🗞 March 2022 – Network Newsletter

March 1, 2022/Ryan Clover

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Welcome to our March newsletter! We’re excited to tell you about all the events and activities Halt the Harm’s partners and leaders are doing in the coming weeks, as well as look back at last month’s big happenings.

We also want to take a moment acknowledge the incredible work people around the country are doing and share recent victories in the movement to halt the harms of oil & gas pollution.

If you’re new to the network, welcome! We’re excited to get to know you and help you connect with others in the movement.

To make sure you don’t miss out on these updates as they happen, visit network.halttheharm.net and join the network discussion spaces.

If you have important events coming up that you would like posted in on the network calendar and in our events updates, let us know here.

Read on to find out what’s happen in the anti-fracking world…

🚨 Network & Partner Alerts

Comprehensive New Pennsylvania Map – FracTracker developed a new comprehensive map for Pennsylvania that includes the locations of 208,778 oil and gas wells—along with 57,132 violations assessed to both conventional and unconventional well sites since 2008. What sets this map apart from their others of the Commonwealth is that conventional, unconventional, and plugged wells are plotted! Thanks to data improvements to the map’s performance, users can examine all these details in the many layers of the map. → View the updated map!​

Fracking with “Forever Chemicals” in Colorado – FracTracker also contributed an interactive map to a new report by Physicians for Social Responsibility that provides evidence of oil and gas companies using dangerous PFAS “forever chemicals” in Colorado wells. The study finds that Colorado law allows oil and gas companies to withhold fracking chemical identities from the public and regulators by claiming them as “trade secrets.” → Check out FracTracker’s interactive map, and read more in their report here.

Reduce “Forever Chemicals” in Pennsylvania Drinking Water – The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is hosting a public comment period to define regulation standards for the dangerous PFAS chemicals. Move Past Plastic is asking people to submit comments the DEP telling them to implement strong PFAS standards to protect the health and environment of all Pennsylvanians. → Submit comments today! ​

Permitting Process for Aggregate Mines in Michigan – Permitting of non-metallic mines (such as frac sand mines) in Michigan tends to vary significantly across municipalities. → This two-part series discusses the terms of these permitting processes, with examples of how activists and residents have used this framework to fight infrastructure permitting.

Community Lunch & Learn: Oil and Gas Pollution in Your Backyard, March 29 – Protect PT will dive deeper into oil and gas wells in the local community. Joined by Melissa Ostroff, a Pennsylvania Field Advocate at Earthworks, they’ll cover topics surrounding orphaned and abandoned wells and what the process for reporting one looks like. Melissa will also explain the camera technology Earthworks uses to monitor wells and other infrastructure and look for leaks. → Learn more here.​

Sign the petition to Stop LNG by Rail – A network of groups dedicated to stopping rail transport of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) invites you to → sign a petition to Stop LNG by Rail. Transportation of LNG in rail cars is a reckless decision that exposes millions of people and vulnerable resources to the potentially catastrophic effects of a release of LNG. Groups are demanding that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) suspend the Trump administration’s rule that authorized LNG to be transported on the nation’s railways

📆 Upcoming Events

Network Open Mic – Ukraine and Fossil Fuel Industry, 3/25
​Join us for the first in a new weekly meet up to discuss the latest news around the oil & gas industry and our movement. Each week we’ll have special guests to share updates and thoughts on different topics. This series is happening via our new live-streaming platform on Halt the Harm Network. if you’re not a member of HHN yet, then sign up today to join the conversation. → More info​

Network Orientation, 4/7
​Come learn how to make the most of the platform, event series, leader directory, campaign kits, and accelerator programs. Everyone is welcome! And if you’re already a network member you can jump in to help welcome new people to the network and share what you’re working on. → Register here​​

Liveable Arlington’s Earth Day Presentation on Community Solar, 4/9
​Learn about community solar and how it will create a more equitable clean energy transition away from fossil fuels by expanding access to renewable energy and creating economic opportunities for historically underserved communities. Stephen Brown of the Clean Energy Fund (TxCEF) will discuss how community solar projects and decentralized energy production can make clean energy more affordable to all communities and make cities more resilient to the impacts of the climate crisis.​

Climate Change and Health: Indicators and Pathways, 4/15
​​Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania (PSR PA) invites you to attend Climate Change and Health: Indicators and Pathways. This virtual event will focus on mental health and wellbeing, climate migration and populations of concern, and social and health inequities. It is open to health professionals and the general public. → Register here​

✨ Monthly Highlights

đź“ą Event Replays available!

Here are links to all the recordings available:

If you ever miss an event, visit the Events and/or Recordings space in the network to get more details about an event and view any posted replays.

🎉 Celebrate the activism of network members:

đź—Ł Network leader Tamela Trussel, founder of Move Past Plastic, for her incredible work to demand that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection implement strong safeguards to reduce PFAS pollution in drinking water, and for her excellent training webinars on how to advocate for your local government to test for PFAS in water sources.

If you’d like to give someone a shoutout, please share in the network Conversations Space. There are so many people doing important, thankless work; let’s all spread the word about our wins!

🧰 New Resources

Lakhani, Nina. “Living near fracking sites raises risk of premature death for elderly, US study finds,” The Guardian, 27 January 2022. Elderly people living near or downwind from unconventional oil and gas wells such as fracking sites are more likely to die prematurely, according to a major new US study. → Read more…​

Gross, Liza. “A California Water Board Assures the Public that Oil Wastewater Is Safe for Irrigation, But Experts Say the Evidence Is Scant.” Inside Climate News, 6 February 2022. Studies in Kern County, performed by oil industry consultants, cannot answer fundamental safety questions about irrigating crops with “produced water,” the board’s own panel of experts concedes. → Read more…​

Global Investigative Journalism Network. “Guide to Investigating Methane.” This is an amazing guide for journalists AND it brings together a comprehensive set of links and resources to understand the problem, threats, data sources, etc… → The Guide’s Table of Contents can be found here ​

đź’­ Final Thoughts

Send us any upcoming events for your organization that you would like posted on the network Events Calendar and in our Weekly Movement Updates Broadcast.

​→ Share an event​

Have you checked out the updated network yet? If you haven’t, or if you’re not a member of HHN yet, then sign up so you don’t miss out on all the great things happening in the network.

We’ll see you on the network.

Sincerely,
Ryan Clover
Halt the Harm Network

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