The American Lung Association in Bed with a Big Polluter

I just sent this letter off to the following people after learning that the American Lung Association Denver chapter is hosting a big fundraising event, Fight for Air Climb, on February 26, that is sponsored by Encana Oil & Gas! I'm just disgusted.

Please use these e-addresses to send your own thought to the ALA. Feel free to crib from this and/or follow all links.
Maura
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To: Liz Toohey, American Lung Association Denver Director of Development, ltoohey@lungcolorado.org
cc: American Lung Association CEO Charles Dean Connor, esward@lungusa.org, charles.connor@lungusa.org; ALA Board President Albert A. Rizzo, MD (via fax to Pulmonary Associates, Newark, DE at 302-368-5515); ALA Board President Ross P. Lanzafame, Esq., rlanzafame@hselaw.com
Via fax to ALA headquarters at (212) 315-8870 for distribution to all board members

Bcc: Shaleshock, Coalition to Protect New York, Interstate Coalition, and other grassroots activist groups
Posted on Facebook/Twitter
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Dear Ms. Toohey, Mr. Connor, Dr. Rizzo, Mr. Lanzafame, and American Lung Association officers and directors,

I was approached for support by a friend who is participating in the Fight for Air Climb in Denver, which led me to learn more about it. I am beyond appalled to discover that this event, supposedly promoting clean air and healthy lungs, is being sponsored by Encana Oil and Gas, one of the worst corporate polluters of air, water, and communities in the country.

How greedy and stupid has the American Lung Association become? Would you also take money from RJ Reynolds? Have you grown so big and bureaucratic that you have lost all sight of your original vision and mission?

It seems more important to raise money from corporate sponsors who actually contribute to the ill health of so many lungs, hearts, minds, and souls in this country.

From your promotional materials, it is clear that the human participants who think they're doing something important and philanthropic are no more to you than "consumers," as witnessed in your slick pitch to potential corporate sponsors, who can "underscore [their] community commitment" by partnering with your organization at the same time they find new customers and attract new shareholders:

The Fight for Air Climb participant represents the following demographics: 62% are female, 59% are between the ages of 24-44, 55% are married, 70% have a 4 year college degree or greater, 75% report a household income of $60,000 or greater, and 50( own their home. Further 76% are employed of which many are participating in corporate teams representing Colorado's largest employers. Sponsorship packages include many tangible and actionable rights and benefits that will provide our sponsors with the opportunity to:

• Connect with 3,000 climbers, family and friends plus an additional 300 volunteers
• Achieve your marketing & communications objectives
• Underscore your community commitment
• Partner with the American Lung Association in Colorado, the nation's preeminent organization working to improve lung health. Attract customers & generate leads while engaging staff

Your president and CEO Dr. Charles Dean Connor's own December 21, 2011 Huffington Post column is laudatory toward the Obama administration and the EPA for introducing new federal standards on toxic pollutants and mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. "Step forward and work to maximize the pollution reductions and do your fair share to help those that breathe the air downwind from your smokestacks," Connor urges power companies that have not yet complied. "No one wants to breathe your secondhand smog any more."

The same is true for oil and gas companies. Dr. Connor and the American Lung Association should certainly know this. The American Lung Association's own Public Policy Position Paper on Energy, approved June 11, 2011, avers the following (paragraph 1):

The American Lung Association believes that protection of lung health and a sound U.S. energy policy are compatible goals that require an emphasis on energy conservation, energy efficiency, and the use of cleaner energy resources, including a transition from coal and oil to cleaner alternatives. Our overarching principles call for the implementation of effective air quality programs and standards, transitioning to a clean energy future, with a commitment to promote environmental justice.

What kind of clean energy future can there be when one of the nation's most respected and recognized health associations is in bed with a dirty oil and gas company such as Encana? How can there be environmental justice when such corporations are pillaging lands and communities in nearly 30 states via fracking for methane gas and drilling for oil in sensitive environments, endangering the health of humans, domestic animals, wildlife, and ecosystems?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a draft analysis December 8, 2011 of the data from its investigation into the groundwater quality in the gas fields in and near Pavillion, Wyoming. Encana Oil and Gas conducted hydraulic fracturing there from 2004 to 2007 while developing new wells. “The draft report indicates that ground water in the aquifer contains compounds likely associated with gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing,” the EPA wrote in its press release. The report proves that gas industry assertions that "there has never been an incident of groundwater contamination by fracking" are, at best, obfuscating and misleading. At worst -- and to those of us who have studied the industry for some time, more likely -- outright lies.

