People Before Profit blog

Is the fracking industry bribing professors?

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:45:00 +0000

The University of Texas in Austin plans to organize an independent group of experts to review a February report on fracking - the controversial gas extraction method - after learning that the professor who wrote it is in the pocket of the natural gas industry.

Authored and presented by Charles Groat, associate director of the university's Energy Institute and former director of the U.S. Geological Survey, the report claimed that a new study showed that there is no proof whatsoever that fracking causes groundwater contamination - something environmentalists and many scientists dispute, and to which there is evidence to the contrary.

Feeling uneasy after reading what was essentially a pro-fracking report, the Energy Institute soon learned that Groat has been on the board of the Plains Exploration & Production Company since 2007 - something he neglected to mention in his study.

Buffalo, New York nonprofit watchdog group, The Public Accountability Initiative, released a report this week on the Groat study, noting that fracking industry ties are playing a role in falsified or misleading reports written by so-called "experts" who are paid off to do so.

University executive president Steven Leslie remarked, "Groat has been reminded of his obligations to report all outside employment, per university policy. If the university had known about Groat's board involvement, the Energy Institute would have included that information in the report."

Over in Ohio, meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a media campaign called "Shale Works for US," and offers information on how oil and gas drilling are supposedly going to create jobs and transform the economy. What it failed to mention is that the optimistic employment statistics it provided were derived from an April report written by three major Ohio university professors whose study - predictably - was supported and funded by the natural gas industry.

One of the report's co-authors, Robert Chase, came under the scrutiny of the Ohio Ethics Commission for having conflicts of interest and being a participant in industry-funded studies that, environmental watchdogs conclude, rely on poor disclosure and misinformation.

Chase also worked as a consultant for big oil and gas developers including Halliburton, Cabot, and EQT. Chase called for increased fracking in Ohio newspaper columns, and praised gas extraction further during the February 27 Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources at the Eastern Gateway Community College.

When it comes to fracking studies, said Ohio oil/gas lease attorney Mark F. Okey, "It's hard to find someone who's truly independent and doesn't have at least one iron in the fire. It's a good ol' boys network and they like to take care of their own."

"There's a clear and present danger of industry and university being way too cozy," explained Ohio Environmental Council member Jack Shaner. Chase "is clearly a poster child for the need for a clear bright line between industry and academia."

Thomas McGarity, a University of Texas law professor and author of Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research, said it's hard to find fracking reports free of pro-industry bias. That's because the industry, he said, "is trying to buy the prestige of the university. And the universities are happy to sell their prestige, I suppose."

Photo: This photo demonstrates how 'experts' like Robert Chase seem to be right in the pocket of the natural gas industry. ClimateDesk.org

Lax rules letting drillers pollute the earth

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:16:00 +0000

The methods used for oil and natural gas drilling are controversial enough. But activists have pointed out that oil and gas drilling have a nasty side effect: pollution of the earth with toxic wastewater. Due to the fact that wastewater disposal regulations are almost non-existent, chemicals are continuously dumped into areas that will pose direct threats to human health - in fact, such incidents have been occurring since the 1960s.

One disturbing example of the toxicity that can occur with poor regulatory measures lies in Rosharon, Texas. In 2003, two trucks there backed up toward an injection well site used for disposal of fracking chemicals. As they unloaded gallons of the substance, it released a vapor of unstable, flammable materials. When one of the trucks backfired, it let out a spark that ignited the toxic cloud. Flames soon engulfed the entire site, and three workers died as a result, while four more landed in the hospital with extremely severe burns. That day's events succeeded only in polluting the atmosphere and costing the lives of innocent working people.

Subject to less control

That site was a "Class 2 well," which meant that it was subject to less control and scrutiny, thanks to regulatory concessions won by the energy industry over the past 30 years. Essentially, poisonous waste obtained from gas or oil drilling is now no longer subject to the same rules as waste from factories. It doesn't help that there are now over 150,000 "Class 2" wells across 33 states, all of which come receive little to no inspection, according to well inspection records analyzed by investigative news organization ProPublica.

Without tight regulation, the method of disposing waste from drilling becomes an honor system, where companies are simply expected to report what they are pumping into the ground, the condition of their wells, and whether they are breaking any rules. A three-year examination period - part of ProPublica's analysis - found more than 1,000 cases in which drillers knowingly disposed of wastewater inappropriately - often where it could leak and get into drinking water. There were 140 cases, moreover, of operators injecting waste illegally or with no permit.

"Class 2 wells constitute a serious problem," remarked geoscientist John Apps, who works as an injection expert with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "The risk to water? I think it's high, partially because of the enormous number of these wells and the fact that they are not regulated with the same degree of conscientiousness."

Passed off as salt water

At the Rosharon site, further investigation by the EPA uncovered a plot by the Texas Oil and Gathering company to pass off dangerous petroleum refining plant chemicals as salt water from drilling. The scheme would save the company money by allowing them to get rid of the poison in a deregulated "Class 2" environment, rather than the more stringent rules that actually apply to the material. The company's owner and operations manager were convicted of conspiracy to dump illegal waste and violation of the Safe Water Drinking Act.

William Miller, who had been the EPA's chief investigator on the case, noted, "If you can get the stuff down the well, how is anyone ever going to know what it was? There's no way to recover it. It's an easy way to commit a crime and not have any evidence left of it afterwards."

