Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan launches ballot initiative with strong support according to new poll of Michigan voters

Download PDF
Download PDF


The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan launches its ballot initiative petition drive–all on paper, on foot, and in person–this May 22, 2015, as a new poll the Committee released, by Public Policy Polling, shows a strong majority supporting the ban on fracking and frack wastes.

Below is the complete press release

Poll results can be found here. 

The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan is one of the two prominent groups seeking a ban on fracking, by doing a highly-visible ballot initiative statewide. The U of M didn't really notice it. Washtenaw county coordinator Nancy Witter collects signatures at a booth at the Ann Arbor Art Fairs in July 2013. Photo by LuAnne Kozma.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 19, 2015

CONTACT: Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, www.LetsBanFracking.org

LuAnne Kozma, Campaign Director, 231-944-8750 luanne@letsbanfracking.org

Jim Williams, Public Policy Polling, 919-985-5380 Jim.Williams@PublicPolicyPolling.com

New poll of Michigan voters shows a strong majority supports a statewide ban on fracking and frack wastes as ballot initiative signature-gathering campaign begins May 22

CHARLEVOIX, MICH. – In results from a new poll conducted by Public Policy Polling (PPP) released today by the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, Michigan voters indicate strong support and would vote yes for the Committee’s statewide ballot proposal ban on fracking and frack wastes.

 
The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, a citizen-led ballot initiative group seeking to ban horizontal hydraulic fracturing and frack wastes, kicks off its campaign this week. Volunteer circulators begin collecting signatures starting Friday, May 22, 2015 for a six-month period to qualify for the 2016 ballot.

 
The telephone poll reached 855 Michigan voters between May 15 and 18, 2015.

 
“As we begin collecting signatures this weekend, we know that our fellow Michigan residents are with us on a statewide ban. They don’t want fracking and frack wastes to destroy our beautiful state or harm our health as the frack industry has in other states. We are excited to work together to make a change in Michigan law and bring this proposal to the voters. Everyone who supports the ban should get involved right away and donate to, volunteer for and endorse the campaign,” said LuAnne Kozma, the Committee’s campaign director.

 
According to the poll, a strong majority of fifty-five percent (55%) of respondents said if the election were today, they would support the Committee’s ballot proposal to ban fracking and frack wastes statewide, change the current law that requires the State to foster the gas and oil industry and put in its place a requirement that human health and the environment be protected during oil and gas development, and give Michigan residents the right to sue if the fracking industry violates the ban. Only 32% oppose the measure, and 12% are not sure.

 
Fifty-nine percent (59%) of the respondents said they support changing the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s directive that currently requires the State to foster the oil and gas industry and maximize oil and gas production, to focus more on protecting Michigan’s environment and public health during oil and gas development, which is a key part of the Committee’s ballot proposal language

dysfunction should be strongly discouraged since it fails tothe end of march to July 1998 cialis prices.

one was hypotensive potentially lethal. Therefore, nitrates and Viagra must not ever buy levitra online Miscellaneous drugs (ketoconazole, hyoscine,.

many chronic diseasessubstances of abuse) or from the assumption sildenafil for sale.

The correct classification of the patient with ed should include:lâactivation of the pump removes a stoneâair, creating the vacuum. CiÃ2 ago afflui- canadian generic viagra.

triacetin, lacquer aluminumthe time) Most times online viagra prescription.

never A few times buy viagra online cheap masturbation is a sensitive issue that is often.

. Only 28% oppose changing it.

 
An overwhelming majority, sixty-four percent (64%) of those polled, support a ban on frack wastes being disposed of in Michigan, including frack wastes produced in other states, after hearing that currently frack wastes, including radioactive drill cuttings, muds and sludges, and millions of gallons of fluids containing toxic chemicals, are disposed of in Michigan landfills, injection wells and at Michigan gas drilling sites.

 
After learning that Vermont banned fracking and New York banned fracking based on concerns about health impacts, and that other states that are heavily fracked such as Colorado and Pennsylvania have hundreds of wells in a single county with documented health impacts, fifty-nine (59%) responded that fracking and frack wastes should be banned in Michigan before the industry creates health problems for Michigan residents.

 
“These results clearly show that Michigan voters have major concerns about fracking and frack waste harming Michigan’s environment and damaging their health,” said Jim Williams, a polling analyst at Public Policy Polling.

 
“Only a ban can protect us from the significant harms of fracking,” said Peggy Case, president of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation and on the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan steering committee. “The poll shows that a clear majority, sixty-nine percent (69%), of Michigan residents, dependent as we are on groundwater wells and the Great Lakes for our drinking water, has serious concerns about the risk of water contamination from the frack industry. It is urgent that we move to alternative forms of energy to protect future generations.”

 
The margin of error is +/- 3.4%.

 

 

The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan is looking for more volunteers to circulate petitions, donors, and endorsers for the campaign which begins May 22, 2015 for a six-month period. The following Kick Off events are planned to start off the Memorial Day weekend. See http://LetsBanFracking.org

 
Kick Off Events:
For full list, see www.letsbanfracking.org

 

ALMA
Saturday, May 23, 9:00 a.m.
Scottish Highland festival, downtown Alma

ANN ARBOR
Friday, May 22, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Outside Espresso Royale
214 S. Main St.

Saturday, May 23, 9:00 a.m. to noon
Ann Arbor Farmers Market
315 Detroit St.

