U.S. GAO – Unconventional Oil and Gas Development: Key Environmental and Public Health Requirements
October 10, 2012
U.S. GAO – Unconventional Oil and Gas Development: Key Environmental and Public Health Requirements.
Health Impact Assessment
September 26, 2012
On Martens’ Press Release on DEC ‘studying the health Impacts – the call from medical professionals has rightly been for a Health Impact Assessment.
What Martens has said is that the DEC will study the health impacts. NOT THE SAME THING.
Scan these sites on HIAs and be able to speak to the difference. What Martens has proposed, a closed review of whatever data it is they have gathered, is NOT acceptable.
Mary Menapace RN
Skaneateles
From The World Health Organization
http://www.who.int/hia/about/why/en/index.html
http://www.who.int/hia/about/why/en/index.html
Why use HIA?
Values
HIA is based on four values that link the HIA to the policy environment in which it is being undertaken.
Values
HIA is based on four values that link the HIA to the policy environment in which it is being undertaken.
Democracy – allowing people to participate in the development and implementation of policies, programmes or projects that may impact on their lives.
Equity – HIA assesses the distribution of impacts from a proposal on the whole population, with a particular reference to how the proposal will affect vulnerable people (in terms of age, gender, ethnic background and socio-economic status).
Sustainable development – that both short and long term impacts are considered, along with the obvious, and less obvious impacts.
Ethical use of evidence – the best available quantitative and qualitative evidence must be identified and used in the assessment. A wide variety of evidence should be collected using the best possible methods.
Equity – HIA assesses the distribution of impacts from a proposal on the whole population, with a particular reference to how the proposal will affect vulnerable people (in terms of age, gender, ethnic background and socio-economic status).
Sustainable development – that both short and long term impacts are considered, along with the obvious, and less obvious impacts.
Ethical use of evidence – the best available quantitative and qualitative evidence must be identified and used in the assessment. A wide variety of evidence should be collected using the best possible methods.
From CDC site: lots of info on this site and links –
http://www.cdc.gov/healthyplaces/hia.
For instance, this on respiratory health as example of HIA assessments:
Respiratory Health & Air Pollution
Transportation-related pollutants are one of the largest contributors to unhealthy air quality. Exposure to traffic emissions has been linked to many adverse health effects including: Exacerbation of asthma symptoms, diminished lung function, adverse birth outcomes, and childhood cancer.
Common transportation-related air pollutants include carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter. Ozone, formed when nitrogen dioxide and sunlight react, is also a common pollutant. Particulate matter and ozone are known respiratory irritants that can aggravate asthma either by themselves or when combined with other environmental factors. Recent health studies also suggest that particulate matter is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
Motor vehicles contribute to more than 50% of air pollution in urban areas. The design of communities and transportation systems impacts how often automobiles are used, how many automobile trips are taken, and how long those trips are. Reducing automobile trips by increasing mass transit use, carpooling, walking, and bicycling can help reduce air pollution, especially in urban areas.
Several years ago, researchers took advantage of a natural experiment to learn about the impact on pediatric asthma of decreased traffic levels and improved air quality. During the 1996 Summer Olympics Games in Atlanta, when peak morning traffic decreased 23% and peak ozone levels decreased 28%, emergency visits for asthma events in children decreased 42%. At the same time, children’s emergency room visits for causes other than asthma did not change. These results suggest that efforts to reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality can also help improve the respiratory health of a community.
Support to the identification of potential risks for the environment and human health arising from hydrocarbons operations involving hydraulic fracturing in Europe Report for European Commission DG Environment AEA/R/
September 9, 2012
fracking study.pdf (application/pdf Object).
Support to the identification of potential risks for the environment and human health arising from hydrocarbons operations involving hydraulic fracturing in Europe
Report for European Commission DG Environment AEA/R/ED57281
Issue Number 11
Date 28/05/2012
Open letter to Governor Cuomo from scientists and physicians
August 9, 2012
WCNY TV FM – Connected to YOU – Public Television.
