LISTEN: Kristina Marusic discusses the "Fractured" investigation
"Once they had the results of our study [families] felt like they had proof that these chemicals are in their air, their water, and making their way into their bodies."
Environmental Health News reporter Kristina Marusic gives the story behind "Fractured," an investigation of fracking pollution in western Pennsylvania.
The series, published this week, reveals alarming evidence of toxic industrial chemicals linked to drilling operations in the urine of families living near fracking operations. Marusic spearheaded the investigation by collecting urine, air, and water samples from five southwestern Pennsylvania households. Her work represents the first time families in western Pennsylvania have been tested for exposure to chemicals emitted from fracking operations.
In addition to the pollution exposure, the series exposed a regulatory system that favors oil and gas development at the expense of residents' mental, physical, and social well-being.
"I hope these families will be able to use this data to better advocate for their own health with their political representatives, and their doctors, and their community leaders," she said.
Read the four-part series and see the study results at EHN.org/fractured. Follow the conversation and fallout from the investigation on Twitter at #fracturedUSA.
Fulcrum BioFuels’ shuttered “sustainable aviation fuel” plant is the latest facility to run into technical and financial challenges.
For the second time this year, a chemical recycling plant built to turn waste into usable products has closed, casting further doubt on the viability of an upstart industry that has been plagued by financial and technical challenges in its effort to scale up.
Fulcrum BioFuels launched its Sierra plant outside Reno, Nevada, in 2022 with the goal of converting municipal solid waste into “sustainable aviation fuel.” But in May of this year the company suddenly laid off its roughly 100 employees and shuttered its website, as Bloomberg first reported. The decision came just as the plant was ready to reopen after a series of technical challenges had forced it offline, continuing a trend of delays and setbacks for a facility that had initially been slated to open in 2010.
Fulcrum representatives did not respond to emails and phone calls and little is yet clear about the company’s future, while its plans to build a larger plant in Gary, Indiana, appear to be hanging on by a thread following bond defaults. Carolyn McCrady, a co-founder of Gary Advocates for Responsible Development, which formed in 2021 to oppose Fulcrum’s plans, said her organization is still challenging Fulcrum’s air permit to build a plant in the city as it waits to learn more about the company’s next steps.
“We feel vindicated and that we were right all along,” McCrady told EHN. “We think all communities should put on their critical thinking hats when people like these come to town and offer something that’s too good to be true.”
As of September 2023, there were 11 constructed chemical recycling facilities in the country using pyrolysis or gasification to convert plastic into fuel or chemicals that can then be used to create new plastic, according to a report from Beyond Plastics and the International Pollutants Elimination Network. Two of those have now closed — news welcomed by environmental advocates concerned that the plants encourage plastic production and discourage solutions that address the roots of the global plastics crisis. Greenhouse gas emissions from the processing of plastic waste are also 10 to 100 times worse than those from the production of virgin plastic, and the release of plastic additives during chemical recycling can cause reproductive, cardiovascular and endocrine harm, the Beyond Plastics report found.
For the chemical recycling industry—facing a precarious moment with state legislation and a global plastic treaty developing—the closure is another indication of financial, technical and regulatory headwinds. Last fall, Youngstown City Council in Ohio voted against SOBE Thermal’s proposal for a plant that would have converted tires into gas. In February, the Regenyx plant in Oregon, which converted plastic waste into a polystyrene precursor, closed before ever reaching capacity, suffering millions in financial losses in the process. And in April, Encina canceled its plans to build one of the country’s largest chemical recycling plants in Pennsylvania.
The chemical recycling industry “will continue to face enormous challenges, both in securing financing, operating economically and producing products that companies want to buy,” Jenny Gitliz, director of solutions to plastic pollution at Beyond Plastics, told EHN. The fact that plastic has so many different chemicals in it further complicates the various conversion processes now in use, Gitliz explained.
