tdc
Residents shout down oil and gas execs over fracking at US Steel mill
"We don't want you here. Go somewhere else."
Tensions ran hot Wednesday night during a community meeting about proposed fracking at the site of U.S. Steel's Edgar Thomson Steel mill in Braddock, 10 miles east of downtown Pittsburgh.
Approximately 200 residents jammed into the rowdy meeting, held in a fire hall bedecked with electronic bingo boards and folding chairs. Dozens lined up at a microphone to tell representatives from U.S. Steel, Merrion Oil and Gas, and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection exactly what they thought of the fracking plan.
"We've been dealing with U.S. Steel's poor environmental record here for 150 years," one resident said, pointing his finger at the oil and gas executives. "We have had enough. You keep saying you want to respect our community. If really want to respect our community, keep moving. Go somewhere else. We don't want you here."
Braddock community meeting on fracking at the Edgar Thomson millKristina Marusic/EHN
Under the plan, New Mexico-based Merrion would drill an unconventional horizontal well, or a "fracking" well, on part of U.S. Steel's property to provide the facility with natural gas.
Fracking, another name for hydraulic fracturing, is a process of extracting oil and gas by drilling deep wells and injecting liquid at high pressure. The practice has been linked with a range of health effects including skin, genital, and urinary issues, low birth weights, asthma, and depression. It has been banned by New York, Vermont, and Maryland, along with a growing number of U.S. counties and foreign countries like France, Germany and Ireland.
Densely populated, urban neighborhoods in Allegheny County surround the proposed well sites. The drilling infrastructure would primarily be located in North Versailles Township, but would also extend to East Pittsburgh and North Braddock.
Those communities include designated "Environmental Justice Areas," or census tracts where 20 percent or more individuals live in poverty, and/or 30 percent or more of the population is minority. Several of the residents who spoke pointed out that the racial makeup of the mostly-white panel did not mirror the racial makeup of the community members in the room, about a quarter of whom were people of color.
The representative from the Office of Environmental Justice, tasked with keeping the discourse civil during the meeting, noted that while the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has environmental justice policies in place, they're a bit of a "moving target:" The policies are not enforceable laws.
Braddock community meeting on fracking at the Edgar Thomson millKristina Marusic/EHN
Braddock community meeting on fracking at the Edgar Thomson millKristina Marusic/EHN
Merrion operates many conventional wells throughout the country, but this is the first unconventional or fracking well the company has ever proposed to drill, and their first well of any type in Pennsylvania, which has a unique topography.
Ryan Merrion, the great grandson of the founder of Merrion Oil and Gas, was in attendance. He and the other representatives from Merrion, U.S. Steel, and the Department of Environmental Protection wore suits and sat at long tables before microphones at the front of the room. Public attendees were asked to leave all protest signs outside the building. So instead many members of the audience wore black face masks with white lettering bearing messages like "Frack no" and "not for shale" or T-shirts reading "Our health vs. their wealth" and "Don't frack the E.T. Mill."
Heckling from the audience was frequent throughout a brief PowerPoint presentation from Merrion spokesperson Ryan Davis, which included statements about being a family company that prioritizes safety above all else, a slide emphasizing Merion's experience operating fracking wells in other urban areas, and a review of the company's plans to mitigate perceived safety concerns (video below).
Braddock community meeting on fracking at the Edgar Thomson millwww.youtube.com
The first person to take the microphone asked, to thunderous applause, why the community wasn't given access to the projector and invited to give a PowerPoint presentation, as Merrion had been.
When a representative from the Office of Environmental Justice repeatedly stated that they would not "take sides," a community member responded, "You're the Department of Environmental Protection. You're supposed to be on the side of protecting the environment."
Many residents raised concerns about increased traffic on Route 30 after a Merrion representative stated that it would receive the increased truck traffic associated with fracking. Last year, a landslide caused a stretch of the highway to collapse, destroying an apartment building, and residents worried that the increase of heavy vehicle traffic could cause a similar event.
