the company’s “snarky jabs” at local nonprofits “who are trying to advocate for families who are suffering from incredibly serious health impacts related to their industry.”
Ketyer called CNX’s language in the report aggressive, defensive and “dripping with condescension.”
OMG! TOO FUNNY!!“Unfounded accusations and innuendo drive current popular narratives regarding the potential health impacts of responsible natural gas development,” the company wrote. “The agendas of those ideologically or financially opposed to progress and development” leads to policy in Pennsylvania that is based on “speculation, emotion, fear and ideology instead of objective facts and data.”OMG! Frac’d fossil fuel is the most backward, polluting, harmful, out right stupid energy possible. It’s the culmination of the worst humanity’s stupidity and failings.
Smith and Ketyer both believe CNX’s intended audience for this report is not the general public but its investors. They pointed to recent news that the investment bank Piper Sandler had downgraded their outlook on the company.
“Whoever’s writing these reports from CNX’s perspective is doing it purely from an ideological and economically motivated standpoint,” Smith said. “They’re clearly not well-versed in public health science.”
In their report, CNX attacked a set of studies on the health impacts of fracking that were conducted by the University of Pittsburgh, funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and published in 2023. Calling the studies fatally flawed, CNX said their report’s results “cast doubt and raise concern about the validity” of the studies’ results on asthma, birth weights and childhood cancer. The studies concluded that living near fracking wells was correlated with increased risk of worsening asthma symptoms, lower birth weights and lymphoma in children.
Juxtaposing their methods with the university researchers’, CNX said the monitoring they’ve carried out on their own wells shows that their program of self-regulation is the “superior path forward when setting public policy.” Self regulation by proven law-violating polluting frac’ers, lawyers and or judges means no regulation.
But Carmi Orenstein, a co-author of the compendium of findings on fracking and program director for Concerned Health Professionals of New York, said in a statement that the Pittsburgh studies are part of a much larger body of independent research on fracking, public health and contamination.
The Pennsylvania studies in the compendium, Orenstein said, reveal connections between living near fracking and asthma, poor infant health, leukemia, lymphoma, sinus symptoms, increased risk of hospitalization, lower birth weights and migraines.
“To dismiss en masse the methodologies and results of these studies is to dismiss the work of dozens of Pennsylvania’s own experts representing a range of fields within many of the state’s scholarly institutions, and their colleagues elsewhere,” she said, adding that epidemiologists are trained to consider consistency and biological plausibility when they publish their results and to include an assessment of the statistical strength and context of their own work.
The Pittsburgh studies relied on data and records from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s cancer registry and the DOH’s birth registry.
“The complaints show a lack of knowledge about how epidemiological studies work,” Ketyer said, of CNX’s characterization of the Pittsburgh studies’ results as “loose statistics molded to infer vague associations.” Ketyer was a member of the external advisory board for the Pittsburgh studies, a board that also included representatives from Shell Oil and the American Petroleum Institute.
“You don’t have to have proof of causation to know that there’s something wrong and that people need to be protected. The studies are not designed to find proof, and finding proof is extremely difficult,” he said. “You don’t expose people to chemical X and then see what happens to them. That’s not how science works. You build up evidence, and now we have a mountain of evidence showing that fracking was harmful to the environment.” Since the studies were published in 2023, the Shapiro administration has not commented publicly on their results.
“It is entirely disingenuous for CNX—which is in business to extract gas—to accuse independent researchers of using ‘ambiguous and suspect statistics to goal-seek to their desired conclusions,’” Orenstein said. “On the contrary, scientists have sought, in highly challenging circumstances (such as dealing with trade secrets and regulatory loopholes around fracking chemicals) to shed light on what is, in fact, a massive experiment being conducted on Pennsylvania residents without their consent, and with few precautionary protections.”Canadians are frac guinea pigs too in the “brute force and ignorant” frac experiment.
Orenstein said that peer-reviewed scientific studies on fracking document an “unfolding public health crisis.”
“It is deeply alarming that the governor of Pennsylvania aligns himself with a company that denies this fact,” she said.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Public Health said that the school “is grateful to the citizens and communities of Southwestern Pennsylvania for their contributions to and thoughtful feedback on the PA Health and Environment studies.
“The Pennsylvania Department of Health contracted with Pitt to perform the studies according to a specified scientific design,” the spokesperson said. “The results contribute significantly to our knowledge of the links between unconventional natural gas development and health outcomes, providing important avenues for future research to investigate.”
At the time of the announcement, the administration hailed the CNX partnership as “historic” and said its provisions addressed several recommendations made in a 2020 grand jury report on fracking that was spearheaded by Shapiro when he was attorney general.
That report recommended expanding all well setbacks to 2,500 feet and mandating disclosure of all chemicals used in fracking, especially those subject to “trade secret” loopholes. The other recommendations covered pipelines, waste transport, the revolving door between employment at DEP and the industry, the involvement of the Department of Health and extending the jurisdiction for environmental crimes.
