Westmoreland County Landfill taking Drilling/Fracking wastes

From an Article by Reid Frazier, StateImpact Pennsylvania, October 14, 2020

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection fined a Western Pennsylvania landfill that accepts solid fracking waste $59,000 for multiple violations over the past year. It’s the latest in a series of legal actions against the landfill.

According to a consent order signed Oct. 7, the Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill in Rostraver failed to maintain up-to-date records, operated beyond permitted hours, and failed to maintain roads on multiple occasions between July 31, 2019, and Sept. 24, 2020.

The agency said the landfill also allowed spills and leaks of leachate — wastewater that seeps through the landfill and must be treated before it’s disposed of.

The landfill accepts oil and gas drilling waste, which is high in salts, metals, and radioactive materials, and many of these pollutants have ended up in the leachate.

Last year, Pennsylvania’s Attorney General’s office said it was investigating the landfill’s handling of its waste, and a judge ordered the landfill to stop sending its leachate to a nearby treatment plant.

That plant, which failed several state water quality tests, found high levels of contaminants common in fracking waste in the leachate it was receiving from the landfill.

In February, the DEP fined the landfill $24,000 for improper disposal of the leachate.

The latest fine is for new violations, which include the landfill’s trucks tracking mud on nearby roads, failing to put adequate soil cover on top of waste, including drilling waste, and failing to maintain equipment.

The department has ordered the landfill to come up with a plan to fix the violations.

West Virginia news of May 30, 2014

StateImpact Pennsylvania is a collaboration among WITF, WHYY, WPSU, and The Allegheny Front. Reporters Anne Danahy, Reid Frazier, Rachel McDevitt and Susan Phillips cover the commonwealth’s energy economy.

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See also: Pennsylvania Regulators Won’t Say Where 66% of Landfill Leachate w/ Radioactive Material From Fracking is Going…”It’s Private” — From Joshua Pribanic and Talia Wiener for the Public Herald, August 5, 2020

In Pennsylvania, the final destination of 66 percent of liquid waste from 30 municipal landfills accepting fracking’s oil and gas waste remains unknown. Oil and gas waste from fracking contains high concentrations of Technically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (TENORM), and wherever this radioactive TENORM waste is stored, rain carries water-soluble radionuclides such as Radium-226 through the landfill to create what’s known as leachate – the landfill’s liquid waste. This TENORM-laden leachate is commonly sent to Waste Water Treatment Plants (WWTPs) that are not equipped to remove it before it’s dumped into rivers.

Blue Ridge Landfill In Estill County KENTUCKY

From an Article by Bill Estep, Lexington Herald – Leader, July 18, 2020

A Kentucky man has been charged with illegally shipping tons of radioactive waste to a landfill in Estill County KY that was not equipped to handle it.

A federal grand jury indicted Cory David Hoskins Thursday on five charges of mail fraud, based on checks he received through the mail as part of the alleged crime, and 22 charges of “willfully and recklessly” violating safety regulations on shipping hazardous materials in 2015.

Hoskins operated companies called Advanced TENORM and BES LLC, both based in West Liberty, in Morgan County. TENORM stands for “technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material.” The material is a byproduct of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to recover oil and natural gas, and is classified as hazardous because of low-level radioactivity.

Hoskins allegedly told a West Virginia company called Fairmont Brine Processing, LLC, that Advanced TENORM could safely transport, treat and dispose of sludge from its operations.

Hoskins told the West Virginia company that his company included engineers, nuclear physicists with doctorates and other experts. That was a lie, the indictment said.

Hoskins also lied and said he would haul the sludge in trucks that complied with U.S. Department of Transportation rules on transporting hazardous materials, according to the indictment.

Hoskins “did not keep the promises” he made to the West Virginia company because it would have been more expensive and time-consuming to haul the waste in compliance with federal safety rules, the indictment said.

Hoskins allegedly hired trucking companies and drivers from the Ashland area and elsewhere that didn’t have the proper certification to haul hazardous waste, and didn’t tell the drivers and carriers what they were hauling was radioactive.

He also didn’t put required notices on the trucks and shipping containers to describe the hazardous sludge. One purpose of those labels is to let police, firefighters and emergency workers know what’s in a truck in case of an accident.

Hoskins drew up shipping manifests that said the material he was having hauled was not hazardous, and misled the landfill about the waste, the indictment charged.

The Herald-Leader reported in 2017 that Hoskins arranged for the shipment of more than 1,000 tons of low-level radioactive waste from West Virginia and Ohio to be dumped in landfills in Estill and Greenup counties. However, the indictment against Hoskins only mentions 22 shipments to the Estill County landfill between July 22, 2015 and Aug. 27, 2015.

The illegal diposal of the waste caused concern in Estill County — the landfill is near schools — but state officials said in 2016 that there was not an imminent health threat from the material.

The state proposed a settlement in 2018 under which the radioactive material would be left in the Blue Ridge Landfill in Estill County with a cap over it. A challenge to the plan by a citizens group is pending.

The indictment includes a request for a judgment of $127,110 against Hoskins if he is convicted, representing the amount he grossed from alleged illegal activity.

The maximum sentence on the mail-fraud charges against Hoskins would be 20 years. The charges on violating hazardous-materials safety rules are punishable by up to five years.

