Past Event ~ Zoom Meeting held on Jan. 7. 2021

Over 30 landfills in the state accept fracking waste like drill cuttings. The authors of the study followed what happens to the liquid waste from rainwater that trickles through these landfills. That liquid waste, called leachate, often goes to municipal wastewater facilities.

Sediment in waterways downstream of those facilities was higher in radium, a radioactive material found in the Marcellus shale, than sediment upstream of the plants.

“There were increases of two to four times the background level of radium in the sediment,” said Dan Bain, associate professor of geology and environmental science at the University of Pittsburgh and one of the study’s co-authors. The study appeared in the journal “Ecological Indicators.”

While landfills must test leachate for radium and other markers of oil and gas waste, wastewater treatment plants don’t. He said the state should make the treatment plants test for markers of oil and gas waste, including radioactivity, but also salts and heavy metals associated with drilling wastes, to ensure they aren’t just passing pollutants into the environment.

“We need to have a safeguard so we can say, okay, you need to do something else with that leachate,” he said. “It’s not acceptable to discharge it to waterways.”

Fracking a well in the Marcellus or Utica shale creates thousands of tons of drill cuttings — basically, dirt and rocks excavated to build the well. Those cuttings are high in naturally occurring radioactive materials. A 2011 analysis by federal scientists found liquid waste from Marcellus wells had concentrations of radium roughly 40 times what the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission classifies as “hazardous” or “radioactive” waste.

But a loophole in federal law means oil and gas waste is not considered hazardous and can be disposed of at a variety of landfills, though some states have tighter requirements.

New York state, for instance, recently tightened its requirements for fracking waste by classifying it as hazardous waste, thereby limiting the types of facilities that can accept it.

Study co-author John Stolz, director of the Center for Environmental Research and Education at Duquesne University, said this waste could accrue over time in landfills, causing problems down the road.

“They are turning these sanitary landfills into toxic waste dumps that are going to need remediation in the future because of the build-up of this material,” Stolz said.

One landfill in Westmoreland County, which has been fined by the state for sending polluted leachate to a nearby sewage treatment plant, had high levels of pollutants commonly found in oil and gas waste.

“When we analyzed the leachate from that landfill, it looks like oil and gas waste,” Stolz said. “It has all the chemistry and characteristics, including that it is radioactive, and [it] was being shipped down to the local wastewater treatment plant.”

The paper also found large data gaps in oil and gas waste reports in Pennsylvania and surrounding states. The researchers could not find reports for more than 800,000 tons of fracking waste sent to landfills in Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio.

“Reporting of [oil and gas] waste receipt in landfill reports was inconsistent and incomplete,” the study found. This could make it difficult to assess environmental impacts, Stolz said. “It’s a problem because you really need to know how much of this stuff is being taken,” Stolz said. “If there’s more and more of this waste…it’s going to be around for a long time.”

Study is ‘consistant with other literature’ ~ Nicole Deziel, Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, who was not involved in the study, said its findings were “consistent with other literature” on the impacts of fracking, such as a recent Harvard study funded by the EPA that found radioactivity of ambient particles was higher downwind of unconventional oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and her own study, funded by the EPA and National Institutes of Health, which found Pennsylvania children living near fracking sites at birth were two to three times more likely to be diagnosed at ages 2-7 with leukemia than those who did not live near oil and gas activity.

“The release of liquid and solid wastes that contain radioactive material may pose risks to public health from oil and gas, but the fate [in the environment] of these radioactive contaminants and their impact on human exposure and health is not well-understood,” Deziel said.

The industry responds ~ The oil and gas industry says it maintains strong radiation protocols with its waste and references a 2016 Pennsylvania DEP study that found “little or limited potential for radiation exposure to workers or the public” from fracking operations. But in 2021, the agency determined “additional evaluation of the potential for oil and gas-derived waste to radiologically impact landfill leachate was necessary.”

Tracy Pawelski, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Waste Industries Association, which represents the state’s landfills, said in an email that the facilities “carefully track every load of waste that is disposed of at their facility, including every load of oil and gas waste received, all of which are subject to a rigorous pre-acceptance review and approval process.”

Pawelski said the landfills also have safeguards to prevent the release of radioactive materials into the environment. After a landfill is full, it is covered with a soil cap to prevent the leaching of the materials, and there are limits to what the landfills are permitted to accept.

“Pennsylvania landfills have long been equipped with sophisticated radiation detection equipment that monitors every load of waste entering the facility,” Pawelski said. “Any load with unacceptable radiation levels, regardless of its source, are managed pursuant to radiation waste management plans approved by the DEP.”

