January 05, 2012, 11:28 PM EST
By Alex Wayne and Katarzyna Klimasinska
Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) —

The U.S. should study whether hydraulic fracturing used to free natural gas from wells is a hazard to people or food sources, a top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The Environmental Protection Agency, which is preparing regulations to govern fracking with the Interior Department, plans to study the effect of the drilling procedure, also known as fracking, on drinking water. Additional studies should examine whether wastewater from the wells can harm people or animals and vegetables they eat, said Christopher Portier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

“We do not have enough information to say with certainty whether shale gas drilling poses a threat to public health,” he said in an e-mail sent by Vivi Abrams, a spokeswoman. President Barack Obama has lauded increased natural gas drilling as a way to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and on coal, which is more damaging to the environment when burned. Officials in his administration have been cautious when discussing possible health effects of hydraulic fracturing.

The EPA “will use its authorities to protect local residents if a driller endangers water supplies and the state and local authorities have not acted,” the agency’s administrator, Lisa Jackson, told Congress in May. Obama, she said, “has made clear that we need to extract natural gas without polluting our water supplies.”

Monitor Exposure
The fracking process injects water, sand and chemicals into deep shale formations to free natural gas. The compounds used should be monitored, Portier said, and drinking water wells should be tested before and after drilling. Studies also should address “all the ways people can be exposed” to fracking products, including through air, water, soil, plants and animals. Increased use of the process has raised gas production, reduced prices 32 percent last year and spurred questions about the environmental effects.
The U.S. has sought to dismiss a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman against federal agencies, seeking stronger regulation of fracking at as many as 18,000 wells in his state. The petroleum industry says the lawsuit could shut down drilling in the Delaware River Basin “for many years to come” if successful.

‘Effective’ Regulation
“Measures required by state regulatory agencies in the exploration and production of deep shale natural gas and oil formations have been very effective in protecting drinking water aquifers from contamination attributable to fracking,” Chesapeake Energy, the second-largest producer of natural gas, said in a document in September explaining the process.

Portier wouldn’t say whether fracking should be stopped or more tightly regulated until studies are completed. “Our role is to determine what the risks are, and it is up to the public to decide if they are OK with that risk,” he said. U.S. natural gas production rose to a record 2.5 trillion cubic feet in October, a 15 percent increase from October 2008, the month before Obama was elected, according to an Energy Information Administration report issued Dec. 28.

Some “data of concern” are showing up at fracking sites, Portier said. Fluids used in drilling contain “potentially hazardous chemical classes” including petroleum distillates, volatile organic compounds and glycol ethers. Wastewater may also contain salts and be radioactive, he said.

In December, the EPA said for the first time that it had found chemicals consistent with those used in drilling in groundwater near wells in Wyoming. The driller, Encana Corp., has disputed the agency’s findings.

Methane, Earthquakes
Pennsylvania regulators warned residents near Scranton not to drink well water in September 2010 after methane was detected in the Susquehanna River and in wells near drilling sites.

Youngstown, Ohio residents say they’ve experienced earthquakes since D&L Energy Inc. began injecting fracking wastewater into a 9,300-foot disposal well. Ben Lupo, president and chief executive officer of the company, said he doesn’t think his well is causing the temblors. While the federal government prepares fracking regulations, states also monitor the process, which has led the industry to complain of unnecessary supervision.

The Obama administration is pursuing “an incoherent approach to natural gas development” by promoting its benefits while “ratcheting up pressure for new layers of duplicative regulations,” said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, in remarks prepared for a speech today. The institute represents more than 490 energy companies including Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest company by market value.

–With assistance from Jim Snyder in Washington. Editors: Adriel Bettelheim, Andrew Pollack
To contact the reporters on this story: Alex Wayne in Washington at awayne3@bloomberg.net; Katarzyna Klimasinska in Washington at kklimasinska@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Adriel Bettelheim at abettelheim@bloomberg.net

Special thanks to Richard Charter

The Florida Current

A bill that would seem to encourage more seismic exploration and new oil drilling in state parks and forests to generate state revenue has been filed in the Florida Legislature.

HB 695 would allow state land management agencies to enter into partnerships with businesses to produce oil and gas. The Cabinet, which oversees the use of state lands, must approve any such public-private partnership agreement.

