The Inquirer's editorial board identified the use of PFAS in eight fracking wells. Only the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection can shed light on the full scope.
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by The Editorial Board
Published
Aug 5, 2021
When Physicians for Social Responsibility published a bombshell report last month about the use of toxic, so-called forever chemicals in fracking, many questions remained for Pennsylvania and the health risks for our state.
Through Freedom of Information Act requests, the health professionals’ environmental advocacy group found that in 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency authorized the use of a group of chemicals known as PFAS in fracking. That’s despite warnings from agency scientists that these chemicals pose health hazards — including the risk of cancer, liver problems, immune disorders, and adverse effects on fetuses and breastfeeding babies. The physicians group identified the use of the chemicals in at least 1,200 wells in six states, not including Pennsylvania.
» READ MORE: Fracking’s use of EPA-approved toxic chemicals shows again that regulators prioritize industry over health | Editorial
An analysis of public data by this editorial board identified the use of one of these “forever chemicals” in at least eight Pennsylvania fracking wells between 2012 and 2014. Our findings should raise concerns for all Pennsylvanians.
What we found
Since 2012, Pennsylvania law and the Department of Environmental Protection require well operators to disclose chemicals used in the fracking process to the FracFocus database.
Using information from the database, we matched 280 chemicals to the PubChem library of the National Center for Biotechnology Information; the library includes safety information about each substance, including health and environmental warnings. A chemical can be assigned multiple warnings, and many are. This board identified 28 chemicals with an “acute toxicity” warning — the most serious safety label — and 106 with a health warning, an environmental warning, or both. Of the 280 chemicals on the list, 48 had no warning.
The “forever chemical” identified by the board is polytetrafluoroethylene, commonly known as Teflon — which PubChem reports is “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.” According to David Andrews, a chemist and senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, while polytetrafluoroethylene is a relatively stable compound and direct exposure is of low concern, “the real issue” is it “often has contaminants and byproducts in it.”
The compound could break down into fragments that, according to Andrews, are “incredibly persistent” and “known to cause toxic effects.” Biologist Maricel V. Maffini adds that this persistence “increases the likelihood of exposure and toxicity.”
State environmental officials have been testing water for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, but not with fracking in mind when targeting water sources. Instead, the state tested water sources within half a mile of military bases, fire training sites, landfills, and manufacturing facilities because they are known sources of contamination.
Four of the wells in which polytetrafluoroethylene has been used are in Washington County, where state officials did not test a single water source.
Steps needed
Now that the use of these chemicals in fracking is known, the commonwealth should test water near wells and waste ponds where “forever chemicals” were used.
Asked to comment on polytetrafluoroethylene being identified in at least eight wells, a Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson replied by email that the agency “is dedicated to ensuring that Pennsylvanians have safe drinking water, and in cases of water supply contamination, the supply must be replaced with water that meets or exceeds safe drinking water standards. Further, DEP understands that PFAS, an emerging environmental issue, is a serious concern that we are working to address.”
PFAS is an abbreviation for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, chemicals that were developed to prevent staining and corrosion; they are often contained in nonstick cookware and food packaging.
Other hazardous materials may have been used in Pennsylvania fracking. State officials maintain a list of about 430 chemicals protected from disclosure as trade secrets and say they can identify each. Asked whether the state would audit the list for “forever chemicals” — not disclosing the name of the substance or other details — a spokesperson wrote that such review is “possible” but time-consuming as “staff will need to review approximately 90 individual paper submissions” to identify the chemicals.
» READ MORE: PFAS found in 72% of drinking-water samples in Philly’s suburbs
Compared with Pennsylvania’s important efforts to test water for those substances, reviewing 90 paper submissions for critical information about potential risk seems a minor cost.
Why it matters
The use of a chemical in fracking doesn’t necessarily mean that chemical reached water sources. But fracking waste water has spilled, and chemicals from fracking fluids have previously been found in Pennsylvania’s water.
Even if fracking fluids pollute water, the potential harm to people or the environment depends on the quantity of chemicals and their interaction with water. But the mere existence of a chemical in fracking fluid creates the risk of a harmful spill. Between Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s report chastising state environmental officials for failing to regulate fracking, and industry’s rejection of the notion that fracking could contaminate water, Pennsylvanians can’t have much confidence that if something goes wrong it will be addressed promptly, thoroughly, and transparently.