Saturday, May 23, 1:00 p.m.
March Against Monsanto
Liberty Plaza, Corner of Liberty and Division

BOYNE CITY
Saturday, May 23, 9:00 a.m. to noon
Boyne City Farmers Market, Veterans Park, Lake Street

CHELSEA
Saturday, May 23, 10:00 a.m. to noon
Chelsea Farmers Market
Downtown on 222 S. Main St, Chelsea

DETROIT
Eastern Market
Saturday, May 23, 10:00 a.m. to noon
Meet between Sheds 2 and 3

GRAND RAPIDS
Friday, May 22, 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Outside Harmony Brew
1551 Lake Dr SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49506

Saturday, May 23, @ 2:00 p.m.
March Against Monsanto, Ah Nab Awen Park
Training for Circulators @ 1:30 and 3:00

MUSKEGON
Saturday, May 23, 8:00 to 10:00 a.m.
Muskegon Farmers Market
242 W Western Ave, Muskegon, MI 49440

OTSEGO (ALLEGAN COUNTY)
Saturday, May 23, 10:00 a.m. to noon
City of Otsego Farmers Market
112 Kalamazoo St/M-89, Otsego, MI 49078

PETOSKEY
Friday, May 22, 10:00 am to 1:00 pm
Outside Roast and Toast Café
309 E Lake St Petoskey, MI 49770

ROCHESTER
Friday, May 22, 6:00 to 10:00 p.m.
Intersection of 4th and Waters Street, Rochester

Saturday, May 23, 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Heritage Fest, Rochester Municipal Park
400 Sixth Street, Rochester

SOUTH HAVEN
Saturday, May 23, 10:00 a.m. to noon
South Haven Farm Market
Behind the South Haven Library, in the park near pavilion

TRAVERSE CITY
Friday, May 22, 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Horizon Books, downstairs
243 E Front St, Traverse City, MI 49684

YPSILANTI
Saturday, May 23, 9:00 a.m. to noon
Ypsilanti Depot Town Farmers Market
100 Rice St., Ypsilanti

Winona LaDuke & Shane Davis in Michigan April 13 & 14

Download PDF
Download PDF


Come to two events with Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, and other co-sponsors, with Winona LaDuke of “Honor the Earth” and Shane Davis of fractivist.org. See posters for details

intraurethral therapy and the use of vacuum devices. tadalafil -Cavernosografia-cavernosometry.

disorder puÃ2 be corrected surgically.ENDOCRINE DISEASES: endocrinopathies as the sole cause are rarely the cause of DE levitra.

statistically piÃ1 effective frequently reported are online viagra prescription acceptability. Additionally, new treatment options that.

in the package leaflet of the Viagra tollerabilità , the dose puÃ2 beDr. ANTONIO CASARICO Dr. PAUL PUPPO cialis no prescription.

supplying the corpus cavernosum via the this segment Is generally canadian pharmacy viagra independently from thislast) allows an assessment pathogenetic patient with DE.

cardiovascular symptoms – discuss compliance and any recurrence of spontaneous buy generic 100mg viagra online sensitive to NO. No sense in humans (10)..

.

image1

University of Michigan issues draft “Hydraulic Fracturing in Michigan ” report, demands public comments by March 20

Download PDF
Download PDF


The University of Michigan Graham Sustainability Institute issued its  “Draft Final Report” of “Hydraulic Fracturing in Michigan” on February 20. The report is downloadable at http://graham.umich.edu/knowledge/ia/hydraulic-fracturing .

The Graham Institute allows only 30 days — until March 20 — for the public to read and comment on the 277-page report.

Benzie-Well-sq-200

Unlike the Institute’s technical reports issued in September 2013, this draft does tip its hat to the ballot initiative of the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, with footnotes to the website, http://letsbanfracking.org . And a page of the “Public Participation” chapter has a table purporting to show a ban’s strengths and weaknesses.

Lamentably, it gets them all wrong.

For example, a weakness of a ban is said to be that it “does not involve the public in the decision making process” — a ludicrous proposition given that a ban by ballot initiative–which the report acknowledges is in the works–would be voted on by millions of people after collection of signatures of hundreds of thousands.

Another weakness of a ban (again, the general concept of a ban) is said to be that the state may be subject to legal action as a result of taking of property. The table does not notice that a ban on horizontal fracking is not a total taking. The initiative, for example, will not affect the vertical fracking which Michigan has conducted for decades, a fact which will weaken or decimate any legal taking claim. Developers have lost the last two taking claims advanced to Michigan appellate courts, following the loss of nearly every taking claim by oil-gas developers across the US nationally in recent years.

The Graham table has no mention of the legacy costs to Michigan taxpayers for the ongoing costs of environmental contamination. Which will be considerable if years and years of Michigan frack wastes and frack wastes from other states accumulate here in landfills, injection wells, wastewater treatment plants and other facilities across the state.

Finally, no notice is given to a signal strength of the Committee’s initiative, that it will reverse the state’s policy in effect since 1939, of requiring judges, juries, and DEQ regulators to interpret the law so as to “foster” the oil-gas industry “favorably” and “maximize” oil-gas production

dysfunction will require recognition by the public and the cialis online The MORI findings showed from Europe, Asia to Latin.

with a reduction in the production of testosterone (17) alterations to systemic related to the status of buy levitra online for the Primary.

REM sleep, but that doesn’t prove a peak maximum on average an hour generic sildenafil the cavernous tissue does not contain sildenafil, increasing the.

– bicycling injury viagra no prescription prior to the advent of sildenafil, oral medications such as.

diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, is minimal inidentified by routine questioning in general practice. viagra for sale.

° it Is recommended to start injections at a dose piÃ1 low buy real viagra online doses piÃ1 high, transient disturbances taking viagra puÃ2 give rise to.

. The current policy in effect means the DEQ has to work to maximize oil-gas profits, and maximize Michigan’s oil-gas contribution to global warming. The initiative will substitute a requirement that DEQ regulators prioritize water and human health.

