This Saturday in Underwater Science

Photo stolen from NPR

The Blob Fish.
Yuck.

Well we had a choice as we prepared this week's science entry and Mercury Police Reporter Caroline Sweeney made the decision.

Caroline Sweeney

(She hates this photo)

Offered science news about space or about water, she chose water and so don't blame us if you find this post to be all wet, or you're grossed out by the picture posted above.

It's there to grab your attention.

And so we begin with something truly ugly -- so ugly in fact that it has actually been voted most ugly by the Ugly Animal Preservation Society.

There really is such a thing.

Who knew?

Anyway, for reasons clear only to them, the society decided to hold an on-line contest to determine the world's ugliest animal and the blob fish, a native of very deep waters off Australia, won for obvious reasons.

Our thanks(?) to National Public Radio's web site for bringing it to our attention.

Seriously, yuck.

Graphic stolen from the Washington Post

While we're spending time on things you may find in deep water, we bring you now to the world's largest volcano which is, you guessed it, deep underwater.

Called "Tamu Massif," it too lives in the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean and was only recently discovered, according to this article in The Washington Post.

And, in case you were wondering why the word "massif" is in its name, it's because its friggin MASSIVE.

Up until now, Mauna Loa, one of the five volcanoes that comprises the big island of Hawaii, was the world's largest.

But Tamu Massif has a footprint the size of New Mexico!

Tamu, by the way, is an abbreviation for Texas A. & M. University, the home school of the scientists who discovered it. Figures, its discovered by Texans, who are always bragging about how everything in Texas is big.

"The area covered by the newly discovered volcano rivals the biggest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons on Mars," the Post reported. (See how I snuck a little space reference in there anyway?)

"Olympus Mons is the 800-pound gorilla of the solar system," said geophysicist William W. Sager of the University of Houston, the study’s lead author. "We didn’t know these massive volcanoes were here on Earth."

However, before we get all braggy about it, turns out Tamu is broad, but short.

Although Tamu Massif has a gigantic footprint, it is relatively short compared with Olympus Mons. The newly discovered volcano rises only a few miles above the seafloor, while the Martian mountain rises 16 miles at its peak.

Most importantly, scientists say there is little chance it will erupt.

Having visited ugly fish, let's visit some dead fish, thousands of them.

A resident of Wuhan, China, cleared dead fish from the Fu River

They were killed in a river in China because they had the misfortune of being downstream of a chemical plant there.

"Environmental protection officials said tests on water taken from the Fu River upstream from the metropolis of Wuhan revealed that extremely high levels of ammonia in the water were caused by pollution from a plant owned by the Hubei Shuanghuan Science and Technology Company," The New York Times reported in this Sept. 4 article.

The plant produces sodium carbonate, used in making glass, and ammonium chloride for fertilizer, according to local news media reports. It has been cited for environmental violations four times since 2008, said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Chinese nongovernmental organization that tracks air and water pollution.

The Fu River flows into the Yangtze, China’s longest river and the source of drinking water for millions. Spills into the Yangtze and its tributaries remain a continuing problem despite huge investments in reducing pollution, Mr. Ma said.

China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection said water pollution was a serious concern, with industrial spills, farm runoff and untreated sewage all factors in degrading water quality. As of last year, nearly a third of the sections of major rivers it monitored were so degraded that the water was unfit for human contact, the ministry said in its annual State of Environmental Quality report, released in June.

Now, just in case you're shaking your head thinking that China needs to get its act together  before it pollutes all its drinking water, we would warn you to look in the mirror first.

A drilling rig used to extract natural gas from the Marcellus Shale in Washington County, Pa. (The Associated Press)

Two years ago, The New York Times revealed that conventional wastewater treatment plants are poorly equipped to deal with the often toxic outflow from Marcellus shale drilling operations.

But in June, as reported by NPR's State Impact team, the state’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission, approved new water quality standards for pollutants like strontium. But chloride and sulfates were not included in the more than 100-page revision.

Prepare to be shocked, but apparently the industries that would have been affected by the regulation didn't want it. And so, it didn't happen.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection had originally proposed adding

chloride, sulfates, and a chemical known as molybdenum, to the state’s water quality standards.

But opposition came from miners of molybdenum, the coal industry, and the natural gas industry. Coal mining, along with other industries, generates sulfate discharges. Molybdenum is a heavy metal mined for use in steel and cast iron.

Despite efforts by environmental groups concerned about increased natural gas drilling activity, and resulting discharges of chloride, the DEP withdrew the chloride from the original proposal.

