Melissa English, Development Director for Ohio Citizen Action has prepared a medical right-to-know factsheet that provides a simple Q&A on the key provisions about the new state law and the proposed revisions.
link to fact sheet
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 The remains of a fertilizer plant burn after an explosion at the plant in the town of West, near Waco, Texas, in this April 18, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Mike Stone/Files WEST, TX — “The fertilizer-plant explosion that killed 14 and injured about 200 others in Texas last month highlights the failings of a U.S. federal law intended to save lives during chemical accidents, a Reuters investigation has found. Known as the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, the law requires companies to tell emergency responders about the hazardous chemicals stored on their properties. But even when companies do so, the law stops there: After the paperwork is filed, it is up to the companies and local firefighters, paramedics and police to plan and train for potential disasters. West Fertilizer Co of West, Texas, had a spotty reporting record. Still, it had alerted a local emergency-planning committee in February 2012 that it stored potentially deadly chemicals at the plant. Firefighters and other emergency responders never acted upon that information to train for the kind of devastating explosion that happened 14 months later, according to interviews with surviving first responders, a failing that likely cost lives.” — M.B. Pell, Ryan McNeill, Janet Roberts, Reuters In the interests of comprehensive coverage, today we include the following May 20 posting from lobbyists for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. The item addresses an issue that is no longer relevant. Last spring, the Ohio State Medical Association pushed for and won a constructive right-to-know amendment to the oil and gas bill, S.B. 315. We commend them. Could the amendment have been stronger? At this point it no longer matters. In March of this year, we learned that key provisions of S.B. 315 violate federal right-to-know law, and must be fixed to come into compliance. That is the real issue Ohio legislators will have to face this fall. – Paul Ryder, Assistant Director, Ohio Citizen Action Ohio State Medical Association debunks public comments about disclosure
COLUMBUS — “One of the most pervasive claims made about shale development has to do with disclosure — namely, that the industry is withholding information from medical professionals about additives used during hydraulic fracturing. This has been advanced by the likes of Ohio Citizens Action, a vocal anti-development group, as well as a handful of other individuals that are actively trying to confuse the public about this issue.” — Mike Chadsey, Energy in Depth
COLUMBUS — COLUMBUS–In its April 4 -5 annual members’ assembly, the Ohio State Medical Association passed a resolution voting to advocate for laws ensuring healthcare professionals, emergency planners and first responders can access chemical information in a fracking emergency. “Physicians got this immediately and voted for it with an overwhelming majority,” said Association member Debbie Cowden, who introduced the resolution. “They are also extremely supportive of first responders having access to information on the chemicals used at Ohio oil and gas wells,” she added. The Resolution: RESOLVED, that the Ohio State Medical Association advocate for provisions in Ohio state law that would allow doctors, first responders, emergency — Melissa K. English, Development Director, Ohio Citizen Action  Donna Carver speaks to the Morrow County Emergency Management Agency MORROW COUNTY — “The Local Emergency Planning Commission got a lesson in a potential hazard to emergency responders when Donna Carver, of Protecting Our Water and Environmental Resources (Morrow County POWER), addressed the group at their March 14 meeting. Carver, a 30-year Morrow County resident and LPN, has been researching medical and health related issues in Ohio since 1998. In recent years she became interested in hydraulic fracturing and injection wells and the possible health risks to emergency personnel and citizens alike. The issue Carver raises concerns the disposal of brine and waste from horizontal fracking and the right of the public to know what is being transported through and stored in their county. Carver acknowleged though there are not currently horizontal fracking wells in Morrow County, ‘we do have the flowback waste from other wells, which is so toxic it has to be injected into the ground into injection wells. Trucks carrying this waste travel through the county,’ she said. The issue of the transport of waste and the public’s right to know what is being moved through the county is POWER’s top concern.” — Randa Wagner, The Morrow County Sentinel  Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor DETROIT, MI — “Hydraulic fracturing opens up economic opportunities, but it also opens up potential new exposure to chemicals. Two bills introduced in the Michigan House aim to address that issue. The first, introduced by Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, would require drillers to fully disclose to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality – before drilling begins — the chemical composition of fluids they mix with the millions of gallons of water used in fracking operations. Irwin’s House Bill 4061 would go further than existing DEQ regulations instituted last year and would allow physicians and other health professionals access to and share the information for treatment and diagnosis reasons. ‘The public and physicians have a right to know what chemicals are being pumped into the ground from gas fracking’ before the mining begins, Irwin said. ‘I tried to balance the public’s rights with arguments on the other side that this is intellectual property and trade secrets.’” — Jay Greene, Crain’s Detroit Business How the Fracking Emergency Medical Right to Know Act can fix it
— Melissa English, Development Director, Ohio Citizen Action  Ohio State House Please join us in advocating for the Fracking Emergency Medical Right to Know Act Wednesday, March 20 . We chose this date because both houses are in session, which will increase the likelihood of your legislators’ presence in Columbus. We can help set up appointments with your legislators and coordinate with you directly, if you respond to menglish@ohiocitizen.org or nrutz@ohiocitizen.org or you can call 513-221-2100 or 216-861-5200. Please include a phone number (preferably a cell phone) and email where we can reach you. We will be back in touch with information on where our “home base” will be for the day. Thanks and we look forward to seeing you Wednesday, March 20. — Melissa K. English, Development Director, Ohio Citizen Action  “my wife is a doctor and I want her to have access on information that could help her do her job to save lives.”
