People Before Profit blog

Oil-tarnished land left in wake of Colorado flood

Tue, 24 Sep 2013 15:52:00 +0000

The severe flooding in Colorado is beginning to recede, but it left something toxic in its wake. The result of intense rainstorms caused by a clash of cold and hot air, the floods have left 10 dead and 200 still unaccounted for; they have destroyed at least 15,000 homes across 17 counties. They have also damaged at least 11 oil and gas locations, and now the resultant leaks and spills threaten to become a brand new disaster.

As of September 23, the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission was tracking at least "eight notable releases," including a 36-barrel spill between the towns of Evans and LaSalle, and 26 barrels of crude near Johnstown. So far, the Commission (COGCC) has confirmed a total of 27,000 gallons of spilled oil in the state. These spills are likely the results of the many oil tanks and wells that were affected by floodwaters. The COGCC is also "tracking 10 additional locations with some evidence of release of oil, such as a sheen on the water, and another 33 locations where there appears to be damage to tanks or other equipment but no [current] indication of a release."

Attempts to deploy absorbent booms to the spill sites have so far been less than successful, as in at least two cases, "it appears the oil left the site in floodwaters," according to a statement by the COGCC.

Rep. Jared Polis, D.-Colo., said the spills are a "major public health issue. In light of the serious conditions, the [oil] industry, at a minimum, must disclose all chemicals that may be contaminating soil and groundwater."

Much of the oil has found its way into the South Platte River, a source of both agricultural and drinking water. The state department added that broken sewer pipes and damaged waste treatment plants have caused some amount of sewage to spew into the river along with the oil, and that may cause a larger problem. Meanwhile, gas wells damaged by the flooding have leaked unknown amounts of fracking chemicals into the river as well.

Wes Wilson, former EPA environmental engineer and current advisor to anti-oil and gas drilling group Be the Change, said the spills will have long-term effects, even after the floodwaters have entirely receded. "We are going to have dozens, if not hundreds, of toxic sites. And they've got to be cleaned up."

And anyway, said Gary Wockner, program director for Clean Water Action, it will take days for the waters to even recede enough to gain a better assessment of the contamination. "Once it hits floodwater, it gets across a large swath of the landscape," he said. "Our big concerns are oil, gas, and fracking chemicals. We've seen photos of oil slicks on top of the water and are continuing to monitor all flooding and cleanup efforts. These chemicals are poisonous to people and animals, and could pollute farms and drinking water supplies."

Wockner seemed also to suggest that the oil and gas industries are not to be trusted in documenting the full extent of the damage, and that there is little oversight taking place on the state level. However, he noted, "It's great news that the EPA is" involved. "We have serious concerns that because the state has so few inspectors and regulators, the industry is out there 'self-policing.' We need the EPA to make sure the public and the environment are protected."

EcoWatch added, "The industry that regularly pollutes [Colorado] will now expect the people to believe that it is a credible source of information."

Noting that activism on the ground will play a large role in cleaning up the pollutants, they also added, "Our communities will continue to fill in where government and the gas and oil industry leave human health and safety behind. The tragedy we are all a part of asks us to strengthen our resolve on every level. Colorado will be changed by these enormous events, and it will be the incredible efforts of the people that place us all on higher ground."

Photo: An overturned oil storage tank lies in the swollen South Platte River. John Wark/AP

New divestment movement targets fossil fuel giants

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 13:39:00 +0000

Several decades ago, the movement to divest funds from South Africa played an important role in helping to defeat apartheid. This was in part because of the direct effects on the South African economy and companies invested in South Africa, but also because it provided a path for a great deal of public education on the issues, and because it gave many people in many parts of our country and many parts of the economy a tangible way to become engaged.

A new divestment movement is just picking up steam, a movement to divest pension funds and other public monies, and the funds of both public and private universities and colleges, from fossil fuel companies - oil, gas and coal. Called Fossil Free, it features the motto: "It's wrong to profit from wrecking the climate."

This movement, just starting to have an impact around the country, will be important for some of the same reasons as the apartheid divestment campaign. It switches at least part of the battlefield from national and international struggles where money and political power hold sway, onto smaller battlefields. That is where moral persuasion and moral shaming, local organizing, and political campaigning can have a larger impact.