In 2011, the gas drilling industry agreed to stop sending its wastewater to the plants, but apparently (who knows how....) some of the pollutants are ending up in rivers and streams in Pennsylvania anyway.

Most conventional sewage treatment plants, like this one in
McKeesport, cannot handle wastewater from
natural gas 'fracking.'

And even though the gas industry in Pennsylvania says it operates in "zero discharge mode," it nonetheless opposed the regulations that should have had no effect on its operations. Hmmmmm.

As State Impact's Susan Phillips reported, "that wastewater has a high salt content. In it’s original proposal, DEP pointed to increased oil and gas production as a reason to establish standards for chloride, describing its potential impacts on aquatic life."

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection wrote "freshwater fish and aquatic communities cannot survive in elevated concentrations of chlorides. Maintaining a proper salt-to-water balance in a fresh water environment challenges most aquatic life and, in particular, aquatic insects."

But maybe there's hope still in Pennsylvania.

The on-line version of the Harrisburg Patriot-News reported Thursday that: "Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Tuesday afternoon filed criminal charges against a Pennsylvania subsidiary of ExxonMobil for illegally discharging more than 50,000 gallons of toxic wastewater from a Marcellus Shale gas well site in Penn Township, Lycoming County.
"

One can't help but wonder if former attorney general Tom Corbett, who has received thousands in campaign contributions from this industry, would have made that case.... 


But before we get all conspiracy theory on you, let's not forget that sometimes we are a danger to aquatic life just because we're stupid.

Hawaii News Now - KGMB and KHNL

Case in point, NPR reported Thursday that 233,000 gallons of molasses that were spilled into Honolulu harbor on Monday, literally killing everything.

KGMB TV sent diver Roger White into the water to see what's happened to sea creatures there. He shot video and came back to say that:

"It was shocking because the entire bottom is covered with dead fish. Small fish, crabs, mole crabs, eels. Every type of fish that you don't usually see, but now they're dead. Now they're just laying there. Every single thing is dead. We're talking in the hundreds, thousands. I didn't see one single living thing underwater."

Why is the molasses causing so much damage? In an earlier report, Hawaii News Now:

A crab suffocated from a massive molasses spill in
Honolulu harbor.

"... did an experiment to see why molasses is so hazardous to fish. When we poured store bought Molasses into a vase of water we collected from Keehi Lagoon, the concentrated sugary substance went straight to the bottom.

"Unlike an oil spill, which can be cleaned by skimming the surface, the molasses quickly disperses to the deepest points. 'It's sucking up all the oxygen,' explained [state reef biologist Dave] Gulko. 'There's no oxygen at depth so the animals that need it can't get it and are suffocating.' "

You can see why its called a "Snakehead."

And, because no scientific post involving water on this blog is complete without news of our favorite "Frankenfish," we bring you now the latest news of the Snakehead, an invasive fish from China that, according to some stories, can do everything but advanced algebra.

In addition to being a voracious predator that can crowd out indigenous species, now, it turns out, it can also carry diseases that will kill its competitors but leave the Snakehead feeling dandy.

Last month, the Washington Post reported on an announcement from "the U.S. Geological Survey that Northern snakeheads in the Potomac River have apparently contracted a virus that is known to cause massive kills among largemouth bass."

It is possible that snakeheads could be reservoirs of the virus and pass it to bass throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

So far, the virus has been detected in bass, sunfish and other species, the USGS said, but only largemouth bass have developed a disease as a result. Most bass who contract it are otherwise fine, but some have trouble submerging and are forced to float on the surface.

Pennsylvania Wins Bronze for Pollution

The Cromby coal-fired power plant outside Phoenixville.

This is one of those times when coming in third is almost as bad as coming in first.

According to data analyzed by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Pennsylvania is the 3rd worst state in the nation when it comes to exposing residents to toxic air pollution from coal-fired power plants.

Pennsylvania ranked 3rd among all states in industrial mercury air pollution from power plants with more than 3,960 pounds emitted in 2010.

As Digital Notebook reported in April, air pollution is
one of the primary causes of childhood asthma.

That accounts for 64 percent of state mercury air pollution and 6 percent of U.S. electric sector mercury pollution.  

When looking beyond just mercury pollution, we still win the bronze.

Pennsylvania’s electric sector ranked third in overall industrial toxic air pollution in 2010, emitting nearly 31.5 million pounds of harmful chemicals. 

This accounted for 78 percent of state pollution and about 10 percent of toxic pollution from all U.S. power plants, according to the NRDC analysis. 

