30 Oct ICYMI: Important News Stories from the Last Few Weeks
October 30, 2014 –
From time to time, we’ll bring you important news stories, new reports, and other relevant information about irresponsible oil and gas development locally, regionally, and nationally. Here’s the latest:
Earthworks – CHC Joins 130 Groups from Across the Country to Call on the Obama Administration to Cut Methane Pollution from Oil & Gas Development
Citizens for a Healthy Community has joined with 130 groups from across the country in calling on the Obama Administration to put a stop to methane pollution from oil and gas development. READ MORE & TAKE ACTION
Denver Post – A Host of Chemicals Emissions are Seeping from Oil and Gas Operations
“A host of chemical emissions are seeping from oil and gas drilling pads with different ones coming from different places in the operation – from the wellhead to tanks to valves, according to a new study.” READ MORE
Albuquerque Journal – In New Mexico Drilling Boom-Town, the Oil Industry Isn’t Lifting Businesses
“Ray Hagerman, Four Corners Economic Development CEO, said diversity will help strengthen the economy. He said he would like Farmington and the surrounding areas to move beyond oil and gas, which has been central to the economy for decades.” READ MORE
Denver Post – Dead Babies Near Oil Drilling Sites Raise Questions for Researchers
” ‘I suspect it is real – that there is a relationship,’ said Susan Nagel, Ph.D, a University of Missouri School of Medicine researcher who is focusing her studies on fracking-fluid chemicals that affect hormones. … ‘Suffice it to say that air pollution from drilling is a part of it,’ Dr. Brian Moench said of the Vernal-area deaths.” READ MORE
E&E News – Drilling’s Worker Safety Record Bodes Ill for Public Health
“Worker safety is perhaps the only place where the oil and gas industry’s safety record can be lined up next to other industries and compared. It’s gotten better, but with a fatality rate that topped coal mining’s in 2012, drilling stacks up badly. Public health and worker safety experts say that’s a bad sign for people living amid frack tanks, rigs and truck traffic that come with the country’s drilling boom.” READ MORE. Close to home: KJCT8 News – An oil rigger’s wife speaks out about her husband’s tragic death.
“A Greenpeace investigation has uncovered close ties between a Colorado political couple and at least six oil and gas industry front groups that have been fighting state regulations designed to protect the health of its citizens and the environment.” READ MORE
Boulder Weekly – Is The Way The State Handles Oil & Gas Complaints Criminal?
A new study by sociologists at Colorado State found that many residents who file complaints against oil and gas drillers felt that state regulators were dropping the ball. “Often, participants said the official records misrepresented their experiences. One couple, ‘Rick and Jenni,’ said they’d come home to find their cows refusing to drink from a water tank because the water had become milky white. Oil and gas development had just begun nearby, so they contacted the COGCC to complain. A representative hydrologist came out and acknowledged a visible problem, but the report reads as though the hydrologist wasn’t concerned about it. Rick and Jenni were told that the changes they saw in their well water – which they described as looking milky or muddy, sometimes effervescent or oily, and smelling like rotten eggs, sulfur or hydrocarbons – were caused by naturally occurring methane or a failure to do proper maintenance on their well.” READ MORE
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