Ketyer said the only aspect he had seen significant improvement on since the report’s release four years ago was better communication between the Department of Health and DEP and better response times from DOH when residents who live near a fracking site complain about health effects.
The grand jury report offers a detailed glimpse into the harms suffered by Pennsylvania residents over 20 years of fracking in the state. Many of these symptoms, including nosebleeds, lethargy, ulcers and rashes, were suffered by children.
“Of all people, Governor Shapiro should know better,” Ketyer said, pointing to Shapiro’s involvement with the grand jury investigation and the fact that Shapiro’s father is a pediatrician. “He’s well aware of what is happening to Pennsylvanians.”
Above photo: Alberta rancher Howard Hawkwood and one of his dead calves after frac’ing
“He knows that people have gotten sick and are getting sick. He knows that farmers have lost animals. He knows that people have lost their drinking water. He knows that fracking is accelerating the climate crisis,” Ketyer said. “He knows, but the fact is, he’s complicit in allowing this to continue.”
Residents say Pennsylvania has failed communities after state studies linked fracking to child cancer, Last year Pennsylvania Department of Health studies showed increased risk of childhood cancer, asthma and low birth weights for people living near fracking. Advocates say not enough has been done since by Kristina Marusic, Sep 19, 2024, EHN
PITTSBURGH — More than a year after the Pennsylvania Department of Health published three studies linking fracking to cancer and other health effects, advocates say the agency failed to keep promises to help residents living near fracking wells.
The studies, conducted by University of Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania Department of Health researchers, found that residents living near fracking wells were more likely to experience childhood cancer, severe asthma attacks and low birth weights. They added to dozens of other studies linking living near fracking wells with various health problems, including cancer, poor birth outcomes and cardiovascular and respiratory issues
Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf ordered the studies, commonly referred to as “the Pitt studies,” after residents of fracking communities with high rates of rare childhood cancers demanded more research.
The researchers who conducted the study shared the results in August 2023 at a public meeting. They looked at health records and fracking data from 2010-2020 in the eight county Southwestern Pennsylvania region and found, among other things, that children who lived within one mile of one or more fracking wells were five to seven times more likely to develop lymphoma compared to children who don’t live near fracking wells.
It also found people with asthma living within 10 miles of fracking wells were four to five times more likely to experience a severe asthma attack during the production phase and an increased risk of having babies that are small for gestational age among Pennsylvanians living within 10 miles of fracking wells.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health pledged action in response to the findings, but residents and environmental advocates say the agency hasn’t done enough.
“Millions of dollars have been spent on this study only for it to be buried,” said Stacy Magda, a community organizer with the Mountain Watershed Association during a virtual press conference organized by five environmental and health advocacy groups on Tuesday.
The groups that held the press conference, which included the Center for Coalfield Justice, the Pennsylvania chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Mountain Watershed Association, the Environmental Health Project and FracTracker Alliance, also launched a petition asking Governor Josh Shapiro and the Pennsylvania Department of Health to take further action aimed at protecting residents who live near fracking wells.
Janice Blanock, a resident of Cecil Township, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles from Pittsburgh, held back tears as she spoke at the press conference over Zoom from a neighbor’s backyard, where a new fracking well was visible in the background. In 2016, her 19-year-old son Luke died from a rare bone cancer.
“I’ll never know exactly what caused my son’s cancer,” Blanock said. “I’ll never know why there are such high rates of rare cancers in my community. But I do know that harm is being done. And that pollution can make us sick … I am here to demand that Governor Shapiro address the results of the [studies].”
During the 2023 public meeting when the studies were presented, the Pennsylvania Department of Health announced the launch of a continuing medical education program on environmental exposures, said it would start a program to educate schools in fracking communities about air quality, said it had developed a new form for submitting environmental health complaints, and promised to continue reviewing cancer data in the region.
“Disseminating public health guidance and research are critical functions of the Department of Health,” said Talor Musil, a field manager at the Environmental Health Project during the press conference. “Neither has yet taken place in relation to these three studies, or any shale gas development topics. And this ultimately indicates a lack of leadership by Governor Shapiro to defend the health and safety of Pennsylvanians.”
Barry Ciccocioppo, the communications director for the Pennsylvania Department of Health, defended the department’s actions. In an email, he told EHN “the [Pitt studies] help advance our understanding of the potential health impacts from hydraulic fracturing operations, and we are continuing to take actionby doing little but lie, denigrate scientists and physicians, and make fancy promises to improve the health and safety of Pennsylvania residents.”
He pointed to several initiatives related to educating medical professionals about fracking and health, including a recent presentation on the topic by Department of Health staff to a group of medical care providers and seeking approval for continuing education credits for nursing with a recorded version of that presentation (which will be publicly posted online “in the near future”). He also pointed to both past and planned presentations on the topic through a Penn State University program called ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes).
