2010 Peoples Oil and Gas Summit Speakers

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Health impacts from drilling, fracking, waste pits and gas production.

Panelists will share real-life stories of health impacts being felt by citizens living with gas development, information on drilling and fracking chemicals known to have health impacts, as well as approaches for surveying community health impacts.

John Fenton is a rancher who lives near the community of Pavillion in central Wyoming. Water tests have shown that Fenton's well water contains traces of arsenic, barium, cobalt, copper and other compounds known to be related to gas drilling wastes. Members of Fenton's family and his neighbors have reported health effects such as loss of smell and taste, a rare cancer, seizures, miscarriages and liver disease. Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommended that several Pavillion-area residents with private wells find alternative sources of water for drinking and cooking.

Lisa Parr, originally from Cherokee County of East Texas, moved to Decatur to marry Bob Parr in May of 2008. Bob, Lisa and her daughter Emma live in the quiet little community of Allison. Soon after marrying Lisa started have multiple sicknesses. As time went by they continued to get worse, and then Bob and Emma started developing problems. In early 2010 a concerned neighbor, Christine Ruggiero, stopped Lisa and informed her of the oil and gas problems and gave Lisa a copy of her time line. Upon comparing it to the dates of their families sicknesses, Bob and Lisa were in tears, for the dates matched up. Read more about Lisa's family's story.

Theo Colborn Theo Colborn, an environmental health analyst, has published and lectured extensively on the effects of chemicals known as endocrine disruptors and their implications for human and wildlife health. Her work has led to major changes in health policy not only in the US but abroad as well. She has served as an advisor to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US State Department's International Joint Commission, Environment Canada, Health Canada, the US Department of the Interior, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and similar government agencies in Europe and Japan. She directed World Wildlife Fund's Wildlife and Contaminants Program before returning to her home in Colorado, in 2002. In 2003 she established The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX), a non-profit group in Paonia, CO whose mission is to provide objective, technical information about toxic chemicals to scientists, policy makers, grass-roots and support groups, the media, and the public. Part of her work with TEDX includes analyzing health data related to chemicals used in the oil and gas industry. Among her many awards are the 2003 Society of Toxicology and Environmental Chemistry's Rachel Carson Award, the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Council for Science and the Environment, TIME magazine's 2007 Environmental Heroes Award, and the 2008 Swedish Goteborg Award. She has a B.S. in pharmacy from Rutgers University, NJ, an M.A. in fresh water ecology from Western State College of Colorado, and a Ph.D. in zoology with distributed minors in epidemiology, toxicology, and water chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

Wilma Subra. Committed to protecting the environment and the health and safety of citizens, in 1981 Wilma Subra started Subra Company, a chemistry lab and environmental consulting firm in New Iberia, LA. Mrs. Subra provides technical assistance to citizens concerned with their environment by combining technical research and evaluation, and presenting the information to community members so that strategies may be developed to address their local struggles.Utilizing the information gained from community involvement, the needs identified are translated into policy changes at the State and Federal level through service on a variety of multi-stake holder committees such as the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology, the National Advisory Committee of the U. S. Representative to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, and the EPA National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. Mrs. Subra holds degrees in Microbiology/Chemistry from the University of Southwestern Louisiana. She received the MacArthur Foundation's Fellowship “Genius Award” for helping citizens understand, cope with and combat environmental issues in their communities, and was one of three finalist in the Environmental Category of the 2004 Volvo for Life Award.

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Community socioeconomic impacts of natural gas development.

This session will include information on the range of socio-economic impacts and benefits that have been felt in communities already affected by natural gas drilling and production, as well as strategies that can be taken to reduce socio-economic impacts in communities.