There are tangible reasons to be concerned. A cluster of rare cancer in children prompted Gov. Tom Wolf to award $2.5 million toward studying the relationship of fracking and health. While waiting for the results — expected by the end of 2022 — a sensible step is for the Department of Environmental Protection to review the trade secret records to verify the extent to which toxic substances were injected into the commonwealth’s soil.
The only way to gain a full picture of those substances in Pennsylvania, and to prevent resulting harm, is for state environmental officials to answer: Are there “forever chemicals” on the list of substances used in fracking and registered as a trade secret? If more of those chemicals were used, and that information sat with environmental officials without disclosure or proper review, that would be a miscarriage of justice — and a violation of Pennsylvanians’ constitutional right to “pure water.”
Published
Aug. 5, 2021
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The Inquirer Editorial Board
This opinion was written by a group of journalists who work separately from the newsroom to debate matters of public interest.
Beth Harvilla
The Columbus Dispatch
Though oil and gas industry waste fluids migrated in 2019 beyond their original Ohio disposal site, a new report from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources says nearby drinking water wells were not affected.
The department previously confirmed hydraulic fracturing waste from a class II injection well in Washington County showed up in 28 nearby gas-producing wells.
"Naturally occurring fissures exist between the Ohio shale formation and the Berea sandstone formation, allowing wastewater to migrate between formations and into the production wells," according to ODNR records.
While the state agency has said it's "unlikely that wastewater will migrate farther — including into underground sources of drinking water due to the composition of the rock layers and other factors," an expert says it's possible.
The state paid an environmental firm, Groundwater & Environmental Services, Inc. (GES), a little more than $50,000 to test private water wells of those who live near the affected area, according to a report GES issued in June.
There were 596 parcels along with 48 private water well locations that were identified within one-half mile radius of nine oilfield wells.
Of those wells, 16 were reported as no longer present according to landowners, four landowners declined sampling, and the remaining 24 well owners did not respond to the company's attempts to sample. The company sampled nine wells, which included five that were not in the initial database.
The company analyzed samples for chloride and bromide, essentially salt, to detect if the well water contained waste fluids — called "brine" in the industry — that's present in horizontal hydraulic fracturing, a method that came into widespread use by the oil and gas industry in the 2010s to extract fuel from shale formations deep underground.
"GES does not believe that ... water wells that were sampled during this investigation were impacted by brine associated with the Redbird injection well," according to the report.
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However, waste water from hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, will continue to migrate, said Amy Townsend-Small, an associate professor of environmental science and geology at the University of Cincinnati who conducts research on hydraulic fracturing and its effects on groundwater.
Water samples were taken more than a year after the initial reports of the waste migrating. It's possible that samples were taken at the wrong location because it's challenging to determine the location many months after, she said.
"Are they going to provide ongoing monitoring? Because one-time sampling may not be sufficient," Townsend-Small said.
"(The waste) can still go through the layer that the water is in. That's the thing. It's not like it's going to somehow not affect the water table," she said.
Hydraulic fracturing is when sand, water and chemicals are injected to blast rock layers thousands of feet underground to release trapped oil and gas inside shale formations. The waste fluid that is left over is then transported and stored in injection wells.
Ohio has more than 200 injection wells containing ingredients that companies don’t have to disclose citing trade secret protections. Some of the thousands of chemicals found in the waste fluid are radioactive.
"Class II injection wells serve as a critical component to Ohio's vast oil and gas industry, and without the ability to operate these wells, the production side of the industry would quickly shut down," said Mike Chadsey, director of public relations for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. "The association continues to support common sense, reasonable rules and regulations governing these facilities and will continue to work with members and the ODNR to ensure continued safe operations."
The case highlights the lack of mandates for oil and gas companies to do groundwater monitoring, Townsend-Small said.
"Those of us that live in a city with municipal drinking water, they test it every day. Private drinking water wells are not tested. The testing is on the responsibility of the well owner," Townsend-Small said.
When the agency was asked why it doesn't do groundwater monitoring at class II injection well sites, an emailed response said, "The division monitors class II disposal wells through regular inspections, reporting and monitoring of injection pressures and will continue to do so. The well has shown no evidence of “leaking” and the study confirms that no underground sources of drinking water were impacted by the well," said Stephanie O'Grady, a media and outreach specialist for the division.