#######++++++++#######++++++++#######

NOTE PAST EVENT ~ Time & Location: Jan 07, 2021, 9:30 AM on Zoom

In October 2020 Protect PT sent over 7,000 Every Door Direct Mailed surveys to residents surrounding the Westmoreland County Landfill. The response to our survey has been overwhelming. The impacts residents reported go far beyond citations the landfill has so far received from the PA DEP. Residents reported sludge on the roadways discharging into streams and rivers and other nuisances. Additionally, several residents said they have changed daily routines to avoid further contamination. It is clear that residents have been deprived of their property rights and the enjoyments and use of their property. Due to the widespread nature of these concerns and complaints with PA DEP going unanswered, we have been invited by Gerald Jackson to hold a Virtual Press Conference on January 7th, 9:30 am on ZOOM.

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.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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.

WV Marcellus drilling & fracking operation

Bill Would Make It Easier to Build Drilling Waste Landfills, Hurt Local Solid Waste Authorities

Legislative Alert from Julie Archer, WV-SORO, March 6, 2016

A bill that would make it easier to site and build landfills for drilling waste will be voted on by the House of Delegates later this week. SB 601 has been changed dramatically more than once since it was introduced. It started as a bill that would have made it easier to issue permits for solid waste facilities that accept only drilling waste. This would have been done by taking away the local control county and regional solid waste authorities currently have to approve siting of such facilities and eliminating the requirement that these facilities obtain a certificate of need from the WV Public Service Commission (PSC). The WV Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) would have been the sole regulatory agency for such facilities, but their role would have been limited.

Last Sunday, SB 601 was hastily rewritten in the Senate Judiciary Committee and turned into a purported recycling bill. The amended version of the bill contained no reference to or mention of oil and gas solid waste. Instead the bill removed two types of “recycling” facilities, “materials recovery facilities” and “mixed waste processing facilities,” from the PSC’s jurisdiction. Under the amended version of the bill, these “recycling” facilities would still have to get siting approval from local or regional solid waste authorities, but would not be required to get a certificate of need.

Unfortunately, despite SB 601′s transformation into a “recycling” bill, there were concerns that solid waste authorities had that we did not know about until the bill had already passed the Senate. To make matters worse, after the bill was reported to the House it appeared almost immediately on the House Judiciary Committee agenda, where the oil and gas solid waste provisions were amended back in.

It is not as bad as the original introduced version. Oil and gas waste, materials waste recovery facilities and mixed waste processing facilities would still have to get siting plan approval from the local solid waste authority, but would not be required to get a certificate of need from the PSC and would be completely removed from PSC jurisdiction.

So what’s wrong with SB 601?

1) It removes an important step in the permitting process for oil and gas solid waste facilities. More specifically it would be easier to site and build such facilities because they would no longer be required to get a certificate of need from the WV Public Service Commission and would be completely removed from the PSC’s jurisdiction. The WV Department of Environmental Protection would still be involved in the environmental aspects of the permitting process, but the DEP has no authority to limit the number of facilities that could be built or where they could be sited relative to other facilities accepting the same type of waste.

2) Local and regional solid waste authorities have concerns that SB 601 will put them at a competitive disadvantage with the “materials recovery facilities” and “mixed waste processing facilities” that are being deregulated by the bill, jeopardizing the public funding solid waste authorities have invested in their facilities.

There will most likely be an amendment on the floor to take out the oil and gas provisions, but we have to make phones ring and get emails in to delegates opposing this. So please call or email your delegates and tell them that SB 601 is bad because the Public Service Commission’s oversight is important, and prevents unneeded waste dumps from being built. However, the oil and gas provisions are not the only concern. SB 601 also puts our local and regional solid waste authorities at a competitive disadvantage with the so-called “recycling” facilities that are being deregulated, jeopardizing the public investment in these facilities.

Your senators need to hear a similar message. They may not be aware that the bill has changed, and some were likely unaware of the problems with the version they passed.
–
Julie Archer, Project Manager, WV Surface Owners’ Rights Organization
1500 Dixie Street,Charleston, WV 25311
(304) 346-5891, www.wvsoro.org

>>>>>>>>>>>>

Wetzel County Landfill Operator Sues Waste Authority Head

From an Article by Glynis Board, WV Public Broadcasting, March 4, 2016

The operating company of a landfill in Wetzel County is suing a member of the county’s solid waste authority for slowing its ability to accept horizontal drilling waste.

Bill Hughes, chairman of the Wetzel County Solid Waste Authority, is being sued by the company that operates the Wetzel County landfill because of a petition filed with the Public Service Commission. The petition is interrupting the landfill’s application to dedicate portions of the landfill to Marcellus Shale drilling waste.