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See also: “Disequilibrium of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) in Drill Cuttings from a Horizontal Drilling Operation,” Environmental Science & Technology Letters, American Chemical Society, December 21, 2016

Report finds additional radioactive materials in gas-well drill cuttings

Special Report for 2019 & Look Ahead to 2020

Dear Friend of WV Rivers,

I am Angie Rosser, the executive director of West Virginia Rivers Coalition and today I want to share with you a special year-end report on WV Rivers’ programming and achievements towards cleaner water and healthier streams in West Virginia.

For 30 years, WV Rivers has been the voice of West Virginia’s rivers and streams; and this year, WV Rivers experienced more public engagement in our programming than ever before. So far, we facilitated 46,582 citizen actions on policies that affect our water.

Were you one of the citizen advocates that stood up for clean water through WV Rivers’ action alerts?

Next year, West Virginia’s water will be facing some big challenges, and we’ll need everyone to step-up and do their part to make our water safe and our streams wild and healthy.

WV Rivers depends on donations from supporters like you to move our mission forward. You can join the movement for clean, safe West Virginia water by making a year-end, tax-deductible donation.

Learn how WV Rivers will put your donation work to expand our clean water programming in 2020 here.

Thank you very much for your help at this time.

Angie Rosser, Executive Director
West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Unit # 129
3501 MacCorkle Avenue, SE
Charleston, WV 25304

Contact Info: 304-637-7201

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SPECIAL REPORT from WV Rivers

Trucks hauling Marcellus drill cuttings must pass a radiation monitor

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.

Belle Vernon wastewater treatment facility under I-70 Bridge on Monongahela River

From an Article by Don Hopey & David Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 17, 2019

Fayette County Common Pleas Court Judge Steve Leskinen has ordered the Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill in Rostraver to stop piping toxic runoff contaminated by shale gas drilling and fracking waste chemicals to the Belle Vernon sewage treatment plant.

The judge granted a temporary injunction against the landfill Friday afternoon, based on a joint request from Fayette County District Attorney Richard Bower and Washington County District Attorney Eugene Vittone II.

The injunction, effective immediately, prohibits the landfill from sending contaminated waste water, known as “leachate,” to the sewage treatment plant, and also prohibits the sewage facility from discharging wastewater containing “contaminated chemicals” from the landfill into the Monongahela River.

A hearing on a permanent injunction is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. next Friday.

Neither the sewage treatment plant in Fayette County, nor the landfill in Westmoreland County, is in Washington County, but Mr. Vittone said many communities using the river for their public water supplies are.

The injunction was granted just two days after the Belle Vernon Municipal Authority decided to stop accepting the leachate from the landfill because it is damaging the biological sewage treatment process and causing the illegal discharge of poorly treated wastewater into the river.

Most of the leachate is produced by rainwater that falls on the landfill and seeps through the garbage and drilling and fracking waste material, where it picks up contaminants. The leachate is collected by underground drains and channeled into a pipe that runs approximately three miles to the treatment plant.

The landfill, owned by Uniontown-based Nobel Environmental Inc., was piping an average of 100,000 gallons of leachate a day to the sewage treatment plant, double the amount allowed in the contract, said Guy Kruppa, the sewage plant supervisor.

He said testing done by the authority shows the leachate contains high levels of ammonia, total suspended solids, and a host of chemicals and compounds consistent with shale gas drilling and fracking waste, including volatile organic compounds, magnesium, barium, phenols and oil and grease.

That concentrated cocktail of chemical compounds is killing the “bugs” that digest the sewage, Mr. Kruppa said, and inhibiting the sewage plant’s ability to treat the waste before it is discharged into the river.

The state Department of Environmental Protection, which has permitting and enforcement duties for both the landfill and the sewage treatment plant, had urged the municipal authority to continue accepting the runoff, while the landfill builds a new pre-treatment facility. It even proposed an arrangement in which the landfill would pay any past and future fines levied against the sewage plant for illegal discharges into the river.

Mr. Kruppa said Wednesday that such a pay-to-pollute arrangement “isn’t ethically right,“ and Friday said the injunction was sought to “force the landfill to stop and shut off the pipe.”

Ro Rozier, a spokesperson for the landfill owner, responded to a request for comment Friday with an email saying, “Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill never received a copy of the contract termination notice from the Belle Vernon Municipal Authority. We never received a complaint or copy of the court order. We have only received this information through the media.

In good faith, WSL has decided to shut off the pipe even though we are not in violation of any water quality standards.

We do have approved alternatives for disposal of the waste water which will begin immediately. We will continue making large investments in onsite technology to improve leachate quality that will exceed government standards.”

The Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill, which has also gone by the name Tervita Rostraver Township Sanitary Landfill, began accepting oil and gas “drill cuttings,” consisting of mud and rock drilling cuttings, in August 2010, according to the DEP.

In 2017 it accepted a total of 119,716 tons of shale gas drilling and fracking waste, or 40% of its total waste stream. That’s a sharp increase over the shale gas cuttings it took in during the previous three years, but still only half of the 80% allowed by Its DEP permit.

The landfill’s annual operations report for 2018, which will contain the amount of shale gas drilling and fracking waste it accepted, isn’t available until June 30, but the landfill said tonnage did not increase.

