Anti-Fracking Activists Speak out Against Lifting the Ban on Crude Oil Exports

By Julie Dermansky • Thursday, December 17, 2015 - 13:02

Americans Against Fracking held an emergency conference call the day after Speaker of the House Paul Ryan revealed the new spending bill would remove the 40-year-old ban on exporting U.S. crude oil, if passed.

About 100 people, many of them affiliated with environmental advocacy groups, joined in on the call, and ideas were shared on what can be done to prevent oil exports from proceeding without restrictions again.

“To lift the crude oil export ban flies in the face of climate progress less than a week after the United Nations Paris Agreement,” the group stated. Some felt hoodwinked because when they headed off to Paris, they believed President Obama would veto any bill that included lifting the ban. That no longer seems to be the case. 

Lifting the ban will likely boost oil production in areas where the fracking industry’s boom has slowed down, including Eagle Ford Shale in Texas and in Oklahoma, the state that now has the highest earthquake rate in the world due to injection well use. 

A flare at a fracking industry site in Panna Maria, Texas, in the heart of the Eagle Ford Shale region. ©2014 Julie Dermansky
  

Fracking industry in Oklahoma 05  Fracking industry site in Alva, Oklahoma. ©2014 Julie Dermansky

Communities in areas where the fracking industry has taken hold are already faced with increased air pollution, water contamination, and risk of explosions from crude oil-carrying trucks and trains.

“The Democratic leadership settled for temporary credits for solar and wind when they were asking for permanent ones,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It is a give-away. There is no upside.”

Siegel believes if the Democrats do not stand firm, the Republicans will continue to use extortion-like situations as a normal way of governing.

To stop the spending bill you are basically asking people to shut down the government,” she said. “It is the only way to stop it.” 

When asked what the chances are of stopping this, Siegel conceded they are very small, but encouraged everyone to do whatever they can think of to stop it.

If that doesn’t work, pressure needs to be put on the administration to stop oil exports anyway.

According to Siegel, Obama can scuttle the deal after the fact. “He could declare a climate emergency to get the ban reinstated by banning export licenses for a year.”

A suggestion was made to contact Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to see if one of them would filibuster the bill. 

Environmental groups plan to send action alerts urging people to call, tweet, and email their senators to reject lifting the ban.

The emergency conference call left David Braun, with Americans Against Fracking, hopeful. He was encouraged by the large number of people who were willing to drop everything to participate in the call in order to see what they can do.

Even if stopping the spending bill is a long shot, this group plans to do whatever it can to stop oil exports.

“The response from people concerned about this has been fabulous,” Siegel wrote DeSmog in an email. “Someone at Senator Feinstein’s office yesterday told me that call volume was heavy on this. People understand that fossil fuels need to stay in the ground and this outrageous giveaway to oil companies is totally unjustified.

Anti-fracking Oklahoma activist Angela Spotts at her home on the outskirts of Stillwater, Oklahoma. ©2014 Julie Dermansky

“The idea the government will lift the oil export ban, when in Oklahoma the fracking industry continues to inject fracking wastewater into the ground causing a record number of earthquakes, is unthinkable,” Angela Spotts, an anti-fracking activist in Stillwater, Oklahoma, told DeSmog.

She continues to hope the state will ban injection well use, but with fracking companies permitted to export oil, she has no doubt things will only get shakier.

Blog image credit: Road construction sign in Karnes County, Texas. ©2014 Julie Dermansky

How America’s biggest swamp could become fracking wasteland

Environmental groups, locals worry Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin might be destroyed by a proposed industrial facility

May 7, 2015 5:00AM ET

by Julie Dermansky

Originally published for Al Jazeerah America.

A cypress-tupelo swamp in the Atchafalaya Basin. Photo by Julie Dermansky

BELLE RIVER, La. — In the heart of Louisiana’s Cajun country, Julie and Lee Hines considered themselves lucky when they purchased a riverfront property. “I have the bayou in my blood,” said Julie Hines, a lifelong resident of the area.

The Hines family values the outdoors, like most of the other members of the 107 households in the tiny town of Belle River. Many in the region are fishermen, making their living on the water, of which there is plenty.