Jill Morrison joined the Powder River Basin Resource Council as a community organizer in 1990. Since then she has been working with Wyoming landowners and citizens to address energy development impacts and to ensure good stewardship of land, water and air while engaging citizens in civic participation. In 2004, she was recognized as one of 18 individuals across the country who received the Ford Foundation's “Leadership for a Changing World” award. Morrison and her husband operate a ranching and outfitting business in Northeast Wyoming and have two daughters. Prior to her work with PRBRC, Morrison was an award-winning investigative journalist. She holds a BA in English from Arizona State and was born and raised on a farm in western Nebraska.

Stephanie Hallowich and her family live on ten acres in the heart of the Marcellus Shale. Her home is located in a small, rural community about 30 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh. The property is surrounded by wells, an impoundment, a gas processing plant, a compressor station, a meter station, numerous pipelines and access roads. Her family deals with 24-hour/7-day-a-week traffic, dust, noise and fear. Air quality has also become a huge concern – the air is tainted with terrible smells that makes her entire family ill. After finding out that her well water was contaminated, she learned quickly that the laws that were created to protect our water and air do not apply to the O&G Industry. Read more about Stephanie's story.

Chris Mehl is the Policy Director at Headwaters Economics, an independent, non-profit research group. Chris has extensive experience working in communications and on public policy issues across the West. He serves as a Bozeman City Commissioner and previously worked as a Press Secretary in the U.S. House of Representatives for thirteen years.

Jannette M. Barth is president of J.M. Barth & Associates, Inc., an economic research and consulting firm. Jannette has worked in the fields of economic analysis and econometric modeling and forecasting for over 35 years. She received her B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. Several of her former positions include Chief Economist, New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Consultant and Account Manager, Chase Econometrics/Interactive Data Corporation. As a landowner in Delaware County, New York, in the Marcellus Shale region, Dr. Barth became interested in the economic and environmental impacts of gas drilling using hydraulic fracturing techniques, and authored the report “Unanswered Questions About the Economic Impact of Gas Drilling in the Marcellus Shale: Don't Jump to Conclusions”.

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Joseph Heath and Jeanne Shenandoah, Onondaga Nation.

Joe Heath has been General Counsel for the Onondaga Nation since 1982 and an attorney since 1975. For the Nation, his work centers on environmental protection, particularly under the Clean Water Act, focusing on Onondaga Lake and Onondaga Creek; archeologic site and unmarked burial site protection; NAGPRA repatriation and litigation; hunting and fishing rights; treaty rights; excise tax issues; and land rights. In addition to these current areas of work, Joe has extensive experience in civil rights litigation, having worked on the Attica civil rights; class action case for 29 years before it settled in 2000 for $12 million; criminal defense and trials; family law; protection of abused and neglected children; fighting domestic violence. Joe is also and active member of Veterans for Peace.

Jeanne Shenandoah is with the Onondaga Nation Communications Office. Shenandoah is a member of the Eel Clan, Onondaga Nation and has been a traditional home birth midwife and herbalist for 23 years. She serves on the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force and is a former vice president of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation Board of Directors.

Strategies for reducing community and environmental impacts.

This panel will discuss approaches for protecting communities, watersheds and wildlands from the harmful impacts related to gas development.

Ben Price is Projects Director for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. Ben coordinates community organizing across Pennsylvania where over 100 communities have adopted Legal Defense Fund-drafted laws. He is currently serving as adviser to Pittsburgh City Council members, assisted in drafting Pittsburgh's Protection from Natural Gas Drilling Ordinance, and is working with other communities in Pennsylvania and New York to adopt community-rights ordinances that subordinate corporate privileges to human and civil rights. As Projects Director he assists strategic organizing in all areas of the country, and travels as needed to jump-start organizing and support movement-building. He is a certified first-chair Democracy School Lecturer.

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich is a public interest attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center and the Director of the Center's Climate & Energy Program. WELC is a leading conservation voice for the American West, using the power of the law to defend and protect the American West's treasured landscapes, iconic wildlife and rural communities. Erik's work seeks to protect wildlands and communities from the ravages of ill-advised energy development in a world faced with a rapidly deteriorating climate, and to ensure that energy development, where appropriate, is conducted responsibly and does not undermine our transition to a clean, carbon-free energy economy.