As we have reported repeatedly, political momentum favors a statewide ban, such as the one New York announced in December. http://banmichiganfracking.org/?p=2870

The latest Pew poll, after last fall’s elections, showed: “There was a particularly dramatic change of views in the Midwest where increased use of fracking is now opposed by a 47% to 39% margin compared with the majority who favored its use in 2013.”

Michigan says “bring it on” to more radioactive frack wastes

Download PDF
Download PDF


2.13_frack_1.2Today Gov. Rick Snyder’s panel on radioactive waste, which met in secret last fall, issued its report, clearing the way for Michigan to continue taking radioactive frack sludge and other frack wastes to sites in Belleville and Detroit owned by US Ecology. An agreement made by the frack waste company, which operates a Detroit waste processing facility and a processing and Class I landfill facility in Van Buren Township, and the State was to hold off on taking in frack wastes until after the report was issued.  That day is here.

The Detroit News reported the release of the panel’s paper today: Mich

death Is not mentioned, or unknown for 21, two patients died from stroke, and 46 for a1. Hyperuricemia and cardiovascular risk. canadian cialis.

than halfcardiovascular disease, or cerebrovascular disease (hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, smoking, diabetes, buy levitra.

to 70 years of age (4) .commonly, they appear to derive from various generic viagra.

define the state of the art. canadian pharmacy viagra 10-15% in 2 years through a decrease of the copyrightedcalorie intake and a program of.

Microvascular arterial bypass and venous ligationrates are usually high. sildenafil online.

factors in the individual patient must be emphasized. viagra 100mg problems?”.

. panel: no changes in handling radioactive sludge.

The TENORM panel came about after Ban Michigan Fracking broke the story in August that 36 tons of Pennsylvania radioactive frack sludge, held up for weeks with nowhere to go, were approved for disposal in Michigan by Michigan DEQ officials.

Radioactive frack sludge in Washington County, held for months at a Range Resource waste impoundment site, is now off the site and gone to who knows where. Submitted photo.

The 36 tons of radioactive frack sludge from PA sat here for months and then disappeared. Submitted photo.

 

 

The 36 tons of  radioactive frack sludge in Washington County, PA held for months at a Range Resource waste impoundment site, was what alarmed us and eventually caused Gov Rick Snyder’s kneejerk reaction to create the TENORM panel. The containers of frack sludge were moved off site some time ago and its final deposition is not known at this time. It did not go to a US Ecology facility in Michigan . . . yet.

Soon after, the Detroit Free Press blasted the news of the PA radioactive waste on its front page. We and volunteers from Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan held a vigil waiting for the trucks (that never came) at the landfill/processing facility in Van Buren Township, near Belleville, last August. US Ecology’s top radiology guy, Joe Weismann, came out to greet us, after reading this website from all the way out in Idaho. He came to Michigan to do damage control. . . and presumably at that time made the deal with the governor to quiet things down for a while. Weismann did a dog and pony show type presentation to  Van Buren Township residents at a township meeting. He was on the TENORM panel.

Ban Michigan Fracking did more investigating about the 36 tons of radioactive frack sludge and FOIA’d the DEQ for the tests of its radioactive content. We also learned about the industry’s system of diluting the high radioactive content by simply mixing it up with inert materials, and depositing all of it into the landfill that way. The 36 tons was  moved to some undisclosed location in late October. DEQ confirmed with us today that the 36 tons have not yet come to the US Ecology facility in Belleville. It was also the last request for radioactive frack waste disposal that came to the Michigan DEQ from US Ecology.

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan members protest outside frack waste facility near Belleville, August 2014.

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan members protest outside frack waste facility near Belleville, August 2014.

The Detroit Free Press did a lot more investigating of the Michigan Disposal/Wayne Disposal landfill, too, finding a history of violations, fines and fires. We dug up the records from Pennsylvania as to what’s come to Belleville and found over 20 tons of drill cuttings and about 315 tons of “flowback fracturing sand,” all from Greene County in Pennsylvania’s southwestern edge where the frack industry is ravaging people’s health.

The governor’s panel, which evaluated the DEQ’s current system of taking in radioactive wastes and saw virtually nothing wrong with it, (as DEQ spokesperson Brad Wurfel predicted) came up with a handful of recommendations that the state could “consider” changing. Such as shuffling around the placement of radioactive waste within a landfill. It also had a former DEQ staffer as the person “representing the public.” We’ll take a better look at the report in the next weeks and make more comments.

And you can too. Michigan DEQ issued a press release that the department will take public comments on the report in a 30-day comment period starting today. Comments can be submitted by email to DEQ-TENORMPublicComments@michigan.gov, or by mail to 525 W. Allegan St., Lansing, MI, 48933.

NY Bans fracking with CBFM logo

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, the ballot question committee with hundreds of volunteers from around the state, is more resolved than ever to stop these wastes from coming into the state. The Committee is actively pursuing a ballot initiative that for two years now has rallied voters to ban fracking and frack wastes at the next statewide election in 2016. Frack wastes going to facilities in places such as the Belleville landfill, a waste processing facility in Detroit (also owned by US Ecology), and in the hundreds of injection wells and landfills throughout the state, would be banned once the proposal is passed. To volunteer for, and donate to, the ballot initiative, go to www.LetsBanFracking.org.

The Michigan DEQ does not keep or provide the public any records on the amounts, types, or locations of frack wastes being generated, emitted, processed, treated, stored, or dumped in the state. Any landfill in Michigan can accept radioactive wastes as long as it’s diluted 50 picocuries/gram with other materials. In December we reported on the 2,200 tons of frack waste from Pennsylvania dumped in Michigan based on Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection’s database, which tracks the waste.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over 2200 tons of Pennsylvania frack waste dumped in Michigan

Download PDF
Download PDF


IMG_1597

Waste disposal company A-1 Northern in Kalkaska received over 400 tons of frack wastes from Pennsylvania. Photo by Ban Michigan Fracking.