The bill was filed in November by Rep. Clay Ford, R-Pensacola, chairman of the House Federal Affairs Subcommittee and former chairman of the House Energy & Utilities Subcommittee.

No distinction was made in the bill as to which state lands would be off limits to exploration and drilling. Ford and Sen. Greg Evers, R-Crestview and sponsor of the Senate companion bill (SB 1158), did not respond to calls on Thursday seeking comment.

The bills haven’t been heard by any committees. However, they are raising concerns among environmental group representatives.

Although the fight over drilling in Florida for decades has focused on the Gulf of Mexico, oil wells have existed for decades in the Florida Panhandle and southwest Florida. There are 119 wells in Santa Rosa and Escambia counties in the Panhandle and 36 wells in Lee, Collier and Hendry counties in Southwest Florida, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

There is seismic exploration now at Blackwater River State Forest in Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties, said Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

A DEP spokeswoman said three permitted wells in Blackwater River State Forest are being plugged and abandoned and the sites restored.

HB 695 by Ford states that exploration and drilling on state lands may produce “significant” monetary reward. And the bill says new seismic exploration along with directional and horizontal drilling is more thorough and productive than older methods of drilling and exploration.

The bill is raising concerns among environmentalists because it makes no reference to environmental safeguards nor any distinction about which state lands could be used for exploration and drilling.

David Cullen of Sierra Club Florida said the bill represents an “irresponsible gamble” for short-term monetary game as reflected by the Gulf oil spill in 2010. He said spills could damage state lands for decades and harm the economies of neighboring communities.

Audubon of Florida’s Julie Wraithmell said she doesn’t know whether the bill was written to address a particular parcel of state land, such as Blackwater River State Forest.

“I would hesitate to say unilaterally that no drilling on state-owned lands is appropriate,” Wraithmell said. “But I do think conservation lands should be held to a very high standard, and I think there is an argument to be made that it [drilling] is not appropriate.”
Florida Petroleum Council Executive DirectorDavid Mica mentioned during an interview Wednesday about the Vote4energy.orgcampaign that his group supports the bill along with HB 87 and SB 1188.

HB 87 and SB 1188 would create a tiered tax system to encourage production from “mature” oil fields. During a House Energy & Utilities Committee hearing in December on HB 87, bill sponsor Rep. Matt Hudson, R-Naples, said production from those old wells had not caused ecological harm.

Mica could not be reached on Thursday to discuss his group’s support for HB 695 by Ford. Neither DACS nor the Florida Department of Environmental Protection have taken positions on the bill.

Reporter Bruce Ritchie can be reached at britchie@thefloridacurrent.com.

Special thanks to Richard Charter.

>
> Proposed Western Planning Area Lease Sales 229, 233, 238, 246, and 248 and
> Proposed Central Planning Area Lease Sales 227, 231, 235, 241, and 247
>
> The U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announces the availability of the draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for 10 proposed Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas lease sales in the Western Planning Area (WPA) and Central Planning Area (CPA) of the Gulf of Mexico. These proposed lease sales are scheduled for 2012-2017 in the proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program: 2012-2017. The BOEM is proposing to offer for oil and gas leasing approximately 21.2 million acres in the WPA, excluding whole and partial blocks within the boundary of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary and whole and partial blocks that lie within the former Western Gap and are within 1.4 nautical miles north of the continental shelf boundary between the U.S. and Mexico. The BOEM is also proposing to offer for oil and gas leasing approximately 38.6 million acres in the CPA, excluding blocks that were previously included within the Eastern Planning Area and are within 100 miles (161 kilometers) of the Florida coast blocks east of the Military Mission line (86 degrees, 41 minutes West longitude) under an existing moratorium until 2022, as a result of the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 (December 20, 2006) blocks that are beyond the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone in the area known as the northern portion of the Eastern Gap and whole and partial blocks that lie within the former Western Gap and are within 1.4 nautical miles north of the continental shelf boundary between the U.S. and Mexico.
>
The BOEM published in the February 9, 2011, Federal Register, a Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an EIS. The NOI sought input on the scope of the EIS, which covered oil and gas lease sales tentatively scheduled in 2012-2017 in the WPA and CPA offshore the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. The BOEM published in the December 30, 2011, Federal Register, a NOA of a Draft EIS for five proposed annual areawide lease sales scheduled for the WPA and five proposed annual areawide lease sales scheduled for the CPA. The proposed WPA lease sales are Lease Sale 229 in 2012, Lease Sale 233 in 2013, Lease Sale 238 in 2014, Lease Sale 246 in 2015, and Lease Sale 248 in 2016 the proposed CPA lease sales are Lease Sale 227 in 2013, Lease Sale 231 in 2014, Lease Sale 235 in 2015, Lease Sale 241 in 2016, and Lease Sale 247 in 2017. This Draft Multisale EIS also analyzes relevant new information regarding the Deepwater Horizon event.
>
The BOEM will hold public meetings to obtain comments regarding the Draft Multisale EIS. The meetings are scheduled as follows:

> • Houston, Texas: January 10, 2012, Houston Airport Marriott at George Bush Intercontinental, 18700 John F. Kennedy Boulevard, Houston, Texas 77032, beginning at 1:00 p.m. CDT

> • New Orleans, Louisiana: January 11, 2012, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, 1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard, New Orleans, Louisiana 70123, beginning at 1:00 p.m. CDT and

> • Mobile, Alabama: January 12, 2012, Five Rivers—Alabama’s Delta Resource Center, 30945 Five Rivers Boulevard, Spanish Fort, Alabama, beginning at 1:00 p.m. CST.
>
Federal, State, and local government agencies and other interested parties are requested to send their comments on the Draft Multisale EIS no later than February 15, 2012, in one of the following two ways:

> 1. In an envelope labeled “Comments on the Multisale Draft EIS” to Mr. Gary D. Goeke, Chief, Regional Assessment Section, Office of Environment (MS 5410), Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, 1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard, New Orleans, Louisiana 70123-2394 and

> 2. BOEM email address: MultisaleEIS@BOEM.gov.

> Because this Draft Multisale EIS is over 2,000 pages, BOEM will be distributing a very limited number of paper copies. In keeping with the Department of the Interior’s mission of protection of natural resources, and to limit costs while ensuring availability of the document to the public, BOEM will primarily distribute digital copies of the EIS on compact discs. However, if you require a paper copy, BOEM will provide one upon request.

> 1. You may obtain a copy of this Draft Multisale EIS (either on CD-ROM or a printed version) from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Gulf of Mexico OCS Region, 1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard, New Orleans, Louisiana 70123-2394, Attention: Public Information Office (MS 5034), 1201 Elmwood Park Boulevard, Room 250, New Orleans, Louisiana 70123-2394 (1 800-200-GULF).

> 2. You may download or view the Draft Multisale EIS on > BOEM’s website at > http://www.boem.gov/Environmental-Stewardship/Environmental-Assessment/NEPA/nepaprocess.aspx.

> If you have any questions, please call Mr. Gary D. Goeke at (504) 736-3233.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/02

Published on Monday, January 2, 2012 by The Hill (Washington, DC)
by Andrew Restuccia

With President Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL pipeline looming, the White House and Republicans will spend the next several weeks trying to win the messaging war over the controversial project.

The stakes are high for both sides. Obama risks backlash from key union supporters if he rejects the project, but faces the ire of environmental groups if he approves it. [ Will Wysong)] By arguing that the GOP-backed measure will force the administration to reject Keystone on a technicality, the White House can avoid having to weigh in on the substantive issues raised by the pipeline — including whether it will boost the economy or harm the environment. (photo: Will Wysong)

Republicans, meanwhile, stand to score a political victory if Obama green lights the pipeline. But their successful effort to force a decision could backfire if the president rejects the pipeline and pins blame on the GOP for rushing the review.

TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline would carry oil sands crude from Alberta, Canada, to refineries along the Gulf coast. The proposed project, which has been under federal review for years, has set off a firestorm in Washington, with supporters arguing the pipeline will boost the ailing economy and opponents raising concerns about oil spills and greenhouse gas emissions from oil-sands production.

Both sides are mobilizing to win the messaging war. White House and Obama administration officials have said they will have little choice but to reject the pipeline under the 60-day timeline that was outlined in the payroll tax package that passed in December.

By arguing that the GOP-backed measure will force the administration to reject Keystone on a technicality, the White House can avoid having to weigh in on the substantive issues raised by the pipeline — including whether it will boost the economy or harm the environment.