Jordan Yeager is a graduate of Cornell University and the American University, Washington College of Law. After practicing law in Washington, DC, Jordan returned to Pennsylvania, where he practiced with pioneering environmental lawyer, Bob Sugarman, in Philadelphia, and then operated his own firm for 10 years. Jordan is currently a partner with Curtin & Heefner LLP in Bucks County, PA. In addition to representing municipal governments as solicitor and special counsel, Jordan represents community groups and individuals in environmental, land use and civil rights matters.

Josh Joswick has lived in southwest Colorado since 1977. He served as mayor of Bayfield, CO from 1988-1993, and from there moved on to county politics, holding a seat as La Plata County Commissioner from 1993-2005. During his tenure on the Commission, Josh led the re-write effort of the La Plata County oil and gas regulations, which withstood court challenge by the state of Colorado and the oil and gas industry. From 2006-present, Josh has been the Energy Issues Coordinator for the San Juan Citizens Alliance. His job involves daily advocacy for citizens impacted by the industry, as well as working to improve oil and gas rules at the county and state level, and rules that pertain to federal lands.

Helen Slottje is a public interest attorney with the nonprofit law firm Community Environmental Defense Council, Inc. She was lead attorney for citizens on the lawsuit challenging the Village of Horseheads' finding that there would be no significant environmental impact from a new 88-acre drilling services facility operating in the middle of the Village. Slottje also works with landowners who are trying to understand their leases, students at Cornell's Water and Land Clinic, and municipalities and community groups trying to protect themselves from the negative impacts of fracking and volume of wells slated for New York towns that lie above the Marcellus shale.

Wes Gillingham is one of the founding directors of Catskill Mountainkeeper and has been a voice for the environment for the past 30 years. He is an organic farmer that lives off the grid with his family on Cattail Road. Acting as the Program Director for Mountainkeeper he has become an expert on the issue of drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale.

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When the landman comes knocking – strategic options for individuals and communities.

This panel will address some of the options available to landowners and mineral owners related to leasing, surface use agreements, pipelines and forced pooling.

Ellen Harrison is a geologist/environmental scientist. She retired a couple of years ago from Cornell University where she directed the Cornell Waste Management Institute for many years. Ellen and her husband leased the mineral rights on their 33 acres several years ago, before shale gas development was under discussion. Upon learning about the potentially devastating impacts of shale development, Ellen formed FLEASED, an organization providing a voice to landholders who leased mineral rights but now realize that shale gas exploitation threatens their land, air, water and communities.

Terry Fitzgerald holds a BSN from Ohio Dominican University and an MS in Community Health Nursing from the University of Colorado. She has done hospital and public health nursing in Chile, Indianapolis, Wyoming and Colorado. Terry and her husband Jim have been farming and ranching near Durango, Colorado for 40 years. They have one gas well on the farm and two that are adjacent, and have been struggling against the oil and gas industry since 1984. Most recently Terry and Jim successfully sued the State Engineer of Colorado over the diversion of ground water for the production of oil and gas. The favorable decision was rendered by the Colorado Supreme Court. Read more about Terry and Jim's story.

Deborah Goldberg is Managing Attorney at the Earthjustice northeast regional office, where she supervises and conducts legal advocacy and litigation related to global warming and environmental health. Before joining Earthjustice, she was the Democracy Program Director of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, where she litigated cases, published in academic journals and the popular media, and provided congressional testimony on issues of electoral and campaign finance reform. She was also an attorney with the law firms Berle, Kass & Case and Arnold & Porter, where she concentrated in cases involving environmental impact review, historic preservation, and hazardous waste issues. She was lead counsel at the U.S. Supreme Court for the county intervenors in New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992) (overturning portions of the Low Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act).