But the Hines’ dream faded quickly after they felt the impact of nearby industrial facilities’ fugitive emissions and increased truck use. They don’t believe the rules to protect them are enforced rigorously enough and found there is little they can do when the rules are broken.

Now plans for a new facility have sparked fears among Belle River residents that they too will have to deal with increased traffic and pollution and that there might be little anyone can do to stop it. It is a situation that has set off a fierce dispute and highlighted a national issue of how Big Business can sidestep rejections of their plans.

One hundred miles west of New Orleans, Belle River is considered the gateway to the Atchafalaya Basin, the largest wetland in the U.S. The area is famous for its plentiful seafood and cypress-tupelo swamps. “This is no place to dispose of toxic chemicals,” said Dean Wilson, the head of the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper grass-roots environmental group.

But that is precisely what FAS Environmental Services has done since the mid-1980s. The company receives industrial waste from processes ranging from conventional oil drilling to hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. The waste can often contain high concentrations of methanol, chloride, sulfates and other substances. “Produced water,” the industry’s name for waste from fracking sites, can also contain toxins like benzene and xylene.

The waste arrives via truck and barge at an FAS transfer station close to the Hines residence, on the flood protection side of the levee. It is then transferred onto a shuttle barge for a 2-mile trip on the Intracoastal Waterway to the company's injection well, where it is pumped at high pressure deep below the surface into rock formations, where it is meant to remain permanently.

Now FAS wants to build a new facility directly across the waterway from the injection well. Its plan requires a pipeline to be built under the Intracoastal, connecting the new facility to the injection well, allowing waste to be moved under the waterway and eliminating the need for the current shuttle barge system. According to FAS, the new station would end the use of shuttle barges, cutting down on the risk of water-borne accidents.

But the proposed facility is in a residential neighborhood not zoned for heavy industrial use. When FAS requested that the local zoning commission rezone the land, its request was denied.

The company could have appealed the decision to the St. Martin Parish Council. Instead, circumventing local laws, it applied for a permit from the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) office of conservation, which regulates oil and gas drilling in Louisiana. A decision on the permit application will be made before the end of June.

A battle has erupted between FAS and local residents who oppose overruling local laws, their government representatives and environmental groups.

The DNR doesn’t take zoning into account when considering a permit, department spokesman Patrick Courreges told Al Jazeera. It considers only “construction and environmental protection,” he said, evaluating whether a company will be able to contain materials and clean them up quickly should something go wrong.

Outside Louisiana, the energy industry has frequently challenged government restrictions with lawsuits and lobbied for legislation that would overturn municipal rulings. In Texas the state legislature recently enacted HB 40, a law that effectively overturns the town of Denton’s fracking ban and other local ordinances on the oil and gas industry.

In Belle River many residents are furious that their objections and regulations may count for little. A recent public hearing for the FAS permit took place in the volunteer fire station in the town and drew a large crowd.

Retired Lt. Gen. Russell Honoré at DNR’s public permit hearing in Belle River, Louisiana, in February 2015. Photo by Julie Dermansky.

Retired Lt. Gen. Russell Honoré, famous for leading military relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, testified on behalf of the Green Army, a coalition of environmental groups. “Democracy has already failed in Belle River,” he said. “In Louisiana a hearing is just a delay in action before they announce they are going to approve it.”

Residents fear problems at other Louisiana towns offer a taste of what might happen to Belle River. In 2003 a methane leak from a well owned by a Dow Chemical facility forced a 50-day evacuation of 28 residents in Grand Bayou. The company later bought out most of the residents. In 2012 in Bayou Corne, the petrochemical company Texas Brine was held responsible for causing a massive sinkhole. The sinkhole released deposits of natural gas into the aquifer that spread underneath Bayou Corne, leading officials to call for a mandatory evacuation. Now only a handful of 350 residents remain, leaving Bayou Corne almost a ghost town.

At the permit hearing in Belle River, residents, local politicians and representatives from environmental groups, including Honoré, disputed claims the company made in its proposal. Lee and Julie Hines, who live closest to the existing FAS transfer station, warned about the company’s practices. “What they say and what they do are completely different things," Julie Hines testified.