Closure a “black eye” for waste-to-fuel efforts
Fulcrum launched in Pleasanton, California, in 2007, focused on developing the infrastructure to use an unusual feedstock to create jet fuel: municipal solid waste. At its Sierra plant, it turned shredded waste, including up to 20% plastic, into synthetic gas through a process called gasification, which heats the feedstock in a low-oxygen environment. After a second step in which the gas is cleaned up, it enters a Fischer-Tropsch reactor, in which it is converted into aviation fuel. Fulcrum’s facility was the first to license the Fischer-Tropsch technology, designed by BP and Johnson Matthey. A spokesperson for BP declined to comment on the closure of Fulcrum’s plant but said the technology can operate economically at large and small scales and is “a key technology in e-fuels production pathways” that it plans to continue to license and commercialize.
The chemical recycling industry “will continue to face enormous challenges, both in securing financing, operating economically and producing products that companies want to buy.” — Jenny Gitliz, director of solutions to plastic pollution at Beyond Plastics
The Sierra plant cost $300 million to build and had a capacity of 12 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, per year, according to a report published last fall by Beyond Plastics and IPEN. But its first shipment contained just 350 gallons, Bloomberg reported, and the unexpected creation of nitric acid, emissions of nitrogen oxide and the buildup of material in its gasification process contributed to a start-and-stop nature that prevented the plant from ever reaching capacity.
Before closing the Sierra plant, Fulcrum had entered forbearance on $289 million in bonds. The Indiana Finance Authority had authorized $500 million in bonds for Fulcrum’s planned facility in Gary, but the company failed to secure funding for the 52-acre lakefront property where it hoped to build, McCrady said, delaying that project. Fulcrum had also announced its intention to build facilities in Baytown, Texas, and the United Kingdom.
Fulcrum’s partners on the Sierra project included Waste Connections, which was slated to supply waste to the facility and did not respond to a request for comment on the closure. United Airlines invested $30 million in Fulcrum and did not respond to a request for comment. Fulcrum also had an offtake agreement with Japan Airlines, which did not respond to a request for comment. BP had invested $30 million in Fulcrum with a plan to take up to 50 million gallons of fuel per year from its plants, far exceeding the Sierra plant’s capacity.
The aviation industry is racing to meet its goal of making 10% of its fuel sustainable by 2030, but the total SAF volume of 160 million gallons in 2023 was “a drop in the bucket” of the total 100 billion gallons of fuel used, said Steve Csonka, executive director of the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative, a public-private partnership formed in 2006. The conversion of municipal solid waste into fuel could still contribute to that effort—as could the Sierra plant if it’s brought back online by another company—despite the challenge of utilizing a non-homogenous feedstock, Csonka said. But the Sierra plant’s closure is a “black eye” that will hinder that broader project, he said.
Chemical recycling controversy
Ross Eisenberg, president of America’s Plastic Makers, an industry trade group, said in a statement that 10 new or expanded chemical recycling facilities are in development and the industry is in the midst of a normal, lengthy process to scale up. “With chemical recycling able to produce a wide variety of products at the same time as hundreds of companies are committing to use more recycled plastic, there is a tremendous opportunity in the U.S. to recycle more of our post-use materials,” he said.
But to Anja Brandon, associate director of U.S. plastics policy at the Ocean Conservancy, the Sierra plant’s closure is further evidence that the environmental impacts and economics of chemical recycling “just don’t add up.”
“It’s a flashing red light for these other facilities—really for the potential investors or lenders to these other facilities—that this is an industry that has and continues to fail, which I hope decreases the investment and drive for these types of facilities and opens up the market for investments in real upstream solutions,” Brandon told EHN.
CAMERON PARISH, La. — Late into the night, John Allaire watches the facility next to his home shoot 300-foot flares from stacks.
He lives within eyesight of southwest Louisiana’s salty shores, where, for decades, he’s witnessed nearly 200 feet of land between it and his property line disappear into the sea. Two-thirds of the land was rebuilt to aid the oil and gas industry’s LNG expansion. LNG — shorthand for liquified natural gas – is natural gas that's cooled to liquid form for easier storage or transport; it equates to 1/600th the volume of natural gas in a gaseous state. It’s used to generate electricity, or fuel stove tops and home heaters, and in industrial processes like manufacturing fertilizer.