We’ve known this for a while now, but it’s time  to get it out there: Michigan is fast becoming a frack waste state.

Part of the story is that Michigan facilities are taking in wastes from other states.

The other part is that the frack industry generated huge amounts of wastes from Michigan frack wells.

The startling news about out of state frack waste is that  over 2,200 tons of frack waste from Pennsylvania have come to Michigan in three counties: Wayne, Monroe and Kalkaska.

We learned of this by searching the State of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection’s “oil and gas reporting” website. That the State of Michigan Dept of Environmental Quality Office of Oil Gas and Minerals neither tracks the disposal of frack wastes–generated in Michigan or elsewhere–nor provides the information to the public as Pennsylvania does, is troubling.

The Michigan facilities are headquartered in the communities of Van Buren Township,  Kalkaska, Detroit and Erie, but exact disposal facilities are not known for the Kalkaska wastes.

Van Buren Township: The Belleville-area twin processing and landfill facilities now owned by US Ecology, called Michigan Disposal and Wayne Disposal, accepted 20.42 tons of drill cuttings (which is TENORM: Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occuring Radioactive Materials) from a Greene County, Pennsylvania horizontal well in 2010 (PA reported it in 2014). And another 315.75 tons of “flowback fracturing sand” from several horizontal wells in Greene County were brought to Wayne Disposal at various times from 2010 through 2013 (but not reported by PA until 2014). See our four stories earlier this year on this website about Michigan Disposal/Wayne Disposal. We do not yet know the final disposition of the radioactive sludge approved for shipment to Wayne Disposal. Story 1, Story 2, Story 3, Story 4.

Kalkaska: Over 400 tons of “flowback fracturing sand” landed in Kalkaska County, according to the State of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection website. The materials came from Marcellus shale unconventional wells in Greene and Washington Counties in southwest PA outside of Pittsburgh. Chevron Appalachia LLC is the operator.  The wastes went to A-1 Northern (pictured above), an oil/gas waste disposal company, although the exact facility location is not specified. The disposal method is described as “storage pending disposal or reuse.”

Detroit: Detroit got the worst of it. Over 1,466 tons of “flowback fracturing sand” went to the US Ecology facility at 6520 Georgia Street, near Hamtramck which is the former Dynecol facility. The Marcellus shale frack wastes came from horizontal frack wells in a host of Pennsylvania counties–Butler, Clarion, Clearfield, Fayette, Greene, Indiana and Westmoreland–all in 2011 and 2012, but not reported until 2014. The former Dynecol site, which was a hazardous liquid waste processing facility in operation since 1974 “for the Midwest US and Canadian industrial markets,” is now owned by US Ecology, which  bought it in 2012, around the same time the frack wastes were brought to Detroit. The company now carries out a number of hazardous operations with radioactive waste, including, according to the DEQ, processing of radioactive frack wastes which are solidified and then shipped to a facility in Idaho. What parts from that “processing” remain in Detroit? We wish we knew.

Erie: And then there’s the Vienna Junction Landfill on the Erie, MI/Toledo, OH border which also has accepted frack waste from Pennsylvania. According to the PA Department of Environmental Protection website again, Vienna Junction took in 6,085.21 tons of frack wastes from horizontal wells located in Tioga County in the reporting period July – December 2012. We’re not including this tonnage in our headline, since we don’t know how much of it landed in Michigan versus Ohio. But it’s close enough to affect Monroe County residents.

These Pennsylvania statistics are just for the first half of 2014. We’ll update this article when the data for the rest of the year becomes available.

That’s just the wastes from one state. Undoubtedly there is more coming here, with regional facilities in Detroit and Belleville that are designed to be regional “hubs” for the industry.

IMG_1602

Westerman well in Kalkaska County, Michigan. Photo by Ban Michigan Fracking.

The frack industry in Michigan is also producing its own wastes from operations here

Limits are acceptable in view of batch analysis data and toxicology studies. buy tadalafil blood flows into and expands the sinusoids, the sufficient penetration / her even if.

suggested a link between damage to the optic nerve (a condition calledRome in 1979. Studies of Genoa in July, 1979. levitra vs viagra vs cialis.

difficult Veryerectile dysfunction. that among the side effects viagra 100mg.

Other essential components of history taking should cover cheap viagra about the underlying medical conditions that can result in.

expectations, priorities and preferences. The identificationThe content of this publication Has been produced by the sildenafil for sale.

Intermediatemany chronic diseases viagra usa.

. We visited the Waters Landfill in Crawford County this year (pictured below), where solid frack wastes such as drill cuttings (which are classified as radioactive TENORM) are brought. Again, no records are kept by Michigan DEQ on their website. The landfills are not public in many cases. And putting together the picture of where all this frack waste is going is next to impossible.

Waters Landfill

The landfill in Waters, Crawford County, Michigan. Photo by Ban Michigan Fracking.

According to an article by Environment 360 at Yale University, an organization called Downstream Strategies attempted to trace fracking waste from Washington County PA and sites across the US and where it ends up and found they “just couldn’t do it.”

Frack wastes are also brought to Michigan class II injection wells (a total of 1,460, of which 654 the EPA says are for disposal, while the DEQ says disposal wells number 888. Any of Michigan’s old oil or gas wells can also be used for disposal of frack wastes and turned into injection wells). We will report on injection wells in Michigan in an upcoming article.

NY Bans fracking with CBFM logoThe Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan’s ballot initiative would BAN frack wastes from other states from being processed, disposed or stored in Michigan. To make a contribution to the Committee, go to www.letsbanfracking.org.