When FAS asked for a permit for the first facility, it said waste would arrive at the transfer station only by barge. But less than two years later, the company wrote a letter to the DNR asking for permission to receive waste by truck too. Up to 57 trucks a day now also use the current facility, according to FAS documents submitted to the DNR for the hearing.

Lee Hines argued that FAS operations at the proposed facility, including the use of generators, could cause the levee to vibrate, potentially jeopardizing the levee’s structural integrity. The levee is the community’s principal flood protection. A breach in the levee would likely result in a disaster.

State Rep. Sam Jones also voiced his concerns about the facility putting additional stress on the levee and the facility’s potential to be flooded. “The question is not if we are going to have another flood that will swamp this station. It is when,” he said. Belle River is prone to flooding. Hurricanes Gustav and Ike significantly damaged Belle River’s boat landing near FAS’ proposed site.

No representative from FAS spoke on behalf of the company at the hearing, and the company did not return phone calls to Al Jazeera.

At the permit hearing, environmental scientist Wilma Subra testified on behalf of Louisiana Environmental Action Network that the project’s design cannot cope with the flood levels predicted for a 100-year flood. “The project’s potential to flood will be built in,” she said. That is particularly worrying, as the area has reached the 100-year-flood level three times in the last 40 years. 

In its permit application, FAS stated that the company doesn’t plan to increase the amount of waste material it is accepting and that it would no longer use the current facility if a new one is built. The company said that building the new transfer station at the new location will enable them to streamline operations and eliminate a degree of risk.

Residents, however, were skeptical that FAS does not plan to increase capacity. FAS will not be required to close the current transfer station or decommission the shuttle barges as a condition for getting the new permit. At the hearing, those against the proposal said they believed the company may try to keep its current facility operational and expand operations.

“If FAS wants to accept more material than their application states, all it has to do is write DNR a letter and ask to take in more,” Subra said. She also pointed out that FAS has stated its new facility will be able to handle fracking waste from new deposits like the Tuscaloosa Shale and the Haynesville Shale as well as material from Northern states looking to transport waste by barge if the Coast Guard permits it.

The Coast Guard has been considering allowing barges to transport fracking waste down the Ohio River to the Mississippi River and then to the Atchafalaya Basin. “The decision has not been finalized, and there is no estimated time for the decision,” Coast Guard spokeswoman Cynthia A. Znati said in an email.

FAS’ track record is another problem. In 2013 an FAS manager was found guilty of taking kickbacks from a wastewater brokerage firm and allowing the disposal of 380,000 gallons of industrial wastewater that contained chemicals not permitted to be dumped at the facility. The Environmental Protection Agency determined the owners of FAS were not aware of the manager’s wrongdoing and didn’t profit from it.

Subra said that the DNR has no mandatory inspection schedule for injection wells or transfer stations. A DNR representative was unable to tell Al Jazeera the last time the FAS injection well and transfer facility were inspected, nor could it confirm how often the agency is required to visit.

Most Belle River residents are not optimistic they can stop FAS. When zoning rules are challenged, the courts moderate between local governments and corporations. In April two court challenges based on local zoning rules against a proposed fracking project in St. Tammany Parish, 40 miles from New Orleans, were dismissed.

Any ruling against industry can come at a potential cost for elected officials seeking funding for their campaigns. Don Briggs, the president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, wrote in a plan of action posted on the organization’s website, “Judges that blatantly rule against the industry, parish presidents that stand behind egregious lawsuits and mayors that publicly support litigations to prevent oil and gas activity were elected at some point in time. These same officials can also be voted out of office.”

Guy Cormier, the president of St. Martin's Parish, stressed when he testified at the hearing that he is not anti-industry but that it was his job to protect the community by enforcing zoning laws. He told the DNR the parish will not issue FAS a building permit, even if the DNR permits the company’s new facility. If that is how things unfold, FAS can then sue the parish.

The FAS disposal site in the Atchafalaya Basin. Photo by Julie Dermansky

Honoré pointed out that if FAS builds the facility, despite zoning rules forbidding it, a dangerous precedent would be set. “If it can happen here,” he said, “it can happen anywhere.”

