Fracking Waste Study Says States Aren’t Doing Enough to Protect Public

[Panich52]

From an Article by Glynis Board, WV Public Broadcasting, April 12, 2015

A new report was published this month that looks at how states are dealing with dangerous waste produced during shale gas development. Not well, according to the report.

Defining Hazardous

The Environmental Protection Agency regulates the disposal of toxic or hazardous materials. Such waste includes things that may contain heavy metals, chemicals, dangerous pathogens, radiation, or other toxins. Horizontal drilling produces both liquid and solid waste streams which can contain heavy metals, dangerous chemicals, salts and radiation. But you will never hear it referred to as toxic or hazardous by anyone, officially.

Amy Mall, senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a Washington-based nonprofit, explains that thirty years ago the EPA exempted oil and gas waste from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). “So right now, oil and gas waste, regardless of how toxic it is, can be treated like normal household waste in many parts of the country,” Mall said.

“Wasting Away”

There’s a new report: (Wasting Away – Four states’ failure to manage oil and gas waste in the Marcellus and Utica Shale) that examines this subject published by Earthworks – a nonprofit concerned with the adverse impacts of mineral and energy development. Lead author Nadia Steinzor explains that the EPA didn’t exempt the industry because the waste wasn’t considered a threat, but because state regulation of this waste was considered adequate. Of course, this was a couple decades before the horizontal gas drilling boom.

Steinzor and her colleagues decided to see what they could learn about waste practices in West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, where Marcellus and Utica shale gas are being developed.

The report indicates that states are well behind the curve in adapting to the natural gas boom: good characterizations of the waste is incomplete according to a 2014 study that’s cited; and not much information is available about where the waste is coming from, going to, or how it gets there.

West Virginia’s Oil and Gas Waste Management


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[mackdaddy]

1. Injection well less than a mile from my property.

In the last few months the number of "brine" tanker trucks have increased by many times. (although I have notice a reduction in just the last few weeks.)

Everyone I have talked to in the area had no idea it was even there, or what and injection well was.

I describe it as a "sewage well" where poisonous leftovers from 3 states are brought to be pumped under our feet.

What I do not understand is the well site is only about 20 acres. How can they pump 20 tanker trucks of this fluid a day into the ground, day in, day out and all of this crap stay within the boundaries of this relatively small parcel of land?

I do not see how this stuff is not flowing out under everyone's property in the area. Why is this OK that they get to poison under my property, to use storage space that rightfully belongs to the other properties.

They claim that this sewage brine is being pumped deep underground, but if there are ANY crack in the strata then this liquid could come back up and contaminate water wells. All the water wells for the city of Logan are less than 3 miles from this injection well.