The campaign, initiated by 350.org and its founder Bill McKibben, author and activist, has already had several successes. As McKibben said in a recent interview with Fortune magazine, "In 10 months since the 350.org campaign started, seven colleges have already divested including San Francisco State, Hampshire, and Unity College. They have been joined by, among others, religious organizations like the United Church of Christ and the cities of Seattle, San Francisco, and Providence, who say they have plans to divest. The biggest action will be in the states, which control big pension funds. Bills are moving through the Massachusetts and Vermont legislatures to do just that. Internationally, the movement has spread as well. A number of big pension funds in Australia are offering fossil-free portfolios."

This new divestment struggle has already started on many more college campuses, in several cities, and with campaigns directed at boards in charge of public fund and pension investments. It provides a specific way for millions to understand the issues and how they are impacted, and provides a path for people to have a real-world impact. It can take place on a single campus, in a town, as part of contract negotiations, as part of a more general public education campaign. It gives people a handle to grasp, when often the issues related to climate change seem too impossible to do anything about.

The campaign targets the political and economic power of the fossil fuel industry, which funds climate change deniers and much of the ultra-right in the U.S., and which has a huge vested interest in business as usual. ExxonMobil is the most profitable company anywhere at any time in history, and wants to keep it that way. That requires them to keep their public image as clean as possible, keep people buying their stocks, and keep investors from understanding that much of their "inventory" of fossil fuels (which their corporate worth is based upon) must stay in the ground if humanity is to keep climate change from becoming a total catastrophe. As McKibben notes "It is not a flaw in the business plan, the flaw is the business plan." Profiting from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels is profiting from harming the future of all humanity.

Photo: Fossil Free Facebook page

Oil, fracking chemical leaks worsen Colorado flood disaster

Tue, 17 Sep 2013 16:35:00 +0000

There are at least eight confirmed dead from the disastrous flooding that began in Colorado on September 9, with hundreds still missing. Now, pollutants from damaged fracking and oil infrastructure are getting into the floodwaters, exacerbating the already dire situation.

Spread across 17 counties and leaving 15,000 decimated homes in its wake, the flooding is the result of heavy rain that occurred when a slow-moving cold front clashed with hot air from the south over the state. The flooding hit areas ranging from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins and caused the evacuation of 11,750 people. Some of those evacuees are reportedly returning home now, only to find their houses destroyed, and in some instances, likely discovering foul polluted water.

Mike Turner, a resident of the town of Greeley, ignored evacuation orders and remained on his property with his family, watching as the waters engulfed and damaged an oil tank and well on his property. As a result, "there is some crude in the water," he said. "Not a huge amount." But just northeast of the area, oil drums and crude were spotted in the water, their origins not yet known.

And Roy Rudisill, director of Weld County Office of Emergency Management, said there was at least one oil pipeline that burst under pressure from the flooding, though he did not clarify which, or how much oil was leaking from it.

Cliff Willmeng, an anti-fracking activist, reported that there are also undoubtedly fracking chemicals in the water, as he spent two days "zigzagging" across Weld and Boulder Counties, observing flooded drilling sites, where tanks that held waste material were in some cases overturned. The problem is that it's unclear what chemicals the spilled material contained. "What we immediately need to know is what is leaking and we need a full detailed report of what that is," he remarked. "This is washing across agricultural land and into the waterways. Now we have to discuss what type of exposure the human population is going to have to suffer through."

Aerial photos taken by local news outlets have shown some of these tanks, including a few that are drifting along in the water.

Andrew Barth, a spokesman for the emergency management office of the city of Boulder, said, "We've seen those same pictures, and we're concerned. We are going to go out and look at those once we are out of the immediate search and rescue phase."

Gary Wockner, an activist with Clean Water Action, criticized the natural gas and oil industries for their shortsightedness, noting, "Fracking and operating oil and gas facilities in floodplains is extremely risky. Flood waters can topple facilities and spread oil, gas, and cancer-causing fracking chemicals across vast landscapes, making contamination and clean-up efforts exponentially worse and more complicated."

These incidents and their ripple effect have been underreported, though perhaps not without good reason, as the more prominent issue for Coloradoans took center stage: the sheer scope of the flooding and the immense damage it has caused. This is the immediate problem, and officials have reported that they cannot even begin to estimate the extent of chemical and oil pollution in the water until further clean-up efforts are completed. An official report has not yet surfaced detailing which fracking waste tanks were damaged or overturned, how many, or the companies that own and operate them.