Braddock community meeting on fracking at the Edgar Thomson millwww.youtube.com
Merrion operations manager Ryan Davis stated that the increased truck traffic was temporary and would reach a high volume only during the initial drilling phase. DEP spokesperson Scott Perry stated that the agency is not evaluating erosion near the highway as part of their permit review for the project.
Residents also repeatedly questioned how the project would benefit the community and why they should accept it. Davis answered that legally required impact fees will be distributed to the state and paid out to impacted municipalities.
"It's not our job to ask whether a project is good or bad for a community," answered DEP spokesperson Scott Perry. "Fundamentally, from DEP's perspective, this is a land use issue."
Many community members clearly felt frustrated by Perry's response. One heckler demanded to know whose job it was to decide whether the project was good or bad for the community, and how they could talk to them.
Others raised concerns about increased air pollution, an ongoing problem in the Pittsburgh area, and cited the statistic that children in the region's most polluted neighborhoods have asthma rates more than double the national average.
The DEP spokesperson was quick to say that their agency doesn't regulate air quality in this region and they aren't taking it into consideration while reviewing the three permits they've received for the project. Air quality in the region is overseen by the Allegheny County Health Department, which was not represented at the meeting. Some permitting for the project may need to go through that agency, but those permits have not yet been filed.
Braddock community meeting on fracking at the Edgar Thomson millKristina Marusic/EHN
Rachel Priselac, a young mother in attendance said she's hoping to have a second child, but is afraid, knowing that she lives within two miles of the proposed wells and that research has shown infants born in close proximity to fracking operations have low birth weights.
"I can not eat lunch meat or sushi," she said. "I can do everything else you're supposed to do while you're pregnant. But what I can't do is pick up and move my family away from our home because you have chosen to drill here. 21,000 people live in this community. How many of those are children, or people who want to have children?"
Many audience members also stated that they don't trust U.S. Steel due to their long history of clean air regulation violations and their history of contention with union workers, and asked why they should expect this project to go any differently.
Braddock community meeting on fracking at the Edgar Thomson millKristina Marusic/EHN
"My dad worked for U.S. Steel his whole life," said resident Tony Buba. "When I was a kid, my family was eating surplus cheese and peanut butter when the union went on strike because U.S. Steel didn't want to pay workers what they deserved. So my dad helped get the workers today the good contracts they have, but one thing he told me was, 'Never trust U.S. Steel.'"
He added, "In this community, we have to fight for everything. We had to fight for two years to try and save [our only] hospital. We have to fight for kids to feel safe in school. We have to fight for public transit so people can even get to their jobs. We have to fight for police to get proper training so they don't continue to shoot our children in the back."
Last year an East Pittsburgh police officer shot unarmed 17-year-old Antwon Rose in Braddock. The shooter was acquitted last week, and protests erupted throughout the greater Pittsburgh region.
"Meanwhile, we're riddled with asthma and cancer from pollution," Buba added. "We're exhausted. But as you can tell here today, we still won't stop fighting."
Michelle Wyman: For infrastructure of the future, focus on resilience
NCSE 2019 conference: Leading with science, paving the way to a sustainable future.
Editor's note: Environmental Health Sciences is proud to be a media partner with the National Council for Science and the Environment and will be at their annual conference Jan. 8-10.
The National Council for Science and the Environment is ringing in the new year with the NCSE 2019 annual conference focusing on the fundamental theme of "sustainable infrastructure & resilience."
Year after year, the NCSE community comes together as a collection of some of the most cutting-edge, relevant, and pertinent ideas on the cusp of science and environmental policy. NCSE brings together more than 700 scientists, educators, policy-makers, researchers, government officials, civil society members, and business leaders to work towards building a collective, sustainable future.
This year's conference theme builds upon the "science, business, and education of sustainable infrastructure" narrative from the NCSE 2018 conference. We are committed to improving and enhancing our built, natural, social, and cyber infrastructure. Equally important and worthy of exploration: The theme of resilience and the vital role resiliency plays in promoting sustainability.
