Charred trucks and
equipment at the scene of the June 28 chemical fire at the StatOil North
America well pad.
FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 2015
Environmental groups, people who live in Ohio’s oil-and-gas
country, and some emergency responders say that a proposal by Gov. John Kasich
to filter information about chemicals used in fracking activities through the
Ohio Department of Natural Resources could leave firefighters without what they
need during an emergency.
The department, some groups and residents argued this week
before state legislators, already has proved it can’t get that information to
the people who need it when a fracking site catches fire. And that worries
people who live near oil and gas sites.
Firefighters, not the Department of Natural Resources,
should have that chemical information, residents testified this week.
Amanda Kiger, a Columbiana County resident who testified
before an Ohio House of Representatives subcommittee this week, said she lives
near a hazardous-waste incinerator that is scheduled to start taking fracking
waste soon.
“If any volunteer fireman or EMT would have to respond to an
accident regarding the frack waste, they would not know the chemicals they are
walking into,” Kiger said. “I would like to know that our first responders have
knowledge of the chemicals they are dealing with.”
But the Department of Natural Resources and representatives
of the oil and gas industry say passing that information through the department
would actually make it more accessible.
Kiger and others who testified at the Statehouse this week
were commenting on Kasich’s two-year, $72.3 billion budget proposal, released
earlier this year. It includes lines that say oil and gas companies must submit
information about the chemicals they are using to the Ohio Department of
Natural Resources, which in turn must make that information available to
firefighters and other emergency responders.
The language seems to be almost a direct response to
communication issues that arose after a chemical fire on an eastern Ohio
fracking site last summer.
When the fire occurred on June 28 in Monroe County,
firefighters who responded didn’t have immediate access to a list of chemicals
onsite. And an Ohio Environmental Protection Agency emergency responder
couldn’t get that list from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
Not long after the fire, Gov. John Kasich told The Dispatch
that it would be unacceptable for emergency responders, including federal and
Ohio EPA officials, not to know the full list of chemicals from the site.
The language in Kasich’s budget could change that, if the
department makes good on its promise to make sure chemical information from oil
and gas sites is really available and accessible.
Eric Heis, a Department of Natural Resources spokesman, said
the department will do that. Heis said more chemical information would be
reported, and that chemical information would be available more quickly, if
this language passes.
“We’re pushing for more disclosure,” Heis said. “We want to
make it better, and to make it more transparent and accessible. There’s nothing
we gain by hiding any chemical disclosures. We want everyone to know what it
is.”
The department, though, has been criticized by environmental
groups for being too cozy with the oil and gas industry.
“We have a legitimate cause for concern is how I would put
it, given the handling of the Monroe County incident and the chemical fire there,
and ODNR holding onto chemical information and not sharing it in a timely
manner with other agencies that needed it,” said Melanie Houston, director of
water policy and environmental health for the Ohio Environmental Council, an
advocacy group.
“I think that’s the crux or big points of our argument, is
that this information should be in the hands of the local firefighters, because
those are the folks who are trained in emergency response and emergency
planning.”
Kasich’s office referred questions to the Ohio Department of
Natural Resources.
We believe that the environmental pollution and degradation
of the soil, air and land resources by the hydraulic fracturing industry is
unprecedented.
Billions and billions of gallons of clean water has been
contaminated by fracking chemicals and will continue to be contaminated unless
we put a break on these activities by tighter regulation.
For sure we use the oil and gas that these people extract
from our mother earth, the same way we use the coal and iron ore and gold and
so on. All these resource extraction
activities create contamination, the same way our human waste pollute the land
and in past hundreds of millions of people died from diseases caused by contamination. Look at the significant contamination caused
by the acid mine drainage in PA, WV and other mining states.
The only thing we are saying is that entire civilizations
have been wiped out because they failed to apply conservation measures and
failed to preserve and/or conserve the resources that the creator put on this
earth for our use.
We do not see an urgency to continue to utilize these
resources at such a historic pace. We
can spend a little bit less gas, less gasoline, less diesel, and so on.
The problem is that this economy and culture we have built
is based on consumption and profit and growth;
this culture hits a brick wall when there is no growth or no
profit. That is why it is doomed, as at
this pace it will wipe out this civilization the same way the Mesopotamian and
Afghan civilizations were wiped.
Source:www.dispatch.com