Because the region had wetter than usual weather last year, leachate runoff did increase.

Belle Vernon Mayor Gerald Jackson, who also sits on the municipal authority board which terminated its contract with the landfill Wednesday and gave it 14 days to shut off the leachate flow, said public officials in communities along the river support the injunction.

“It’s 100%. We’re all behind it,” Mr. Jackson said. “We [Belle Vernon] wanted to go shut off the pipeline from the landfill when we first found out about it but the DEP told us to hold off. We would have shut them off already.

“We’re all looking for quick action. No one wants to be blamed for any contaminants polluting the river.”

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See Also: Injunction to stop fracking waste from getting into Monongahela River, WTAE News 4, May 20, 2019

A Fayette County judge signed a joint request by the district attorneys for Fayette and Washington County to stop leachate from getting to the Monogahela River.

According to District Attorneys Richard Bower and Gene Vittone, the Westmoreland sanitary landfill was pumping 100,000 to 300,000 gallons of contaminated waste water from fracking to the Belle Vernon sewage plant daily. The plant can only treat 50,000 gallons a day.

The contaminated waste water was ending up in the Monongahela and the communities downstream.

A spokesperson for the landfill says they “decided to shut off the pipe even though we are not in violation of any water quality standards. We do have approved alternatives for disposal of the waste water which will begin immediately.”

Flares burn excess natural gas & pollute the air

From an Article by Justin Nobel, Rolling Stone Magazine, March 13, 2018

Photo: Flares burning at fracking industry site on federal land near Counselor, New Mexico, where environmental groups and indigenous people are fighting back against the expansion of the fracking industry.

The most authoritative study of its kind reveals how fracking is contaminating the air and water – and imperiling the health of millions of Americans

“Our examination…uncovered no evidence that fracking can be practiced in a manner that does not threaten human health,” states a blistering 266-page report released today by Concerned Health Professionals of New York and the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group, Physicians for Social Responsibility. Drawing on news investigations, government assessments and more than 1,200 peer-reviewed research articles, the study finds that fracking – shooting chemical-laden fluid into deep rock layers to release oil and gas – is poisoning the air, contaminating the water and imperiling the health of Americans across the country. “Fracking is the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” says Dr. Sandra Steingraber, one of the report’s eight co-authors, a biologist who has worked as a public health advocate on issues like breast cancer and toxic incinerators. “Those of us in the public health sector started to realize years ago that there were potential risks, then the industry rolled out faster than we could do our science.” In recent years, the practice has expanded from rural lands to backyards, farms, and within sight of schools and sources of drinking water. “Now we see those risks have turned into human harms and people are getting sick,” says Steingraber. “And we in this field have a moral imperative to raise the alarm.”

The researchers behind the report, titled “Compendium of Scientific, Medical and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking,” are quick to point out that fracking, or “unconventional oil and gas extraction,” extends far beyond the idea of a single well obediently gurgling up natural gas or oil. Fracking is part of a complicated extraction process with a spider web of infrastructure that extends many miles from the well pad. At virtually every turn, the process contains public health hazards. Residents living near an active site breathe air laced with carcinogens, including benzene and formaldehyde, and research has shown an increased risk of asthma, a decrease in infant health and worrisome effects on the development of a fetus, such as preterm births and birth defects. “Pregnant women have a major risk, not only themselves but they’re carrying a fetus whose cells are multiplying continuously,” says Dr. Lynn Ringenberg, a retired Army colonel and the president-elect of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “If those cells get hit by some toxic chemical from fracking, it may not manifest itself for years.”

Fracking sites have caught fire – others have exploded, as happened last month in Belmont County, Ohio – torching chemicals whose dangerous components local fire chiefs may be surprised to learn are an industry secret. Communities have long feared the fracking process can contaminate underground aquifers with hazardous chemicals and research in Texas and Pennsylvania has now confirmed this to be the case. Fracked gas flows via pipelines, whose leaks and explosions are now well-documented. Piped gas must continuously be re-pressurized at compressor stations which have been documented to emit methane, fine particulate matter, as well as benzene, formaldehyde and other known human carcinogens. Report co-author Dr. Kathleen Nolan, a pediatrician and bioethicist who has examined numerous people sickened by fracking-related contamination, describes the harrowing case of one western Pennsylvania family. “They would see a yellow fog, kind of like a chemical mist coming from the compressor station,” says Nolan. “Their two youngest children, nine and 11, started having tics where their muscles would go into spasms, those spasms would persist even when they were asleep.”

Then there’s the issue of the waste that flows back up a fracked well. Although the industry calls it “brine” or “produced water,” this material contains carcinogenic chemicals, can be flammable and, in much of the country, also contains radioactive elements from deep below the surface. Occasionally, this toxic waste is used to frack new wells. Often, it is hauled by trucks that must weave around narrow local roads to sites called injection wells, where this hazardous slurry is injected deep into the earth, a process that has repeatedly been linked to earthquakes. In 2016, in Barnesville, Ohio a truck spilled approximately 5,000 gallons of fracking wastewater when it crashed beside a stream that leads into one of the village’s main reservoirs.