David McMahon graduated from West Virginia Wesleyan College in 1972, and from George Washington University law school in Washington, D.C. in 1975. Since 1975 he has worked as a public interest lawyer representing low income people in civil legal matters such as consumer, landlord tenant, domestic relations law, and issues surface owners have with oil and gas drilling. He has also advocated at the Legislature on all of those issues since 1985. His is the author of the West Virginia Surface Owners' Guide to Oil and Gas, which is in its second edition. Most recently he co-founded of the West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization, which educates surface owners on a variety of oil and gas issues, and has introduced legislation increasing surface owners' rights. In 2008 he started a part-time private practice representing small and medium mineral owners in leasing and royalty issues.

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Lois Gibbs, Center for Health, Environment and Justice.

Lois Gibbs was a 27 year-old housewife in 1978, when she discovered that her child was attending an elementary school built on top of a 20,000 ton, toxic-chemical dump in Niagara Falls, NY. Desperate to do something about it, she organized her neighbors into the Love Canal Homeowners Association, struggling for more than 2 years for relocation for the families of Love Canal. Opposing the group's efforts were the chemical manufacturer, Occidental Petroleum, as well as local, state and federal government officials who all insisted that the leaking toxic chemicals were not the cause of the health problems experienced by Love Canal residents, which included high rates of birth defects, miscarriages, cancers and other maladies. Finally, in October 1980, President Jimmy Carter delivered an Emergency Declaration which moved 900 families from this hazardous area and signified victory for the grassroots community. Once families were relocated from Love Canal, Lois's life was changed forever. During the crisis, she received numerous calls from people across the country who were experiencing similar problems. This revealed to her that the problem of toxic waste went far beyond her own backyard. She became determined to support these grassroots efforts. In 1981, Lois created the Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ), an organization that has assisted over 10,000 grassroots groups with organizing, technical, and general information nationwide. Lois has been recognized extensively for her critical role in the grassroots environmental justice movement.

Bil Walker, Senior Communications Advisor, EARTHWORKS.

Bill Walker. Bill Walker's first career was journalism. He spent more than a decade as a roving correspondent for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Denver Post and Sacramento Bee before choosing to work for change rather than just write about it. He has worked as a media and campaign strategist for Greenpeace, the California League of Conservation Voters, Environmental Working Group, and many other organizations. He's also a nationally known trainer of media skills, who has trained hundreds of activists for the Ruckus Society, Patagonia Inc. and other groups. He is currently Earthworks' senior communications consultant.

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Web-based tools for information sharing and documentation.

These panelists will provide information on some web-based tools for sharing information and data, as well as innovative ways to present and package information.

John Amos is the President of SkyTruth. Educated as a geologist at Cornell University (BS) and the University of Wyoming (MS), John spent 10 years applying image processing, image analysis, and digital mapping techniques to conduct environmental, exploration and resource assessment studies for the energy and mining industries and government entities. In 2001 he founded SkyTruth, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to strengthening environmental conservation by illuminating local, regional and global environmental problems and issues through the use of satellite images, aerial photographs, and other kinds of remote sensing and digital mapping.

Paul Woods is the Chairman and Chief Technology Officer of SkyTruth. Beginning at the University of Maryland before moving on to DC-area startups Compass Point Software and CareeerBuilder, Paul has worked with software and and the Internet since the early days of Internet commercialization. Paul is currently VP of Product Development for Intelligenx, a Washington, DC-area software company specializing in online search technologies. A lifelong commitment to the environment and a passion for improving the world via applied information technology solutions has led him to serve as a technology advisor to SkyTruth, with a particular emphasis on leveraging emerging online technologies to expand SkyTruth's reach and enhance its core mission of promoting environmental awareness.

Samantha Malone serves as the Communications Specialist for the Center for Health Environments and Communities (CHEC) at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH). Ms. Malone joined CHEC in 2009 after earning a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Pittsburgh's GSPH. Ms. Malone's research interests include how environmental health information should be presented to expansive online communities and in printed media, how the environment (including the built environment) affects behavioral habits, and whether adjusting that environment (on the Internet and elsewhere) could result in significant health behavior changes. Among her various responsibilities at CHEC, Ms. Malone is the Webmaster, manages FracTracker and its training program, and oversees the communication of CHEC's various research projects.