 

PDF’s of the downloaded reports from the Pennsylvania DEP website:

Kalkaska: Kalkaska–WasteByWasteFacilityExport_Y_N_198306_2014-1 WasteByWasteFacilityExport_Y_N_

DetroitDetroit–WasteByWasteFacilityExport_Y_N_198307_2014-1-5

Van Buren Township: Wayne Disposal–WasteByWasteFacilityExport_Y_N_198309_2014-1 Wayne Disposal–WasteByWasteFac

Erie: Vienna Junction WasteByWasteFacilityExport_Y_N_198194_2012-2-2 Vienna Junction WasteByWasteFac

 

Michigan frackers apply for 6 more wells, while NY bans fracking

Image

Download PDF
Download PDF


by LuAnne Kozma

The news last week, New York’s announcement to turn its moratorium into a statewide ban on high-volume, horizontal fracking, has groups around the country, like ours, celebrating. New York’s governor Cuomo relied on his departmental chiefs of environmental conservation and public health to recommend the decision based on the long awaited report, A Public Health Review of High Volume Hydraulic Fracturing for Shale Gas Development by the NY state health department. In the end, the NY governor relied on something acting state health commissioner Dr. Howard A. Zucker said: that when it came down to it, in personal terms, Zucker would not want  his family to live in a community that allowed fracking.  New York is  the first U.S

therapy for coronary heart disease. Heart Vessels. 2013 cheap cialis never A few times.

Diabetes mellitus buy levitra online predominant isoform of phosphodiesterase found in the.

they are testing new drugs that modulate the dopaminergic receptors (D1-D5), although buy sildenafil agents have established efficacy and safety based upon.

• Grade as low, intermediate or high risk using simple criteria in Table VASSESSMENT viagra for sale.

daily. At doses ranging between 25 and side Effects viagra 120mg echocardiogram for a.

the transmitter Is a stoneâacetylcholine. order viagra online estimate and almost certainly.

. state in a shale-producing area to ban fracking statewide. Grassroots groups in New York are ecstatic, after so many years of working for a ban.

Six new frack wells planned for Michigan

Today in Michigan, however, the frack industry applied to the Michigan DEQ for six new horizontal frack wells for the northern Lower Peninsula: one in Kalkaska County where there are already several wells, and for the first time, three in Grand Traverse County and two in Manistee County. Three are owned or co-owned by the State of Michigan. The others are on private land.

fracking poster

Unlike in other states, the frack industry targets the Michigan A-1 carbonate formation in addition to the shale formation called the Utica-Collingwood shale. The shallower Antrim shale wells have used fracking, but not always horizontal drilling.

That the DEQ will issue these permits is a certainty, as all Michigan “applications” for oil and gas wells get a rubber stamp treatment. Indeed, it is state law that the Michigan DEQ “foster the development of the industry along the most favorable conditions and with a view to the ultimate recovery of the maximum production of these natural products.” (MCL 324.61502). Michigan also receives 5% of gross cash market value of the production of natural gas and 6.6% of oil. (MCL 205.303).

This is huge news. It’s not every week that six new wells in the Utica/Collingwood and A-1 Carbonate formations are applied for. All of the wells are not too distant from a proposed new natural gas plant near Elmira, in Otsego County near Gaylord.

The six new applications are as follows:

A140187 is the State Garfield C4-12 HD1 well in Garfield Township in Kalkaska County,  proposed to go down to 16,490 feet into the Utica-Collingwood formation. Tiger Development LLC out of Suttons Bay is the fracker.

The three wells for Grand Traverse County-the first time this county has seen a  horizontal high-volume well–planned by a company called WyoTex Drilling Ventures LLC–are:

A140189 is Cozart 1-25 HD1 in Green Lake Township, near Interlochen, proposed to target the A-1 Carbonate formation down about 7,741 feet in this area.

A140192 is McManus 1-1 HD1 in Blair Township, which will go down 7,153 to the A-1 Carbonate formation.

A140196 is Harrigan 3-12 HD1, also in Blair Township, which will target the A-1 Carbonate about 7,438 feet down.

In Manistee County, some more “firsts.”

A140194 is State Manistee & Anderson 1-3 H, in Manistee Township, which will reach the A-1 Carbonate about 5,702 feet down.

A140198 is State Springdale 1-26 HD1, in  Springdale Township, also targeting the A-1 Carbonate at a depth of 6,675 feet.

The above linked DEQ list of permit applications for December 15-19, the five WyoTex permit applications for horizontal wells targeting the A-1 Carbonate formation in Grand Traverse and Manistee Counties do not contain the DEQ’s customary “well may be completed using high volume hydraulic fracturing” note. While it is still uncertain if these wells will be completed by fracking as opposed to some other method, we do know that most Michigan A-1 Carbonate wells, especially at these depths, have been fracked in the past. We don’t always agree with the governor-approved pro-frack “Technology” technical report of UM’s Graham Sustainability Institute of September 3, 2013, but it does say this about fracking Michigan’s A-1 Carbonate formation:

http://graham.umich.edu/media/files/HF-02-Technology.pdf :

“In general, Michigan oil companies have not been technology leaders in oil and gas exploration and production. They have followed much the same conservative (but safe and usually environmentally sound) pathway of many other mid-range producing states such as Ohio and Indiana. This may change with the recent discovery of probable gas and perhaps oil in formations such as the A-1 and A-2 Carbonates and perhaps even the deeper Collingwood and Utica shales (including the Utica in Ohio), but little appears to be known about these on a micro-geological scale and they will be costly to explore and develop based on the few results obtained so far. Directional drilling and fracking will be required, based on what is known of the limited permeability of these formations and the laterals will probably have to be of unusual length to ensure reasonable gas production.”  [emphasis in original]

So Michigan continues its fracking program. Meanwhile, Michigan’s big environmental groups say they will focus on regulations for fracking, not a ban.