In June 2008 the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance called EnCana the worst of the oil and gas companies operating in Wyoming:

The Worst of the Bad Actors

This list is ranked beginning with the worst. These are the companies that, due to their abysmal track record in Wyoming, have the greatest potential for improvement.

1. EnCana

–EnCana’s activities have become a poster-child for irresponsible development. In the Upper Green River Valley’s Jonah Field, EnCana initially drilled 16 wells per square mile, at the time the worst project of the last several decades. Then this Canadian gas giant sought – and got – permission to drill an additional 3,100 wells in the field at densities from 64 to 128 well sites per square mile. When completed, the well pads will extend almost unbroken by native vegetation across 33,000 acres of public land, and they’re now expanding from this initial area. EnCana officials dishonestly claimed that directional drilling wasn’t possible in the Jonah Field, even though more than 140 directional wells have been drilled in this field. EnCana also holds leases inside the Adobe Town proposed wilderness and is pursuing drilling there. To top it all off, EnCana’s oil and gas wells have caused groundwater contamination problems in the Pavillion area of the Wind River Basin.

You make a travesty of the good work done by many people in your organization when you choose to partner with a notorious member of the most polluting industry on earth -- an industry that through corruption of our legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government made itself exempt from such environmental and health regulations as the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Superfund laws.

The problem is bigger than just Encana, however.

The American Lung Association obviously took an early stance on the subject of "natural" gas extraction. I hope that this is so -- that the ALA had not

• seen the documentary films Split Estate or Gasland or All Fracked Up, or
• read any of Dr. Theo Colborn's shocking work on the horrific numbers of endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, and neurotoxins used in hydrofracking, or
• learned of the naturally occurring radioactive materials and heavy metals and VOCs that come up with the millions of gallons of permanently poisoned wastewater that are a byproduct of fracking, or
• read any of the other volumes of information that have been coming to light over the past couple of years,

-- and thus had no idea of the dangers of hydrofracking when it declared in the same June 2011 energy policy paper:

The American Lung Association supports public policies to minimize the human health, particularly lung health, impacts associated with the production of heat for residential, commercial, and industrial use, including impacts from fuel extraction to the disposal of wastes. The American Lung Association supports regulation and enforcement to protect the air, water and other environmental resources during the exploration, extraction, production and transmission of natural gas, propane, and oil. The American Lung Association supports programs and policies to assist communities and individuals to reduce their exposure to indoor and outdoor air pollutants and to reduce their energy use.

This indicates to me that you do not understand that a filthy fossil fuel extraction and transportation industry cannot be regulated well. And even if it could, it has made itself exempt from regulation! Surely with the number of terminal-degreed people on your staff and board, you can see that quite clearly.

AND THEN, again in the same document, you write:
The American Lung Association supports the expanded use of natural gas, and propane where natural gas is not available, for heating residential and commercial buildings, as a less polluting alternative to oil and other fossil fuels.

Perhaps at the time you wrote that, you were unaware of the peer-reviewed Robert Howarth, Ph.D. study out of Cornell University in which the researchers determined that the entire cradle-to-grave process of fracking for "natural" gas is as bad or worse a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions than even oil or coal extraction (findings that were corroborated by two subsequent peer-reviewed studies).

I certainly hope so. I certainly hope that an august body such as your board of directors will look again at this terrible energy policy and rethink your recommendations. You should be running like mad away from the destructive, criminal practice of fracking, not embracing it and those who foist it upon a nearly helpless public and the totally helpless natural world.

I plan to share this letter widely via my many list serves and via social media, including the Coalition to Protect New York and interstate groups working to outlaw fracking before it perpetrates further harm on nature, communities, water supplies, air quality, croplands and food supply, properties, and our own lungs and other necessary body parts.

I hope to hear that ALA Denver and other ALA chapters decide that it is not worth it to accept blood money from a polluting company or industry that works in direct opposition to the ALA's stated values and mission. Doing so mocks the trusting people who work hard on behalf of ALA and sullies your reputation.

I eagerly await your response.

Maura Stephens

PO Box 403
Spencer NY 14883
607-274-3829 office
607-351-3766 mobile
maura@coalitiontoprotectnewyork.org

Reference/a very short list of suggested further readings (happy to provide more if you request):
"Methane contamination of drinking water accompanying gas-well drilling and hydraulic fracturing" (the "Duke study") by Osborn, SG, A Vengosh, NR Warner, RB Jackson. 2011, and related links therefrom (attached in PDF format)
"West Divide Gas Seep" (4/14/04). Extract: Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission fined Encana Oil and Gas $371,200 (a record) for contaminating water supplies in West Divide Creek, Colorado. COGCC found methane, benzene, toluene, and m,p xylenes in water wells, and said Encana "inadequately cemented the well."
"Encana fined over harms to protected birds" (Denver Post, 8/28/2010). Extract: Encana fined the maximum fine of $15,000 for each of two counts plus $170,000 in community service payments for violating the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act in Colorado and Wyoming, killing 55 protected birds including waterfowl and owls, at its uncovered "natural" gas well reserve pits and wastewater storage facilities in Colorado's Piceance Basin and in Sweetwater, Sublette and Lincoln counties in Wyoming.
"$13,692 gallons of 'produced water' spilled" in Mamm Creek. Extract: Encana said it was from a pipeline rupture. Teh water traveled about a half mile before entering the creek (Glenwood Springs Post Independent, October 9, 2008)
"Methane increasing in water wells near Silt, Rifle, consultant says." Extract: Analysis of 700 water samples from 100 water wells and other water sources shows increased methane, which seem to be related to the 1,000 gas wells in the area.

An URGENT Open Letter to NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo

Actual posting time is 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 30, 2011. Something is wrong with the blogger clock/calendar.

This posting is appearing in Alternet and other publications. Urgency dicatated that I post it online immediately so people can bombard Cuomo with calls and e-mails expressing their [fill in your own word: fury, disappointment, anguish, disgust, heartbreak, terror, determination to fight harder and elect people who will protect our rights to clean air, clean water, safe food supplies, decent communities, and our rights to NOT BE POISONED . . .]

Dear Governor Cuomo,

We just got word that you're lifting the fracking moratorium in the New York City and Syracuse watersheds. I'm almost apoplectic from shock, anger, grief, and terror.

A former farmer and trained environmentalist, researcher, and independent journalist, I have spent much of the last three years learning and writing about fracking. I am a cofounder of the Coalition to Protect New York, among other actively engaged organizations working to ban fracking in our state and elsewhere.

We do not trust the Department of Environmental Conservation to get things right on fracking. Even if it were a reliable and trustworthy agency, the DEC’s budget has been cut so drastically and its workforce decimated to the point that it’s virtually hamstrung.

We do not trust — nor should any sensible, informed citizen or legislator trust — corporate-bought politicians and corporate "scientists."

For the moment we must trust that you are not among that group and that you truly want to do what is right for New York State.

In these tough economic, energy, and environmental times it will take a visionary, forward-thinking leader to bring the state into the future with an innovative energy/jobs/climate-change-effects-lessening plan.

You could be that leader if you have the desire and political will to do so.

It appears you have decided to lift the moratorium for the state outside the New York City watershed (because Wall Street traders, corporate tycoons and big bankers live downstate) and Syracuse watershed (tossing a bone to the rest of the state, according to cynics), while throwing the rest of us to the wolves.

This means you think of the rest of the state’s residents and environment as expendable.

You may be committing political suicide.

Many millions of New Yorkers now know what is at stake with fracking, and more are coming to that understanding daily as they learn of its ills in other places.

That speaks to the dedication of my fellow antifracking activists, who are fighting an industry that can without blinking an eye drop $150 million or more yearly to hoodwink the public and lobby legislators with false propaganda. Their ads claim that “natural” gas is “clean, safe, domestic, and patriotic.” And that it’s an economic panacea for struggling workers whose jobs have been eliminated or sent abroad.

Which, as you surely know, are all false claims.

Governor, you should quickly reconsider lifting the moratorium. The only sensible, responsible, long-term response to the devastating practice of fracking (a response that would also greatly offset our economic woes) is to
1) immediately institute a statewide fracking ban (New Jersey’s legislature just passed one; it’s waiting for Governor Christie’s signature, which is probably not forthcoming; but you could be the first);
2) invest in wide-scale updating and reinforcing of infrastructures and in conservation/energy-efficiency rehabilitating existing public and private buildings and homes;
3) commit to the building and maintenance of long-term energy-efficient public transportation and codify mandatory greater fuel efficiency in all private and public large, small, agricultural, and industrial vehicles;
4) invest in research, development and implementation of renewable, sustainable neighborhood- and local-based energy systems, and write and enforce laws mandating the phase-out of all fossil-fuel based systems;
5) protect and keep public all drinking water supplies;
6) promote and foster healthful, organic agriculture and food distribution models; and
7) invest in public education programs about conservation, the reduction of energy consumption, and about renewable energy strategies.

Following such a plan would save money through conservation. It would reduce our need for and dependence on fossil fuels (which dependence, as you know, is unsustainable, even in the short term). It would also create plenty of safer, stabler, longer-term jobs, as the “green” sector expands with innovative new projects.

Perhaps most important, it would help stave off further hastening of catastrophic climate change and leave a legacy of forward-thinking and sustainability — rather than one of industrialization and ruination of lives, communities, and food and water supplies.

Fracking is the single most important issue facing New Yorkers. It will add water-pollution, air-pollution, and food toxicity illnesses, generate injuries to workers and others, and thereby increase our health care costs.

It will cause property damage and drain our communities of tax revenues that will need to be used to repair roads and bridges damaged by the thousand of trucks it takes to provision a frack well and remove the millions of gallons of contaminated waste generated by each well.

It contributes to greenhouse gases and global climate change and the increasingly commonplace whacky weather patterns we are seeing in New York and elsewhere. It will kill our tourism, outdoor adventuring, and agriculture and vineyards enterprises around the state—which would constitute economic suicide. Those industries combined bring in about $2.2 billion annually and provide 515,000 jobs (and will likely grow as neighboring Pennsylvania’s hunting, fishing, agriculture, and tourism sicken and die of fracking-related causes).

We must not allow the progress we have made these last few decades on the clean air/clean water/safe food to be wiped out via one destructive industry, nor allow our bucolic state to be turned into an industrial wasteland.

Because, mark my words, that is what fracking will do to New York should your permits go through.

New York is “Fracking Ground Zero.” People in fracked states are looking to us for leadership, begging New Yorkers to stop the madness before it takes hold here. They do not want us to be poisoned, and they also want us to then help them stop the industrialization and maybe help reverse some of the damages (although, alas, it is too late for many of these states, and huge swaths of land as well as people’s health and properties are beyond reclamation) of their communities.

Governor Cuomo, I urge you to be the leader New Yorkers need — and in whom they put their faith in when casting their votes.

Do not succumb to industry/Wall Street pressure. Do not put profits before our health. Do not gamble with our lives.

This is a make-or-break issue for me, my family, and the many organizations to which I belong and which I have founded or cofounded. We are making this the top priority in our lives and in our daily and many political actions. We feel we are fighting for our way of life — indeed, for our very lives. We want you to be equally committed to saving what is precious and irreplaceable.

Please invite us to consult with you if your information is leading you to lift the moratorium. We are informed. We are knowledgeable. We are farsighted.

We are taxpaying scientists, medical doctors and practitioners from many fields (oncology, pulmonology, pediatrics, obstetrics/gynecology, physiatry, endocrinology, and psychiatry), farmers, water quality specialists, hazardous materials experts, teachers, entrepreneurs, businesspeople, writers, artists, homeowners, renters, teens, college students, parents, grandparents, voters.

We will help you understand that fracking risks are far too great, too widespread, too permanent, too irremediable, too suicidal on so many fronts.

We are also motivated. There’s nothing that pulls people off their couches like a threat to their kids' health and their property values. We will not allow ourselves to be used as lab rats, cannon fodder, or "collateral damage."

So you can be sure that we will not stop fighting for a ban. We hope you will do the right thing and push for a total ban on fracking in New York State.

And Governor, please make the decision quickly. We have all lost countless hours to this fight — and countless hours of sleep to our deep and very real fears of what fracking will do to our future, and our children’s — and we would like to go back to being productive rather than reactive. Our reinvigoration and productivity will also help the troubled economy, about which you might be losing a lot of sleep as well.

We are also willing to sit on an advisory board to help you put the positive sustainability/conservation work mentioned above in place. Just ask us.

My family, friends, colleagues, fellow activists and I look forward to your response.

Signed,

Maura Stephens
Tioga County, NY

Maura Stephens is an independent journalist and cofounding member of the Coalition to Protect New York and other groups. She writes frequently about fracking and other environmental and energy issues. To contact New York Governor Andrew Cuomo: http://www.governor.ny.gov/contact/GovernorContactForm.php; (518) 474-8390. Let him know you're outraged and you think fracking is the most important issue facing us -- and what his actions will mean for your future votes and support. And then really get involved. Join an antifracking group and become an activist. Growing our numbers and our outrage will help fuel a mass movement -- the only force that is going to save everything we care about from greedy corporate destruction.

Press Release re CPNY: Coalition forms on Marcellus shale gas drilling in NYS

Joint Press Release Sent by EarthWorksAction and the Coalition to Protect New York:

On June 19, 2010, nearly 140 individuals and representatives from 60 grassroots, regional, and national organizations in four states gathered in Binghamton to share information on legal, scientific, economic, policy, health, and family issues related to hydraulic fracturing for methane gas, or "fracking."

Participants in the Coalition to Protect New York are unified by knowledge of the extensive evidence that gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with toxic chemicals harm water supplies, property values, community infrastructure, the environment, and human health.

At the gathering, people from neighboring states who are living with dire consequences of this process gave testimony, urging New Yorkers to halt fracking and avoid problems that have arisen nationwide. The practice hasn't yet been permitted in New York, and two different bills are currently before the state legislature that would impose a moratorium while certain stipulations are met.

"Many organizations statewide have developed expertise and made great strides; by working together, we can achieve even more in educating the public, assisting landowners, and fostering sound public policies," said Jack Ossont of Yates County, an event organizer. "We need to stop the rush to drill, which would endanger communities across New York." He lauded the many volunteers who labored to convene the statewide summit.

Workshops were led by experts from around New York and as far as West Virginia. Keynote speakers were Anthony Ingraffea, Professor of Engineering at Cornell University; Wes Gillingham, Program Director at Catskill Mountainkeeper; and Julia Walsh, founder of FrackAction.org.

Weston Wilson, a retired whistleblowing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency engineer, paid a surprise visit. In 2004, an EPA study declared that hydraulic fracturing poses no threat to drinking water a conclusion Mr. Weston and others contend is scientifically unsound and resulted from Bush administration pressure to omit critical data. The study greatly contributed to exemption of the gas industry from Safe Drinking Water Act requirements to disclose the toxic chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.

U.S. Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-22nd District) was another surprise visitor; he encouraged strong oversight of the gas industry and protections for communities, including through passage of the FRAC Act. The bill, which Mr. Hinchey introduced, would require disclosure of the many toxic chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing and give the EPA authority to regulate the process.

"We all came to Binghamton with the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in mind, and the commitment to preventing such tragic events from ever happening in New York," said Wes Gillingham of Catskill Mountainkeeper. "Today's gathering signifies a new phase of collaboration and effectiveness in ensuring that the gas industry doesn't continue to degrade quality of life across the Marcellus Shale region."

Maura Stephens of Tioga County, another event organizer, said, "We don't blame people who have signed leases. Gas companies don't reveal the potential frightening consequences. But now we know, and we owe it to everyone to share this information. We want to keep our state beautiful, safe, toxin-free, and livable. Many of us feel we are fighting for our very lives."

Marcellus Shale: Are the Risks Worth the Rewards?

"Update: PEMA urges residents to prepare now for possible flooding.”

