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Fact-Checking AOC’s Twitter Video Showing Toxic Fracking Fumes

by Brad Sylvester
October 07, 2019, 3:08 PM
in News and Opinion, Videos
Reading Time: 4 mins read
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ocasio-cortez speak rallyDemocratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted out a video that she said shows a hydraulic fracturing site releasing toxic emissions. The video has been retweeted more than 13,500 times.

There is no hydraulic fracturing currently taking place at the rig shown in Ocasio-Cortez’s video. Infrared cameras have the ability to pick up toxic emissions, but experts disagree on whether this footage shows that.

Fact Check:

Ocasio-Cortez stopped at a well site in Broomfield on Sept. 21 as part of her visit to Colorado, where she also attended Boulder County’s Truman Dinner and a Green New Deal event at a local high school.

“What we’re seeing is appalling. Companies are building fracking sites on public lands, across the street from schools + homes,” she tweeted. “Their toxic emissions are invisible. This camera sees them.”

I’m in Colorado w/ @JoeNeguse visiting communities whose air is being poisoned by fracking.

What we’re seeing is appalling. Companies are building fracking sites on public lands, across the street from schools + homes.

Their toxic emissions are invisible. This camera sees them. pic.twitter.com/Kem0MT1lMj

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 21, 2019

The video included in her tweet alternates between filming what environmental nonprofit Earthworks identifies as one of Extraction Oil & Gas’ rigs at the Livingston Pad and the screen of an infrared camera pointing in the site’s direction.

Off-screen, an unnamed man explains the captured images to the congresswoman.

Ocasio-Cortez refers to the rig as a “fracking site” in her tweet but, according to multiple oil and gas experts, no hydraulic fracturing is taking place there.

“The video is of a drilling rig. There is indeed no fracking (hydraulic fracturing) going on at that location,” said Chris Wright, chief executive officer of Liberty Oilfield Services, in an email to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA) confirmed that no fracking is currently occurring at this site either.

Ocasio-Cortez further claimed that the images captured on the infrared camera show the extraction site releasing harmful emissions – and she’s not the only one. Earthworks, whose representatives were present during the congresswoman’s Broomfield visit and took the original infrared footage, also interpreted the video as showing toxic emissions, according to a press release.

Infrared cameras can pick up toxic emissions being released into the atmosphere, several experts told the DCNF, but to do so requires a trained operator.

“A Forward-Looking Infrared Radar (FLIR) camera like the one being used in the video can identify emissions,” COGA spokesman Scott Prestidge said in an email to the DCNF. “But it also picks up thermal differentials, such as heat, so it’s very important that whoever is using the camera is trained to understand and identify the various elements within the image itself.”

Sharon Wilson, a certified optical gas imaging thermographer employed by Earthworks, said in an Earthworks press release that the footage does show toxic emissions.

However, other oil and gas experts examined the footage and found it less conclusive. As Prestidge noted, there can be confusion regarding infrared imaging.

“No one can make a claim with certainty as to what is being emitted, whether it’s toxic or not toxic – or even what it is,” said Jim Seffrin, a practicing thermographer with more than 30 years of experience who also serves as the director of the Infraspection Institute, a New Jersey-based firm that trains and certifies thermographers.

Brian Cain, a spokesman for Extraction Oil & Gas, told the DCNF that it was actually steam from hot drilling mud in the video.

“Using an infrared camera, the Congresswoman claimed to see ‘invisible emissions,’ when she was actually witnessing a heat signature caused by high-temperature (200-plus degrees) synthetic drilling mud being circulated to the surface against cooler fall temperatures in Broomfield,” Brian Cain, a spokesman for Extraction Oil & Gas, told the DCNF.

Quarterly testing conducted at the site by Ajax Analytics found that any and all emissions from the rig remained “well below standard health guidelines.”

Mary Throne, a Democratic public service commissioner in Wyoming, seems to have been the first to raise objections with Ocasio-Cortez’s claims.

Interesting video, but @AOC there is no fracking occurring at the site as shown and no way to determine compliance or lack thereof with CO air standards. As Dems, we do ourselves no favors when we ignore science and facts. Happy to discuss energy and the West any time. https://t.co/zI2WBXeGM2

— Mary A. Throne (@wymatters) September 22, 2019

“Interesting video, but @AOC there is no fracking occurring at the site as shown and no way to determine compliance or lack thereof with CO air standards,” Throne tweeted. “As Dems, we do ourselves no favors when we ignore science and facts. Happy to discuss energy and the West any time.”

Verdict: Unsubstantiated 

Ocasio-Cortez did not respond to a request for comment.

Read more at Daily Caller

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Comments 10

  1. Leo S says:
    6 years ago

    She is far from being pretty. Horsetooth communists.

  2. Amber says:
    6 years ago

    SONNYHILL I am starting to conclude she has no game .
    Pretty face , good actor … sounds like many others who have graced Washington .
    I wonder if she goes home and thinks these stupid F@#$ks actually listen to me.
    Amazon sure did .

    • David Lewis says:
      6 years ago

      Not everyone agrees with “pretty face.” I consider her to be just the opposite.

      • Al Shelton says:
        6 years ago

        Me too ………..

  3. Sonnyhill says:
    6 years ago

    Nowhere have I heard or read MSA mentioned regarding this affair. Mine Safety Appliances is the #1 supplier of gas testing equipment. If you want to test for toxic gases, you use their products. Why show up with an infrared camera? That’s the equivalent of measuring tree rings or reading tea leaves! Dishonest.
    AO-C needs to up her game.

    • Randy Verret says:
      6 years ago

      The oil & gas industry uses various gas testing equipment, mainly for gas detection (on site). Those FLIR cameras are used for leak detection as you can image gas escaping from flanges, tank hatches and other equipment. Problem is, they pick up heat signatures, so you have to have a certified operator who knows how to interpret the visual data correctly. Regardless of the claim that Sharon Wilson is a certified technician, if so, she would know better than to claim “toxic emissions” were being viewed…

  4. Amber says:
    6 years ago

    She should be able to get a job bar tending . OK just not in NY .

    • Al Shelton says:
      6 years ago

      AOC bar tending would be guilty of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere when tapping bear or opening beer bottles,
      The Green Police would have to arrest her for “global warming” ;^D

  5. Randy Verret says:
    6 years ago

    First, anything Earthworks “spews” out about the oil & gas industry is dubious, at best. Sharon Wilson is a long time “mouth piece” for anti-industry propaganda, her thermal certificates notwithstanding. The equipment on site is clearly a rotary drilling rig and anyone familiar with oilfield operations would know that has NOTHING to do with fracing. I’d agree that most likely, the FLIR camera picked up thermal images as the drilling mud was being circulated out of the wellbore. All things considered, just another example of folks trumpeting out their opinions without having any FACTS or working knowledge of oil & gas…

    • Steve Bunten says:
      6 years ago

      That’s what happens when you have an ignorant woman surrounded by more ignorant people. As you say fracking is not done with a drilling rig above it. I’ve watched many wells drilled and fracked here in Colorado and the drilling happens first with all the pipes, etc. installed prior to even thinking of fracking.

      As to the “toxic fumes” again if she had anyone who knew anything about drilling a new well there would be no fumes of anything happening prior to fracking and actually starting to pump oil and gas out. But why bother with facts when you are trying to use emotions to get people to respond.

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