In the U.S., at least 30 new LNG terminal facilities have been constructed or proposed since 2016, according to the
Oil and Gas Watch project. Louisiana and Texas’ Gulf Coast, where five facilities are already operating, will host roughly two-thirds of the new LNG terminals – meaning at least 22 Gulf Coast LNG facilities are currently under construction, were recently approved to break ground or are under further regulatory review.
Although the U.S. didn’t ship LNG until 2016, when a freight tanker left, a few miles from where Cameron Parish’s LNG plants are today, last year the country became the global leader in LNG production and export volume, leapfrogging exporters like Qatar and Australia. The
EIA’s most recent annual outlook estimated that between the current year and 2050, U.S. LNG exports will increase by 152%.
Allaire, 68, watches how saltwater collects where rainwater once fed the area’s diminishing coastal wetlands. “We still come down here with the kids and set out the fishing rods. It's not as nice as it used to be,” he told
Environmental Health News (EHN).
That intimacy with nature drew Allaire to the area when he purchased 311 acres in 1998. An environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran, he helped lead environmental assessments and manage clean-ups, and although retired, he still works part-time as an environmental consultant with major petroleum companies. With a lifetime of oil and gas industry expertise, he’s watched the industry's footprint spread across Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico’s fragile shores and beyond. Now that the footprints are at the edge of his backyard, Allaire is among a cohort of organizers, residents and fisher-folk in the region mobilizing to stop LNG facility construction. For him, the industry’s expansion usurps the right-or-wrong ethics he carried across his consulting career. For anglers, oil and gas infrastructure has destroyed fishing grounds and prevented smaller vessels from accessing the seafood-rich waters of the Calcasieu River.
From the view of Allaire’s white pickup truck as he drives across his property to the ocean’s shore, he points to where a new LNG facility will replace marshlands. Commonwealth LNG intends to clear the land of trees and then backfill the remaining low-lying field.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.”
Community bands together
John Allaire, left, purchased 311 acres in Cameron Parish in 1998, and has watched the oil and gas industry's footprint spread to his property.
Credit: John Allaire
During an Earth Day rally in April, community members gathered in the urban center of Lake Charles to demand local oil and gas industries help deliver a safer, healthier future for all. In between live acts by artists performing south Louisiana’s quintessential zydeco musical style, speakers like James Hiatt, a Calcasieu Parish native with ties to Cameron Parish and a Healthy Gulf organizer, and RISE St. James organizer Sharon Lavigne, who’s fighting against LNG development in rural Plaquemines Parish near the city of New Orleans, asked the nearly 100 in attendance to imagine a day in which the skyline isn’t dotted by oil and gas infrastructure.
Not long ago, it was hard to imagine an Earth Day rally in southwest Louisiana at all. For decades, the area has been decorated with fossil fuel infrastructure. Sunsets on some days are highlighted by the chemicals in the air; at night, thousands of facilities’ lights dot the dark sky.
“It takes a lot of balls for people to start speaking up,” Shreyas Vasudevan, a campaign researcher with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, told EHN in the days after the rally. In a region with its history and economy intertwined with oil and gas production, “you can get a lot of social criticism – or ostracization, as well – even threats to your life.”
Many are involved in local, regional and national advocacy groups, including the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Healthy Gulf, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Center for Biological Diversity and the National Audubon Society.
“You see what’s happening with the environment,” Allaire said. “When the facts change, I got to change my mind about what we’re doing.” - John Allaire, environmental engineer and 30-year oil and gas industry veteran
But environmental organizers are fighting a multi-billion-dollar industry with federal and state winds at its back. And LNG’s federal support is coupled with existing state initiatives.
Under outgoing Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards — a term-limited Democrat — the state pledged a goal of reaching net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. Natural gas, which the LNG industry markets as a cleaner-burning alternative, is cited as one of the state’s solutions. Louisiana is the only state that produces a majority of its carbon emissions through fossil fuels refining industries, like LNG, rather than energy production or transportation. Governor Edwards’ office did not return EHN’s request for comment.