Charles Christen, DrPH, MEd, Director of Operations, Center for Healthy Environments and Communities, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. Dr. Christen's work is focused on behavioral and community health science directed to community based participatory environmental health research.

Chris Csikszentmihályi cofounded and directs the MIT Center for Future Civic Media (C4), dedicated to developing technologies that strengthen communities. He also founded the MIT Media Lab's Computing Culture group, which works to create unique media technologies for cultural and political applications. Csikszentmihályi's Computing Culture research group is known for developing political technologies that rebalance power between citizens, corporations, and governments. He is currently leading the extrAct research project, a large-scale effort to bring software-based tools for collective action to parts of the US that are heavily affected by oil and natural gas drilling.

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Citizen-based monitoring approaches.

This panel provides ideas and tools for citizens who want to collect baseline data on air and water quality or find out more about the contaminants in their communities.

Conrad Volz is an Assistant Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH), University of Pittsburgh; he is also the Director of the GSPH's Center for Healthy Environments and Communities (CHEC). Dr Volz's research interests are primarily focused on how industrial & municipal contaminants, including toxic heavy metals & elements move through the air, water, soil & groundwater to reach people & how to block this movement. He is a specialist in the fields of human & ecological receptor exposure assessment & fate & transport of contaminants through environmental media. Dr. Volz's CHEC group is conducting research in the Marcellus Shale region to determine levels of; metals, anions and organic chemicals in effluent from sewage treatment plants accepting gas production brine water; and organic chemicals in air volatilized from gas production operations.

Wilma Subra (see bio, above)

Calvin Tillman is the mayor of the small town DISH, Texas. Due to DISH being the crossroads of many natural gas pipelines, the mayor was active in pursuing state legislation regarding the routing of natural gas pipelines as well as the powers that the pipeline companies have been given. DISH, which has the smallest budget of any town in North Texas, commissioned an independent air quality study near a large natural gas compression station. This testing was among the first of its kind. Mayor Tillman serves on workgroups with the members of the state legislators, regarding regulation of the natural gas industry, and is active with the Texas Oil and Gas Accountability Project. Mayor Tillman was recognized for his contribution by the Texas Progressive Alliance with the Gold Star Texan award for 2009.

Roy Martin is currently a Project Aquatic Ecologist at Downstream Strategies, an environmental consulting firm that combines sound interdisciplinary skills with a core belief in the importance of protecting the environment and linking economic development with natural resource stewardship. Dr. Martin has a background in freshwater ecology and ecological and environmental assessment and modeling. He has extensive experience in the application of current field techniques, Geographic Information Systems, statistical modeling, and ecological theory to issues in aquatic resources science and management. Roy obtained his M.S. (Wildlife and Fisheries Resources) and Ph.D. (Forest Resources Science) from West Virginia University, Morgantown, and a B.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Biology and Management from the University of Wyoming, Laramie.

Julie Vastine is the Director of the Alliance for Aquatic Resource Monitoring (ALLARM) at Dickinson College. Julie is responsible for leadership of the ALLARM program, as well as providing technical assistance to watershed organizations. This spring ALLARM developed a protocol for monitoring small streams and their watersheds for early detection of the impacts from Marcellus Shale gas extraction in Pennsylvania. Julie has worked in the environmental field for ten years and has a B.S. in Environmental Science from Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA.

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Weston Wilson, former EPA employee and whistleblower.

Weston Wilson holds a BS in Geological Engineering from the University of Arizona, and a MS in Water Resources Administration, also from the University of Arizona. Wes Wilson started working for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Denver in 1974. He retired from federal civil service in January 2010. His work with EPA included assisting Estonia, Ukraine, and the West African nation of Mali to develop their own environmental protection agencies. In that work, he stressed the importance of scientific objectivity, lack of conflicts-of-interest, and the need for independence by a nation's environmental regulatory authority from its privately-owned and governmental industrial endeavors. Wilson applied these principles in the U.S. when he became an EPA whistleblower, highlighting that some members of the scientific review panel for EPA's study Evaluation of Impacts to Underground Sources of Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs “may benefit from EPA's decision not to conduct further investigation or impose regulatory conditions.” Read Wilson's letter.

