Municipal Landfills Being Used for Low-Level Radioactive Drill Cuttings

by Duane Nichols on September 5, 2019

Trucks hauling Marcellus drill cuttings must pass a radiation monitor

J.P. Mascaro & Sons awarded municipal contracts and a landfill renewal

From an Article of Media News Group, The Mercury, Pottstown, PA, August 2, 2019

AUDUBON, PA — J.P. Mascaro & Sons has announced that it has been awarded more than $7.5 million in municipal waste collection and recycling contracts, as well as a renewal of its operating permit for the Brooke County Landfill in Brooke County, West Virginia.

According to Sam Augustine, director of sales for the waste service company, long-term municipal contracts for waste collection and recycling were also awarded by Muhlenberg and Hamburg in Berks County, Catasauqua in Lehigh County and Newton in Westmoreland County. “We look forward to serving these communities and their residents,” he said in a statement.

J.P. Mascaro & Sons is headquartered in Audubon, Montgomery County and has more than 50 years’ experience. “Municipal contracts are a core component of our business operations,” according to Pat Mascaro, president of J.P. Mascaro & Sons.

In other business, a J.P. Mascaro & Sons related company — Valero Terrestrial Corp. — was awarded a new five year operating permit for the Brooke County Landfill in Colliers, Brooke County, West Virginia.

The Brooke County facility is one of two Mascaro-related landfills in West Virginia; a second facility is the Wetzel County Landfill in New Martinsville.

The Brooke and Wetzel County Landfills serve as the primary disposal facilities for waste collected by the two operating divisions of Solid Waste Services of West Virginia Inc., the Mascaro-related collection company that serves municipal, commercial and industrial customers in the panhandle region of West Virginia and in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania, according to the company.

“The Brooke County Landfill is an important component of the operational infrastructure of the Mascaro-related waste service businesses in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania,” Ryan K. Inch, J.P. Mascaro director of engineering, said, in a statement. “These businesses not only serve our municipal, commercial and industrial customers, but also are important to the thriving Marcellus and Utica Shale gas development activities occurring in that three state regional area.”

For more information about J. P. Mascaro & Sons, visit www.jpmascaro.com.

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See also: Penna. Attorney General investigating wastewater case from landfill that accepts fracking waste | StateImpact Pennsylvania, Reid Frazer, May 24, 2019

The investigation comes a week after a judge barred the Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill in Rostraver Township from sending its wastewater to the nearby Belle Vernon Municipal Authority waste treatment plant for 90 days (now permanently).

The issue involves the landfill’s leachate — water that percolates through the landfill and gets collected for disposal. The landfill is permitted to send 50,000 gallons of the leachate per day to the treatment plant. But, according to a complaint filed by district attorneys in Washington and Fayette counties, the landfill had been sending 100,000 to 300,000 gallons of leachate per day.

Beginning last spring, the treatment plant started seeing levels of pollution in its discharge to the Monongahela River go up and exceed state and federal limits. The treatment plant determined the contamination was coming from the landfill, which accepts fracking waste including radioactive drill cuttings.

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