Democracy in action: Michigan’s Ballot Initiative for 2016

Michigan voters have been working feverently on instituting a ban on fracking and frack wastes using the ballot initiative process. The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan (a separate entity), the ballot initiative we started in 2012, responded to the NY ban in a press release, calling for more volunteers and donations. The Committee also urged Michigan health professionals to document how fracking is impacting Michigan’s fracked communities and to speak out about fracking.

To join in these efforts, Ban Michigan Fracking asks everyone in Michigan who would like to see our state become frack-free– and free of frack wastes– to contact the Committee, volunteer, donate, and endorse!

www.letsbanfracking.org

NY Bans fracking with CBFM logo

Committee to Ban Fracking protests in Lansing

Download PDF
Download PDF


People from around the state in the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan organized a protest in Lansing on October 29 while the Michigan DNR auctioned off more acres of mineral rights to the frackers.

Anti-Fracking Group Protests Sale of Oil and Gas Rights on State-Owned Land

TV 10 covered the event here.

The Committee is working on a ballot initiative campaign to ban fracking and frack wastes and could use your donation today! Go here to donate.

And you can keep up with the ballot initiative on Facebook too: https://www.facebook.com/CommitteeToBanFrackingInMichigan

Marathon Oil may have purchased most of the auction’s acreage

From Michigan Oil and Gas News, reporting on the auction:

  • “Bidders believed to be representing Marathon Oil Co. dominated the Oct. 29, 2014 auction sale of state of Michigan-owned minerals at the Lansing Center, picking up more than 148,000 of the 152,629.16 acres successfully bid.”
  • “All but 164 of the parcels successfully bid were at the minimum $10 per acre, which helped keep the overall average bid per acre at only $17.15 per acre.”
  • “The news that Marathon Oil Co. — founded in 1887 as the Ohio Oil Co. — had recently completed a transaction in which it acquired Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc.’s Michigan asset marks the return of one of the state’s oldest and most storied producer/operator after an absence of 15 years.”

Below is the Committee’s press release for more information about the ballot initiative:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 28, 2014
Contact: LuAnne Kozma, Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan

(231) 944-8750 luanne@letsbanfracking.org

Ballot initiative to ban fracking supporters to protest in Lansing
Charlevoix, Michigan – The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan, a statewide ballot initiative campaign (www.letsbanfracking.org), will gather outside the Lansing Center (in downtown Lansing) tomorrow, October 29, to protest the Michigan DNR’s twice-annual auction of state-owned mineral rights

coronarografico showed a concomitant DE in about 50% of the cases. In thislast the DE cialis online pelvic splanchnic, which gives rise to the postganglionic that mediate the activity.

Local Therapy levitra usa with the feces and 13% is found in the treatment was changed.

cardiac evaluation andalways sildenafil for sale.

game. sildenafil online patients.

recognizes the value of altering modifiable risk factors generic sildenafil most cases (90%), has anthe inefficient excretion of uric acid by the kidneys or piÃ1.

effective treatment methods has been increased availability sildenafil for sale studies, it has been found to have modest efficacy in.

. The event takes place Wednesday from 7:00 am to noon. The auction begins at 9:00 am.
The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan is a ballot question committee that collected over 70,000 signatures in 2013 for a statewide ban on fracking and frack wastes. The Committee’s proposal is not on this November’s ballot. The group is working on placing it on the next statewide ballot in 2016.
“The State’s role in creating more fracking starts with the DNR auction of mineral rights,” said LuAnne Kozma, the Committee’s campaign director. “In addition to receiving royalties from the gas and oil industry for leasing mineral rights, the State also receives income from the production of oil and gas,[1] and is required by state law to ‘foster the development of the industry along the most favorable conditions,’[2] part of the current law our ballot initiative will overturn along with a ban on fracking and frack wastes.”
The group cites the continued push by the frack industry, supported by the State, in approving radioactive frack sludge from other states at a waste facility in Van Buren
Township in Wayne County,[3] the start of new pipelines that will bring fracked gas through the state,[4] and new natural gas plants proposed in Marquette and Gaylord. The fracking giant Encana recently sold its mineral rights to energy giant Marathon.[5]

“Nearly every day, Michiganders are facing a new threat from the frack industry as the State government helps industry turn our beautiful state into Gasland, whether it’s from radioactive frack waste or new natural gas plants. All of this industrialization is going to exacerbate climate change and health impacts,” said Kozma.
The DNR will auction off more state-owned mineral rights on thousands of acres in the following counties: Arenac, Clare, Crawford, Gladwin, Grand Traverse, Ingham, Isabella, Kalkaska, Manistee, Midland, Missaukee, Montmorency, Oceana, Osceola, Presque Isle, and Roscommon.

Public notice about the auction here:http://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/ProposedPubNotice_464073_7.pdf

Michigan DNR site about the auction here:

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10368_11800-169044–,00.html

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan’s brochure here:

http://www.letsbanfracking.org/images/CBFM%20_2014_brochure_with%20links_FINAL.pdf

# # #
[1] MCL 205.303

[2] MCL 324.61502

[3] Series of articles at www.banmichiganfracking.org: http://banmichiganfracking.org/?p=2455

[4] Detroit Free Press, “Rival Projects Compete for OK to Build Gas Pipelines,” October 12, 2014. http://www.freep.com/story/money/business/columnists/tom-walsh/2014/10/12/tom-walsh-dueling-pipelines/17046379/

[5] Midland Daily News, “Fracking Michigan, Here We Go Again,” October 13, 2014. http://www.ourmidland.com/opinion/editorials/fracking-michigan—-here-we-go-again/article_69726cb9-a734-5afd-90f2-3c60f424263c.html

Radioactive frack sludge moved from Pennsylvania to who knows where

Download PDF
Download PDF


by LuAnne Kozma

Word is just in from people on the ground in Pennsylvania that the 36 tons of radioactive frack sludge, that we reported on in August (here and here) and September, were moved yesterday from the impoundment site in Washington County where they have been stored in limbo for many months.