Obama sought in November to delay a final verdict on the pipeline by calling for review of alternative routes around the environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region of Nebraska. The move delayed a decision on the project until 2013 to give the administration time to conduct additional review of the new route.

The State Department, which is leading a multi-agency review of the proposed pipeline, has said the administration will have no choice but to reject Keystone because the expedited timeline pushed by Republicans will not leave enough time to conduct the review.

Other administration and White House officials have echoed that line. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said earlier this month on Twitter that the GOP-backed Keystone provision “simply shortens the review process in a way that virtually guarantees that the pipeline will NOT be approved.”

Environmental groups echoed the administration’s comments this week, arguing that Republicans have sealed Keystone’s demise.

“The president is going to have no choice but to reject the pipeline,” said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of international programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “I don’t see any wiggle room.”

Proponents of the project are pushing back. Marty Durbin, a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, said the measure in the tax package allows for rerouting the pipeline around the environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region of Nebraska, a requirement the Obama administration has said is essential for approval of the project.

“It gives them the time they need, however much time they need, to review what’s going on in Nebraska,” Durbin said.

Under the Keystone measure, if Obama approves the pipeline, the final permit must require the rerouting, along with necessary review of the new route by the state of Nebraska. But it specifically bars additional federal environmental review of the project, as the State Department has proposed.

Supporters of the pipeline are upping the pressure on Obama to quickly approve the project, arguing there will be political consequences if he rejects it.

“In our view it’s a slam dunk decision because it benefits the country in terms of jobs and national security,” Durbin said. “I think there will be a potential backlash if he rejects the project.”

Matt Letourneau, spokesman for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, said Obama needs to make a decision on the merits.

“Right now, the issue in front of the president is whether the pipeline is in the national interest or not, and that’s where we think the discussion should be,” Letourneau said. “Using some other issue as a reason to avoid making that decision, to us, is not sound policy.”

http://www.alternet.org/story/153475/why_is_the_fda_saying_it%27s_ok_to_eat_seafood_10%2C000_times_over_the_safe_limit_for_dangerous_carcinogens?page=entire

My cynical selfs tells me we knew this all along. How can you slime the Gulf benthos with tons of toxic dispersant without contaminating the food chain? DV

By Brad Jacobson

FDA not only downplayed the risk of contamination, but ignored staff members who proposed higher levels of contamination protection.
December 18, 2011

Ever since the largest offshore oil spill in history spewed into the Gulf of Mexico last year, independent public health experts have questioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to effectively protect Americans from consuming contaminated seafood.

Now a recent study by two of the most tenacious non-government scientists reveals that FDA Gulf seafood “safe levels” allowed 100 to 10,000 times more carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in seafood than what is safe. The overarching issue the report addresses is the failure of the FDA’s risk assessment to protect those most vulnerable to the effects of these chemicals, such as young children, pregnant women and high-consumption seafood eaters.

In an effort to pinpoint how the FDA decided to set its acceptable levels for PAH contaminants in Gulf seafood, researchers at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which performed the study — published in the leading peer-reviewed environmental health journal Environmental Health Perspectives — also scoured documents wrested from the FDA under the Freedom of Information Act.

These include internal emails and unreleased assessments that suggest the FDA not only downplayed the risk of contamination but also that the EPA, and even members of FDA staff, had proposed higher levels of contamination protection, which in the end were ignored.

In vehemently denying the NRDC study’s findings, the FDA argues that its chemical risk assessments are inherently biased “on the side of safety” and that setting higher protective health measures for PAHs in Gulf seafood would actually “do more harm than good.”

Robert Dickey, director of the FDA’s Gulf Coast Seafood Laboratory, who’s taken the lead for the agency in responding to the NRDC report, elaborated in an email to AlterNet, “Overly conservative estimates would lead you [to] remove a great deal of food from our refrigerators and pantries than is needed.”

In an interview with AlterNet, the study’s lead researcher, NRDC staff scientist Miriam Rotkin-Ellman, said that such a response from the FDA “begs the question of whether or not it was a political versus a scientific decision” because the agency “does not provide scientific evidence” for the claim that being more health protective somehow carries an increased risk of doing harm.

She added, “PAHs in food have been evaluated and standards set in the European Union without jeopardizing anyone’s nutrition.”

AlterNet confirmed that the FDA indeed has provided no scientific evidence to back up this claim in either its formal response to the NRDC report or in addressing AlterNet’s questions.