ELMWOOD, LOUISIANA DERAILMENT STOKES FEARS ABOUT OIL TRAIN BLAST ZONE (VIDEO)

By Julie Dermansky • Monday, April 27, 2015 - 17:01

Nearly a dozen Union Pacific railway cars were blown off an elevated trestle in Elmwood, Louisiana, on Monday during a strong wind storm.

No injuries were reported in the incident near the Huey P. Long Bridge. The cars did not contain any hazardous materials, although such materials are transported on the route.

Michael Miller, who works at the New Orleans Hamburger Company, was inside the restaurant when the freight cars derailed. He said he heard a loud boom. At first, he and other staff in the restaurant kept everyone inside for safety, not knowing what had happened. When Miller received word that the freight cars has fallen, he feared his car parked in the lot was crushed. It wasn’t, but the incident has made him consider parking across the road in the Elmwood Mall’s lot in the future.

Emergency response at the site where freight cars that fell of an elevated trestle in Elmwood, Louisiana.

Freight cars that fell of an elevated trestle in Elmwood, Louisiana.

Miller has often questioned the safety of trains carrying hazardous materials along the track less than 100 feet from the restaurant.  

“If strong winds can cause a derailment, you are going to have to take the next hurricane season more seriously,” Miller told DeSmogBlog.

Michael Miller, employee at the New Orleans Hamburger Company in the parking lot in front of his car.

According to the Oil Train Blast Zone website developed by ForestEthics, a nonprofit environmental group, today’s derailment is in a danger zone.

DeSmogBlog has reported extensively on oil trains, also referred to as “bomb trains” for their propensity for exploding. No community is prepared to respond to a worst-case scenario oil train accident.

A stretch of missing railcars that crashed to the ground, as seen from the Elmwood Mall, in Elmwood, Louisiana, just outside of New Orleans.

Union Pacific Railcars at a standstill after nearly a dozen freight cars fell from the elevated trestle. An Ochsner Hospital facility, a McDonalds and a Shell station near the tracks.

UPDATE: WGNO reporter Jabari Thomas captured footage of the freight cars falling from the elevated trestle on his dash cam. Source: WGNO

MEDICAL MOMENT WITH TRISHA SPRINGSTEAD - THE DOUBLE EDGED SWORD

April 26, 2015 at 10:42pm 

By Trisha Springstead

The Arnesens

" The Double Edged Sword "

"When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you."  

Khalil Gabran

***

My Double Edged Trip to Plaquemines Parish, began at night while driving from Mississippi on two lanes of highway. Etched across the skies in the dark forever in my minds eye, were the lights of megalithic refineries. It was an auditory hauntingly quiet, drive into a place that I had never been, but visually my eyes were overwhelmed with the colorful lights. As far as the eye could see, alongside intensely, brightly lit huge cruise ships, glaring glimpses of Refineries, Oil barges. tugs, and trawlers, which became the landscape of the background of the towns, that constitute the parish called, “Plaquemines."

The strange illusion was that in reality, the people of Plaquemines Parish (part of ground zero for the BP Disaster and the Spraying of Toxic Corexit) had to coexist peacefully with refineries, open coal pits, oil companies, orphan wells and pollution. My co-pilot was Theresa Graff, our trip was probably one of the most bittersweet (joyous and tearful) that I have been on since the Blowout of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster in 2010.

Theresa and I checked into a Motel in the Dead of Night. Many of the people staying in our designated place, woke up at 3 to 4 am. in order to begin their day working in the refineries. We were told not to speak of the BP Blowout nor allude to why we were there. A double edged sword, the oil went everywhere, it happened, but we dare not speak of it with the oil field workers or the owners of marinas or hotels. Along with oil field workers, guests in our hotel were wealthy anglers visiting with beautiful sport fishing boats, which approximately, only four percent of the people in the US can even afford to own.