The data was taken from the federal Toxic Release Inventory, a list of emissions made by polluters to the Environmental Protection Agency, which in turn makes it public.

The good news is, as bad as it is, it's getting better.

On the national level, the report found a 19 percent decrease nationally in all air toxics emitted from power plants in 2010, the most recent data available, compared to 2009 levels. 

"The welcomed drop, which also includes a four percent decrease in mercury emissions, results from two key factors. One is the increasing use by power companies of natural gas, which has become cheaper and is cleaner burning than coal; the other is the installation of state-of-the-art pollution controls by many plants--in anticipation of new health protections issued by the Environmental Protection Agency," the environmental advocacy organization reported.

“Toxic pollution is already being reduced as a result of EPA’s health-protecting standards,” said John Walke, NRDC’s clean air director. “Thanks to the agency’s latest safeguards, millions of children and their families in the states hardest hit by toxic air pollution from power plants will be able to breathe easier.’’

James "What heat wave?" Inhofe

“But these protections are threatened,” Walke said, “because polluters are intent on persuading future Congresses or presidential administrations to repeal them.”

Finalized in 2011, EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics standards will cut mercury air pollution by 79 percent from 2010 levels, beginning in 2015.

NRDC reported that one senator from Pennsylvania, Robert Casey, opposed attempts by Oklahoma Republican and climate-change denier Sen. James Inhofe to repeal the standards.

Pat "Let's not be too hasty about clean air" Toomey

Sen. Pat Toomey supported Inhofe's attempt to gut the regulations, they said. 

In an earlier assault on the EPA’s new standards, the House passed a bill to gut them last year; but a similar measure in June failed in the Senate.

In the second edition of “Toxic Power: How Power Plants Contaminate Our Air and States,” NRDC also found that coal- and oil-fired power plants still contribute nearly half (44 percent) of all the toxic air pollution reported to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).

NRDC: Electric sector pollution by state

Compared to 2010 levels, the standard will reduce mercury pollution from 34 tons to seven tons, a 79 percent reduction, by 2015. Sulfur dioxide pollution will be reduced from 5,140,000 tons in 2010 to 1,900,000 tons in 2015, a 63 percent reduction. 

Another dangerous acid gas, hydrochloric acid, will be reduced from 106,000 tons in 2010 to 5,500 tons in 2015, a 95 percent reduction.

With those and other pollution reductions resulting from the standard, as many as 11,000 premature deaths and 130,000 asthma attacks, 5,700 hospital visits, 4,700 heart attacks, and 2,800 cases of chronic bronchitis will be avoided in 2016. 

The public health improvements are also estimated to save $37 billion to $90 billion in health costs, and prevent up to 540,000 missed work or “sick” days each year.

Despite the overall reductions in total emissions, 18 of the Toxic 20 from 2009 remain in the 2010 list released today, although several states have made significant improvements highlighted in the report.

Most of the worst polluting plants are in the western part of the state

The states on the "Toxic 20" list (from worst to best) are:

1. Kentucky

2. Ohio

3. Pennsylvania

4. Indiana

5. West Virginia

6. Florida

7. Michigan

8. North Carolina

9. Georgia

10. Texas

11. Tennessee

12. Virginia

13. South Carolina

14. Alabama

15. Missouri

16. Illinois

17. Mississippi

18. Wisconsin

19. Maryland

20. Delaware 

This NRDC chart provides more information on the "Toxic 20"

For the full methodology, see the analysis “Toxic Power: How Power Plants Contaminate Our Air and States,” which can be found here: http://www.nrdc.org/air/toxic-power-presentation.asp.

Of course all of this raises an interesting question.

Since we all like electricity, and we complain about air pollution from coal, and we complain about water pollution from fracking for gas and we complain about radioactivity from nuclear, and we complain about how dams for hydro-electricity blog fish migrations just where exactly do we expect it to come from?

Personally,  I would love it if our energy could come from solar and wind, but is that realistic?

What do you think?

"All Politics is Local," Except When it Isn't

How 'Fracking' Works

Although there is little chance anyone will begin drilling for natural gas in Upper Pottsgrove Township any time soon, the commissioners Monday nevertheless voted unanimously Monday to support a bill that would ensure they would have some say in the matter should it happen.

Their vote represents one voice among a growing municipal chorus opposing Act 13, enacted on Valentine's Day by the Pennsylvania General Assembly, that would, among other things, exempt any kind of gas or oil drilling operation in Pennsylvania from most kinds of local control.