The energy industry and regulators also attempt to create a gap between Class 1 and Class 2 substances by referring to the latter as "salt water," even though the EPA confirmed that drilling waste typically contains dangerous "concentrations of solvents, acids, and other hazardous wastes."

In typical cases of companies circumventing the Class 2 rules that exist, the irresponsible operators often receive little more than violation notices, or modest fines. And that's only for the ones who are caught.

"Regulators don't have real good control over everything that goes on in the regulated community," said Miller. "It requires a lot of self-reporting, and that requires honest people."

Mario Salazar, a former senior technical advisor to the EPA who did 25 years of work with its injection regulation program, added, "There are not enough people to look at how these wells are drilled; to witness whether what [companies] tell you they are doing is in fact what they are doing."

Dumping not new

But chemical dumping is a problem that is not at all new, and which results in unknowable - but disastrous - consequences for future generations. Perhaps a fine example is present in this writer's home state of New Jersey, where recent tests were conducted on soil from public parks in the northeastern part of the state, including Teaneck, Edgewater, and North Haledon. Results uncovered toxic contaminants that have been hidden beneath these areas for decades.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has identified 22,000 confirmed contaminated sites, and about 6,000 have been cleaned up over the last two years - although the state DEP itself has been corrupt in its practices in the past.

Waste-dumping, experts say, has to be strictly regulated and dealt with in the here and now, or the end result will be incidents like those seen in New Jersey, where investigators are unlikely to find the culprits behind toxic dumpings committed decades prior, which makes it impossible to make the companies responsible provide funding for a cleanup.

"It's the equivalent of a cold case," said DEP spokesman Larry Ragonese. "There is not much you can do."

Now, environmentalists are calling for stricter monitoring not only of Class 2 materials, but of all waste dumping in general. One proposal calls for random checking and testing of trucks driving along roads, carrying soil or wastewater.

"It's like the drug testing of athletes," offered Bill Wolfe, the N.J. representative for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit environmental protection organization. "If dumpers know they might get caught and know the penalty is high, they won't do it."

Photo: This is what was left of a tanker truck in Rosharon, Texas after it exploded and killed three workers. ProPublica.org, courtesy of the Chemical Safety Board

Japan withdraws goal of no nukes by 2040

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 16:39:00 +0000

Just one week after announcing intentions to end nuclear power in Japan by 2040, the Japanese government has now withdrawn those plans, ignoring public outcry and once again demonstrating the level of influence the nuclear industry has on the political atmosphere there.

Despite an initial plan to slowly wean the country off nuclear power over the next two decades, Japanese Cabinet ministers began to dial back public discussion on the matter after outrage by TEPCO, the fourth largest electric utility worldwide, which has been tremendously influential on Big Business and administrative policies in Japan. Now, ministers have said they would still take the proposed policy "into consideration" at a later point, acknowledging the public's repulsion toward nuclear energy. But the Cabinet maintained that those plans were essentially scrapped at this current time.

This outcome was largely seen as a move by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's Democratic Party of Japan to court business interests and secure corporate and industry support for the party. This is evident by the fact that business leader Masahiro Yonekura threatened to quit a government panel he was representing if the anti-nuclear plan was pursued.

Yonekura is chairman of the Japan Business Federation (often called 'Keidanren') and Sumitomo Chemical, a major Japanese chemical and pharmaceutical corporation. Keidanren is a pro-corporate economic organization considered to be "the voice of big business" in Japan. In addition to being aggressively pro-nuclear, Keidanren has also made substantial donations to political parties.

That latter fact may be important for Noda, who currently has an approval rating of about 30 percent, and who nevertheless hopes to get re-elected during the parliamentary elections in August 2013. It is expected that without Noda's re-election, the Democratic Party of Japan will lose power, as the Liberal Democratic Party (which Keidanren has always primarily championed) takes control.

Yonekura was among those who praised the government's decision to not abandon nuclear energy, remarking that the phase-out plan had been "totally unacceptable."

The public, meanwhile, continues to protest the pro-nuclear agenda. Backing their voices is the Japanese Communist Party, whose chair, Shii Kazuo, strongly urged the government to "immediately realize zero power plants in Japan." By ignoring demands for a speedy departure from atomic power, he noted, the government is turning its back on the people.

These would be a particularly ill-advised time for the government to do so, given that Japan has been left reeling from the Fukushima disaster and its aftermath, which prompted the anti-nuclear outcry in the first place.

Strengthening the anti-nuclear argument is a recent study by European researchers, published in the journal Natural Hazards, which determined that 23 nuclear plants around the world - including Fukushima - are susceptible to tsunami waves. In total, 74 nuclear reactors might be at risk, the study found, with East and Southeast Asia being the most vulnerable areas. Experts have urged energy officials to not only reconsider where nuclear plants are built and operated, but also the danger present in merely having them in the first place.

"The location of nuclear installations does not only have implications for their host countries, but also for the areas which could be affected by radioactive leaks," said Joaquin Rodriguez-Vidal, a researcher at the University of Huelva.

But if the Japanese government continues to cater to corporate interests, critics fear, it will accommodate neither public demand nor scientific fact.

After all, said Hideyuki Ban, secretary general of nuclear watchdog Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, in the past "we've only seen the government strike compromise after compromise with the business community." Why should now be any different?

Photo: Japanese youth protest nuclear energy in central Tokyo. Greg Baker/AP