He said the Department of Health is still working with the Department of Education to provide educational materials for schools and families, and the first of those documents is available online. He did not specify a timeline for this work.
The Department of Health also said it would begin work on an updated review of the literature on health and fracking. Ciccocioppo pointed to the agency’s 2019 literature review and said DOH is reviewing new scientific papers on health and fracking as they’re published and will post summaries on those papers on its website eventually, but he did not say that a formal literature review is underway.Same old useless deflection, used in Canada too. We do not need more study, or more review of the hundreds of studies already done showing frac’ing harms health and communities. The world needs frac’ing criminalized, globally.
Governor Shapiro’s fracking stance
Several speakers at the press conference expressed frustration with Backstabber liar extraordinaire Governor Shapiro’s shifting stance on fracking. As attorney general, Shapiro oversaw a grand jury investigation that concluded there was “systematic failure by government agencies in overseeing the fracking industry,” filed criminal charges against several fracking companies for environmental violations and recommended bolstered industry regulations.
But as governor, Shapiro has entered into a controversial partnership with CNX Resources, a fracking company that pleaded no contest to criminal charges for misreporting air monitoring data in violation of the state’s Air Pollution Control Act in 2021 — charges that were brought by Shapiro while he was the state’s Attorney General. The company has also received more than 2,000 violations from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection since 2004.
CNX’s “Radical Transparency” projectwhich helps the company lie and cover-up their crimes and harms better launched in 2023, and a recent press release from the company claims that preliminary data from several months of self-reported air monitoring at selected fracking wells “expose the flawed nature of the oft-cited University of Pittsburgh Health Study and its highly suspect results,” and indicate “that natural gas development done the CNX way is safe and inherently good for the communities where we operate.”Ya, I know those type of self-done and self-reported “studies.” Encana’s fudgy noise studies at Rosebud were loaded with violations of the noise control directive, e.g. turning their noisiest compressor off during compressor noise measurements, secretly moving noise recording devices to where they would not be representative of compressor noise, etc. In Alberta, air pollution studies by industry measure pollutants upwind of chemical spewing facilities and operations, or when turned off/shut in. Typical “best” industry practices to keep poisoning communities, enabled by AER, Alberta Environment, UCP and even churches!
“CNX has claimed that fracking poses no public health risks with a photo of Governor Shapiro at the top of the report to imply an endorsement from his Administration of these findings,” Environmental Health Project’s Musil said. She added that it’s not meaningful to compare results from a months-long self-monitoring air emissions report by a fracking company to a years-long study of health data by academic and regulatory agency researchers.
Jodi Borello, a community organizer with the Center for Coalfield Justice, added, “CNX Resources cannot be trusted to accurately report air data — that’s what their criminal charges were originally for. Governor, Shapiro’s relationship with the criminal company CNX Resources is not a public health response.”
Westmoreland County resident Diana Steck, who says her family’s health has been impacted by a landfill that processes fracking waste, said the state agencies’ innaction “is not only unacceptable, it is immoral,” in a statement that was read during the press conference. “Governor Shapiro, it’s time for you to stop cozying up to polluters like CNX … and take action to protect our public health, especially that of our children.”
Refer also to:
2021: New study: Songbirds’ reproductive success reduced by natural gas compressor noise.
…
In 2007 when Delaware Riverkeeper first became an advocate for preserving that watershed from shale gas development, there were only six (6) peer-reviewed science, engineering, and public health publications on the actual impacts of shale gas development worldwide.
Today, [8] years later, there are over 580 such publications, and that number increases daily. Alarmingly, about 80% of those have been published since January 1, 2013 and over 50% in just the past year and a half: where it has occurred, shale gas development has been done largely in ignorance of its impacts. A review of those 580 publications in the key categories of impacts to human health, to air, and to water reveals that
94% find harmful impacts to human health,
69% find harmful impacts on water quality, and
88% find harmful impacts to air quality.
On top of this nascent but rapidly growing base of peer-reviewed publication of data and information there now comes the CNA report adding a timely and exhaustive basis for giving context to these harmful impacts in the Marcellus play, and especially that part not yet developed, the Delaware River Basin. The epoch of anecdotes is over: we know have firm scientific evidence of the harmful impacts of shale gas development as forecast in the CNA report.
…
2014: Benzene Exposure Near the US Permissible Limit Is Associated With Sperm Aneuploidy
2012:
2012 Cover of Mountain View Gazette: Frac harmed rural Albertan Kimberly Mildenstein, mother of three, attending councillor Paddy Munro’s frac presentation where he described frac’ing as “crimes against humanity.”
2012:
2011 by Lisa Braken, frac harmed by Encana in Colorado:
