Dear R
This email is a follow-up to an
interaction we had after the meeting sponsored by the Eastern Geauga
Landowners in Middlefield last week.
You had challenged me on a number of
issues and referred me to the ODNR for clarification. I am here to
report that I did indeed correspond with Michael Williams, a
geologist with the agency. I asked him three questions that were
points of contention between you and me. Quotes below are from his
emailed response.
First, contrary to your insistence,
Ohio “does not
determine what type or volume of chemicals to be
used in the drilling, stimulation or production of an oil and gas
well. Benzene and diesel fuel are not prohibited by Ohio law”.
You vigorously denied that these two substances could legally be used
in Ohio for well stimulation.
Another point you contested involved
the temporary storage of flowback. Williams confirmed my reading of
Ohio oil and gas law: “Ohio law does not require that all flowback
be stored in steel tanks. Temporarily flowback may be stored in
open pits that meet the design requirements of the chief”.
To your credit, Williams did agree that
you and the woman you pointed at who was listening in could indeed
drink flowback (though he added, “...the experience [would be] very
unpleasant”).
However, given that flowback can also contain heavy metals and
radioactive nucleotides – like radium, which can replace calcium in
bones and emit highly dangerous alpha particles, and given that Ohio
does not regulate what chemicals are used or in what concentration
they are used, I'm not sure how he can say flowback is “drinkable”.
As I informed you in Middlefield, benzene (for one example) is
considered toxic at 5 parts per billion.
But I'm going to give you the benefit
of the doubt – in a sense – that you are well-informed of the
entire process of shale gas extraction and the particulars of Ohio
laws and rules governing it. One the other hand, this means that I am
not giving you the benefit of the doubt that you are operating
in good faith in your promotion of shale gas development.
OOGEEP honestly states its mission “to
promote a positive public awareness of Ohio's oil and gas drilling
and producing industry.” One should hope that a sense of ethical
and social responsibility should preclude the communication of
misinformation, the intentional omission of other information, and
the scornful dismissal of legitimate concerns in the fulfillment of any
organization's mission. But your talk, which I have watched twice now,
is laden with all three.
Some examples from your talk and after:
While you communicated that those
considering leasing their land “need to be aware” that a drill
rig will be on their property and that water will be used to make
drilling mud, you did not see any need to inform them that there may
be an open pit of flowback on their property. This information might
be valuable for your audience, especially those with children or farm
animals that could be exposed to the hazards posed by such a pit.
That landowners can specify in a lease that flowback be contained in
tanks makes your omission all the more dubious. Why not tell them?
Why not tell your audience how much
water will be used and where it might come from? Your obfuscation of
water use – that less water will be used to frack a horizontal bore
compared to enough vertical bores to access the same amount of shale
– is a prudent deception in a room full of farmers during a summer
of record drought.
There are plenty of legitimate concern
regarding the chemicals that may be introduced into communities and
bodies with the development of shale gas – carcinogens, mutatgens,
hormone disruptors, substances that delay or otherwise harm mental
development in children, and other substances of harm. Yet you refer
to all these in an insultingly stupid Mary Poppins reference in your
presentation. You really come across as not respecting your audience,
let alone the doctors, pediatricians, parents, teachers, cancer
survivors, health societies, etc. who have expressed real concern
that these chemicals might have a generational health legacy in this
country.
One final example of deception (of
many) was your communication - to the gentleman chatting with you in
front of me after your talk - that chemicals in flowback are not
dangerous as they've been “spent”. I have a difficult time
describing this as anything but an outright and dangerous lie.
Despite my beliefs regarding the wisdom
of “our” energy “decisions”, I recognize the industry's right
to promote itself, and I imagine you and the other people working for
OOGEEP are probably good and loved people in your lives. But you must
be told unambiguously that, in your role in promoting this untested
technology that gave rise to the decade-old shale gas revolution,
your conduct is unethical at best. That you are operating in public
school makes my head spin. How is that anything but indoctrination of
tomorrow's mineral-rights leasers and petroleum consumers?
I'd like to be optimistic about the
future, but given the anecdotal and scientific information building
around the shale gas revolution, and given that our government is polluted with industry money, and given the deceptive promotion of shale gas to a
largely uncritical public, I am finding it difficult to feel good
about my daughters' future, my country's future, and my planet's
future.
Your slide of the house with all of the
occupant's petroleum-derived products sitting in the front yard
resonated with me, though not as you intended. If we
are going to continue to gauge our quality of life and standard of
living by the amount of (petroleum-derived) stuff we have, we are
truly an empty people with a bleak future.
Thank you for your attention (if you
made it this far!),
Sincerely,
Steven Corso
Geauga County landowner, farmer,
educator, father of two healthy daughters, engaged citizen
