Natural gas fracking needs to be monitored, panel says

Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," in shale formations should be monitored closely for its environmental effects, a federally appointed panel recommended Thursday.

The assessment was the Obama administration's first major pronouncement on the coast-to-coast shale gas boom that has raised concerns about the risks to underground water supplies from the chemicals injected into subterranean rock to unlock natural gas.

Fracking has raised concerns in areas rich with shale gas that drinking water may become contaminated by the chemicals, which include benzene, hydrochloric acid, formaldehyde and methanol.

The energy industry has maintained that fracking is safe and fracking advocates say there has been no direct proof of drinking-water contamination.

The report came from an expert panel appointed by Energy Secretary Steven Chu. The panel’s chairman, John M. Deutch, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and former CIA director under President Clinton, said he was optimistic about the report’s potential effect.

“Given the report’s tone and common sense advice, it could influence industry and regulators’ attitudes,” Deutch said. It offered something for almost every side, said some environmental groups and industry representatives. “The report urges industry to come clean and for scientists and regulators to do their jobs,” said Benjamin Grumbles, president of the Clean Water America Alliance, an association whose members include municipal water districts and private industry.

The report won over some industry observers by eschewing the view common among environmental groups that shale gas production is inherently dangerous. “On the whole, this is another example of a group of experts that has essentially concluded that environmental risk exists in shale gas production but that those risks are well-managed,” said Lee Fuller, vice president of government relations for the Independent Petroleum Assn. of America, a trade association.

Still, the report noted that there was an urgency to addressing environmental issues. The report identifies four main concerns: possible water pollution from chemicals used in fracking and from methane gas released by the process; air pollution from methane and emissions from equipment used in gas production; potential disruption to communities and the cumulative adverse effects on their ecology.

The panel recommended that companies measure and disclose what’s in the water throughout the production process and called on them to also disclose the chemicals they inject into the ground, unless the mix is “genuinely proprietary.” It also called for monitoring and reducing emissions at gas production sites and for making some areas off-limits to gas extraction.

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Photo: A Halliburton rig drills for Shell Exploration & Production in Pinedale, Wyo., using hydraulic fracturing. Credit: Los Angeles Times

Colorado caves opened despite threat to bats

The Bureau of Land Management has opened access to three caves in Colorado that state officials had recommended remain closed to prevent human spread of a deadly bat disease.

The agency placed tight restrictions on a permit for access to three caves in Glenwood Springs, Colo., that the agency said have either no use or very limited use by bats. They will be open during the National Speleological Society’s convention July 18-22.

Groups will be limited to 10 to 12 visits per cave with no more than five people per visit. An approved leader for each tour will be required to ensure the cave visitors follow the latest protocols for decontaminating their gear.

The action comes after the Colorado Division of Wildlife advised that the BLM not to open the caves because of documented bat activity inside. The convention is expected to draw cavers from around the country, including regions in the eastern and southern United States afflicted with white nose syndrome, which has been spreading steadily southwest.

“Providing convention attendees an outlet for caving under these strictly controlled conditions will help mitigate risk of introducing white-nose syndrome and encourage any visitation to these areas to occur under the oversight of an experienced local guide,” said BLM Colorado River Valley Field Manager Steve Bennett.

But decontamination protocols fall “short of providing the level of protection the state biologists think bats need,” said spokeswoman Mollie Matteson of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group based in Tucson, which has petitioned to ban nonessential human travel into caves on public lands.

Rocky mountain flowers dwindle, as climate warms

 

New research finds that the brilliant flowers that bloom in Rocky Mountain meadows during midsummer are dwindling, and likely to fade even more as climate change warms the high country.

Wildflower season once extended summer-long in the Rockies, but the five researchers found that the number of flowers had started to drop significantly during midsummer. There are a variety of reasons, including a warmer climate.

The implications are worrisome, not just for those who enjoy the scenic splashes of color. Pollinators such as bees and other animals such as humming birds depend on a healthy flower system. Their numbers could also drop should temperatures continue to rise and flower populations fall.

"Some pollinators with short periods of activity may require only a single flower species," write the ecologists in their paper, "but pollinators active all season must have flowers available in sufficient numbers through the season."

The research, funded by the National Science Foundation, appears in the July edition of the Journal of Ecology.

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Photo: Dwarf bluebells, one of the earliest-blooming mountain wildflowers, attract queen bees seeking nectar. Credit: David Inouye

 

Salazar backpedals: Politics stalls wilderness designation, again

 

 

Understanding how wilderness is designated and how wilderness-quality lands are managed in the U.S. just got murkier. On Wednesday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued a memo that promised to abide by a congressional mandate that essentially made it impossible to identify wild public lands that merit protection.