Last November a truck carrying fracking waste overturned near Coolville, Ohio and emptied fluid into a culvert that connects to a creek. Residents were prepared; they’d been living for years with the menace of injection wells, including what resident Susie Quinn calls a “chemical factory like smell” around their homes. Like many in the region, she spends free time researching risks the industry and her own government have failed to protect her against. More than a week after the frack truck overturned, she visited the site to take samples, but forgot gloves. “About an hour and twenty minutes later all the fingers on my left hand were burning underneath my fingernails,” says Quinn. Tests later revealed the culvert was loaded with barium, as well as strontium, whose isotopes can be radioactive.

In West Virginia and Pennsylvania, radioactive fracking waste is being processed at facilities like Antero Clearwater in Doddridge County, West Virginia, which claims it can produce water clean enough to be discharged back into nearby local waterways. But Antero’s website contains scant details on how this is done, and radioactivity experts, like Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, a nuclear physicist and international consultant on radioactive waste, remain concerned. “The radioactive levels at the Marcellus shale formation are off the charts,” he says, referring to the gas-rich layer that underlies much of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. “What is radioactive underground is still radioactive when it’s brought to the surface,” says Resnikoff. “This is not alchemy where radioactivity disappears.” A tour last February with local residents through heavily-fracked Doddridge County revealed Antero’s facility, located just six miles from Doddridge County High School, was emitting tremendous amounts of steam that drifted away in the wind. “There may be radioactive elements in the steam,” says Resnikoff.

The “Harms of Fracking” report also highlights astonishing risks for an often overlooked group in the public health discussion on fracking: The workers. Fracking has created 1.7 million jobs, says the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the industry has potentially exposed workers on the ground to extremely dangerous conditions. “These are killing jobs,” says report co-author Dr. Sandra Steingraber. “We have actually detected benzene in the urine of workers at levels known to raise the risks of leukemia.” Dr. Pouné Saberi, a Philadelphia-based occupational and environmental medicine physician says workers face a wealth of risks, but their injuries rarely show up in the data, for a variety of reasons. They often work as non-unionized sub-contractors, allowing parent oil and gas companies to avoid reporting injuries, and the oil and gas industry is exempt from certain worker safety rules. Also, doctors and major Pennsylvania health care providers that service the industry, potentially a valuable source of worker data, says Saberi, rarely mention anything negative about fracking. “There is a code of silence that exists,” she says. Plus, workers themselves rarely report injuries or hazards, for fear of losing their jobs.

“If you asked too many questions, you were labeled a tree-hugger and you were gone,” says former fracking waste truck driver Randy Moyer, who describes his stomach-turning experience on a website called Shalefield Stories. “Every day was different,” he writes. “Some days I’d carry mud, but most days I’d haul wastewater from fracked wells…It was an endless parade of trucks on those back roads.” Moyer was never told the contents of the waste he was hauling. At the well-site, waste was kept in a makeshift pit, and when loading his truck Moyer often had to climb in and squeegee out material. To avoid getting their boots wet, “some guys would go in there in their bare feet.” Moyer was given no safety gear, aside from a flame-resistant coat, because, he explains, “If the public sees guys in hazmat suits they’re going to start to ask questions.” As one would anticipate from a human being with direct exposure to radioactive waste, Moyer became quite sick.

“My tongue, lips, and limbs all swelled up,” he writes. “I’ve had three teeth snap off. The first two broke while I was eating garlic bread and spaghetti. I have burning rashes all over my body that jump from place to place.” Moyer has seen over 40 specialists across West Virginia and Pennsylvania. “One told me that I had bed bugs. Another said it must be a food allergy.”

The report, which is in its fifth edition, flips the narrative on an energy rush that is quite literally powering the nation. Fracking has “bolstered our economy and energy security” says Seth Whitehead, a consultant with Energy in Depth, a website affiliated with the Independent Petroleum Association of America. The numbers bear out: Fossil fuels supply the U.S. with a majority of its electricity, and gas has overtaken coal as America’s number one power source. Meanwhile, about 60 percent of the gas produced in America and 48 percent of the oil now comes from unconventional oil and gas deposits. Fracking has helped ease America off foreign fossil fuels. And the boom extends far beyond the well pads.

Ethane, one of many components in fracked gas, serves as the base ingredient for the production of numerous plastics and petrochemicals. On the Gulf Coast, these industries are making big investments in infrastructure to take advantage of America’s newly abundant cheap gas. “With more than $35 billion in planned chemical plant expansions in our area over the next five years, these are the ‘good old days,’” Chad Burke, President of the Economic Alliance Houston Ship Channel Region, posted on the organization’s website. The American Chemistry Council bullishly estimates that over the next decade the plastics industry will generate over 300,000 jobs. “The surge of natural gas production from shale has reversed the fortunes of the U.S. plastics industry,” states a 2015 Council report.

But these glowing numbers rarely take into account the fracking boom’s epic toll on public health, the American landscape and the world’s climate. In fact, against a mounting pile of personal testimony and scientific data, the industry continues to claim it is doing nothing wrong. “The science clearly indicates that, with an emphasis on prevention…energy production can and is being done right, and that hydraulic fracturing is not leading to widespread, systemic effects to drinking water resources,” Stephanie Wissman, an Executive Director with the American Petroleum Institute, stated at a recent meeting of the Delaware River Basin Commission. “It’s sad,” Marcellus Shale Coalition spokesperson Erica Clayton Wright wrote in an email, “that some shoddy so-called ‘studies’ focused on attacking American energy and the tens of thousands of hardworking Pennsylvanians that work across the industry are the subject of fake news stories like these.”