The bill comes in the wake of the Marcellus shale gas drilling boom. Marcellus shale is a geological formation that has trapped millions of cubic feet of natural gas in tiny pockets in a sedimentary rock that was once mud that has been pressed and compacted into rock.

In the east, it stretches from West Virginia to Newfoundland, but by-passes much of southeastern Pennsylvania. In much of the rest of the commonwealth, however, it is ever- present and, now, it's big business.

The gas is extracted hydraulically, by pumping chemical-filled water at high pressure into the rock, fracturing it (or "fracking" it), and releasing the gas.

The concern with Act 13, the commissioners explained Monday, is not so much that they fear an influx of unregulated well-drillers, so much as the precedent of the Commonwealth taking control away from local government.

"This is similar to what the state tried to do with quarrying," Township Solicitor Charles D. Garner Jr. told the commissioners.

He was referring to Senate Bill 898, proposed by Sen. Robert Tomlinson, R-6th Dist., a politician who received generous contributions from various members of the Silvi family, who run the company that has been frustrated in its attempts to open a quarry in New Hanover.

As The Mercury reported last year, New Hanover Township Solicitor Paul Bauer said it pretty plainly when the supervisors there were passing a similar resolution in opposition to SB 898: "This bill being proposed by Sen. Tomlinson was only introduced on March 25, just several months after Sen. Tomlinson received large campaign contributions from both Lawrence and John Silvi, as well as Monique Silvi, owners of Gibraltar Rock Quarries," Bauer said.

Is the same thing at work with Act 13?

The National Institute on Money in State Politics informs us that:

• Fourteen Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission members and several of their spouses contributed a combined total of $442,347 to Corbett's campaigns for attorney general (2004, 2008, 2010) and governor (2010).
• Almost all contributions to Gov. Corbett from Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission members came from either current or former oil and gas executives and lobbyists.
• In the 2010 election, donors from the oil and gas industry favored Tom Corbett by more than 10:1, giving his campaign $1.3 million while only contributing $130,300 to his opponent, Dan Onorato.
• Energy sector donors contributed a combined $768,438 to the legislators sitting on the House and Senate Environmental Resources & Energy committees.

 Presumably, the fact that gas drilling companies were among the largest contributors to Gov. Tom Corbett's election campaign has no bearing on his signing a law that allows "big government" to grab authority away from local governments to benefit an industry that helped him get elected.

Like the proposed quarrying law, Act 13 "requires municipalities to allow oil and gas operations except for processing plants, in ALL zoning districts," according to the resolution unanimously adopted by the Upper Pottsgrove commissioners Monday.

Some argue Act 13 is a power grab by energy-funded state politicians.

"It's the precedent of pre-emption which could be troublesome," Garner said."If it's allowed here, it could set a precedent of allowing the state to extract authority bit by bit from townships and boroughs."

Act 13 "removes all meaningful zoning and planning authority from local governments as to the oil and gas industry, while all other entities, be they individual, corporate or institutional, still must abide by local ordinances," the resolution reads.

Eliminating local zoning restrictions would leave the township with "very little control" over a a natural gas operation that wanted to open up in Upper Pottsgrove, however unlikely, said Commissioners Chairman Elwood Taylor.

"We would rather control what goes on in our own towns and not give it all away to the state," he said.

With the passage of its resolution, Upper Pottsgrove now officially "opposes the conveyance of special rights and privileges to the oil and gas industry, to the detriment of the rights and privileges of all others."

"Act 13 violates both the Pennsylvania and U.S. Constitutions, creating a zoning scheme that supersedes the protections local officials have sworn to uphold; as well as the health, safety and welfare of its residents that local officials must protect," the resolution reads

Speaking of health ...

Some say since 'fracking' began in their area, their
water has become polluted to the point that it catches
fire. That can't be healthy.

In addition to taking local control away from the governments representing the people who live there, as I posted Sunday, Act 13 also takes away a doctor's ability to talk to the people who live there and may become sick from the drilling.

Under a provision buried in the law, doctors in Pennsylvania can access information about chemicals used in natural gas extraction -- but they won't be able to share it with their patients. 

The resolution passed by Upper Pottsgrove does not involve the township in a lawsuit brought by several towns and boroughs, some of Bucks County, and the Delaware Riverkeeper.

Arguments in that lawsuit will be made before the state's nine-member Commonwealth Court between June 4 and 8 in Harrisburg.

What the Frack Pennsylvania?

AP Photo

Environmental protesters in Harrisburg protest the state's
"frack-friendly" policies.

Don't you love it when someone agrees with you?

All I can say is it's about time.

