newsCOUP

newsCOUP Ep. 10: “If Only I Would’ve Known” Oil & Gas Whistleblowers Speak Out About Exposure to Radioactivity on Fracking Jobs

“They’re Going to Die” – Experts & Whistleblowers Reveal Life of Trafficking Radioactive Waste
"That first initial burst of water was just some really dirty stuff, sometimes it was as black as the screen of your phone when you shut it off, just black. I spent a lot of time underneath that rig literally getting rained on when they were pulling the pipe by that water. You would be out there just literally vacuuming up this water that was laying down on their containment around the rigs."
 
***Read the full report, subscribe to newsCOUP: https://publicherald.org/if-only-i-wouldve-known-oil-gas-whistleblowers-speak-out-about-exposure-to-radioactivity-on-fracking-jobs/

newsCOUP Ep. 9: DOH Continues to Dodge Health Impacts from Oil & Gas Radiation, Passes Their Health Study to the University of Pittsburgh

DOH Does Not Take Concerns From Physicians and Community Seriously
On June 21st, two local health advocacy organizations, Philadelphia Physicians for Social Responsibility (Philly PSR) and Environmental Health Project, were able to meet virtually with Dr. Rachel Levine, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH), to advocate on behalf of families regarding a cancer health study in the southwestern part of the state.
In the meeting, Dr. Levine revealed that the academic partner to conduct the infamous oil and gas health study will be the University of Pittsburgh.
Immediately upon hearing this news advocates for affected families requested a “process oversight panel” — but DOH denied the request.
The DOH study, prompted by rare childhood cancers in the county, will take an estimated three years to complete, at which time the DOH will consider whether it will respond and take action. This timeline allows the DOH to fallback on the unfinished study until 2023, as families wait to find out if oil and gas fracking is connected to the increase in childhood cancers.
 
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newsCOUP Ep. 8: Pennsylvania Regulators Won't Say Where 66% of Landfill Leachate w/ Radioactive Material From Fracking is Going..."It's Private"

Pennsylvania Regulators Won't Say Where 66% of Landfill Leachate w/ Radioactive Material From Fracking is Going..."It's Private"
DEP is not tracking how much TENORM is leaving a landfill via leachate to the WWTP. The DEP says that the transaction is private between the two entities: the landfill and the treatment plant.  
When we told Dr. Julie Weatherington-Rice, a semi-retired earth scientist with a PHD in soil science and adjunct professor for Ohio State University, about DEP’s landfill tracking system for TENORM, she said, “[DEP] has no way of knowing what’s going in” to a landfill in a given year using gate post radiation systems for trucks to pass through and handheld geiger counters.  
Dr. Weatherington-Rice continued, “Those gate posts [at landfills] were never designed for that kind of [low level radiation] scanning. They were designed for hospital waste, for something that decays rapidly. Pennsylvania is counting on smoke and mirrors for protection because they’re not using the right test and they’re not using the right equipment. They don’t know what they put in that landfill. They think they do, but they don’t.” 
 
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newsCOUP Ep. 7: Hospital Whistleblowers Go Public About Unsafe Protections That Are Exposing Health Workers & Patients to Coronavirus

We kind of actually said to ourselves, we think covid was here beforehand, and people that maybe tested negative for the flu maybe had it, and will we ever know? Probably not. That is why everyone is really scared, because if you have the symptoms you could be spreading it. We don't have the equipment. We might have cots, we might have rooms, available schools, gymnasiums, to put people, but what do you do with the people once they're there? Who's going to take care of them? Where's the proper medical equipment to take care of them? I don't know. Or the personnel? I don't know that either. We don't have the right equipment, we don't have enough of the equipment, we really are unprepared.
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newsCOUP Ep. 6: A Dangerous Secret That Could End Fracking

newsCOUP: A Dangerous Secret That Could End Fracking
Investigative Journalists Justin Nobel and Joshua Pribanic come together in this explosive podcast* to discuss one of the hottest topics to come out of fossil fuels. 
The idea of “safe” fracking transformed oil and gas in America for the 21st century and helped create a worldwide resurgence for an otherwise dying industry. But as we hear in this episode of newsCOUP a dangerous secret protected by regulators threatens the identity of fracking. That secret takes us down a rabbit hole from the beginning of time to the present-day legacy of untold radioactive risks in communities wherever black shale is fracked. 
For more on this and other Public Herald stories see: https://publicherald.org/a-dangerous-secret-that-could-end-fracking/

newsCOUP Ep. 5: “Government Failed You” — Pittsburgh State Rep. Drafts Bill to Stop Radioactive Fracking Waste (TENORM) From Entering Public Waters

Pittsburgh’s Freshman State Representative Sara Innamorato is drafting a bill to regulate TENORM (Technically Enhanced Radioactive Material) from fracking waste in response to Public Herald’s leachate investigation.
Public Herald’s August 2019 report described how a regulatory loophole allows radioactive fracking waste dumped at landfills to be sent as leachate to sewage treatment plants and discharged to public waters. Fracking waste contains high levels of radionuclides known as TENORM which are water soluble and end up in the landfill leachate, but are unregulated and cannot be treated or removed by sewage plants.
READ THE FULL PUBLIC HERALD REPORT »
 

newsCOUP Ep. 4: Pennsylvania is Discharging Radioactive Fracking Waste Into Rivers As Landfill Leachate, Impacting The Chesapeake Bay & Ohio River Watersheds

A Public Herald investigation has uncovered that DEP is allowing 14 Sewage Waste Treatment Plants to discharge radioactive fracking waste as landfill leachate into 13 Pennsylvania Waterways. The process DEP created to “treat” and discharge the leachate through sewage plants appears to date as far back as the fracking boom (2009 or longer).
Read Full Investigation w/ Interactive Map »
 

newsCOUP Ep. 3: Will Laws or Mass Civil Disobedience Stop Fossil Fuels?

Today on the show we’re talking about direct action. What’s the right approach? Should you go to court? Should you contact your elected officials? Should you take action on the state, break the laws and perform acts of civil disobedience? And, do you do this alone? Or, do you get your community involved…do you get masses of people involved?
 
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