But the science on fracking is getting more difficult to dismiss. “With fracking,” says Steingraber, “we had six peer reviewed articles in 2009 pointing to possible public health risks. By 2011 we had 42. Now there are more than 1200.” Some states are indeed listening to the scientists. New York, Maryland and Vermont have banned fracking, and even Florida’s state legislature is seriously considering a ban. “The chickens are going to come home to roost,” says Ted Auch, an environmental scientist with FracTracker Alliance. He believes that as negative impacts on health and water supplies continue to stack up, the fracking industry will have an increasingly difficult time gaining investors, an issue highlighted in a December article in the Wall Street Journal. “Shale has been a lousy bet for most investors,” the article states, referring to the deposits where fracking typically occurs. Within the past decade, says the Journal article, “energy companies…have spent $280 billion more than they generated from operations on shale investments.”

As a result, many companies have taken extreme measures to politically protect their investments. Last month, Wyoming became the third state, after Iowa and Ohio, to introduce a bill criminalizing protest activities like the ones undertaken at Standing Rock. “It is a war,” says Tina Smusz, a retired emergency medicine and palliative care physician and Virginia-based member of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “And in this war one of your most valuable weapons is science.”

Marcellus shale drill cuttings are generally radioactive

From an Article by Mary Meehan, Ohio Valley ReSource, February 14, 2018

The slogan for Estill County is “where the bluegrass kisses the mountains.” But since 2015 the county, population 15,000, is widely known as the place where radioactive material generated by the oil and gas industry in a process known as fracking was dumped near some schools.

As the Ohio Valley ReSource reported in 2016, tons of waste from the drilling practice known as fracking was hauled from state to state before being improperly disposed of in a county landfill not designed to hold radioactive material.

Drilling waste is also being dumped into public landfills in West Virginia.

This week the Concerned Citizens of Estill County and state officials squared off over how to best deal with the tons of radioactive waste. The landfill owners have been fined and are required to create a mitigation plan. Officials with the Kentucky Energy and Environmental Cabinet want to keep the waste in place. But local residents have a different idea. In the two years since the waste was discovered the community has come to a consensus on what should happen with the illegally dumped waste: Dig it up and move it out.

Estill County concerned citizen Tom Bonny makes the case for removing the radioactive waste at a public hearing.

Concerned Citizens member Tom Bonny said he first thought keeping the waste in place was the better solution. But when he considered the long-half life of the radioactive material coupled with its location near Estill County’s schools, he thought of the long-term consequences to the community. He is also concerned about the proximity of the landfill to the Kentucky River and potential danger to the water supply not only in Irvine but downstream. So, he changed his mind.

He said most folks he’s talked to feel the same way. “The majority of the people I have spoken with indicate they will not have full peace of mind if it is left in place,” he said.

The disagreement over how to deal with the mess is just a small part of a larger problem with a lack of regulation, oversight and monitoring of this difficult waste. And years after Estill County’s crisis brought attention to the matter, experts say little has changed to prevent similar incidents.

“Forgotten Stepchild”

Nadia Steinzor researches fracking waste for the non-profit environmental advocacy group Earthworks. She said the gas industry produces thousands of tons of “hot” waste and companies and state regulators throughout the Ohio Valley and the Marcellus Shale gas region struggle to find safe ways to get rid of it.

She said there is an ever-increasing volume of such material entering landfills across the country, often without the full knowledge of folks living closest to the landfill.

“It’s kind of the forgotten stepchild of the oil and gas shale boom and it’s something people need to be more concerned about,” she said. “The environmental impacts are very pernicious and it is increasing in volume and increasing across the landscape.”

Steinzor said the difficulty in tracking waste as it moves from state to state is compounded by the fact that many landfills are owned by private companies. This is especially important in places like Ohio and Kentucky which receive large amounts of waste from other states.

In 2016 Center for Public Integrity reporter Jie Jenny Zou documented a spotty patchwork of state regulations across the Appalachian Basin that created the conditions for improper disposal of the waste.
Steinzor said it’s crucial for people living near landfills to be aware of what’s being dumped there.

“There was one gentlemen in West Virginia who has been tracking what has been coming into that landfill there,” she said. “The guy stationed himself at the landfill entrance and asked every truck where they were coming from. He found they were coming from places generating oil and gas waste.

“That’s one way to find out!” Steinzor said with a laugh. She said that while the tracking of fracking waste has gotten more attention since the problems became known in Estill County not much has changed as far as policy is concerned.

“From a regulatory perspective, the policies and mandates and requirements that the industry has to adhere to are still lagging behind.”

Vigilant Communities

Estill County resident Rhonda Childers has been concerned about contamination at the landfill for 20 years. She was part of a group of activists who helped get rules in place to keep out radioactive material. But as the landfill changed owners those rules were forgotten or ignored.

“We let our guards down and we just kind of ignored this,” she said.

Childers said Estill County’s experience stands as an example to other communities to be vigilant about what is happening at local landfills.