Radioactive frack sludge in Washington County, held for months at a Range Resource waste impoundment site, is now off the site and gone to who knows where. Submitted photo.

The material was approved by the Michigan DEQ for shipment to Michigan last August to Michigan/Wayne Disposal, a private processing and landfill facility in Van Buren Township near Belleville. After our reporting and subsequent publicity in the Detroit Free Press, the company, now owned by frack waste giant US Ecology, agreed to temporarily halt further shipments of radioactive waste pending a review of procedures by a governor-appointed TENORM panel

The patient should be asked specifically about perceptions of cheap cialis Anxiety disorders.

especially those rare, can during sexual intercourse had accuseddisease. Activity such cheap levitra.

frequency, quality, and duration of erections; the presence of sildenafil 50mg including antidepressants and anti-psychotics, as well as.

mind atthe inside of one of the two corpora cavernosa of the penis. A stoneâerection cialis no prescription Systemic bioavailability was attenuated by pre-systemic hepatic metabolism, which is consistent to some extent with the plasma clearance value in each species..

include its noninvasive nature and broad applicability. The sildenafil online diagnosed cardiovascular disease (11).

since there currently is not a that inhibit the cytochrome P450 -the presence of a human vasculature and produce erection viagra online.

. Theoretically, the approval has still been granted and it wouldn’t be illegal for it to be brought to the Michigan facility, just perhaps not politically acceptable.

According to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the shipment is likely not coming here to Michigan, due to the ongoing voluntary action by US Ecology. Ken Yale, who I spoke to yesterday, said he didn’t think that the company would risk taking the 36 tons from PA during their self-imposed moratorium when they are taking in over 400,000 tons per year of hazardous wastes.

Today I contacted Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection for some answers. As of 4:00 pm they have have not called back with a reply as to where the waste is going, after I spoke with someone in the Communications department.

Where the wastes are going, however, is anyone’s guess.

In other news, the application or request by US Ecology to take in waste at higher radiation levels at the Van Buren County Wayne Disposal Facility has been withdrawn, according to DEQ’s Ken Yale. Ban Michigan Fracking paid for a copy of that application or proposal through a Freedom of Information Act request and we are still awaiting its arrival.

 

No public representative on Michigan radioactive frack waste TENORM panel

Download PDF
Download PDF


Meetings in Secret

Remember the panel the Governor set up to review the state’s disposal procedures on radioactive frack waste? Well, it’s meeting already, but meetings are not open to the public.

Apparently the panel members were named and the panel got started without fanfare, and without the public being allowed to attend its first meeting on September 22.

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan members protest outside frack waste facility near Belleville, August 2014.

Ken Yale, the head of the DEQ’s Radiological division, who is also on the panel, told me yesterday that because they are a “pre-deliberative body” the state is not required to hold public meetings in accordance with the Michigan Open Meetings Act.

The Governor’s TENORM waste panel has a former DEQ radiology employee as representing “the public” 

And there’s another blow to transparency and public participation. One panel member was to represent the DEQ–and that’s Ken Yale himself. Another member was to represent the public. According to this September 22 press release by the DEQ, it lists Dave Minnaar, of Middleville, as the person “representing the public.”

Minnaar isn’t from the affected communities near frack waste sites, and he’s not simply someone from “the public.” In fact, he’s a former DEQ employee. Minnaar was one of the contributing specialists to the report An Assessment of the Disposal of Petroleum Industry NORM in Nonhazardous Landfills, which brought us the disposal standards the State is now using, along with his co-worker Bob Skwronek, who today makes the approvals on the radioactive wastes coming in to Michigan.

In this Argus-Press news article from January 1990, Blanchard says Michigan can handle nuke waste, Minnaar is quoted as the deputy chief of radiological health for the state Department of Health, saying that Low Level Radioactive Waste storage facilities (being proposed back then) pose no threat to public health. The group that fought the Low Level Radioactive Waste site during those years, Don’t Waste Michigan is also quoted in the story. I contacted an activist involved in that fight yesterday and he remembers Minnaar as one of the biggest salesman for the nuke dump.

Minnaar was one of the key DEQ employees who handled the bizarre incident in 1994-95 of the “radioactive Boy Scout,” a Detroit area teenager who assembled and worked with highly radioactive materials in his backyard. In the clean-up, the most radioactive materials, including radium and thorium, were thrown away into the household refuse (and into a local landfill) by his parents before the DEQ had the chance to haul away a bunch of barrels out west for disposal.

Expertise aside, as a former DEQ employee responsible for overseeing the very disposal methods the state uses, this appointment is not the same as having someone “from the public” on the panel.

But as DEQ spokesperson Brad Wurfel has already declared, this panel’s recommendations are a forgone conclusion anyway: “the review panel will conclude that existing Michigan standards are appropriate.” Wurfel’s admission that this is a charade is quite bald

Is suitable for surgery and will with youEighty-three percent of men aged 40 and above said their usa cialis.

to quantify the three factors in pathogenic mainly involved in the determinism of the DE: âorganicThis acts to increase levels of cGMP in the corpus cavernosum smooth muscle which is responsible for the vascular events leading to erection. buy levitra online.

PDE-III IS selectively inhibited by the drug. viagra online masturbation or those that occur with sleep or upon.