Theresa Graff, Kindra Arnesen, Trisha Springstead

The light of day changed my whole perspective of Bures and Venice, Louisiana. The sun was bright when we drove to the Southern home with the beautifully painted wrapped porch and the inviting oaks that became the backdrop for the beauty that I found in Louisiana. The wind blew comfortably, Kindra was the consummate welcoming friend who for the rest of my life I will know. She and I held together a bond for almost 5 years never really speaking of it and keeping it to ourselves looking out for each other on facebook and in phone calls and emails to one another over the years. Just the look in her eyes finally brought me physically to tears and I could not believe that I was finally meeting my Sister (not related by birth) and my friend. Having Theresa there was a treasure, her humor and compassion was an added component to that sisterhood.

Marriages have fallen apart all along the Gulf Region. Due to the stress, cancers, funerals, illnesses, devastation and the sheer loss that couples and families have had to endure, many prior secure marriages failed. Living in a toxic environment creates elements of anger, frustration, depression and anxiety along with the symptoms of brain fog, lesions, rashes, eyesight damages, cancers and the host of illnesses are likened to First Gulf War Syndrome. Many can not survive the day to day stresses much less the bleak future that they have to face.

Life was good for most of the residents of the Plaquemines Parish and the commercial fishermen but since the Gulf Disaster their everyday joys, celebrations, surrounded by music, love and community have been taken away. Every day in Louisiana I saw people try to enjoy every moment they could but there was always that deep dark stain in the back of so many minds that BP, Transocean, Halliburton and Bill Gates majority owner of Nalco aka Corexit took AWAY.

I can not begin my series of articles on the illnesses to come, until I speak of Kindra and David Arnesen and what they have endured. These “accidental” activists did not want the spotlight they wanted their lives back. They wanted justice, not just for their family but for every family that suffered similar fates all along the Gulf.

The Arnesen family lived for 2 years with reporters in their home and a consistent barrage of spotlight into their everyday lives. They did not receive any compensation for their “advocacy,” at one time in the midst of their nightmare a famous talk show host offered to buy them a new home. Kindra, being the woman that she is said “NO.” That was a first according to the reporter.

She and David gave generously of their time, boat, gas and money and the lives of their children in order to show the world what BP and the Corporate Dynasties did to their community. They did this only to help others that were suffering, and for all of the communities that were impacted by the largest maritime disaster in the history of the United States of America. They wanted their piece of heaven cleaned up and they wanted the US to stop spraying those dispersants.

When David Arnesen first went out on to the water, after the Gulf Massacre, every person on that boat and the vessels around him were vomiting and sick. There are days where he wakes up not feeling well and I noted that many of the residents of Plaquemines symptoms become more acute at sundown. Sun-downers syndrome is a very real phenomenon in hospitals and with many Chemically Toxic people that includes people with Alzheimer's and episodes of confusion.

They weathered Katrina, walking the perimeter of their slice of heaven home that they rebuilt, I was astounded by the magnitude of the work that they did. Kindra talked, “If you look up to that window (she pointed to the second story window of her home) below the window is how far up that water came." She went on to add, "We rebuilt a brick home that was practically gutted to what it is now. We rebuilt our lives then after Katrina, fishing was great and we were able to move forward to live our lives once again. We learned how to evacuate, the people of my town and David knew how to evacuate, why did they not evacuate this place after the BP Disaster?”

With solemnity and reverence to two human beings and their family I was able to look into Kindra and David's blue sparkling eyes. Sitting alone with David one morning in the Arnesen's comfortable den, adorned with photos of their children and their lives, I listened. David's eyes welled up with tears that traveled down his bronze, strong cheek bones when he spoke of the future, “I don't know if I am going to see my children grow up. They tried to take away everything, including my health. Every day my throat gets sore when the prevailing winds blow out of the southwest, my eyes burn. I wake up nauseated some days.”

“I have been doing this (commercial fishing) for 35 years of my life my father was a commercial fishermen well into his 80's I always thought it would be my work for my entire life and there is nothing else that I want to do.” When I asked him about the workforce programs that are being offered (and other fishermen) the resounding question was “If BP made it so good and if everything is okay why are we offered Workforce programs? What is it that the States know that they are not admitting?” David was forthcoming when he spoke of his thoughts in regard to the red tape and the ridiculous rules that were placed on commercial fishermen. His statements were corroborated by others in my journey along the Gulf.