More broadly, the FDA declined to directly explain the email correspondence the study’s researchers obtained in the FOIA request. They reveal that the Environmental Protection Agency, and even members of the FDA’s own staff, questioned the FDA’s seafood safety risk assessment criteria for protecting the most vulnerable populations, particularly Gulf residents.

Other documents received via the FOIA request show that the FDA considered multiple other potential calculations and criteria where more health protective risk assessments were considered but never followed.

Asked if these documents, along with the NRDC study’s findings, belie the FDA’s chief claim that their risk assessments are biased “on the side of safety,” Dickey responded, “The seafood safety risk assessment was developed in extensive and open collaboration between FDA, EPA, CDC, NOAA, and public health experts and toxicologists from all five Gulf states impacted by the oil spill.”

He added, “During that process many factors and calculations were considered before the final version was agreed on by all participants.”

Dickey also claims that the FDA has “built into our assessments, a more than 100-fold safety factor that gives us confidence that sensitive populations are protected.”

Yet Rotkin-Ellman countered that this conclusion is based on “outdated science” in which FDA calculations relied on the average lifetime weight of a 176-pound person.

“FDA continues to ignore the best scientific evidence on early-life vulnerability to chemical contaminants, which has shown that it is not sufficient to rely on life-time assessments,” she said.

“The National Academy of Sciences and EPA guidelines emphasize that additional steps must be taken to specifically assess early-life stages,” Rotkin-Ellman continued, “which includes calculating exposure based on age-specific bodyweights and adjusting to account for increased susceptibility.”

The NRDC study found, for example, that the risk of cancer associated with eating Gulf shellfish contaminated at levels the FDA has deemed safe could be as high as 20,000 in a million. In other words, if 1,000 pregnant women consumed Gulf seafood at these levels, 20 of the children they give birth to would be at significant risk of cancer from the contamination.

The report also concluded that based on available testing data on PAH levels in shellfish after the spill, up to 53 percent of the shrimp tested had PAH levels exceeding the NRDC researchers’ revised levels of concern for pregnant women who are high consumers of Gulf shellfish.

In the interview with Rotkin-Ellman, she highlighted many other central weaknesses in the FDA’s protective criteria for PAHs in Gulf seafood about which she and her NRDC study co-author and UCSF clinical professor of health sciences, Gina Solomon, have long been concerned. These include underestimating the amount of seafood Gulf residents consume, ignoring cancer risk from naphthalene contamination (one of the most prevalent PAHs in petroleum) and projecting the contamination will only last five years.

Another key finding the NRDC report confirmed is that the FDA has no set levels of acceptable PAHs in seafood, but rather creates them on a case-by-case basis after each oil spill.

For example, the FDA made PAH “safe levels” less stringent after the BP oil spill than they had been following the Exxon-Valdez spill.

Asked to explain this practice, Dickey replied, “Each oil spill can involve different kinds of crude oils or refined oil products in different types of environments, so the responses are different to account for the physical environment and the compounds of concern that must be tested for.”

He added, “Also, over time scientific knowledge of the toxicity of the many hundreds to thousands of compounds in oil and refined oil products increases, which directly affects the analysis of risks involved.”

But Rotkin-Ellman noted his answer simply evades the underlying question.

“There are core PAHs of public health concern that are present in most petroleum products that FDA could set standards for regardless of the specifics of an oil spill,” she said. “If analyses prove that those PAHs are not present in the next oil spill then those standards will not be applicable.”

But this variability, she went on to say, does not preclude FDA from evaluating health threats from PAHs now.

“The ad-hoc risk assessment performed by FDA without public or outside expert review,” Rotkin-Ellman added, “have jeopardized FDA’s credibility and they have lost public confidence.”

Currently, the FDA has no plans to begin setting standard levels of concern for PAHs in U.S. seafood, as Europe does to protect its citizens. The NRDC recently filed a petition with the FDA to change this practice but has yet to receive a response.

Gulf seafood continues to be tested on a limited basis. On the FDA’s Web site, the agency contends that seafood from the Gulf “is as safe to eat as it was before the oil spill.”
Brad Jacobson is a Brooklyn-based freelance journalist and contributing reporter for AlterNet. You can follow him on Twitter @bradpjacobson.

Special thanks to Elaine Granata