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Approved toxic fracking ago new files3/14/2023 Hydrofluoric acid is one of the most dangerous chemicals used in any industrial process and can cause severe burns on human skin and form a poisonous vapor cloud when heated, according to the Environmental Defense Center, which has studied offshore acid treatments. Sometimes, acids such as hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid are also used to dissolve undersea rock formations and increase the flow of raw fossil fuels. Offshore fracking techniques are often used in the Gulf to reduce the amount of sand and grit in produced oil and improve its flow path out of the well, according to regulatory documents. Hydraulic fracturing involves pumping water, chemicals and sand underground or under the seafloor at high pressure to break up rock and release oil and gas. “But now the federal government is rubber-stamping practices like fracking without doing any environmental review or notifying the public, and it’s just another disaster waiting to happen.” “The Deepwater Horizon disaster should have been a wake up call that we need to move away from offshore drilling,” said Kristen Monsell, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, in an interview with Truthout. In the meantime, people who are concerned about fracking need to speak up and submit comments to the EPA, demanding a comprehensive reporting rule that protects public health and the environment.Federal records show that regulators approved several drilling plans involving fracking in the Gulf of Mexico even as the Deepwater Horizon disaster unfolded and oil from a broken well spewed into the Gulf for weeks on end. We are glad to see the EPA take this step, and we urge it to move quickly in issuing a rule to uncover the chemicals used in fracking. We have been waiting a long time for action on our petition. Also, because the EPA has one of the better systems for vetting claims that the chemicals are trade secrets or otherwise confidential, required reporting increases the chances that the public will get the information, too. At the very least, the EPA should know everything. We need an enforceable rule that requires reporting from all manufacturers and processors of chemicals used in the development process. Third, the oil and gas industry has a bad track record on transparency, so we can’t rely on a voluntary system to get full information. The information goes to nobody: Not the states, not the EPA, not the fracking companies, and certainly not the public. The fracking companies sometimes insist that even they don’t know what chemicals are in the fluids, because the manufacturers say the ingredients are trade secrets. Second, some states ask the fracking companies, not the chemical manufacturers, to disclose the chemicals in their frack fluids. We can assume that these are just as bad. There are many chemicals that are being concealed from us. These are just the chemicals we know about. There are three reasons we need a reporting rule:įirst, what we know about how dangerous the chemicals are is unnerving. We have learned that many of the hundreds of chemicals used in fracking are toxic and that some are endocrine disrupters, causes of respiratory problems, or known carcinogens. The EPA announced today that it would take public comment on whether it should move forward with a proposed rule to require the reporting of these chemicals. We asked the EPA to adopt a rule requiring that chemical manufacturers and processors report a wide range of information about the chemical substances and mixtures used in oil and gas operations. It took the first concrete step in response to a petition we filed in 2011 on behalf of more than 100 public health, environmental, and government transparency groups concerned about fracking. Today the Environmental Protection Agency surprised us with good news.
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