“Today we are talking about Estill County, tomorrow we could be talking about… any county in the state of Kentucky,” she said.

If the condition of state laws and regulations is any indication, it’s also something that could happen at any number of landfills around the Ohio Valley.

Source: EnvironmentAmerica.org

Essay by S. Tom Bond, Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo banned fracking in New York State in 2014, citing health risks. Many other states have been “spread eagle” for fracking. As time goes by it appears that Cuomo was right. This essay is based on research about what has been verified by peer-reviewed research.

Shortly after fracking came into existence people living near this new type of well raised a host of complaints such as 24 hour light, noise, with heavy, congested traffic on rural roads; strange odors in the air, tastes and sediment in well water, and significant health complaints.

You’d think, since it is a democracy, that would cause some caution and serious investigation. But complaints of individual citizens came up against the prospect of millions of dollars profit, and the political organization that kind of money can buy. Most of the complaints were overruled “for the common good,” in spite of global warming and the very marginal economic nature of the enterprise (fracked oil is marginally profitable and the natural gas is carried by the attendant liquids, which are a starting material for plastics, etc.). Health complaints, and the extensive use of toxic chemicals are a more significant complaint.

However the industry united behind the claim of ”anecdotal evidence only,” and the judges who tried early claims against the companies, doubtless were impressed by the financial claims of the industry and indifferent to the unsophisticated rural types who made the claims.

Scientific studies of the health related to fracking, on both workers and the normal rural residents, requires big money. Obviously, the companies would not finance anything that might inhibit their way of doing business, or add more cost. Government was not inclined to put up money for the needed research. And, state or federal law does not require research on the public health or impacts on neighborhoods around chemical and petrochemical plants, factory farms and other facilities.

Private foundations have heard the need, and slowly the research is getting done. One of the early published papers was done in 2010 by Theo Colborn and co-workers. They surveyed the chemicals used in fracking, some 632 compounds, of which 353 had Chemical Abstracts Service numbers, a unique identifier. They found, ”More than 75% of the chemicals could affect the skin, eyes, and other sensory organs, and the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems. Approximately 40–50% could affect the brain/nervous system, immune and cardiovascular systems, and the kidneys; 37% could affect the endocrine system; and 25% could cause cancer and mutations. These results indicate that many chemicals used during the fracturing and drilling stages of gas operations may have long-term health effects that are not immediately expressed.” Furthermore, “an example was provided of waste evaporation pit residuals that contained numerous chemicals on the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) lists of hazardous substances.”

The paper discusses the difficulty of developing an effective water quality monitoring program, since separate analysis would be necessary for many different compounds. They also recommend full disclosure of all chemicals and mixtures used in fracking. The abstract and paper can be accessed here.

The old saying, “Ignorance is bliss” still is the guide for regulation today, apparently, since no disclosure, even to regulatory agencies is required today.

In 2011 and article entitled “Blind Rush? Shale Gas Boom Proceeds Amid Human Health Questions” was published in the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives here.

It points out by 2011 most Americans hadn’t heard or read of fracking and consequently don’t know whether they support or are against it. Those who have heard about it were evenly divided then. Factors predicting point-of-view were as follows. Women, those holding egalitarian worldviews, those who read newspapers more than once a week, those more familiar with hydraulic fracturing, and those who associate the process with environmental impacts are more likely to oppose fracking.

In contrast, people more likely to support fracking tend to be older, hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, politically conservative, watch TV news more than once a week, and associate the process with positive economic or energy supply outcomes. The authors of the paper find a need for how communication is done, and energy policy.

The American Chemical Society, the world’s largest professional organization, published a special edition of it’s journal, Environmental Science and Technology in 2014 on “Understanding the Risks of Unconventional Shale Gas Development,” a special issue. One of the articles was “Potential Public Health Hazards, Exposures and Health Effects from Unconventional Natural Gas Development.” That article points out effects that can be at the well site, due to silica dust, hazardous chemicals, industrial accidents and ear-deafening sound. In the surrounding local area the problem is traffic, water quality, social disruption, air quality and water quality. Finally, the methane leakage and carbon dioxide from combustion affect the entire globe with climate disruptions.

The research article notes that no comprehensive study of the problems exists as of late 2014, but extensive research needs to be done. This can be read here.

Coming to the present. We present three recent findings. “The Independent” reports on a second paper in the journal Environmental Science & Technology which tested and studied sediments and groundwater downstream of a treatment plant in Pennsylvania that was designed to make the water used as part of the fracking process fit for release into the environment. They found “ “high loads of chloride, barium, strontium, radium and organic compounds” in the Conemaugh River Watershed“ down stream from a treatment plant. One spot had radium, a radioactive element, 200 times more concentrated than above it, just 14 percent below a level that would have to be treated as radioactive waster in some U. S. states.

They conclude, “Despite several other sources of contaminants such as coal bed methane, coal mine drainage, and flue gas desulfurization releases that can impact surface water quality, we document multiple lines of evidence that indicate the legacy of unconventional oil-and-gas wastewater disposal has impacted stream sediments and porewater [groundwater] on a watershed-scale.”

Another article from 2017 has the title “There’s a World Going on Underground — Infant Mortality and Fracking in Pennsylvania” which can be downloaded here.

