Group says its videos make shale-gas emissions visible
BARNESVILLE, Ohio — Peter Dronkers of Earthworks makes invisible air pollution from shale drilling visible to everyone.
The viewfinder of Dronkers’ infrared gasrecording camera shows billowing clouds or wispy leaks.
What appears in the videos as wind-blown plumes of smoke are really pollutants that are invisible to the naked eye.
Earthworks, a national environmental group based in Washington, came into Ohio during the summer with its camera to determine if shale drilling, natural gas processing and transportation are fouling the air and sickening Ohio residents.
The camera can detect up to 20 different gases that environmentalists say could pose a health threat to those living in Ohio’s Utica shale region in eastern Ohio.
The group has been recording emissions from shale sites in Ohio and six other states.
Such emissions increase the likelihood that air pollution problems will be found, said Nadia Steinzor of Earthworks’ Citizens Empowerment Project.
Her group and the Ohio Environmental Council are pushing a new grassroots effort to determine how big a threat shale drilling and related emissions are to neighbors in Ohio.
The Ohio videos show “lots of intense emissions that are, in some cases, continuing unabated,” Steinzor said. “The emissions we’re seeing in Ohio are significant.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to impose new rules to cut air emissions from new drilling facilities by 40 percent, starting next year.
The industry is opposed, saying such action is unneeded. The proposed cuts would not affect existing facilities.
Energy in Depth, a pro-drilling trade group that spoke on behalf of the companies whose sites were examined, also isn’t impressed by what Earthworks is doing.
“It sounds like a solution in search of a problem,” said Jackie Stewart, a spokeswoman for Energy in Depth-Ohio. “It sounds like a lot of smoke and mirrors … and very unscientific and of very limited use.”
Landowners Jeff and Kerri Bond said they are troubled by the emissions from the wells on their 176-acre property near Seneca Lake in Noble County. They’re convinced those emissions — captured on video during visits by the Earthworks crew in July and October — triggered headaches, nausea, dizziness and other medical problems and killed a dozen trees in the yard.
“There is a chemical smell in the air, an acidy smell,” said 60-year-old Jeff Bond.
The couple keep their windows closed to keep the smells out. “We want out,” he said. Ohio activist John Morgan, 69, of Beallsville said the videos are “a visual way to show people that something is going on, that we have a problem here.”