Salazar's memo noted there was broad interest in managing public lands in a "sensible manner" and promised to work collaboratively with members of Congress. He directed Interior officials to draft a report on how best to manage wilderness-quality lands. But the days of holding land in a kind of hands-off limbo while officials decide whether it needs more protection effectively are coming to a halt, again:

"On December 22, 2010, I issued Secretarial Order 3310 to address the BLM's management of wilderness resources on lands under its jurisdiction. Under Secretarial Order 3310, I ordered the BLM to use the public resource management planning process to designate certain lands with wilderness characteristics as "Wild Lands."

On April 14, 20II, the United States Congress passed the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011 (Pub. L. 112-10)(2011 CR), which includes a provision (Section 1769) that prohibits the use of appropriated funds to implement, administer, or enforce Secretarial Order 3310 in Fiscal Year 2011.

I am confirming today that, pursuant to the 2011 CR, the BLM will not designate any lands as 'Wild Lands.' "

As far as spelling out the administration's view of wilderness, the memo gave little insight into what has become the highly political process of managing the nation's least-disturbed lands.

Colorado River parks threatened by dams, report finds

 

A report released Tuesday reiterates one of Western environmentalists' biggest gripes -- the network of dams along the Colorado River have irrevocably transformed the habitats of some of the country's most treasured national parks.

The dams make the flow of water along the river erratic, changing river temperatures as well as its shape, damaging fragile ruins and pushing native species to the brink, according to the report from the National Parks Conservation Assn.

"Without proper management, the landscapes that make the national parks located on its banks and its tributaries so incredible will be severely diminished, irreparably damaging in about a century’s time iconic ecosystems that was slowly formed over a period of 6 million years,” said David Nimkin, the southwestern regional office director of NPCA.

For example, in Dinosaur National Monument, Grand Canyon National Park and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, the Colorado and its tributary of the Gunnison used to flood each spring, washing away large plants from river banks. But the floods have been eased by dams upriver from the parks, according to the report, and riparian vegetation has overtaken some of the banks. In the Grand Canyon, campsites that were once available on the sandy banks of the Colorado decades ago are now overgrown, the report says.

On Lake Powell -- created by the Glen Canyon dam, ferociously and unsuccessfully fought in the 1950s by environmental groups -- receding water levels have made ancient petroglyphs and ruins suddenly accessible to recreational boaters, with little protection by park staff, the report says.

It contends that many of the issues could be managed without seriously affecting the hydroelectrical power that the network of dams on the river and its tributary provide to the rapidly-growing region.

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 Photo: The Colorado River winds through Grand Canyon National Park. Credit: Ron Watts/Corbiss

Molycorp to expand rare earth operation to Estonia

Molycorp Inc., which owns the only rare earth mine in the U.S., plans to double its processing capacity by buying a European plant.

The Colorado-based company said Monday that it was buying 90% of Estonia-based AS Silmet for $89 million –- 80% from AS Silmet Grupp and another 10% from Austrian chemistry and metallurgy company Treibacher Industrie.

The facility in Sillamae, Estonia, will immediately begin processing 3,000 metric tons of rare earths –- a group of 17 metal elements used in clean technologies such as wind turbines and electric vehicles. Molycorp’s mine in Mountain Pass, Calif., which will provide the raw materials, can also process about 3,000 metric tons.

The move will help Molycorp grab a larger chunk of the rare earths supply chain. China produces more than 95% of the world’s supply at the moment and has indicated that not much of it will cross its borders.

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Photo: Hidden in a rock blasted from the Molycorp Minerals are rare earth metals found in only a few mines on Earth. Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times

Colorado environmentalists challenge planned uranium mill

 

An environmental group has filed a lawsuit challenging Colorado's greenlighting of the first new uranium mill in the United States in 25 years.

Last month, Colorado's Department of Public Health and Environment approved a permit for the Pinon Ridge Uranium Mill, which would be located in the high desert in the remote southwestern part of the state.

The proposed mill is a sign of the revitalization of the nuclear fuels industry. Currently, the only operating uranium mill in the country is located in southeastern Utah. The Canadian company that wants to open the new mill, Energy Fuels Inc., says the processed uranium mainly would be shipped to fast-growing Asian countries.

State regulators said they followed all appropriate procedures when they approved the permit, but the lawsuit, filed Feb. 4 in state court by the Telluride-based Sheep Mountain Alliance, alleges that is not the case. It claims the state did not hold adequate public hearings and that the licensing violates a state law prohibiting uranium mills near areas that already have high levels of heavy metals in their water.