Kindras' sparkling, beautiful blue eyes welled up at times when she spoke of her love for her family, her Parish and her husband. “At night I reach over to see if he is still breathing, David still has discharge coming from his ears and his breathing is not good he is suffering from Chemical Toxicity, some days are good and others are not good at all.” We were in a restaurant the day of our departure, when she began reading a statement that she sent to Bridge the Gulf for a quote, she couldn't finish reading it and I took the text, finished reading it out loud while she, Theresa and I cried. On our trip to a local graveyard Kindra showed us dates and plots and empty graves that were never recovered. “We have a reverence for our dead here, when I am attending at least a funeral a month here…then someone is not looking at the reality of what we are going through.”

The stark reality is that this reporter who loves her Gulf of Mexico, saw a whole lot of early, young deaths in the obituaries and on those grave markers.

Kindra has learned to live with being chemically toxic herself. She looks after her community as much as she can and will be the first to talk to a friend and hold them and a sick child. I watched how she greeted people in her community. She knew their names no matter their color or social standing and Theresa and I in turn I accepted and treated like one of the family. In my trip I was honored to talk to other commercial fishermen and women and residents of Bures and Venice that were chemically ill, I was honored to have them share their stories that will be forthcoming in future articles.

Kindra Arnesen and Trisha Springstead

I only had to spend time with them to see the love that permeates their lives. When I see them together and watch them look at their family I can feel nothing but love for them and respect. The story of how Kindra and David met was a heart rendering story. As she told Theresa and I her story in her mix of Southern Cajun dialect and her passion with words, I was mesmerized. The pride that she feels for her husband and family touched off a tinge of bittersweet envy in that I have not seen that lifelong love with a mate. The words that are expressed by David and Kindra are palpable and in the softness of the moment you can truly feel their words.

The unfortunate fact is that due to work that David and Kindra have done for their community and for the love of their Gulf have left them isolated from some local people, that they have known their whole lives. They have been outcasted by people that they knew, loved and trusted. One thing is that anyone who outcasted them lost some real friends. Kindra and David who would have loved them and accepted unconditionally, if they would not have turned their backs on them. The double edged sword is as Kindra stated, “the loss of connections from over the years has taken it’s toll on our friendships and family.” To this day Kindra shakes her in disbelief at that. It is difficult to see the people that she loved every day, only to be talked over her and be ignored.

The Double Edged Sword is that people who loved their lives in the impact zones and who lived there all of their lives, must co exist with the oil companies, refineries and polluters. I too, after spending time outdoors had burning eyes and a sore throat but I was at least able to get out of that region and come home. The Double Edged Sword is that these people are chemically toxic and have no physicians but for a few in the whole of Louisiana and practically none all over the Gulf to care for them. They are diagnosed as drug seekers, fakers or people who are just out to cash in on a windfall.

It has been estimated that thousands will go out of the Impact zones in a box often at a young age.

That sword needs to be sharpened and its fine blades must pierce the truth so that anyone who needs help and anyone who was impacted needs recompense and the needs are great. They also need clinics filled with compassionate health care providers. Finally and lastly these people need to be made whole that is the least we can do for these people.

Photos by Theresa Graff and Trisha Springstead with love to all the People of the Gulf.

Trisha Springstead, RN, MBS has worked in many areas of medicine and research and has worked with the people impacted by the Gulf Oil Spill and continues to fight to expose and help those suffering with illnesses in the Gulf. It has been proven that oil mixed with Corexit and industrial solvents, PAH's, impact the effects of the toxicity oil on humans, animals. The devastation to our ecosystem and environment have been highly explored and documented. The work of many before her has taught Trisha so very much, including her integrative health consultant, Dr. Wilma Subra, Dr. Riki Ott, Dr. Michael Robicheaux, MaryLee Orr, Dr. Paul Sammarco, Dr. Ira. Leifer , Dr. Linda Hooper-Bui. Dahr Jamail, and all of the people who suffer from exposure to these dangerous chemicals and the bacterial organisms.

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Disclaimer:

This article contains general information about medical conditions and treatments. The information is not advice, and should not be treated as such. If you have any specific questions about any medical matter you should consult your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you think you may be suffering from any medical condition you should seek immediate medical attention.