It is an epidemiological study by Christopher Busby and Joseph Mangano that examines early infant deaths 0-28 days before and after the drilling of fracking wells, using official data from the US Center for Disease Control to compare the immediate post-fracking four year period 2007-2010 with the pre-fracking four-year period 2003-2006. The objective is given as “To investigate association between early (0-28 days) infant mortality by county in Pennsylvania and fracking.”

The results were, “Whilst early infant deaths decreased by 2.4% in the State over the period, in the 82,558 births in the 10 fracked counties there was a significant increase in mortality (238 vs 193; RR = 1.29; 95% CI 1.05, 1.55; p = 0.011). For the five north east fracked counties Bradford, Susquehanna, Lycoming, Wyoming and Tioga the combined early infant mortality increased from 34 deaths to 60 (RR 1.66; 1.05, 2.51; p = 0.014), whereas in the south western 5 counties Washington, Westmoreland, Fayette, Butler and Greene the increase was modest, 157 to 178 (RR 1.18; 0.95, 1.46; p = 0.13). Increased risk was associated with exposure to groundwater, expressed as the county ratio of water wells divided by the number of births.

And the conclusion: “Fracking appears to be associated with early infant mortality in populations living in counties where the process is carried out. There is some evidence that the effect is associated with private water well density and/or environmental law violations.” Pretty damning stuff! They also conclude, “The results therefore seem to support the suggestion that the vector for the effect is exposure to drinking water from private wells. This is a mechanistically plausible explanation. However the findings do not prove such a suggestion. We may examine other possible explanations for possible health effects which have been advanced.”

Another good article in the general press that reports on research on toxicity of fracking, and oil wells in general, is here. The title is “More than 17 million Americans are exposed to toxic fumes that could give you cancer, heart disease, dementia, or cause birth defects.”

The follow-on reads:
· >> Five percent of the US population lives a mile or less away from an oil or gas well
· >> These wells contaminate the air, water and soil around the exposed area
· >> Close to half of West Virginia’s population lives near an active fracking site
· >> There’s a need for protective regulations and policies to protect people living by these sites

The contamination from fracking will double and last an indefinite longtime, with varying length in different places. Will fracking companies be held at fault? Wait and see. Since individual wells are frequently drilled by Limited Liability Companies, they can go broke individually, and save the parent companies. Will the government respond? Only when big money is taken out of politics. So the answer becomes “When will big money no longer be allowed to subvert government?

Research is now coming through, but the psychopathic personalities may not respond to the facts. We must work, hope and pray for non-traditional energy to come as fast as possible. Its lower price will drive out the toxic traditional energy that is burning hydrocarbons.

>>> Tom Bond holds a PhD in physical chemistry and taught chemistry at the high school and college level. He has participated in activities of the Guardians of the West Fork and the Upper Monongahela Area Watershed Compact.

Shales are radioactive in Illinois

Groups warn of radiation exposure associated with fracking

From an Article by Barb Eidlin, The Southern, Carbondale, Illinois, June 22, 2017

CARBONDALE — Concerned citizens and opponents of the controversial oil and gas extraction method commonly known as fracking met Wednesday night at the Carbondale Township offices to discuss the risks of radioactive exposure associated with the extraction process.

The gathering was prompted by the recent application for a High Volume Horizontal Hydraulic Fracturing permit applied for by Woolsey Operating Company, LLC, HVHHF.

The event was hosted by Illinois Green Party and Southern Illinoisans Against Fracking.

Rich Whitney, Vice-Chairman of the Illinois Green Party and S.A.F.E Steering committee member for said that to the best of their ability, the groups had determined that the location of the well site proposed by the permit is a few miles northwest of Enfield in White County.

Whitney said that the extraction process is a potential public health hazard.

“In addition to the chemical contamination of the environment and the proven link between earthquakes and injecting waste fluids deep underground under high pressure, the process also comes with a risk of exposure to radioactive elements.”

According to Whitney, studies show that naturally occurring radioactive materials are present in unusually high quantities in Southern Illinois shale.

During drilling and fracking operations, when elements like radium, uranium, thorium or other radioactive elements are present in the sediment or rocks that contain oil and gas, they will be brought to the surface as drill cuttings or in the drilling fluid, known as drilling mud, circulating up from the drill bit.

Whitney cited a 2014 study published in the Journal of Environmental Health Perspectives that shows that consuming radium in drinking water can cause lymphoma, bone cancer and leukemia. It also states that radium also emits gamma rays which raise cancer risk from external exposures.

A 1997 U.S. Geological Survey of oilfield production sites in White county found that 7 out of 9 of the sites they surveyed were judged to have “high radioactivity.”

“If you look at what has been happening in recent years in Pennsylvania and North Dakota, the radioactive contamination coming out of those wells has been a disaster for those communities,” Whitney said.

According to Whitney, a 2006 Duke University study shows that radioactive contaminates have “gotten all over” the well sites and some of the waste disposal sites.

Additionally, he said, illegal dumping has led to radioactive contaminates in municipal dump sites. “That’s not to say that this is going to happen in Illinois, but the company has a foot in the door, and so people need to start educating themselves. We don’t want Illinois to be turned into a state wide Superfund site.”