This accommodating attitude towards oil and gas industries has resulted in a workforce that’s trained to work in LNG refining facilities across much of the rural Gulf region, said Steven Miles, a lawyer at Baker Botts LLP and a fellow at the Baker Institute’s Center on Energy Studies. Simultaneously, anti-industrialization pushback is lacking. It’s good news for industries like LNG.
“The bad news,” Miles added. “[LNG facilities] are all being jammed in the same areas.”
One rallying cry for opponents is local health. The Environmental Integrity Project found that LNG export terminals emit chemicals like carbon monoxide –potentially deadly– and sulfur dioxide, of which the American Lung Association says long-term exposure can lead to heart disease, cancer, and damage to internal or female reproductive organs.
An analysis of emissions monitoring reports by the advocacy group the Louisiana Bucket Brigade found that Venture Global’s existing Calcasieu Pass facility had more than 2,000 permit violations.That includes exceeding the permit’s authorized air emissions limit to release nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter and volatile organic compounds 286 out of its first 343 days of operation.
The Marvel Crane, the first liquid natural gas carrier to transport natural gas from the Southwest Louisiana LNG facility, transits a channel in Hackberry, Louisiana, May 28, 2019.
“This is just one facility,” at a time when three more facilities have been proposed in the region and state, Vasudevan said. Venture Global’s operational LNG facility — also known as Calcasieu Pass — “is much smaller than the other facility they’ve proposed.”
In an area that experienced 18 feet of storm surge during Hurricane Laura in 2020 — and just weeks later, struck by Hurricane Delta — Venture Global is planning to build a second export terminal Known as “CP2,” it’s the largest of the roughly two dozen proposed Gulf LNG export terminals, and a key focal point for the region’s local organizing effort.
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” Hiatt told EHN of locals’ nostalgia for a community before storms like Rita in 2005 brought up to 15 feet of storm surge, only for Laura to repeat the damage in 2020. Throughout that time, the parish’s population dipped from roughly 10,000 to 5,000. “But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG. Folks in Cameron think that's going to bring back community, bring back the schools, bring back this time before we had all these storms — when Cameron was pretty prosperous.”
“Clearly,” for the oil and gas industry, “the idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports,” Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana, told EHN.
Helping fishers’ impacted by LNG is about “actual survival of this unique culture,” Cooke said.
In a measure of organizers’ success, she pointed to a recent permit hearing for Venture Global’s CP2 proposal. Regionally, it’s the only project that’s received an environmental permit, but not its export permit, which remains under federal review. At the meeting, some spoke on the company’s behalf. As an organizer, it was a moment of clarity, Cooke explained. Venture Global officials “had obviously done a lot of coaching and organizing and getting people together in Cameron to speak out on their behalf,” Cooke said. “So, in a way, that was bad. But in another way, it shows that we really had an impact.”
“It also shows that we have a lot to do,” Cooke added.
Environmental organizers like Alyssa Portaro describe a sense of fortitude among activists — she and her husband to the region’s nearby town of Vinton near the Texas-Louisiana border. Since the families’ relocation to their farm, Portaro has worked with Cameron Parish fisher-folk.
“I’ve not witnessed ‘community’ anywhere like there is in Louisiana,” Portaro told EHN. But a New Jersey native, she understands the toll environmental pollution has on low-income communities. “This environment, it’s so at risk — and it’s currently getting sacrificed to big industries.”
“People don’t know what we’d do without oil and gas. It comes at a big price,” she added.
Southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish is one of the state’s most rural localities. Marine economies were the area’s economic drivers until natural disasters and LNG facilities began pushing locals out, commercial fishers claim.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
Residents “don’t really want LNG as much as they want Cameron [Parish] from 1990 back,” James Hiatt , a Healthy Gulf organizer, told EHN. "But the wolf knocking at the door is LNG."
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
For the most part, Cameron Parish’s life and economy has historically taken place at sea. As new LNG facilities are operational or in planning locally, locals claim the community they once knew is nearly unrecognizable.
