Methane Comments: Ruth Striegel

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(The EPA is hosting three virtual public hearings on January 10-12. These hearings are an important opportunity for communities across the country to make their voices heard, and demand that EPA adopts strong, comprehensive methane safeguards to protect our health and our planet. We share ccomments from New Mexico and El Paso residents).

I’m Ruth Striegel, from Albuquerque, NM, where I serve on the board of directors of New Mexico and El Paso Region Interfaith Power and Light. I’m also the chair of the Green Justice team at my church, First Congregational UCC. I appreciate the work that the EPA and each of you are doing to craft a strong methane supplemental rule proposal. Given the harm that methane emissions are doing to our planet, it’s absolutely imperative that we stop these emissions as soon and completely as humanly possible. My faith teaches me that it’s my privilege and obligation to work for a better world, and that world includes species beyond homo sapiens.  Our human and non-human brothers and sisters are suffering as a result of methane pollution, and these methane rules are key to putting a stop to the damage.

Last spring and summer were very difficult for me and for our state. The spring was terribly windy, warm and dry. With a lack of moisture in the soil and such unrelenting winds, two prescribed burns in NE NM got out of control and quickly combined into the worst wildfire we’ve ever experienced. The weather conditions created the perfect mix to incinerate a magical, rural area with a rich traditional culture. The total lack of precipitation in April, May, and early June was followed by ten days of heavy rains. The land had been sealed shut by the intense fires and couldn’t absorb moisture, resulting in damaging floods. It will be generations before this land can be restored, and the people there, whose lives are so interwoven with their mountains and grasslands, may never be able to fully restore their culture.

These fires and floods are the harvest we are reaping from our indifference to climate change. This is playing out all over the world in different forms. Methane emissions are playing a huge role in warming the planet. And they are wasteful and unnecessary!

My faith teaches me that it’s my privilege and obligation to work for a better world, and that world includes species beyond homo sapiens.  Our human and non-human brothers and sisters are suffering as a result of methane pollution, and these methane rules are key to putting a stop to the

In early June of last year, I visited the Permian Basin of southeast NM with a group of people from Interfaith Power and Light. In this incredibly productive oil basin, we were surrounded by oil infrastructure. Driving through the oil fields, we became nauseous or got headaches because we were breathing in the methane and other gases that were leaking out of the various kinds of equipment. Despite state regulations forbidding it, we saw flaring everywhere we went. We met with people who lived with cancer and respiratory diseases, who yearned for a better life, who lived with the fear that disease or accident would take their loved ones, but who lacked the financial resources to find a better life elsewhere.

Small, low-producing, and abandoned wells in southeast New Mexico are yielding almost no oil, but at the same time are emitting huge amounts of methane. I am very glad to see that the updated draft rule closes a loophole in LDAR standards, requiring routine monitoring of low-producing wells for leaks. I’m also glad to see monitoring of abandoned wells until closure.

I urge you to go further, ensuring that operators capture gas at oil wells and limit flaring to the maximum extent, making emission standards for storage tanks applicable to more tanks, and providing a clear pathway for communities and individuals to participate and engage in the Super Emitter Response Program by ensuring that approved monitoring technologies and data are accessible to all.

Thank you very much.

 

Methane Comments: Karen Smith

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(The EPA is hosting three virtual public hearings on January 10-12. These hearings are an important opportunity for communities across the country to make their voices heard, and demand that EPA adopts strong, comprehensive methane safeguards to protect our health and our planet. We share ccomments from New Mexico and El Paso residents).

Hello, my name is Karen Smith, and I appreciate this opportunity to promote strong federal methane rules. I live in New Mexico, and I represent Interfaith Power and Light, and also Green Justice at First Congregational UCC in Albuquerque. We are advocates for those who are most affected adversely by methane pollution, such as those who live in the Permian Basin. We have heard and witnessed their testimony about how it compromises their health, from cancer to asthma, and negatively affects their standard of living. Of course, we are also concerned about how methane accelerates the climate crisis for all of us.

I am urging the EPA to do more to limit routine flaring, better address emissions from storage tanks, and provide a clear pathway for participation in the Super Emitter Response Program.

While I appreciate the updated draft rule to cut methane and other pollutants from oil and gas operations across the country, I am urging the EPA to do more to limit routine flaring, better address emissions from storage tanks, and provide a clear pathway for participation in the Super Emitter Response Program.

People of faith such as myself who care about the environment and environmental justice are counting on you to quickly address these concerns and finalize strong, comprehensive new and existing source rules to cut methane pollution from the gas and oil industries.   I thank you.

Methane Comments: Cynthia González

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(The EPA is hosting three virtual public hearings on January 10-12. These hearings are an important opportunity for communities across the country to make their voices heard, and demand that EPA adopts strong, comprehensive methane safeguards to protect our health and our planet. We share ccomments from New Mexico and El Paso residents).

Hello, my name is Cynthia González. I live in El Paso, Texas, a city on the US-Mexico border. I work for the St. Columban Mission for Justice Peace and Ecology, a Catholic nonprofit organization and I’m serve on the board for Interfaith Power and Light-New Mexico and El Paso región. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with today on why strong federal methane rules are important to me, my community and the communities I work with. Through my work with impacted communities and as a border resident myself, I have witnessed firsthand how harmful methane pollution from the oil and gas industry is to our health, our safety, the livelihoods of entire communities and the overall destruction that it causes to in the biodiversity of our planet. 

In my community and nearby communities in west Texas and New Mexico hundreds of families are being impacted by the activities of the oil and gas industry. With many of them already seeing severe impacts on their health. This rule is an important step to ensure we protect them and protect the future of young people. In a recent visit to a community in South New Mexico, I was able to meet with a group women and mothers who are deeply alarmed by the lack of sufficient monitoring and regulation of the industry.

Through my work with impacted communities and as a border resident myself, I have witnessed firsthand how harmful methane pollution from the oil and gas industry is to our health, our safety, the livelihoods of entire communities and the overall destruction that it causes to in the biodiversity of our planet. 

During a presentation and after hearing from the group on the health impacts that they are seeing, one of the woman asked in Spanish with clear worry and disbelief in her tone, “I just don’t understand if they (meaning leaders, politicians, government) know that this is happening and if harming us, why don’t they do anything to stop it, doesn’t our health matter, don’t we matter”. These words should show us all the desperate need to protect these highly vulnerable communities. 

I trust that through this rule the EPA can begin to grant these families and impacted communities the protections they deserve. 

I’m particularly grateful to the EPA for taking steps to address methane pollution from the oil and gas industry – including by ensuring regular inspections occur at all sites and maintaining strong requirements to use zero-emitting technologies. The EPA and all of society must do everything we can to ensure that we are addressing impacts of climate change and protect the health and safety of communities like mine and those in Texas and New Mexico. These rules are an important step in that direction.

Thank you for your time.