WCMH: News, Weather, and Sports for Columbus, Ohio COLUMBUS — “Several environmental groups claim laws passed in Ohio that exempt the oil and gas industry chemical disclosure violate the United State’s EPA ‘Community Right To Know Act.’ Teresa Mills, from the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, filed a formal petition with the U.S. EPA claiming during and before a spill, first-responders and neighbors have a right to know what chemicals are used in their community. Mills said, ‘Ohio has been in violation of EPCRA since 2001 when state lawmakers passed House Bill 94 and further compounded by passage of Senate Bill 315 in 2012.’” — Rick Reitzel, nbc4i.com
COLUMBUS — Yesterday, Teresa Mills of the Center for Health Environment & Justice announced a petition to U.S. EPA to compel Ohio’s oil and gas industry to comply with the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act. In a complaint to U.S. EPA Region V administrator Susan Hedman, Mills lays out her case that in 2001 Ohio passed a law, House Bill 94, which exempted the oil and gas industry from reporting hazardous chemical inventories and locations of hazardous chemicals, as other industries must do. The inventories go to state and local agencies which use the information to prepare for and respond to emergencies and provide chemical information to doctors, nurses and EMS staff. The complaint also mentions Ohio State Senate Bill 315, passed last year, which allows the oil and gas industry to claim any chemical it chooses as a trade secret and provides for challenges to the industry’s trade secret claims only by people who can prove they’ve been harmed by a chemical used in oil and gas drilling and only in a court of law. Under the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, trade secrets can be approved or denied only by the U.S. EPA and any citizen may file an administrative challenge to a trade secret claim. The complaint states that Ohio did not have the authority to exempt the oil and gas industry from the hazardous chemical reporting and trade secret provisions of the federal Right to Know Act and therefore Ohio has violated the law. – Melissa K. English, Development Director, Ohio Citizen Action  Bill Lonneman, Assistant Professor, College of Mount St. Joseph CINCINNATI — “Over 500 permits have now been issued in Ohio for hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) wells; 405 of those permits were granted in 2012 alone. On the afternoon of January 31, in Youngstown, employees of D & L Energy dumped over 250,000 gallons of crude oil and chemically-laced waste water from the fracking process into a storm drain that empties into a local stream, and then into the Mahoning River. That river joins the Ohio just east of the Pennsylvania border. Along with cleaning up the mess, the EPA is still testing to see exactly what chemicals were in the mixture. Current Ohio law allows the oil and gas industry to avoid disclosure of critical information if a company deems certain chemicals to be ‘trade secrets.’ This aspect of the law keeps emergency responders and those exposed to spills or accidents in the dark when such incidents occur. A coalition of health care professionals and environmental advocates is currently seeking to strengthen this aspect of the law in Ohio.” — William Lonneman, Assistant Professor, College of Mount St. Joseph, letter to the editor, Cincinnati Enquirer  Sandra Sleight-Brennan, award winning radio producer and independent journalist based in Southern Ohio. ATHENS CO — “I asked an Athens County firefighter what they would do. He said they would keep a safe distance while they read the license plate to see who the truck was registered to. The sheriff would call that in to contact the owner to see what was in it. If it’s after hours- then what? Who would they contact and how long would it take? Does the owner of the truck even know all the ingredients—including proprietary and radioactive deep-earth contaminants—that are in his truck and in what quantities? Meanwhile the kids on the damaged bus are sitting in the cold and breathing in fumes. Those fumes, says Dr. Deb Cowden, an M.D. from Greene County, Ohio, could include benzene, naphthalene, formaldehyde, cadmium, mercury, arsenic, and radioactive radium, barium, and strontium. Each drilling company uses a different proprietary blend, which, they claim, is a trade secret. The doctor can only get the information from the company and is not allowed to share the information. The first responders may not be able to get it at all.” — Sandra Sleight-Brennan |
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