Redbird #4 is still a functioning injection well.
"Redbird voluntarily plugged the formation that they were injecting into (the Ohio Shale) and are now injecting into a deeper formation (Bass Island). The operator reconstructed the well to isolate the Ohio Shale zone and ran additional casing to the already authorized Bass Island zone," according to Sarah Wickham, chief of communications for ODNR.
Townsend-Small said a shortcoming of the sampling is that the water was tested only for chloride and bromide. Because industry waste commonly contains radioactive chemicals, they could have been used as a tracer instead, she said.
As of the latest report, ODNR has not received any water quality complaints from landowners.
Teresa Mills, executive director of Buckeye Environmental Network, said the results are likely skewed because of the lag time between when the issue was reported and when the samples were collected.
"It should be treated as hazardous waste and monitored. There should be monitoring in at least four directions and there should be monitoring all the time," she said.
But an earlier report, which includes 10 pages from Colorado-based Resource Services International and two pages of conclusions from ODNR, makes the assertion that "there is currently no reason to believe that this issue is occurring in other wells outside of this area."
AUG 11, 2021
PUBLIC HERALD
Third of 3-part series
Photo / Steven Rubin for Public Herald Susie Beiersdorfer is a Youngstown resident active with Frackfree Mahoning Valley.
Despite efforts from environmental organizations to educate the public about the radioactive risks created by the boom in shale gas fracking, some Ohioans remain unaware of the TENORM that may be piling up in their own backyards.
TENORM, or technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material, is created when naturally occurring radioactive material found in the earth is used for commercial purposes, processed, separated, or has its radioactivity concentrated, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which regulates TENORM in the state.
Sil Caggiano, retired senior battalion chief for the Youngstown Fire Department, said in regard to TENORM, he believes first responders and civilians are not being given the knowledge owed to them by the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, also known as SARA Title III. The act requires that states “organize, analyze and disseminate information on hazardous chemicals to local governments and the public.”
In order to navigate industry-related incidents, such as spills and explosions, first responders need knowledge of what to test for or to what they are being exposed.
Caggiano blames the lack of public awareness on the state’s protection of the oil and gas industry.
“You don’t screw with the fracking,” said Caggiano.
Mike Chadsey, director of public relations for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, said the information those first responders need is available, and that suggesting otherwise is “misinformation.”
“The medical community knows state law plainly states that they and all first responders have access to all the information they need to care for their patients,” Chadsey said.
Caggiano said when it comes to influencing public opinion, he thinks the oil and gas industry is nearly impossible to compete with.
“If you bring in some guy that tries to tell you that the radium in the brine tanks is no worse than the radioactive potassium of bananas, people believe it because some guy who got paid and has got a Ph.D. said it,” Caggiano said.
ODH states in an information sheet about TENORM that the relative exposures from TENORM are low compared to the risks from other sources of radiation, but will vary based on individual activities.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls the risks to members of the public working within 100 meters of a disposal site for contaminated TENORM waste “very low,” but lists those risks as direct gamma radiation, inhalation of contaminated dust or downwind radon, or ingestion of contaminated well water or food. The level of radiation in TENORM can also vary widely, according to the EPA.
RADIUM
When a radioactive element decays, it blasts off a tiny explosive piece of matter or energy — ionizing radiation. Radioactive elements, such as radium-226, emit alpha particles that can become airborne as dust, drift through the air, and be inhaled or ingested.
Radium-226 is found in nature, according to Encyclopedia Brittanica. Radium occurs in all uranium ores, but it is more widely distributed because it forms water-soluble compounds.
Exposure to high levels of radium can make you more likely to get bone, liver, or breast cancer, according to a 2017 ODH information sheet about radionuclides in water. The sheet states that most radionuclides in Ohio’s drinking water come from natural sources. While the goal is to reduce radionuclides in drinking water to zero, the EPA sets the maximum level limits for radium at five picocuries per one liter of water.
Likewise, solid waste landfills can only accept TENORM wastes at concentrations less than five picocuries per gram above natural background radiation levels, according to ODH. A curie a unit of measure for radioactivity.
