Marcia Lehman – 7/26/17

This page was last updated on August 12, 2017.

Story showed the need for fenceline monitoring; Marcia Lehman (ML); Beaver County Times; July 26, 2017.

According to the editor’s note, “The writer is a member of the Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Committee.”

As far as I can tell, this is ML’s first BCT letter-to-the-editor.

Below is a detailed review of the subject letter.

“I want to thank The Times for doing such a laudable service for the citizens of Beaver County and the region by publishing the July 21 front-page article, ‘Shell still silent on installing a fenceline monitor system,’ by Teake Zuidema of PublicSource.”

[RWC] The subject story was in the print edition but not on the BCT website. It is, however, on the PublicSource (PS) website with the title “The Right to ‘Know What Goes Up Your Nose.’”

Who is PS? In another story, the BCT told us “PublicSource [is] a Times news partner.” The PS website tells us it started as a subsidiary of Pittsburgh Filmmakers, but now has “independent 501(c)3 status.” PS is a member of the “Institute for Nonprofit News” (INN), formerly the “Investigative News Network.” Among the funders of INN are the Open Society Foundations (formerly the Open Society Institute), a leftist umbrella group founded and funded by George Soros (GS). GS, a Wall Street hedge-fund manager, is a one-percenter billionaire who funds any number of leftist groups.

“This is not only good journalism, well researched, but brings the issues of the petrochemical cracker plant square into our faces (noses-lungs-heart) in a clear and understandable narrative. This is the kind of journalism we need because Shell does not make these risks apparent and they have never given our region a health-impact study.”

[RWC] Suck up much?

How does LM know the piece was “well researched?” Does LM have undisclosed expertise in this field? Would the piece be “good journalism, well researched” if it didn’t agree with LM’s position?

Is Shell required to “give our region a health-impact study?” Shouldn’t that be a responsibility of the PA DEP?

According to the “good journalism, well researched” article,

“… the DEP does not consider fenceline monitoring for volatile organic compounds [VOCs] or hazardous air pollutants to be necessary at the facility. In a June 2015 document, the DEP basically argued that Shell’s leak detection and repair program would be more superior in tracing and stopping fugitive gases from leaks and flares than a fenceline system.

“The DEP is referring to the type of fenceline system that the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] is going to require refineries to start using in 2018. This system monitors emissions of the known carcinogenic benzene. It is not quite what the Clean Air Council and Environmental Integrity Project are hoping for because it does not gather real-time data of many other emissions, and it doesn’t automatically share any data with the fenceline community.”

The real gripe of the anti-Shell crowd isn’t fence-line monitoring. Otherwise, why insist on fence-line monitoring when the DEP asserts Shell’s leak detection and repair program would be better than a fenceline system? The real gripe is the proposed monitoring – fence-line or not - “doesn’t automatically share any data with the fenceline community.” What these guys want is access to “real-time data” so they can spread their “interpretation” before Shell and/or the DEP can do a proper analysis.

Should Shell go along with fence-line monitoring, the anti-Shell crowd will move the goalpost. Think Charlie Brown, Lucy, and a football.

I don’t know if it’s an issue in this case, but going “above and beyond” can get a business into legal trouble. Back in the 1990s, my employer required all employees to attend a “class” on sexual harassment presented by our law department. Part of the seminar was the presentation of the company’s sexual harassment policy. The policy was the offending party was responsible for the act, not the company. The company would be liable only if it didn’t respond to a complaint or ignored obvious policy violations.

This was at the time we started providing Internet access to everyone. I was already researching router software that would block access to known pornography websites, the keyword being “known.” Part of the software’s price paid for regular updates to its list of known porn websites. When my director and I invited our chief counsel for a demo of our plans, we didn’t get the expected response. Instead of “wow, that will help,” we got “no way, José.” Why? Because we would be taking direct measures to prevent porn from getting into the workplace via the Internet, the company could be held liable when the inevitable happened and a piece of Internet porn got by the filter and offended someone. No good deed goes unpunished.

“We, our children and grandchildren are the ones who will be living here for decades and suffering the impact of toxic air if something is not done to make this proposed plant safer. The community’s long-standing request for state-of-the-art technology and ‘best-practice’ in regards to fenceline monitoring and flaring/fugitive emissions must be implemented by Shell. Our health and well-being is more important than Shell’s promise of ‘budgetary guidelines’ and ‘fiduciary duties’ to their Wall Street shareholders.”

[RWC] Who is “the community” that has a “long-standing request for state-of-the-art technology …?” Who says Shell isn’t using “state-of-the-art technology?” Because of their scale and complexity, oil company facilities frequently define state of the art. I worked for an evil <g> multinational oil company – not Shell - for nearly 23 years and I would be shocked if Shell wasn’t going to use “state-of-the-art technology” throughout the plant, especially since it will be a brand-new facility from below the ground up.

What is a “Wall Street shareholder” and how many shares do Shell’s “Wall Street shareholders” own?

“The Times’ forward thinking in publishing this piece will open up greater dialog with Shell and the community. If Shell calls itself a ‘good neighbor,’ it must protect the health and well-being of Beaver Countians and the region. Toxic air has no boundaries.”

[RWC] More “butt-smooching” and blah, blah, blah.

Short of Shell packing up and leaving town, nothing will make the plant acceptable to these groups. That’s because the hubbub about the Shell plant is all about the religion of manmade global warming and the left’s desire to ban natural gas production regardless of its source. Shale opposition groups couldn’t stop fracking directly (except in NY), so now they’re trying to block processing plants and pipelines. You can read more in my review of “Shell can afford an environmentally friendly plant.”