Resiliency—commonly understood as the ability to withstand, adapt, and bounce back—goes hand in hand with our broad-based definition of sustainable infrastructure. The theme of this year's conference runs central to our lives and lived experiences. From the natural to the social, built, and cyber infrastructure, the resiliency and sustainability of our environment enables us to face and overcome some of our most pressing challenges confronting communities the world over.
This year's sessions cover an array of topics such as coastal resiliency, environment and health, transportation, and energy. Attendees will hear from a diverse pool of business leaders—UPS, the SPECTRUM group, Siemens, and Tesla—on their investments in research and innovative approaches to sustainability and carbon utilization. Keynote presenters include Carl Page, president of the Anthropocene Institute; Jeff Nesbit, executive director of Climate Nexus; and Julia Marton-Lefévre, former director general of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Visit our website to review the sessions, read about our speakers—and of course to register for this important event.
We invite you to be a part of the NCSE community and to network with hundreds of individuals, visit exhibits, and honor the leaders in the field. We look forward to welcoming you in Washington D.C. this January. Online registration is open until January 2. Join the dialogue, share your science and work, and be a part of building a resilient and sustainable future at the NCSE 2019 Annual Conference.
Michelle Wyman is executive director of the National Council for Science and the Environment
Here’s why NASA is working on a concept crewed mission to Venus
Here's a climate story that speaks to the 14-year-old science geek in all of us.
Start with some basics:
The Venusian atmosphere is comprised of 97 percent carbon dioxide, about 3 percent nitrogen and trace amounts of other gases.... The current climatic conditions and composition of the atmosphere are the result of a runaway greenhouse effect, (an extreme greenhouse effect that cannot be reversed) which transformed the planet from a hospitable Earth-like "twin" world in its early history.
That creates enough of an insulating blanket to drive the planet's surface temperature to 870ºF (460ºC), enough to melt metals like lead and bismuth—and which, the article notes, may fall as "snow" on Venus' higher mountain peaks.
By contrast, Earth's CO2 percentage is 0.04 percent (or 400 parts per million), and scientists fear a rise to 0.06 could render vast swathes of our planet uninhabitable or unsuitable for agriculture.
NASA, according to this fascinating story in Popular Science, is sketching ways to send manned airships to Venus' atmosphere to further our understanding of the evolution of our solar systems (and others!) and test the extremes of our climate models.
As surprising as it may seem, the upper atmosphere of Venus is the most Earth-like location in the solar system. Between altitudes of 50km and 60km, the pressure and temperature can be compared to regions of the Earth's lower atmosphere. The atmospheric pressure in the Venusian atmosphere at 55km is about half that of the pressure at sea level on Earth. In fact, you would be fine without a pressure suit, as this is roughly equivalent to the air pressure you would encounter at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.
Scientists have theorized that Venus and Earth were twins in their early history, formed of the same ingredients and each with oceans of water. But Venus gets far more sunlight, and NASA suspects Venus' oceans evaporated. Radiation broke apart the water vapor molecules: Hydrogen escaped to space, and CO2 accumulated.
Scientists see no chance that our human activities can trigger such a one-way ticket to warming. But it sure would be cool to be on a platform of an airship high above Venus, wearing little more than an air supply and a chemical haz-mat suit.
Read the full story on Popular Science.
Peter Dykstra: What will it take on climate change?
Hurricanes, algae blooms, rising seas and melting ice. How much more before climate denial fades away?
As the Florida Panhandle begins to recover from Hurricane Michael, the state's attention will turn to a big Senate race next month. Hurricane Michael may cast the deciding vote.
Term-limited Republican Gov. Rick Scott hopes to unseat veteran Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, and if he does, Democrats can kiss their hopes to take over the Senate goodbye.
Scott just completed a tour de force as the in-charge governor leading the emergency response to Michael. Like him or not, he's good at this. By contrast, Nelson is stiff and uneasy on TV. Fair or not, elections are decided by such things.
Scott is also a first-rate climate denier. In 2015, whistleblowers and former staffers for the state environment agency accused Scott of banning discussion of climate change in any state meetings or documents. Scott denied the charges.