CONCERNS
Andrew Gross, who worked as a health physicist with the U.S. Navy and has studied the effects of TENORM for years, said, “Putting this radioactive material into municipal waste sites is a giant concern. That could be life-altering for a lot of people, people in the vicinity, people downwater of streams, all those things.”
Julie Weatherington-Rice, an earth scientist and adjunct professor for Ohio State University with a Ph.D. in soil science, expressed a similar sentiment.
“This is a permanent reactor near your house, and it will always be a reactor because the waste got pooled together. And it will make as much radon and radium today as it will tomorrow and the next day and the next day and 30 years from now and 100 years from now and 500 years from now because the half life of this stuff is like, forever … So while it’s a naturally occurring material, when you concentrate it, you create a reactor.”
Chadsey, though, said with more than 200,000 Ohioans proudly in the natural gas industry, it has no intention of putting those families’ lives or shared communities at risk.
“Natural gas development can, is and will continue to be done safely under very tight rules and regulations. As it should be,” he said.
ACTIVISM
Susie Beiersdorfer of Youngstown is an activist with Frackfree Mahoning Valley and the Ohio Community Rights Network. For years, she and her late husband, Ray Beiersdorfer, heard complaints at regulatory agency meetings and believes they were ignored.
Beiersdorfer’s group has placed attempts at fracking bans on the Youngstown ballot eight times since 2013, hoping to protect water and create a community bill of rights. All of its efforts have been unsuccessful and vigorously opposed, in part, by the industry.
“We actually did have, at first, the illusions of our government protecting us,” she said. “But we learned that they’re all captured.”
Gross said if Ohio activists want to create actual change, the only road forward is through monetary pressure on the state and the industry.
“To me, the only way to do it is to hit them financially through lawsuits, and then to get the guys who have a real financial interest…to start making noise,” Gross said. It takes “pressure on the legislature’s wallets and pressure on the wallets of the guys who are producing (fracking waste).”
Chadsey said the work of activists trying to take on the industry will not be well received by Ohio’s working people, especially in the Mahoning Valley.
“People who call the Valley home are hardworking, tough as nails and do not support this extreme activist,” he said.
Staff writer Allie Vugrincic contributed to this story.
AUG 8, 2021
Public Herald
Lynn Anderson, a member of FrackFree Mahoning Valley, stands beside the Northstar injection well that was blamed for the magnitude-4.0 earthquake that struck the Greater Youngstown area on Dec. 31, 2011, and other smaller quakes. ...Public Herald photo
Everyone knows that oil and gas wells produce oil and natural gas, but these wells also produce radioactive material being disposed of in communities alongside household trash.
The Environmental Protection Agency defines the radioactive portion of this waste as TENORM (technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material). Though Ohio has strict regulations governing radioactive waste that comes across its borders, the state code doesn’t require the kind of extensive testing necessary to adequately measure radioactivity in TENORM waste, Public Herald reports.
Surrounding Youngstown are four separate facilities processing radioactive fracking waste. According to Public Herald, they are:
* Carbon Limestone Landfill, Republic Services, Lowellville;
* Mahoning Landfill, Waste Management, New Springfield;
* Wastewater treatment plant in Lowellville;
* “Chief’s order” facility called Ground Tech Inc. in Youngstown. Chief’s order facilities have special permission to operate outside of existing law, critics say.
Lynn Anderson said she has spent nearly a decade working with FrackFree Mahoning Valley to keep Poland Township and the surrounding area safe from radioactive contamination. But the fight against the industry often seems unwinnable, Anderson said.
“People’s lives matter. You can’t sacrifice them for corporate profit,” she said.
FRACKING
Never before has the nation undertaken an experiment with radioactive material like the one happening now across the country thanks to technological advances in hydraulic fracturing, a deep, water-intensive, chemical-laden process to extract hard-to-reach fossil fuels.
The formations being fracked in Appalachia, including Ohio, from the Marcellus and Utica Shales, happen to be the hottest in the country — as in the most radioactive, researchers have said.
In 2020, Harvard scientists revealed that radiation downwind of unconventional fracking development is significantly higher than background levels and moreso in the Marcellus and Utica Shale due to the higher uranium content of those formations.