August 7, 2012
Open Letter to Governor Cuomo
Dear Governor Cuomo,
We—the undersigned scientists, medical professionals, elected officials, business persons, and economists – protest the exclusion of qualified, independent experts from the decision-making process to permit or prohibit unconventional development of natural gas from shale formations in New York State.
Letters we have sent to your office and to the Department of Environmental Conservation have received no replies. Requests for meetings with you have received no response. The failure to engage us in substantive discussions contradicts your repeated statement that science, facts, and information will form the basis of your decision.
While our voices have been ignored, the Department of Environmental Conservation has rolled out the red carpet to representatives of the gas industry and engaged them in reciprocal conversation. Gas industry representatives have enjoyed meetings with high-level officials, sneak peaks at the draft environmental impact statement, and same-day responses to emailed requests, as revealed by the recent Environmental Working Group report based on FOIL documents.
As the Albany Times Union reports this week that you are now moving actively to release the revised draft regulations and open parts of New York State to unconventional shale gas extraction via hydraulic fracturing, we write to express our complete loss of faith in the Department of Environmental Conservation. This agency has not only colluded with the gas industry in crafting regulations, its preparations to date are wholly inadequate to oversee the roll-out of an industry and practice as inherently dangerous, secretive, and accident-prone as spatially intensive, high-volume fracking.
Furthermore, we call for the resignation of Bradley Field, the chief of the DEC’s Division of Mineral Resources. Mr. Field is directly responsible for the scientific integrity of the document on which your decision will rest. As a signatory to a petition that denies the demonstrable harm of climate change, Mr. Field has shown himself wholly unqualified for his position.
Governor Cuomo, the “science, facts, and information” that will inform your decision to allow or disallow unconventional shale gas development in New York State is being supplied by a climate change contrarian who works within an agency whose senior officials openly collude with the gas industry and ignore the concerns of independent experts.
You are being badly served.
We believe that “safe” development of shale gas is not possible at this time using existing technologies. Were the DEC objective and inclusive of evidence and facts, it would come to the same conclusion. The best science shows that the moratorium on 2 unconventional development of natural gas from shale formations in New York State should be indefinitely extended. The process as we know it is simply too unpredictable and dangerous to be allowed to go forward in our state.
By extending the moratorium, you have an opportunity to develop a sustainable energy policy in New York State, become an environmental champion, put yourself in harmony with public opinion, and demonstrate that you are making a sciencebased decision. You cannot claim to be listening to science while ignoring what independent scientists have to say. It’s time to do the right thing.
Sincerely,
Lou Allstadt Former executive vice president, Mobil Oil Corporation
Don Barber Town Supervisor of Caroline
Larry Bennett Public relations and creative services manager, Brewery Ommegang
Jannette Barth, PhD Pepacton Institute LLC
Dominic Frongillo Deputy Town Supervisor of Caroline; founder, Elected Officials to Protect New York
Robert Howarth, PhD David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology Cornell University
Anthony Ingraffea, PhD, PE Dwight C. Baum Professor of Engineering Cornell University
Adam Law, MD Endocrinologist, Ithaca, New York; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London
Deborah Rogers Energy Policy Forum
Matthew Ryan Mayor of Binghamton
Sandra Steingraber, PhD Distinguished Scholar in Residence Ithaca College
Silica handling in Owego
June 5, 2012
Stopping yesterday in Owego just west of Binghamton, I toured the town depot where silica is brought by rail from the west, stored in a large 4 chamber tower, loaded into silver tankers, and transported to Pennsylvania for fracking. How many other such depots exist in our NYS towns, blowing dangerous silica dust over its citizenry in addition to the workers on the site?
Suzannah Glidden, Director
Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition
914-234-6470
www.newyorkwater.org
CrotonWshed@aol.com
Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition
914-234-6470
www.newyorkwater.org
CrotonWshed@aol.com
GDACC 