About a year ago, when the Marcellus Shale debate was a little hotter, I recall Dulcie Flaharty, the executive director at Montgomery County Lands Trust, talking to the Pottstown Regional Planning Committee.

She got into what I will politely call an animated discussion with Kurt Zebrowski, who is a member of the committee from New Hanover Township, about Marcellus Shale.

This map shows where Marcellus Shale is located.
There's none in Rhode Island.

Zebrowski argued that if Pennsylvania enacted an "extraction tax" on the well drillers, LIKE EVERY OTHER STATE WHERE IT OCCURS, that the drillers would go elsewhere.

And I remember thinking: "Like where?! They have to go where the resource is. They can't drill in Marcellus Shale in Rhode Island, where there is none."

But I remember thinking something else as well:

"Why, having invited the coal mining industry in with open arms a century ago, and now finding our taxpayers paying the clean up the mess they left behind, would we not require this generation's equivalent from paying up front?"

The answer, as it so often does, comes from campaign finance records.

But don't take my word for it.

RED ROCKS: This photo of iron oxide on dead streams in PA is the
one NPR used to remind its readers that we've been through this
before, with the coal industry. And we're still paying.

Here are some "fast facts" from the National Institute on Money in State Politics web site which did the digging newspaper people used to do. (Click here to find out more.)

• Fourteen Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission members and several of their spouses contributed a combined total of $442,347 to Corbett's campaigns for attorney general (2004, 2008, 2010) and governor (2010).
• Almost all contributions to Gov. Corbett from Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission members came from either current or former oil and gas executives and lobbyists.
• In the 2010 election, donors from the oil and gas industry favored Tom Corbett by more than 10:1, giving his campaign $1.3 million while only contributing $130,300 to his opponent, Dan Onorato.
• Energy sector donors contributed a combined $768,438 to the legislators sitting on the House and Senate Environmental Resources & Energy committees.

Mercury Photo by John Strickler

 Ed Rendell speaking in North Coventry in 2010

So forgive the cynicism, but color me unsurprised to find out that Pennsylvania has dragged its feet on regulating and taxing this fast moving industry.

I remember our former Gov., Ed Rendell, when he came to North Coventry in 2010 to speak just before his term was up, warning that if an extraction tax was not enacted before Corbett was sworn in, little or no action would occur for the first five years, "because that's when the majority of the gas is extracted."


And now, the venerable National Public Radio, in this excellent report, has begun to look into the pollution we can all look forward to when these companies dissolve, leave town and leave taxpayers to pay for cleaning up the mess -- just like the coal companies did.

As it turns out, the danger is not so much what they pump into the ground, to fracture rock that used to be sea bed, but what's in it when it comes back out.

The wastewater was first -- did you guess? -- just dumped into streams. Then sent to wastewater treatment plants, which are not set up to take care of the chemicals and minerals found within.

The real risk from fracking is the wastewater.

Now, they're trying to recycle it. But eventually, it will have to be disposed of.

This is the quote that caught my eye: "Are we really going to let this happen to Pennsylvania again?" asks David Yoxtheimer, a hydrologist at Penn State who grew up here. "Are we going to make sure that we have enough money and that these companies' feet are held to the fire to make sure that once their operations are done, they put everything back together, tidy it up, and make it look like nothing happened there in the first place?"
I think we all know the answer to that question.

If you have any doubts about where the government's loyalties lie in this matter, read this lead paragraph from a March 27 article in The Atlantic magazine.:

Under PA law, doctors now cannot
tell their patients about the dangers
they face from fracking and what
might have made them sick.

"Under a new law, doctors in Pennsylvania can access information about chemicals used in natural gas extraction -- but they won't be able to share it with their patients. A provision buried in a law passed last month is drawing scrutiny from the public health and environmental community, who argue that it will "gag" doctors who want to raise concerns related to oil and gas extraction with the people they treat and the general public."

The magazine continues: "A 2010 congressional investigation revealed that Halliburton and other fracking companies had used 32 million gallons of diesel products, which include toxic chemicals like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, in the fluids they inject into the ground. Low levels of exposure to those chemicals can trigger acute effects like headaches, dizziness, and drowsiness, while higher levels of exposure can cause cancer."

See if you can guess what kinds of symptoms people whose water may have been polluted by fracking are experiencing?

There has been talk about whether imposing an extraction tax would help plus some of the hole in Pennsylvania's budget, and it's a legitimate discussion.

But for my money, and soon enough, it will be my money paying for it, I think any money the Commonwealth collects from these companies should right into a fund to pay for the clean-up and health problems we all know are coming.