Meanwhile, Coloradoans whose areas have been hit are left to pick up the piece and assess the destruction. Said Genevieve Marquez, of the town of Hygiene, "What now? We don't even know where to start. It's not even like a day-by-day or a month thing. I want to think that far ahead, but it's a minute-by-minute thing at this point. And, I guess now it's just help everyone out and try to get our lives back."

Meanwhile, environmentalists and scientists are considering another issue: what the flood's relation, if any, is to climate change, which has been linked to the extensive wildfires that have plagued the state this year.

Experts have noted that Boulder alone received over half its annual precipitation in just a matter of days, and that furthermore, this came after a year marked by a moderate drought for the state at large. This seems to represent the polar extremes that have so far been a hallmark of global warming. Climate Central reported, however, "It will take climate scientists many months to complete studies into whether global warming made the flood more likely."

Still, scientists have long been expecting that climate change would "translate into more frequent, sharp swings between drought and flood, as has recently been the case."

Photo: A local resident gets help from emergency responders as he carries belongings from a flood-damaged home. Brennan Linsley/AP

The real scientific uncertainties about climate change

Tue, 10 Sep 2013 16:02:00 +0000

Many opponents of action on climate change wrap their arguments in claims of "scientific uncertainty." In doing so, they exhibit their own flawed understanding of how science works, and what climate scientists are really uncertain about.

Science is never "finished." It will never reach a point of complete understanding of everything, not even of everything about any one aspect of reality. There will always be things that we (meaning the collective knowledge of humankind) don't yet understand.

There are several reasons for this.

One, the world is a complex of many systems, which constantly interact - and that complexity cannot be reduced to any simple proposition.

Two, because those systems are constantly interacting, they are also constantly changing - there is not a static universe which holds still while we analyze it.

Three, science works by developing ever more sophisticated tools to measure aspects of reality, but measurements are never the reality itself; they are just better and better approximations.

There is still much that we do not understand about climate systems and the ways they interact with all other human and natural systems. We know that the world is getting hotter, and getting hotter faster. But we do not know exactly how hot it will get by what date.

We know that the Greenland glaciers are melting, are melting faster, and that that will impact sea levels. But how much and by when still are a matter of speculation - educated guesses if you will. Estimates are based on measurements, on projections, on computer models, but they are not the melting itself.

We already observe the melting of permafrost in the Arctic regions of the world - those pictures of houses collapsing in Alaska are proof that the process is under way. We also know that melting permafrost releases greenhouse gases that have been frozen, in some places for millennia. But exactly how much and exactly how fast remain for us to discover.

All these uncertainties and more are uncertainties about climate change, but they are not uncertainties about whether climate change is taking place - only about its pace and scale. The real debates are about whether climate change will be catastrophic within years or within decades, and about whether or not we have already passed crucial environmental tipping points. We can predict with confidence that droughts and forest fires will increase in number and intensity (they have been doing so for many decades already) but we can't predict where the next drought or forest fire will take place.

Conservatives play on these uncertainties to undercut support for action against global climate change, against the EPA regulating carbon dioxide emissions, against restrictions on pollution by industry and transportation.

Many of the conservative arguments against climate change don't make sense. They are based on a rejection, implicit or explicit, of science itself. They ignore or gloss over the changes that are already obviously taking place all over the world.

But just because the reasons given in public for these conservative policies don't make sense, that is not the same as saying the policies themselves don't make sense. Just because some right-wing politicians make stupid claims, that doesn't mean that they themselves are stupid (though obviously many of them are). It means they are stretching truth and reason to find excuses for the policies that benefit the owners and managers of fossil fuel industry.

Such policies "make sense," in the sense that they make money for someone, lots of money. Transforming our energy production will mean some rich people won't make as much as if we just continued business as usual. Limiting carbon dioxide emissions from electricity-producing coal-fired plants would cost the owners of those plants money they would rather put in their own pockets right now.

The same people who make false claims about climate science are the same people who make false arguments against raising the minimum wage, against equal pay for all, against workers right to organize. They are the same forces who want to fan the flames of anti-immigrant hysteria, who are working hard to restrict and limit the right to vote and the continuation of constitutionally protected abortion rights, who want to gerrymander congressional districts to continue their power a little longer.