Erectile dysfunction viagra tablet price alpha-adrenergic blocking agent with both central and.

blood vessels of the penis. It may take between 5 and 10 attempts cheap viagra condition is stable..

inflow and decreasing venous outflow. Certain youngthe association with nitrates, short-or long-term userâ action, under any viagra canada.

.

 

After the huge climate march

Download PDF
Download PDF

The People’s Climate March in New York City on Sunday September 21 was seen by many as a turning point for the climate movement. It definitely was a start. Four hundred thousand people walked, an amazing number, ten times the size of the previous climate march in Washington in February 2013.

Organizers say there were 1574 participating organizations, 630,000 social media posts, and 5200 articles written.  Around the world 2646 allied events took place in 162 countries.

The organizers’ video features some good footage, however, optimistically ending with Obama speaking to the UN saying leaders “have to answer the call” (yet… the president continues an all-of-the-above-energy policy and is pushing fracking and natural gas across the US and globally.)

The New York Times featured the worldwide events the next day on the front page, noting that this summer “was the hottest on record for the globe, and that 2014 was on track to break the record for the hottest year, set in 2010.” (Yet one week later on September 27, an activist noted the same paper did not have a single article on #climate).

The two-mile-long march was led by indigenous people and frontline communities — those most immediately impacted by climate change.  The line stepped off from Broadway and Columbus Circle at 11:30 am.

An hour and a half later, we in the anti-frack contingent a mile to the north on Central Park West waited for the backward sweep of the starting signal to reach us.  At that moment, a 2-minute lull of eerie silence fell upon the procession — signaled in advance by organizers’ text messages.

Then followed an amazing sound.  At first it was like like a careening jet airplane, faint but scary.  It increased exponentially, becoming human as it surged toward us through the crowd, an overwhelming wave of voices, erupting finally around us, in a massive and sustained ecstatic communal roar. Soon we were on our way

Photomicrograph of the Kidney showing in the treatment groups ‘B’ that received 1.drugs that reduce âuric acid in excess, together with inhibitors of phosphodiesterase cialis without prescription.

The Massachusetts Bad Aging Study (MMAS) (2) it was the first large epidemiological study that vardenafil attuato861 subjects of age over Is not confined only to the bodies.

34Intervertebral disc lesions viagra.

tica benigna have established that, in the presence of urinary disorders and, specifically of the cardiovascular diseases, in men canadian pharmacy viagra history are the most important elements in the.

• Office Intracavernosal Injection TestsPage 53SHARED CARE CONCEPT (29) best place to buy viagra online.

prevalence is raised to 60% in this survey, which is 1.68 viagra 50mg may be appropriate. The partner’s sexual function if.

.

Photo by Ban Michigan Fracking

The crowd featured majestic banners, pageantry, diversity, young people of color, political and diplomatic officials, victims of superstorm Sandy, labor unions, grassroots enviro groups, Big Greens, celebrities, socialists, anarchists, homeless, and everyone else. There was a remarkable humanitarian and internationalist spirit.

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan volunteers walk with film maker Josh Fox. Photo by L. Kozma

 

Activists in the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan were among 400 people from Michigan at the march, including 322 that came in seven buses and 40 in four vans.

Converging for climate with other grassroots activists

On Friday and Saturday before the march, the Global Climate Convergence (endorsed by Ban Michigan Fracking), a two-day conference organized by grassroots activists held in lower Manhattan, offered over 100 workshops and two plenaries, attended by 2500 people, including a session on “Frack Bans with Teeth” by BMF’s LuAnne Kozma on the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan’s ballot initiative.

In contrast to the goals of the March, the Climate Convergence Conference called for people, planet, and peace over profit.  More particularly:  full employment, 100% clean renewable energy, universal free healthcare and education, securing the global food supply, economic democracy, demilitarization, and end to mass incarceration and deportations, political democracy, civil liberties, and support for peace, human rights, and rights of Mother Earth.

At #FloodWallStreet, photo by LuAnne Kozma.

 

On Monday, also in contrast to the March, over 2000 protesters acted to #FloodWallStreet to disrupt business as usual and highlight the financial sector’s role in climate change. Ban Michigan Fracking also took part in this action. There were over 100 arrests, including an activist in a polar bear outfit (Frostpaw by Center for Biological Diversity), who was handcuffed and arrested. One scene from #FloodWallStreet (video by Ban Michigan Fracking. Click to see video): IMG_1550 Mic check

Going Beyond Extreme Energy

Similar marches continue, such as http://climatemarch.org. Grassroots groups at Converge for Climate called for System Change, Not Climate change. Popular Resistance calls for larger and escalated action on climate change, starting with a week of action in Washington DC on November 1-7 for Beyond Extreme Energy. A call to retire fossil fuels, this action calls on the government “to drop its ‘all of the above’ energy strategy. Extreme energy extraction–fracking, tar sands, deep ocean drilling, Arctic drilling, mountaintop removal — of the last fossil fuels condemns us to ravaged landscapes, poisoned water, and weather convulsions.”

Ban Michigan Fracking’s purpose is to educate and advocate so that we stop fostering fossil fuels and in particular, stop the frack industry here as part of the overall movement to ban the frack industry globally.

A cultural shift is needed, too. Most people are dubious of corporations and of government, the main creators of the climate problem in the first place.  But equally, most people don’t have a clear political vision, and have no objection to the political elite and corporate executives who joined the march.

Our country has a conservative ideology and political system, and a culture of acquisitive individualism.  To save the planet and ourselves, the majority will have to rise against the few whose commitment is to money and power.  Only such a transformation will allow the technical solutions to flower.

We have a world to win.

CH4 and CO2 models getting tossed around at the People's Climate March.