According to the industry, every part of the oil and gas continuum involves radioactivity. A 1982 report commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute stated: “[a]lmost all materials of interest and use to the petroleum industry contain measurable quantities of radionuclides that reside finally in processing equipment, product streams, or waste.”
Oil and gas companies drill deep into the earth and blast water and chemicals into bedrock to access minerals. The process produces waste that includes drill cuttings, synthetic drilling muds, fracking chemicals, and naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) that would otherwise stay locked underground.
That waste is taken to facilities across the country, and in Ohio that includes local landfills, where rain filters through trash, carrying contaminants with it.
In landfills, the contaminated rainwater called “leachate” is transported to local sewage treatment facilities, which add the liquid to sewage for processing before dumping the leftovers into local waterways. But sewage is not treated for radioactive materials, so whatever TENORM goes into the facility also goes into the river, eventually. Or, TENORM can be lodged in sludge and filters making them radioactive for any material they come into contact with.
CHIEF’S ORDERS
But Ohio’s TENORM problems go beyond landfills and sewage waste treatment plants, which are governed under established state rules; there is another set of facilities authorized to handle fracking’s radioactive material, called “chief’s orders” facilities. Under chief’s orders, privately-owned facilities have special permission to operate outside of existing law, and critics of these orders say this all happens off the record.
In Ohio, the guessing game with the radioactive material from fracking is all happening in plain view of the Ohio EPA, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources , and the Ohio Department of Health — the three regulatory bodies responsible for keeping everyone safe from industrial pollution.
When a private company wants to “store, recycle, treat, process, and dispose of brine and other waste substances,” it needs one of the chief’s orders from ODNR.
But without detailed reporting requirements for the chief’s orders facilities, there’s no way Public Herald could find out how much waste has traveled through the 73 facilities that have handled fracking waste since the first order was granted in 2014. That year, Food and Water Watch and the FreshWater Accountability Project filed a complaint requesting a mandamus action against the state and ODNR, pushing for the removal of 23 facility orders active at the time and for no further orders to be granted.
The complaint states: “All Chief’s Orders issued by ODNR related to fracking waste facilities are illegal because they have not been issued as a result of procedures and requirements promulgated pursuant to” the Ohio Revised Code.
In 2018, the Supreme Court of Ohio denied an appeal of the action, affirming a lower court’s decision that Food and Water Watch and the FreshWater Accountability Project lacked standing, concluding that the plaintiffs did not demonstrate that their individual members would have standing in their own right. To establish standing, the court stated that “a litigant must show that it has suffered an injury that is fairly traceable to the defendant’s allegedly unlawful conduct, and likely to be redressed by the requested relief.”
STILL WAITING
Last amended in 2013, the Ohio Revised Code was meant to call for the adoption of rules regarding the proper care of oil and gas waste under chief’s orders. But as of 2021 those rules have not been finalized.
Eight years later, chief’s orders facilities, who would handle radioactive waste from fracking, are operating with no updated rules or oversight. Today, that leaves the potential for unregulated radioactive waste to enter rivers and watersheds across Ohio.
Teresa Mills, executive director of the Buckeye Environmental Network, told Public Herald that before the chief’s-orders system was implemented in 2014, Ohio had nothing on the books to regulate the private fracking-waste industry. Eight years after the implementation of the orders system, there’s still nothing.
Public Herald has identified 13 facilities actively storing or disposing of “brine, crude oil, natural gas, or other fluids” under chief’s orders; there are 35 facilities that are no longer active, and an additional 19 active facilities that have orders for operations other than storage or disposal, including brine and drilling mud recycling, truck washing and waste solidification. Six other facilities received similar orders and are no longer active.
Asked by Public Herald about why it’s taken eight-plus years to set new rules for chief’s orders facilities, Gov. Mike DeWine’s office had ODNR provide a statement:
“All oil and gas waste facilities operating under a Chief’s Order have to comply with the terms and conditions set forth in the Chief’s Order and all oil and gas rules/law in the Ohio Revised Code … and the Ohio Administrative Code … The Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management will continue to diligently regulate all of Ohio’s oil and gas waste facilities as the formal rulemaking process continues.”