For the past eight years, Scott has run a state experiencing rising seas, intense storms, and unprecedented algae blooms offshore. And this climate denier's political star may be rising. Go figure.
If he wins a Senate seat, Gov. Rick Scott will become the latest example of how climate denial is not a political liability.
Climate change is rarely mentioned as a factor in news coverage of extreme weather or wildfires. It was rarely mentioned in coverage of Hurricanes Florence and Michael. And it will be up to the somnolent Senator Nelson to make it an issue as he fights for his political life over the next four weeks. In the immediate wake of Hurricane Michael, he appears to be reticent to do so, for fear that he'd appear to be politicizing a tragedy.
Denial: Not a political liability
If he wins a Senate seat, Scott will become the latest example of how climate denial is not a political liability. The same can be said for Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas.
How did Republicans get to be the way they are today? It wasn't always this way. From about 2008 to 2010, some of the biggest names in the party backed away from previous statements and actions acknowledging the threat of climate change. Newt Gingrich disowned a famous climate commercial he did with Nancy Pelosi. Mitt Romney became a doubter after creating a forward-thinking climate action plan while Massachusetts governor. The late John McCain backed off after co-sponsoring climate legislation. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin – Sarah Palin!! – created a "climate sub-cabinet" before departing for national aspirations and reality TV.
As denial slowly fades among the general public, it's more firmly entrenched than ever in Washington, D.C.
By 2014, it was simply out of the question for a Republican who wanted to seek or keep an elective office to stump for climate action. "I am not a scientist" became a nonsensical disclaimer, as if lack of a Ph.D. robbed one of the moral authority to listen to real scientists and form an opinion. Scott was one of many who went there, as did Florida's other senator, Republican Marco Rubio.
Fertile turf
With the 2016 elections, President Trump's cabinet became fertile turf for climate deniers. As denial slowly fades among the general public, it's more firmly entrenched than ever in Washington, D.C.
Florida just got walloped by the most intense hurricane ever to landfall on its Gulf Coast. The summer saw algae blooms on both its coasts that surpassed any previous outbreaks. Miami Beach is actively preparing to elevate its streets to adapt to flooding that's already underway.
All of which returns us to the central question: Just what will it take to get climate deniers like Scott to admit that there might be a little problem here? If he's rewarded with a six-year term in the Senate, the solution may be more difficult than ever.
Grand hopes for a civil discussion on climate, dashed in the comments section
A call for unity around the latest warning from climate scientists finds the denial community alive and well.
Love science? Whatever you do, don't read the comment string on the Portland Press Herald's "Pearl Harbor" editorial.
The paper, circulation 57,000, editorialized that the latest climate report out of the scientific community "is our Pearl Harbor moment."
"This is not just an environmental crisis, it's a test of our ability to govern ourselves," the paper's editorial board concluded.
It's an optimistic, noble thought. If the comments at the end of the article are any indication, we're failing.
Worthy of your time: The full Press Herald editorial, along with the 49 (and counting) comments.
Peter Dykstra: Messiah wanted
The world desperately needs an environmental leader
Messianic, charismatic leaders are hard to come by, but not impossible. Gandhi led what is now a nation of a billion people to freedom. Mandela did the same with South Africa. Of the pantheon of heroes in the American civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. stands above all.
The global environmental movement has never had such a unifying leader. Maybe it's what's needed, particularly since in the U.S., the anti-environmental movement seems to have placed its own Messiah in the White House.
One would think that a movement that seeks to challenge so many ills and threats would have an easier time of it. Species and habitat loss, climate change, air and water pollution, declining sperm counts and hormone-disrupting chemicals, vanishing water supplies and a dozen other daunting challenges would be part of an environmental messiah's job description.
There's no shame in devoting one's life to a cause while falling short of Messiah status. Dozens of partial Messiahs have risen on single issues: Bill McKibben and Al Gore on climate; the late Wangari Maathai on agriculture; Sylvia Earle on oceans; Lois Gibbs on hazardous waste; and countless Goldman Environmental Prize winners, among many others.
