Recycled Fracking Wastewater Poses Toxic Risk
As drilling for natural gas started to climb sharply about 10 years ago, energy companies faced mounting criticism over an extraction process that involves pumping millions of gallons of water into the ground for each well and can leave significant amounts of hazardous contaminants in the water that comes back to the surface. Many states send their drilling waste to injection wells, for storage deep underground. But because of the geological formations in Pennsylvania, there are few injection wells, and other alternatives are expensive. So natural-gas well operators in the state have turned to recycling.
Not only have PA natural-gas companies recycled less than half of the wastewater they produced during the past 18 months, recycling does not eliminate the environmental and health risks caused by wastewater.Some methods can leave behind salts or sludge highly concentrated with radioactive material and other contaminants that can be dangerous to people and aquatic life if they get into waterways. Such waste remains exempt from federal and state oversight, even when turned into salts and used for de-icing Pennsylvania roads in the winter. When Pennsylvania regulators tried to strengthen state oversight of how drilling wastewater is tracked, an industry coalition argued vehemently against it. Three of the top state officials at a meeting on the subject have since left the government — for the natural-gas industry!
via IAN URBINA of the New York Times