Emerging issues related to natural gas and energy in the U.S.

This session presents some of the issues related to natural gas that have the potential to affect the pace and scale of natural gas development in the United States.

Robert Howarth is a biogeochemist and ecosystem biologist. He has been on the faculty at Cornell University since 1985 and has been the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology & Environmental Biology since 1993. For the past 35 years he has run an active research program focusing on how human activity affects the environment, with particular foci on global change and on coastal ocean water quality. Much of Howarth's research focuses on human alteration of the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles at scales from local to regional to global, including both sources of pollution and their consequences. He also works on greenhouse gas emissions (particularly methane and nitrous oxide) and the ecological consequences of oil and gas development.

Deborah Rogers began her financial career in Europe where she worked in Corporate Finance in London, specifically venture capital. After returning to the States, she was a stockbroker for a number of years before starting the artisanal dairy, Deborah's Farmstead, on land that she and her husband bought from her Grandfather, turning it back into a working farm. Deborah has a herd of 60 dairy goats and makes artisanal cheeses which have won several national awards in the prestigious American Cheese Society Competition. In addition, Ms. Rogers is known as an innovative farmer and has received much acclaim in both regional and national press both for her cheese and her farming techniques. Ms. Rogers was the first in North Texas to provide lab results for air emissions near natural gas drilling sites. The City of Dish followed several months later and corroborated the initial data. Ms. Rogers also raised private monies for an independent study of gas sites in Ft. Worth which was conducted by SMU and UNT Health Science Center. It is believed that this study was the catalyst that galvanized TCEQ into beginning their own air emission study in the Barnett Shale region. She currently serves on the six member Advisory Committee for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Read more about Deborah's story.

Monica Vaughn of Pacific Environment and also Friends of Living Oregon Waters, works with landowners threatened with eminent domain for unnecessary natural gas pipelines associated with proposed liquefied natural gas import/export terminals on Oregon's coast. She was recently the director of the Hey NW Natural corporate campaign, linking Oregonian gas customers with farmers to pressure our local gas utility to stop a proposed LNG pipeline project. Monica has worked with Global Exchange, Pacific Environment, Friends of Living Oregon Waters, Columbia Riverkeeper and is a co-founder of the northwest student coalition, Cascade Climate Network.

Richard Ward is a Senior Advisor for the Energy Future Coalition of UN foundation. He also serves as the Director of Energy Initiatives at the Aspen Science Center. He is keen to help revamp the energy system to protect our common future. Ward was previously with Shell Oil Company as Shell Group Environment and Safety Strategy and Plan Manager. His earlier roles included: Leader of Shell's “Factor 4” efficiency effort; Global Manager of Group CO2 accounting, assurance and reporting; and Organizational Effectiveness Consultant. Prior to joining Shell, he gained broad experience as a senior environmental manager in Arabia and as a geologist and hydrogeologist in the US. He received his B.S. in Geology and his M.S. degree in Applied Earth Sciences from Stanford University.

Tony Dutzik is senior policy analyst with Frontier Group, a non-profit organization that conducts research and policy analysis to support a cleaner, healthier and more democratic society. Mr. Dutzik is the author or co-author of numerous reports on environmental and public policy topics, including many reports on energy and climate policy, focusing on alternatives to fossil fuels. Prior to joining Frontier Group in 2001, Mr. Dutzik worked as a daily newspaper reporter covering education issues for the Lawrence, Mass. Eagle-Tribune, and as an environmental organizer and writer. He holds a bachelor's degree in public service from Penn State University and a Master's degree in print journalism from Boston University. A native of Pittsburgh, he currently lives and works in Boston.

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