Halliburton Delayed Releasing Details on Fracking Chemicals After Monroe County Spill
A fracking company made federal and
state agencies that oversee drinking-water safety wait days before
it shared a list of toxic chemicals that spilled from a drilling site
into a tributary of the Ohio River.
What the
frack?? Mystery chemicals and drinking water in the same sentence?
Although the spill following a fire
on June 28 at the Statoil North America well pad in Monroe County
stretched 5 miles along the creek and killed more than 70,000 fish
and wildlife, state officials said they do not believe drinking water
was affected.
Of course
it wasn't affected, you silly goose! Just planning for a giant fish fry, that's all!
But environmental advocacy groups
said they wonder how the state can be sure.
Cuz the
best liars that money can buy were brought in!
A U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency report obtained by The Dispatch shows that the
federal and state EPA officials had to wait five days before
they were given a full list of the fracking chemicals the drilling
company used at the site.
And they
were all perfectly legal...possibly even full of vitamins and good for us!
Halliburton, the company hired by
Statoil to frack the horizontal well, provided a partial list up
front that included most of the chemicals.
See?
Can't say they're not team players.
Others, which are protected by Ohio’s
trade-secrets law, were omitted.
Hey, a
secret's a secret.
“How can communities know that they
are being protected when an incident like this happens?” said
Teresa Mills, an environmental activist and Ohio organizer with the
Center for Health, Environment and Justice.
Oh, that
Terry...such a worrier!
“We need more transparent laws.”
What on earth for? Halliburton is Cheney's old company before he became Vice President; we all know how honest and forthright he is.
To pull oil and natural gas from
shale, companies drill vertically and then turn sideways into the
rock.
Hmm...sounds
good so far...even clever.
Then they blast millions of gallons
of water, sand and chemicals into the shafts to free trapped oil and
gas in the process called fracking.
Good to
the last drop.
During the process, fluids bubble
back up to the surface with the gas.
And where do these "fluids" wind up?
Once a fracking job is finished,
drilling companies have 60 days to disclose what chemicals they used
to the Department of Natural Resources, which oversees drilling and
fracking operations in Ohio.
What if
they are harmful? They've already been used; no backsees!
Ohio law says that companies have to
disclose the contents of proprietary fracking mixes only to
firefighters or Natural Resources if there is an emergency, such as
fires or spills.
Like, Halliburton waits til after a spill, then discloses the mix?
In this case, both were given the
full list but did not share the details with other agencies.
Trade
secrets, right?
Halliburton has yet to finish
fracking the Monroe County well that caught fire.
What's the rush?
Chris Abbruzzese, an Ohio EPA
spokesman, said that on the day of the fire and spill, a
representative from a group that represents the federal and state EPA
offices, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and Monroe County
emergency management and fire workers asked Statoil and Halliburton
for a list of the chemicals.
“Once they realized that the
proprietary information wasn’t included, there were additional
(requests) made,” Abbruzzese said.
Natural Resources, which regulates
drilling in Ohio, has authority under state law to see the entire
list and asked on its own two days after the fire.
Halliburton, the company hired by
Statoil to frack the well, gave the list to the single agency.
But Natural Resources did not share
that information with either EPA office.
“Internal communication is
something we’re going to work on,” said Bethany McCorkle, a
Natural Resources spokeswoman.
Kirsten Henriksen, a spokeswoman for
Statoil, said the company hired an outside toxicology firm to test
both the creek and the Ohio River for toxic chemicals.
None was
found in the Ohio River, she said.
The Ohio River Valley Water
Sanitation Commission, a multi-state agency that tests the river,
also found no contaminants.
“Based on the chemicals that we
were aware of, if there had been any other chemicals that would have
been there, they all would have showed up (in tests),” Abbruzzese
said.
Kelly Scribner, a toxicologist with
the Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, which was hired
by Statoil to perform the tests, said she wasn’t given a full list
of chemicals either.
But, she said, the tests would have
shown abnormalities in the water either way.
Fracking chemicals include ethylene
glycol, which can damage kidneys; formaldehyde, a known cancer risk;
and naphthalene, considered a possible carcinogen.
The water tests showed elevated
levels of chlorides, salt and acetone in the creek near the well pad.
By the time federal and state EPA
officials were given the full list, those chemicals likely flowed
past towns along the Ohio River that draw in drinking water.
That worries some state lawmakers and
environmental advocacy groups.
“We’ve got 70,000 or so fish that
died,” said Nathan Johnson, an attorney for the Ohio Environmental
Council.
“Clearly, something was wrong with the water.”
Ya think?
The group has been lobbying the Ohio
legislature to pass laws that would force companies during
emergencies to immediately disclose the full list of chemicals to all
state agencies.
Oil and gas industry officials and
regulators have pushed back against additional regulations, saying
Ohio’s laws are more than adequate to protect people.
In a speech on Tuesday outside
Mansfield, Gov. John Kasich said Ohio has “very tough regulations”
concerning fracking.
Yeah, really tough!
“If the accidents happen, and we’re
not minding the store, or we’re looking the other way, that would
be a disaster for us,” he said.
Kasich told The Dispatch it
would be unacceptable for emergency responders, including federal and
Ohio EPA officials, not to know the full list of chemicals that might
have spilled into the river.“
We want people to know what the
fracking fluid contains,” he said.
Other states, including Pennsylvania
and Texas, make companies disclose the full list of chemicals within
30 days of wrapping up a fracking operation.
In Oklahoma, they must disclose the
chemicals to state regulators before a well is drilled.
The Statoil fire started on the
morning of June 28 when, according to preliminary reports, a hydraulic
line used during the fracking prpcrss broke.
The broken line sprayed fracking
fluid onto hot equipment, igniting it.
The fire spread to 20 trucks, which
went up in flames.
No workers were hurt, but one
firefighter was treated for smoke inhalation.
About 25 people who
live near the wells were evacuated.
The fire continued to smolder for six
days.
As it burned, firefighters doused it
with water and foam, washing chemicals from the site into the
tributary, which flows for five miles before reaching the Ohio
River.
That does
not sound good.
Legislators and environmental groups
say the Statoil fire illustrates a gap in the law that allows
fracking companies to determine when they release information and to
whom.
Hmm...sounds
like they're in the driver's seat. Wonder what that cost them.
“It is a huge problem,” said
Johnson, the Ohio Environmental Council attorney.
How huge
is it on a scale of 1 to 10?
“We’re essentially at the behest
of the company with the chemical information.”
That sux!
<< Home