Closer to home, Americans see little hope that environmental issues will be more than an afterthought in national politics. Al Gore left elective politics eighteen years ago; so bleak is the landscape that it's been ten years since a Presidential debate contained a question or substantial mention of compelling issues like climate change, or anything else environmental..
So who else is there? Pope Francis, with his unprecedented environmental encyclical Laudato Si? The Roman Catholic Church gives His Holiness a semi-captive audience of a billion followers.
Some big mitigating factors: Not all of those billion are on board; the Vatican is still the world's biggest obstacle to family planning and the Pope continues to spend both political capital and cold cash on the Church's seemingly neverending pedophilia/coverup scandal.
Might it be a pop culture giant like Leonardo DiCaprio? Historically, Hollywood's pop culture giants have limited range. Then again, there was Hollywood middleweight turned political giant Ronald Reagan, or climate-smart Arnold Schwarzenegger, a.k.a. Conan the Republican, the former governor of California.
How about someone with a seemingly unlimited bankroll like George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, or Tom Steyer? Bear in mind that "charismatic" is part of the equation.
These are the options that first come to mind for an aging, retired Catholic American male like me. Hopefully, somewhere in the world, there's a youthful dynamo, possibly a woman or person of color, who's ready to lead a person of pallor like me. If you know someone like that, could you let me know?
One final reason why it's urgent to find the voice, face, and reputation to help inspire and lead the world away from climate peril: All too often, the traditional sources of inspiration and political will to prevent environmental disaster has been disaster itself: A flaming river, melting icecap, or vanishing species for whom the political will arrives too late.
All too often, we've closed the barn door after the black rhino has left. Wherever you are, green Messiah, we need you.
Diversity in environmental organizations is improving, with still a long way to go.
A dispatch from the 2018 Society of Environmental Journalists Conference in Flint, Michigan
When it comes to leadership in environmental organizations, key positions are still held by white men.
Ethnic minorities represent less than 20 percent of staff at environmental organizations, despite representing more than 40 percent of the U.S. population, according to Dorceta Taylor, a University of Michigan professor who authored a 2014 study looking at the disparity. In environmental advocacy and grantmaking organizations as well as governmental agencies, power is held largely by white men, according to the study.
"We haven't solved the problem, but there's been an upward trend," Taylor said Friday at the Society of Environmental Journalists conference.
Women have made significant gains, she noted: From 1988 to 1990 they made up just 30 percent of the staff in environmental organizations. Today, she said, that number is around 62 percent.
Environmental justice reporter Yessenia Funes agreed that things are improving.
"There's a long way to go still," Funes said, "but things have gotten so much better than when I started reporting in this space just five years ago."
Although women now hold a majority of positions in environmental organizations, they're still mostly white women, Taylor noted. And the positions they hold are primarily entry-level.
"As you start to hit the glass ceiling, the numbers of women in C-level positions drop significantly," Taylor said, adding that her newest research shows that significant gender and racial wage gaps still persist—and that they're the largest for women of color.
"We are starting to see changes at very high levels. Presidents and vice presidents of major environmental organizations are finally starting to include people of color."
Grist executive editor Nikhil Swaminathan, who moderated the panel discussion, said that diversity in the stories about environmental work is just as important as diversity within environmental organizations.
"Environmental organizations have a diversity problem," Swaminathan said. "Journalism does, too. It's important to tell stories that reflect the audience you want to have."
Rhonda Anderson, a Detroit-based environmental justice organizer for the Sierra Club, pointed to journalist Zoë Schlanger's reporting on toxic air pollution in Detroit as an example of why including diverse voices in stories about environmental health is so important. After that story broke in 2016, the EPA was forced to take action.
"When you cover these stories, it makes a major difference," Anderson said. "You can literally save lives."
Editor's note: This week, the Society of Environmental Journalists is holding its annual convention in Flint, Michigan. EHN.org reporter Kristina Marusic is there, and senior editor Brian Bienkowski is conference co-chair. Follow the conversation on Twitter at #SEJ2018