Such policies make sense, for them and for their financial backers. They don't make sense for the rest of us, the 99% who will pay the price for these anti-science, anti-environment, anti-democratic policies.

Everyone who makes a stupid argument is not necessarily stupid. Part of our job is to understand who such policies benefit, who makes money from sowing confusion and nonsense, who maintains political power longer as a result. Anti-science claims are financially benefiting a few people, which is why they are determined to undermine popular understanding of climate change science - and there is no uncertainty about that.

Photo: Melting ice flow at the Gothab Glacier in Greenland, 2004. Susan M. Ottalini/Wikimedia Commons (Susan Ottalini, a freelance photographer, is a former shop steward at IBEW Local 45.)

March on Washington's powerful lessons for the environmental movement

Wed, 04 Sep 2013 16:52:00 +0000

As we heard all the speeches at the Aug. 24 anniversary march, at the official observance commemorating the March on Washington 50 years ago, as we hear again, still fresh, the soaring rhetoric and moral outrage of Dr. King's famous speech (and of the other speeches, not as well known but equally part of the history and impact of that day), we should reflect on many lessons from that struggle. It holds lessons not just for the civil rights struggles of today, but also for the environmental movement.

Like the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s, the environmental movement has both moral and practical aspects. It needs a strategy that unites both inside and outside struggles and goals. It must unite diverse elements around a common program that recognizes that diversity - many kinds of struggles, related but distinct organizations, varied legislative efforts and policy goals, and also educational programs, community organizing, and electoral efforts.

Like the civil rights movement, the struggle for a safe, clean and sustainable environment must be waged on intensely local issues that immediately and directly impact people's lives, and it must also be waged on the national and international stages. It must involve individual, personal change in emotions, thoughts, and the actions of each of us, one by one, and it must also involve social, legal, and economic changes on the scale of millions and billions of people. It must involve compromise and concessions, and also street militancy and the most outspoken denunciations of the immorality of business as usual.

And one of the lessons of the civil rights movement is that we can't rely on the political system to somehow automatically self-correct - but we also need the political system to pass the necessary laws and enforce them.

Only a strategy that finds ways to unite these diverse and sometimes seemingly contradictory strands into one mighty movement has any hope of success. The change we need is so fundamental, so complex, and touches on so many areas of life, that any one-track approach is doomed to failure.

Those who seek to pit personal responsibility and personal change against social and legal change, from either direction, fail to see how much effort, how much struggle, how many sacrifices are needed from so many people and on so many fronts.

Scientific research is part of the solution, but insufficient by itself. That has been shown by the experience of those scientists who thought they only needed to explain the problems in order to bring forth the political will to create change. Technology is also part of the solution, but technological innovation must be adopted by millions to have sufficient impact, and it can't be based on continuing and reinforcing a system that relies on over-exploitation of the earth's resources.

The success of such a movement, and the strength to create, even impose, that success, requires the understanding and activity of millions of people, some of whom will dedicate their lives, others who will only dedicate their votes. And the movement needs to welcome all levels of change, struggle, and participation.

If we fall into the trap of condemning those who recycle because recycling by itself won't be enough, we cut ourselves off from millions who want to do the right thing, who are ready to take the first step within their personal control. If we sneer at those who engage in political campaigns since there are inherent limits to what can be accomplished through the political system right now, we cede an entire crucial arena of struggle and lose many opportunities for mass education.

Just as the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Equality was the culmination of years of much difficult and dangerous struggle, and led afterwards to more struggle and change, saving our planet will not be a single event or a single kind of change. And just as the civil rights movement needed and won allies in the labor movement as it fought for jobs as well as freedom, today's environmental movement needs to build those alliances with labor and workers and fight for jobs as part of our struggle for human survival.

Without forcefully placing the moral issues clearly before millions, we will not inspire and involve the youth of today, but if we only rely solely on moral persuasion we will never build the necessary organizational muscle. Convincing people to act, to take on the hard and difficult tasks of struggle and sacrifice requires appealing to their moral sense of right and justice, and survival. But making change actually happen, in society, in production, in transportation, in agriculture, in distribution, in consumption, requires organizing those who are inspired and convinced into effective political and economic campaigns.