“DEP directs gas drillers to replace water.”

“Man killed by fall off Towanda drilling rig.”

I read these three stories in that order. The first two were in the Pike County [Pennsylvania] Courier, the third in the Binghamton [New York] Press & Sun Bulletin. The headlines of the first (get ready for a flood) and third (a man died in a gas-drilling accident) are self-explanatory. The second, about “replacing” water, went like this:

“The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) . . . ordered Schreiner Oil and Gas Co. to provide a permanent solution to water supply issues at two homes the company’s drilling activity impacted near Hedgehog Lane, McKean County.

“DEP previously determined that the company, based in Massillon, Ohio, was liable for affecting the water supplies of homes. . . . mong the contaminants identified were total dissolved solids, chlorides, manganese, iron, dissolved methane and ethane gas.”

Does this not terrify everyone who lives in the huge gas-drilling and potential gas-drilling region? (The Marcellus Shale encompasses large swaths of New York State, almost all of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, and parts of Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. A total of 31 or 32 states have deposits of so-called “natural” gas, more properly termed “fossil-fuel gas.”)

Here are some facts:

1) The horizontal, slick-water hydraulic fracturing process of gas drilling (“chemo-fracking”) uses and releases numerous toxic chemicals — carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, naturally occurring radioactive materials.

2) Accidents happen.

3) People make mistakes.

4) Floods occur.

Anyone who has ever experienced a flash flood knows that you’re going to run for your life and your loved ones' lives first, and for your most expensive and/or most precious possessions next.

Even if gas companies had our best interests at heart — and you’d have to be a total naïf to think they do — there is simply no way to protect us from all these toxins that would go streaming into our water systems in the event of a flood, let alone the inevitable accidents and mistakes that will occur.

Because they will.

In the cases where the gas companies have to “replace” water, what are we talking about?

You can’t “replace” water that has been contaminated with poisons. You can bring in huge “water buffaloes” with 300 or 500 gallons of “fresh” water from elsewhere (and who is monitoring that water? Where does it come from?) to resupply a family with drinking, cooking, and bathing water, but the ground is still contaminated.

The vegetables and flowers and shrubs in the family’s garden are still reliant on that water for survival. The squirrels, bunnies, and raccoons . . . the chickadees, warblers, and woodpeckers . . . the frogs, fish, and turtles . . . the crickets, bees, and peepers . . . the family cat and dog . . . all drink the water from that contaminated ground. Toddlers in sandboxes eat the dirt. Kiddie pools and grown-ups’ pools, bird baths, ponds, streams, rivers, and lakes . . . all can be contaminated from just one spill.

You can’t “replace” bad water with good. Period.

There is not enough recompense in the world to mitigate this kind of permanent damage to a person’s home and property or to our surrounds, or to our own health and our children’s health.

It is up to communities to decide if the risks are worth the riches that will go to the gas companies and to a few members of the communities.

Let’s think about these risks for a moment: Someone in my community will die because of fracking. It’s inevitable. The man who was killed on a gas rig in Towanda, Pennsylvania, has a name: Greg Allen Henry. He was from Athens, Tennessee. He was 31 years old and was killed when he fell from a rig and suffered massive head trauma.

Are the risks worth the rewards? How many lives are worth how many dollars? The job (remember the many promised to Pennsylvanians and New Yorkers) came, no doubt, with pretty good pay to bring a Tennesseean so far from home. But was it enough for Greg Henry's family? Will it help ease their grief?

Will you be getting free energy for life, if you lease your land and it’s fracked? Will you ever feel safe drinking the water? Will the royalty fees cover the loss of your home’s value? Where will you go if you are forced to leave your valueless home? What will happen to the investments of time, equity, sweat, and tears—let alone cash—you’ve poured into it? How much money is enough? Are the risks worth the rewards?

Is a Tennessee man’s life worth as much as a Towanda child’s life? If your child drinks contaminated water today and develops cancer in five years, will a gas company come forward to help you pay for your child’s chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and hold your hand while you wait for the latest medical test results that will tell you if she will live or die?

Whose risks? Whose rewards?

Are the risks worth the rewards?

Every community must come up with its answer.