This website is dedicated to and for the use of workers in oil and gas, both current and past, their families, communities and friends.
(Gas Vets note: Courts and corporations have more importance than the public health…)
After his failed attempts to fight the state’s oil and gas law in court, Alfonso Rodriguez, M.D., is ready to sign a nondisclosure form to view a full list of ingredients in hydraulic fracturing fluid. If only someone could tell him where to find it. Read more at the Hazleton Standard Speaker…..
The nine demands levied against the Dan A Hughes Company by Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection (FLADEP) reflect the fundamental reasons Damascus Citizens for Sustainability created 1) the Natural Gas Health and Community Impacts Survey and 2) a protocol for transmitting individual and community impact data to the (federal) Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR):
Other of the nine demands might establish,
Demand #1 seems innocuous but DCS’ review of the Hancock Compressor proposal, for instance, questioned whether or not the pro forma nature of FERC approvals and consequent dismissal of public concerns and comments contravened the National Environmental Policy Act.
(From the ABC coverage…) The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is giving the Dan A. Hughes Company two weeks to comply with nine demands or face penalties.
A letter was issued to the Texas-based oil drilling company from Florida DEP Secretary Herschel Vinyard, Jr. on Thursday.
The letter outlines steps the company needs to take to restore public confidence in it’s Collier County projects.
The demands were stated as follows:
1. Publish dates and times that Dan A. Hughes will hold three public meetings to discuss and take public comment on your plans for the Collier-Hogan site and future operations in Collier County.
For background on Dan A. Hughes in Collier County, Florida, you can begin here.
In its majority opinion, the Court stated, “We are asked in these two appeals whether towns may ban oil and gas production activities, including hydrofracking, within municipal boundaries through the adoption of local zoning laws,” Associate Judge Victoria Graffeo wrote in the majority opinion. “We conclude that they may because the supersession clause in the statewide Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Law (OGSML) does not preempt the home rule authority vested in municipalities to regulate land use.”
(Poster’s note: New York’s municipalities have been awaiting an appellate level decision for three years. During that time, municipalities around the State have been banning “oil and gas production activities” or they have been reluctant to do so in the face of threatened lawsuits. Although this decision is open to appeal, all New Yorkers, no matter their stance on fracking, should celebrate this affirmation of local control. Read the Court’s opinion here.)
“Does a community’s right to self-governance trump the rights of corporations? The county ordinance’s basic aim is to protect the water supply in a parched region of a drought-stricken state, but it also contains a bill of rights for the environment, which argues that natural ecosystems ‘possess inalienable and fundamental rights to exist.’” (Read more….)
“While the suit centers on fracking, it seeks to protect the citizens’ right to self-governance under the Community Bill of Rights. The residents allege that the Colorado Oil and Gas Act and the industry’s enforcement of it violate that right to local self-government under the U.S. Constitution…. ‘This class action lawsuit is merely the first of many by people across the United States whose constitutional rights to govern their own communities are routinely violated by state governments working in concert with the corporations that they ostensibly regulate,’ said Thomas Linzey, Esq., executive director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which helped craft Lafayette’s Community Bill of Rights.” (Read more….)