We need wild places and polar bears and campaigns to save the bears and preserve the wilderness, but those by themselves won't save humanity from untold suffering - for that we also need to address the daily living needs of billions of people, for food, for water, for living-wage jobs, for shelter. We need to be part of creating options so that workers don't have to take jobs in situations where short-term survival needs force them to work against long-term human survival needs.

The enemies of labor rights are the enemies of voting rights are the enemies of women's rights are the enemies of health care for all are the enemies of immigrant rights are the enemies of environmental laws and regulations. And creating fundamental change requires unity across many kinds of struggle and organization, building bridges of understanding across many issues. It requires street heat and militancy and also requires electing officials who must compromise. It requires unity that is multi-racial, multi-national, male-female, young and old, unity of believers of all kinds with those who are not religious at all.

As for people in other progressive movements and organizations, they need to understand that environmental catastrophe threatens them too, if not today then soon. It might not be a hurricane like Katrina or Sandy, it might be a multi-year drought or a water crisis across many states, or forest fires of extreme intensity. But we are all threatened, and we all need to unite - and the solutions to any limitations of the environmental movement don't lie in ignoring the real problems facing all humankind.

The lessons of the March on Washington, of the years-long struggles lead by Dr. King, are that successful movements for change require unity, the active participation of millions, building coalitions and unity across many organizational lines, consistency and persistence in the face of determined opposition, and, every once in a while, soaring poetic visions of what must be.

Photo: Zach Frailey CC 2.0

Rim Fire the latest record-breaker in year of unrelenting disasters

Tue, 03 Sep 2013 16:59:00 +0000

As the changing climate continues to trigger disaster and disruption, California's Rim Fire, which has burned 235,841 acres, is the latest to be added to this year's list of brushfires. That list is seemingly growing nearly as large as the fires themselves.

With over 5,000 firefighters dispatched to combat the blaze, it was described yesterday as being 70 percent contained, but triumph is still a long way off: Officials estimate the fire will only be fully contained by September 20. After being triggered by an unknown cause on August 17, it is currently burning parts of the Sierra Nevada region, which includes the state's Tuolumne and Mariposa counties. The flames are now spreading eastward, into Yosemite National Park.

Rough terrain and erratic winds haven't helped the situation, and even water from planes and helicopters, which sought to combat the fire from above, have had an uphill battle on their hands. This wildfire has posed a particularly dire situation by presenting unique threats: it affected the local power infrastructure when it prompted a precautionary shutdown of three hydroelectric power plants serving San Francisco. It also threatened one of San Francisco's main water sources, the Hetch Hetchy reservoir, which serves about 85 percent of the city's water supply, by filling the water with ash.

And, of course, the wildfire is causing plenty of bucolic havoc: the U.S. Forest Service has made it a high priority, as it is threatening the giant sequoia trees of Yosemite National Park. Sequoias (which include redwood trees) are ancient and endangered, and after recent human interference with their habitat, it would seem the Forest Service is on high alert in the case of new dangers to the trees.

Scott Gediman, a spokesman for the park, explained, "All of the plants and trees in Yosemite are important, but the giant sequoias are incredibly important both for what they are and as symbols of the national park system."

Park officials, meanwhile, are dealing with displaced animals after the mayhem; these include Western pond turtles and a number of bald eagles and their nests.

The problems might seem innumerable, but the harsh truth of the matter is that this has apparently become the new "normal," at least over the course of the past few years. "It's just been a long, hot, fiery summer," said Beth Pratt, California director for the National Wildlife Federation. "I have never seen so much fire."

And there's one more atypical aspect to this wildfire: it's capable of creating its own weather patterns. Julie Hutchinson, information officer for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said, "As a fire gets big and starts consuming more and more vegetation, all that heat that's been generated goes up into a smoke column and it will practically create its own thunder head." From that point, she added, "it has the same ability as a thunder head does to break loose and change the weather patterns in and around it." This then leads to strong, unpredictable winds, which only worsen the situation.

Hutchinson then drew the obvious connection to global warming, noting that the particularly dry conditions in the region this year have made Yosemite "very receptive" to the wildfire's threat. "We were seeing summer temperatures in April and May," she remarked. "The grass, the brush, the timber - they are very dry, and they're stressed."

Photo: Trees near Yosemite National Park burn from the Rim Fire. Jae C. Hong/AP