Credit: Xander Peters for Environmental Health News
A disappearing parish
The stakes are seemingly higher for a region like southwest Louisiana, which is the epicenter of climate change impacts.
In nearly a century, the state has lost roughly 2,000 square miles of land to coastal erosion. In part driving the state’s erosion crisis is the compounding impacts of Mississippi River infrastructure and oil and gas industry activity, such as dredging canals for shipping purposes, according to a March study published in the journal Nature Sustainability. Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority said Cameron Parish could lose more land than other coastal parishes over the next 50 years. A recent Climate Central report says the parish will be underwater within that time frame.
On top of erosion and sea level rise impacts, in August, 2023, marshland across southwest Louisiana’s Cameron Parish burned. The fires were among at least 600 across the Bayou State this year. Statewide, roughly 60,000 acres burned — a more than six-fold increase of the state’s average acres burned per year in the past decade alone.
But while the blaze avoided coastal Louisiana communities like Cameron Parish, the fires represented a warning coming from a growing chorus of locals across the region — one that’s echoes by the local commercial fishing population, who claimed to have experienced unusually low yields during the same time, according to a statement from a local environmental group. At the site of the Cameron Parish fires are locations for two proposed LNG expansion projects.
"The idea is to transform what was once the center of commercial fishing in Louisiana to gas exports.” - Cindy Robertson, an environmental activist in southwest Louisiana
It was an unusual occurrence for an area that’s more often itself underwater this time of year due to a storm surge from powerful storms. For LNG expansion’s local opposition, it was a red flag.
As the Louisiana Bucket Brigade has noted prior, the confluence of climate change’s raising of sea levels and the construction of LNG export terminals — some are proposed at the size of nearly 700 football fields — are wiping away the marshland folks like Allaire watched wither. Among their fears is that the future facilities won’t be able to withstand the power of another storm like Laura and its storm surge, which wiped away entire communities in 2020.
Amidst these regional climate impacts, LNG infrastructure has shown potential to exacerbate the accumulation of greenhouse gasses that cause global warming. For the most part, LNG is made up of methane — a greenhouse gas that’s more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Among the 22 current LNG facility proposals, the advocacy group Sierra Club described a combined climate pollution output that would roughly equal to that of about 440 coal plants.
The climate impacts prompt some of the LNG industry’s uncertainty going forward. It isn’t clear if Asian countries, key importers of U.S. LNG, will “embrace these energy transition issues,” said David Dismuke, an energy consultant and the former executive director of Louisiana State University’s Center for Energy Studies. Likewise, European nations remain skeptical of embracing LNG as a future staple fuel source.
“They really don't want to have to pull the trigger,” Dismukes added, referring to Europe’s hesitation to commit more resources to exporting LNG from the American market. “They don't want to go down that road.”
While there will be a tapering down of natural gas supply, Miles explained, “we’re going to need natural gas for a long time,” as larger battery storage for renewables is still unavailable.
“I'm not one of these futurists that can tell you where we're going to be, but I just don't see everything being extreme,” Dismukes said. “I don't see what we've already built getting stranded and going away, either.”
For now, LNG seems here to stay. From 2012 to 2022,U.S. natural gas demand — the sum of both domestic consumption and gross exports — rose by a whopping 43%, reported the U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA. Meanwhile, in oil and gas hotbeds like Louisiana and Texas, natural gas demand grew by 116%.
Throughout 25 years, Allaire has witnessed southwest Louisiana’s land slowly fade, in part driven by the same industrial spread regionally. Near where the front door of his travel trailer sits underneath the aluminum awning, he points to a chenier ridge located near the end of the property. It’s disappearing, he said.
“See the sand washing over, in here?” Allaire says, as he points towards the stretches of his property. “This pond used to go down for a half mile. This is all that's left of it on this side.”
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan aims to reassure employees about the agency's future and rebuke past efforts to undermine climate science.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan will address employees today, just a few hours before the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, about the agency's recovery since Trump sidelined climate scientists and slashed staff.
Regan will highlight the hiring of 5,200 new employees under Biden and emphasize the need for a robust EPA amid escalating climate crises.