The suit also contends that the state did not require the mill's owner to set aside enough money for mitigation, noting that prior groundwater contamination in Colorado mills has cost up to $500 million to clean up. Energy Fuels is only required to set aside $11 million, according to the complaint.

“If state regulators ignore basic federal and state law to permit this mill, how can we ever trust them to monitor the mill once it’s in production?” asked Linda Miller, one of Sheep Mountain's board members.

State regulators had no comment on the lawsuit. The mill is opposed by environmentalists in Telluride and other mountain towns, but supported by many locals in the remote Paradox Valley as a possible source of good employment.

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Photo: The area in Colorado's Paradox Valley where the new mill would be constructed. Credit: Whit Richardson for Sheep Mountain Alliance

National parks: A missed deadline to curb haze

 

More than three decades after Congress ordered state and federal officials to clear the haze that obscures vistas from America's national parks and wilderness areas, progress has slowed to a near-halt.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency failed to meet a deadline Saturday to approve most state plans aimed at curbing pollution from coal-fired power plants and industrial facilities in order to improve visibility at 156 federally-protected areas such as the Grand Canyon, Mt. Rainier and Shenandoah.

The agency hasn't formally approved any state plans — or come up with its own, as required — and won't do so by the deadline. "We will not have final federal plans in place by Jan. 15," the agency said in an e-mail to the Associated Press on Friday. It has proposed partial approval of Idaho's plan, a partial federal plan for New Mexico and a federal plan for the Four Corners area on tribal land.

The agency added that "there is progress in every state toward visibility improvements, reductions in harmful emissions and the development of state plans."

But Stephanie Kocish, a lawyer for the Washington-based National Parks Conservation Association, said the group next week will file a notice of intent to sue the EPA for missing the clean-p deadline, which, she said "has been pushed aside for too long."

Nearly three-quarters of states failed to meet an initial 2007 deadline to submit plans requiring decades-old facilities that contribute to haze at parks to update old equipment. So far, only 34 states have complied.

Colorado uranium mill approved

 

Colorado regulators on Wednesday approved the nation's first new uranium mill in more than 25 years, greenlighting construction of a new facility in the remote southwestern part of the state.

The state Department of Public Health and Environment gave a radioactive fuels license to Energy Fuels Resources Corp, a Canadian-based company that has long sought to open the mill near the small town of Naturita.

The mill is a sign of the uranium boom in the Four Corners region, as demand for the mineral has soared in the past decade. Only one mill in southeastern Utah currently processes uranium domestically, forcing many U.S. nuclear plants to import their fuel.

According to filings by Energy Fuels Resources, though, the yellowcake uranium at the new mill would predominantly be exported to Asian power plants.

The project is opposed by several environmental groups, which fear that radioactive tailings from the mill could contaminate the Colorado and Dolores rivers. They contend that tailings from old uranium claims still contaminate the Dolores. In the central part of the state, near Canon City, groundwater contamination persists from a now-shuttered uranium mill that was declared a Superfund site 25 years ago.

Colorado once had an active uranium industry in the sparsely-populated southwestern end of the state and elsewhere, but it collapsed in the 1970s. Locals in the Paradox Valley tend to back the project, while much of the opposition comes from areas like the ski town of Telluride, about 50 miles to the southeast.

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Photo: The area in Colorado's Paradox Valley where the new mill will be constructed. Photo credit: Whit Richardson for Sheep Mountain Alliance

Colorado ditches coal

As part of a groundbreaking plan to reduce pollution from power plants, Colorado's Public Utilities Commission has decided to replace all coal-fired power plants in the Denver area. It's the first time a state has moved to shutter coal-burning plants to battle air pollution.

The commission approved the proposal Thursday afternoon, which was sparked by a law, passed with bipartisan support this year, that required the state to sharply cut its emissions. The plan is expected to cut nitrogen oxide emissions by 86%.

There will be a cost in replacing Xcel Energy's four coal-fired power plants. Ratepayers will see an increase of 2.4%, or about $1.40 a month, as the plants shift to natural gas. The coal industry has vowed legal action to block the change.

Environmental groups hailed the move as a milestone in the fight for cleaner energy. “We applaud the monumental, forward thinking action that the PUC has taken to ensure a clean and affordable energy future for Coloradans,” said the Sierra Club's Roger Singer. “We thank the commissioners and Xcel Energy for committing to retiring dirty coal, cleaning up our air quality and moving forward with cleaner energy options.”

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Photo: Activists rally outside one of the four coal-powered plants that will be converted. Credit: Nathaniel Janowitz / Sierra Club