Feds and states not taking radioactivity from fracking seriously, environmental group says
Ohio has even considered loosening regulations
Pumpjacks on the horizon underneath a partly cloudy beautiful sky. These pieces of equipment are crucial to oil field and fracking operations. Getty Images.
Fracking might be an economic boon to some landowners in depressed sections of Eastern Ohio, Western Pennsylvania and much of West Virginia. But federal and state officials are doing little to protect citizens from the radiation hazards posed by the process, a new report says.
– United States Geological Survey
For example, a solution containing substances such as Radium-226 in concentrations 300 times federal drinking water standards is spread on Ohio roads and there are no federal or state regulations to stop the practice, the report by the Natural Resources Defence Council says.
After their application to icy roads, it’s not hard to see how toxic substances can run off into streams. From there, who knows?
Titled “A Hot Fracking Mess: How the Lack of Regulation of Oil and Gas Production Leads to Radioactive Waste in Our Water, Air, and Communities,” the report details the many ways that fracking, or “hydraulic fracturing,” produces toxins.
The practice of using water and chemicals to blast through rock formations to get to previously inaccessible fossil fuels is not completely negative from an environmental standpoint. It’s made cleaner-burning natural gas a cheaper energy source than coal and some environmentalists have praised it as a bridge fuel while cleaner alternatives are developed in the race against global warming.
But, the NRDC report notes, state and federal regulators have taken a pass on protecting against fracking’s potential ill-effects — particularly for people living near fracking pads.
“Unfortunately, without adequate regulations, there is scant industry monitoring data or information about violations, so the full scope of health impacts facing nearby residents or workers from (toxic substance) exposure remains unclear,” it says.
A number of radioactive elements are naturally present in the Earth, often locked far down where they don’t threaten human health.
But fracking can blast known toxins such as radium, lead and polonium out of rock formations. Then they can be brought back to the surface in drill cuttings, wastewater and contaminated pipes.
It also can produce toxic air, Inside Climate News reported in 2014.
But regulators have seemed to go out of their way to avoid tracking toxic waste — even from conventional drilling long before the fracking revolution, the NRDC report says.
“In 1980, Congress amended (the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act) to temporarily exempt most wastes associated with oil and gas (drilling) from these hazardous-waste regulations, pending the completion of an (Environmental Protection Agency) study,” it says. “The EPA completed the study in 1988. It found that (drilling) wastes contain toxic substances — some of them at high levels — that endanger both human health and the environment. Uranium, for instance, was detected at ‘levels that exceed 100 times EPA’s health-based standards.'”
Nevertheless, the report said, the EPA determined that regulation of drilling wastes was unwarranted — a determination that stands today.
Similar regulatory gaps persist under other federal laws and agencies that could be used to do something, including: the Atomic Energy Act, the Clean Water Act and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the report said.
Things don’t seem much better on the state level.
For example, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia impinge on the oil-and-gas-rich Marcellus Shale, which is heavily fracked.
The states allow landfills to accept fracking waste. In Pennsylvania, water leaching out must be tested, but not for radionuclides. Ohio doesn’t require that water leaching out from drilling waste be tested, the report said.
West Virginia is the only one of the three that requires leachate to be tested for radioactive waste from fracking, the report said.
In fact, it said the Buckeye State seems to be going backward when it comes to monitoring such wastes and protecting citizens.
It said that in 2017 the state’s Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management commissioned an study of radioactive content in AquaSalina, “a commercial road deicing product used in Ohio and made from oil and gas wastewater.”
The study looked at the wastewater used to make the deicng product as well as the product itself “and found that its average radioactivity exceeded federal drinking water standards for combined radium-226 and radium-228 ‘by a factor of 300’” and it exceeded state standards for discharge in rivers in streams as well.
Even so, Ohio dumped a million gallons of AquaSalina on its roads in the winter of 2017-18 and another 600,000 gallons in the winter of 2018-19, the report said.
The legislature even considered a bill that would further weaken rules regarding the reuse of oil and gas wastewater.
“While the legislation did not pass, it may be reconsidered in the future,” the report said.
Legal Gaps Leave Fracking a Radioactive Mess
For decades, federal and state regulators have known about the health risks of radiation from oil and gas production, but gaps and carve-outs in federal environmental laws and weak or non-existent state regulations have left workers, the public, and clean water at risk.