New protections have been implemented to shield EPA research from political interference in anticipation of potential future challenges.
Key quote:
“The previous administration ambushed scientific integrity — undermining our agency’s most fundamental principles.”
— Michael Regan, EPA Administrator.
Why this matters:
The future relevance of the EPA is crucial for maintaining scientific integrity and addressing climate change, especially with ongoing extreme weather events and the looming threat of policy reversal under a potential second Trump term. Read more: EPA’s “scientific integrity” program lacks teeth, group alleges.
Donald Trump claims that President Biden's climate policies, including electric tanks and sustainable fuel jets, will weaken U.S. military power, despite the Pentagon's plans to address climate change without compromising military effectiveness.
Trump has criticized Biden's climate policies, claiming they will reduce military efficiency and effectiveness.
The U.S. military has plans to reduce carbon emissions and explore sustainable fuels while maintaining operational capabilities.
Experts argue that electric and hybrid military vehicles offer battlefield advantages and reduce logistical challenges.
Key quote:
“It is not the goal to fail, the goal is to succeed... to have stuff that works well, that provides operational advantages, and also reduces environmental impact.”
— John Conger, director emeritus of the Center for Climate and Security and senior adviser to the Council on Strategic Risks
Why this matters:
Critics argue that Trump's comments overlook the long-term benefits of sustainable military technologies. Electric vehicles and alternative fuels could enhance operational flexibility and resilience, reducing vulnerabilities associated with fuel supply chains. In addition, advancements in green technology are poised to maintain, if not enhance, the military's combat capabilities.
Computer models show that even a small rise in water temperature could trigger significant ice sheet collapse.
This process may be responsible for underestimating past sea level rises and poses severe future risks.
Key quote:
“With every tenth of a degree of ocean warming, we get closer and closer to passing this tipping point.”
— Dr. Alexander Bradley, British Antarctic Survey
Why this matters:
The urgency of addressing climate change becomes more apparent with each new study. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, investing in renewable energy, and enhancing coastal resilience are steps that must be accelerated to prevent the most severe outcomes of a warming planet.
A green mineral called glauconite is causing problems for President Biden's offshore wind initiatives by complicating the installation of wind turbines.
Glauconite forms a sticky, clay-like layer when disturbed, obstructing the installation of monopiles, which are essential for offshore wind turbines.
At least four offshore wind projects in New England and New York have been affected by this mineral, threatening their efficiency and economic viability.
The U.S. Geological Survey and wind developers are researching the extent of glauconite deposits and potential solutions to this issue.
Key quote:
“Our administration has been laser focused on making what many of us thought impossible — a thriving and sustainable domestic offshore wind industry from coast to coast.”
— Interior Secretary Deb Haaland
Why this matters:
Glauconite is hampering efforts to meet ambitious renewable energy targets. The discovery of glauconite in key offshore wind areas also sparks concerns about the ecological impact of extensive drilling and construction activities. Balancing the urgent need for renewable energy with the preservation of marine ecosystems is a delicate task. Scientists and environmental advocates stress the importance of thorough impact assessments and the development of eco-friendly installation methods.
Kew Gardens' fungarium, the world's largest collection of fungi, showcases the biodiversity and ecological importance of fungi.
Mycologist Laura Martinez-Suz's research reveals that fungi, particularly mycorrhizal types, are crucial for carbon storage in soils, influencing the effectiveness of reforestation efforts.
Nitrogen pollution disrupts beneficial fungi, but reducing pollution levels can help restore these critical networks.
Key quote:
“Replacing the complete set of fungi with other fungi has implications for long-term carbon sequestration in soil and biodiversity.”
— Laura Martinez-Suz, mycologist
Why this matters:
Understanding and protecting fungal networks is useful for improving carbon capture and mitigating climate change impacts, putting a focus on the importance of reducing pollution and supporting biodiversity. Read more: How fungi could help clean up our biggest toxic messes.
“Of all the levels of radium in produced water or brine around the world that I’ve looked at, I have encountered none that are consistently as high as what comes out of the Marcellus Shale.”