Whitney also said that radioactive oil and gas waste is exempt from most federal regulations on radioactivity, and that the regulations adopted in Illinois roughly three years ago are mainly concerned with testing for radioactivity.

They say nothing about what companies must do if hazardous levels of radioactive emissions are detected.

Additionally, Whitney said, there is no regulation to test work areas for levels of radioactivity that would call for OSHA standards of occupational safety, and no provision for workers to wear radiation detection badges or devices.

Whitney said that the volume of waste from fracking will be far higher that from conventional drilling sites since the length of the wells can be over a mile long.

This means that hazardous radioactive elements being brought to the surface will also be proportionally greater that in conventional drilling.

If a Woolsey’s permit is approved, a public hearing will be held at the Enfield United Methodist Church Family Life Center, Corner of West Main and South Jennette St., in Enfield from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm on July 5, 2017.

Information about the organizations opposing fracking can be found at the Shawnee Green Party Facebook page, or the S.A.F.E. website at:

Don’t Fracture Illinois

Black Marcellus shale drill cuttings

Drill Cuttings Report Presented to Legislators

From an Article by David Beard, Morgantown Dominion Post, October 19, 2015

Charleston, WV — State legislators got their first glimpse on Sunday of a WV Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) report on natural gas drilling waste deposited in landfills.

While finding no concerns about chemicals leaching from the waste — also called cuttings — through landfill liners into groundwater, the study suggested that certain cuttings would be better left at the drilling site than hauled to landfills.

The report was ordered in 2015, and completed and delivered to the Legislature in July, but the Joint Legislative Oversight Commission on Water Resources just cracked it open on Sunday. DEP Ombudsman Terry Polen presented the overview.

Only four landfills in the state accept drill cuttings, Polen said: In New Martinsville, Wheeling, Bridgeport and Parkersburg.

As reported by the Associated Press in July, the study said it’s unlikely that significant amounts of untreated natural gas drilling waste in landfills will affect groundwater or surface water. In the event that the waste’s runoff did hit nearby water untreated, the material would likely exceed chemical limits for drinking water and be toxic to plants and invertebrate life, the study concludes.

The report said most groundwater near the studied landfills isn’t used for public water supplies, but is likely used for some private water supplies.

Polen reviewed some other conclusions and recommendations on Sunday:

>> Drillers use two different processes for different segments of the drilling, Polen said. The upper portions of the vertical bores are drilled with air and have significantly lower levels of chloride and radioactive materials. Depositing these cuttings on the drilling site could save time, expenses and landfill space without posing significant hazards. <<

>> The study also recommended exploring other beneficial uses for the cuttings, but ruled out using them to build roads because the solid chunks break up when wet. The study suggested that the state consider using drill cuttings of any type for mine grouting and flowable fill, since that would absorb large amounts of cuttings. The possibility of leachate entering the subsurface would need to be monitored, because of high chloride levels. <<

The New Martinsville landfill is the only one that treats leachate on site. The study recommended monitoring the effluent from the leachate for compounds not now included in its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. Periodic groundwater monitoring at all the landfills should be considered.

In looking at the economic feasibility of requiring industry to provide its own landfills, Polen noted that drill cuttings are now transported an average of 22.3 miles. If the state required industry landfills, at least two would be needed to avoid increasing transport distance. They would take five years to site and build, and cost $40 million apiece.

They would cost another $12 million a year to operate and $40 million more to close when full, with 30 years of post-closure monitoring. The study observed, “The difficulties inherent when siting a new landfill have not been evaluated as part of this study, but factors including community resistance or receptiveness to the siting of a new facility are not known.”

Delegate Larry Rowe, D-Kanawha, observed that landfill liners can break, and pollution can enter groundwater. “Doesn’t it make sense to have separate fills,” he asked, with double or triple liners? ….. “That is certainly an angle to look at,” Polen answered.

Delegate Mark Zatezalo, R-Hancock, disagreed, noting that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t consider cuttings as hazardous.

Asked after the meeting what’s next, committee co-chair Sen. Greg Boso, R-Nicholas, said members need time to review and digest the report. The summary is 195 pages, the full report tops 2,000.

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Radioactive Drill Cuttings and WV Landfills

Article from Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Quarterly Newsletter, Fall 2015

At the end of June, WV DEP released a report prepared for the agency by researchers at Marshall and Glenville State universities titled: Examination of Leachate, Drill Cuttings and Related Environmental, Economic and Technical Aspects Associated with Solid Waste Facilities in West Virginia

The report is 195 pages long, with more than 2300 pages of supporting data and graphs. Fortunately, Bill Hughes, chairman of the Wetzel County Solid Waste Authority has provided some analysis of certain aspects of the report, which you can read below. Hughes notes that it would be useful to have independent analyses from scientists, such as those with specialties in biology and chemistry.

In his commentary of the report, Hughes writes, “Wetzel County has had active Marcellus black shale exploration and drilling for at least eight years now. And finally we now have a public report that clearly, unambiguously states that Marcellus shale is radioactive. Of course, geologists have known that for many decades. But, also for decades, there has been great reluctance by the natural gas exploration and production companies to acknowledge that fact in public.”

>>> Read Hughes’ full commentary:

Download (WJH-Comments-Rev-E-WJH-on-Marshall-landfill-report.pdf, 160KB)