Dangers to the public from this spotty legal framework have grown over the past decade, as the fracking boom has led to billions of gallons of produced water and tons of underground rock and sand being brought to the surface and disposed of inadequately.
It’s time for Congress to update key environmental laws such as the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) to establish safeguards to protect the public and environment from this dangerous waste.
In addition, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration needs to update rules based on science from the 1970s that are woefully inadequate to address the risks faced by drivers, drillers, and other oil and gas workers.
In an ideal world, states would step in and protect workers, communities, and water sources when the federal government is AWOL. However, a report we just released shows that none of 12 states with massive oil and gas operations has adequate standards in key areas. In fact, four of the 12 states have no statewide restrictions at all on the level of radioactive material in this waste that can be accepted at landfills, and eight don’t require monitoring of radioactive material leaching out of those landfills.
Radioactive Waste From Oil and Gas Production
Oil and gas production—and especially the fracking of underground shale—can lead to radioactive elements being brought to the surface in produced water or rock and sand.
Radiation can be accidentally released from spills or leaks of pits, tanks, or landfills where oil and gas waste is stored. In some cases, this dangerous waste is intentionally released; for example, when produced brine is spread on roads for dust suppression or deicing.
If these wastes are not properly managed, they present unacceptably high health risks, particularly the risk of cancer. Studies over the past 70 years have shown that even small exposure to radiation over time will increase cancer risks, and that’s led to tight standards for exposure at nuclear plants and radiation facilities.
Federal Laws Regulating Radioactive Waste Need Updating
While regulators have known for decades about the risk of radioactive elements associated with oil and gas production, gaps in our laws have meant the fundamental assessment has not been done even to determine how big a problem this is.
The first order of business from OSHA and the Environmental Protection Agency should be to determine the risks to workers, the public, and the environment from the naturally occurring radioactive material in oil and gas waste.
Congress also needs to update key environmental laws to protect workers and nearby residents. Laws needing updating include the following:
RCRA: In 1980, Congress amended RCRA to temporarily exempt wastes associated with oil and gas exploration and production from hazardous waste regulations, pending the completion of an EPA study. The EPA completed the study in 1988, finding, among other things, that uranium was detected at “levels that exceed 100 times EPA’s health-based standards.”
But the agency punted on regulating oil and production under the hazardous waste title (Subtitle C), creating a huge loophole for the industry. The EPA should add radioactivity to its definition of toxicity, and Congress should change the law to mandate treating this waste as the hazard it is.
AEA: The AEA, initially passed in 1946, is primarily concerned with the fission process and nuclear fuel used at nuclear power plants and does not cover all radioactive materials. It ignores so-called naturally occurring radioactive materials, including those materials produced by the oil and gas industry.
SDWA: The SDWA establishes categories for the injection of wastewater into underground wells. However, because RCRA doesn’t categorize oil and gas production waste as “hazardous,” the tighter rules for injection of hazardous waste don’t apply to this contaminated water. And so, fixing the RCRA gap must be followed by fixing the rules for injection wells.
In addition to these, changes are needed to the Clean Water Act, trucking regulations, and the Clean Air Act. This combination of rewriting the laws and regulating under the authority that already exists is necessary to fully address the threats from radioactive waste from fracking and protect workers and the environment.
There are bills pending that would give the EPA greater authority to regulate oil and gas exploration and production under the SDWA, RCRA, Clean Air Act, and Clean Water Act, which we hope will also lead to greater protections from the dangers of radioactivity.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. or its owners.
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Author Information
Bemnet Alemayehu is a staff scientist at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) where he concentrates on issues relating to the environmental monitoring and health effects of radiation. He received his PhD in radiation health physics from Oregon State University.
Amy Mall is a senior advocate at NRDC, where she has worked for 20 years helping shape policies to protect human health and the environment from the harms of oil and gas development, including fracking and pipelines. Prior to joining NRDC, Mall worked in the private sector and in government.
UK
Misson Springs: Fracking test
site to be restored to natural
state
IMAGE SOURCEFRACKTION
image captionProtests against tests took place outside the exploratory drilling site in Misson in 2019
A site earmarked for fracking will be restored to its natural condition after planners refused an application to extend its use.
Misson Springs in Bassetlaw was subject to shale gas tests after Nottinghamshire County Council approved plans in 2016.
Work started the following year, but no tests have taken place there since May 2019.
The gas tests led to a number of protests by environmentalists.
The initial application was for exploration work only, giving permission for a hydrocarbon well-site and for up to two boreholes to be drilled - one vertically and one horizontally.
Work began in November 2017 under four phases, with the first two phases completed in 2019, when applicants Island Gas Ltd (IGas) confirmed it had found a "world-class gas resource".
In November 2019, following a 2.9 magnitude earthquake at a fracking site in Lancashire, the government ruled out giving consent for fracking until the industry provided "compelling new evidence" of its benefits
IGas submitted plans to extend the site's use and delay restoration works until November 2023, hoping for a reversal of the government moratorium, and the application was recommended for approval by council officials.
However, Nottinghamshire County Council's planning and rights of way committee refused the application, ordering the site to be restored, said the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Committee chairman Richard Butler said leaving the site as it is until 2023 would be "an unacceptable length of time" and would be "adversely impacting on the amenity of the local community and the local environment".
Janice Bradley, from Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, welcomed the decision, saying it would help maintain the environment at nearby Misson Carr nature reserve.
"It is reassuring that issues such as impacts on rare species in a protected nature reserve of national importance, the strain and uncertainty for local residents, and the deepening climate and ecological crises were given real weight," she said.
Fracking Dumped Millions Of Gallons Of Waste Into The Gulf, According To Report
WUSF Public Media - WUSF 89.7 |
Published July 27, 2021
Center For Biological Diversity
CourtesyFracking and acidizing in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico (2010 – 2020). Data from BSEE FOIA records (2010-2019) and BSEE.gov 2020.
The entire fracking process creates waste, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. And a lot of the activity is concentrated in the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico, which is home to several endangered and threatened wildlife species.
A recent report shows that millions of gallons of waste has been dumped in the Gulf of Mexico through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The process blasts water and chemicals into the seafloor to fracture rock and release oil and gas.
The Center for Biological Diversity compiled the data after requesting documents from the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
Since 2010, the Center has documented more than 3,000 instances of offshore fracking; 700 cases of acidizing offshore wells, which is injecting hydrofluoric or hydrochloric acid into rock walls to release the fossil fuels; and at least 66.3 million gallons of fracking waste leaked into the Gulf.
Jaclyn Lopez, the Center for Biological Diversity’s Florida director, said there may even be more waste that's unaccounted for.
"Part of the issue is that fracking is not well documented. There's not a separate system for recording how often it's happening and where,” she said. “So, it's likely that it's probably higher than those reports, which these weren't government sanctioned reports, these were industry reports that we found through a Freedom of Information Act records request."
Click here to view the full fracking report from the Center for Biological Diversity
The entire process of fracking has the potential to emit waste, according to Lopez.
"In the stage of boring the initial well itself, there's the water that escapes, and the water in the mixture of the fracking fluid that escapes from that through the production, and then through the closure," Lopez said. “So, at various stages throughout that process, there's the potential for that material to be entering into the Gulf of Mexico."
She said companies extract oil and gas from the earth using a chemical cocktail, which is often very acidic. Chemicals used in offshore fracking and acidizing pose significant health risks to both humans and wildlife — including cancer, reproductive harm, neurotoxicity and even death, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
“It happens in the Gulf of Mexico, where we do you have so many sensitive species, and that does also present a human health risk factor,” Lopez said.
Fracking mainly occurs offshore of Louisiana and Texas, since the eastern part of the Gulf, near Florida, is largely off the table to oil and gas companies.
But Lopez says Florida can still be impacted by fracking next door.
“It’s a huge body of water and 66 million gallons over the course of 10 years may, in the context of the entire Gulf of Mexico, seem like not that big of a deal. But the reality is, it's highly concentrated in this industrialized sacrifice zone of the Gulf of Mexico,” Lopez said.
“If you were to look at a map of where all these oil and gas wells are, they're pretty densely concentrated in the northern Gulf of Mexico, which is habitat used by our nesting sea turtles by several species of endangered and threatened whales.”
After compiling all this information, Lopez said she is not aware of any immediate plans to file a lawsuit. However, she said advocates plan to use it when talking to lawmakers about adding more protective measures.
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