The complaint says Hughes acted on behalf of the authority without the express permission of the authority. It accuses Hughes of acting on his own to advance his own political agenda, as Hughes is an outspoken opponent of gas drilling practices. Hughes’ attourney said in a public meeting last night that they intend to file a motion to dismiss the case.

Lackawanna Transport Company is the legal owner of the Wetzel County Landfill, which is near New Martinsville. The company offers no comment on the pending federal suit. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia on February 22nd.

>>> See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Public Meeting in Doddridge County on Proposed Antero Wastewater Treatment Facility

Commentary by S. Tom Bond, Jane Lew, Lewis County, WV

The Doddridge County Commission held a public meeting Tuesday evening, September 15, on the Proposed Antero Wastewater Treatment Facility along Route 50. The plan is to locate it at approximately 39^o 16′ N and 80^o 54′ W, near Greenwood in that county.

The principal speaker was the General Manager of the Area for Antero, which has large holdings in northwest West Virginia and southeast Ohio.

The purpose of the facility is to receive wastewater from wells which have been subject to slick water fracturing and return it to a state where it can be reused in the industry. Antero already has an extensive system of pipes for fresh water, he said, consisting of 103 miles of buried lines, 80 miles of temporary lines and 24 impoundments in West Virginia. This helps them when it is dry and fresh water streams are too low. It also helps reduce the miles water trucks must travel.

The new facility will cost $1.5 million, and have capacity to receive 100 tanker truck loads a day. It was claimed that the salt produced could be used for roads, and would be “merchantable,” but a landfill is being installed adjacent to the plant. The water would be used exclusively for further fracking. The audience was assured there would be no damage from the natural radioactivity which accompanies Marcellus waste. This caused a great deal of opposition in the comment period afterwards, including from a land fill expert.

The speaker, when pressed, said they would allow third party sampling of the products produced. In the comment period practically all comment was against allowing the plant. The one speaker for the plant announced he worked for Antero before he began. One lady reminded the Antero people that the local community had not only the present to consider, but the effect on their children and heirs. When asked how long the plastic sheet on the bottom of the holding ponds would last, the speaker replied “for a thousand years.”

This author is a trained chemist with some additional knowledge of toxicology. He was appalled by the complete absence of chemistry and chemical engineering in the presentation. When the speaker was touting the expertise that went into the plant all he talked about was the architect they hired to plan it. It seems strange that a new process of this scale would be attempted without chemical knowledge of how the process worked, since it is, apparently, a first.

The speaker talked as though he did not understand that “brine” and “salt” did not mean sodium chloride solution, but is a far more general term applied to other compounds and mixtures. What comes up as flowback and produced water is a complex, highly variable mixture, varying from place to place and time to time from the same well. How does this relate to the idea the salt would be merchantable?

The claim that polyethylene sheets used in holding ponds would last 1000 years is disquieting, also. Sounds like a project engineered by MBA’s. But, heck, if it can get past the regulatory agencies and local officials, none of which has the right kind of expertise to understand the process, why not use it? Right?

Adam Kron, E.I.P. Attorney

After Many Years, EPA Still Fails To Properly Regulate Fracking Wastes

From Living on Earth (LOE), PRI – NPR, September 4, 2015

PRI -LOE:   stream/download this segment as an MP3 file

<<< Wastewater from hydraulic fracturing—often contains heavy metals, organic pollutants, and dissolved radioactive materials. >>>

Over 27 years ago, the EPA pledged to update its regulation of toxic waste from oil and gas drilling, including fracking, but it has yet to issue new rules. Seven environmental groups have now filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the EPA for failing to keep its promise. Lead attorney Adam Kron from the Environmental Integrity Project discusses the toxic and radioactive contents of fracking waste and proper disposal methods with host Steve Curwood.

Living on Earth Segment Transcript, September 4, 2015

CURWOOD: This is Living on Earth on Public Radio International. I’m Steve Curwood. Oklahoma, Ohio and Texas are now earthquake zones, thanks to tremors that are being blamed on wastewater injections from hydraulic fracturing operations for oil and gas. But it’s been 27 years since the US Environmental Protection Agency updated its rules for wastes from oil and gas drilling. With the recent fracking boom there are not only many more injection wells but toxic wastewater is also winding up in leaky ponds and landfills, and is even being sprayed onto roads and fields. Now, a coalition of seven groups, including the Environmental Integrity Project and the NRDC has filed a notice of intent to sue the EPA over its failure to regulate. Adam Kron of the Environmental Integrity Project is the lead attorney in the lawsuit. Adam, welcome to Living on Earth.

KRON: Yeah, thanks for having me.

CURWOOD: So tell me why are the Environmental Integrity Project, the Natural Resources Defense Council and others taking this legal action to push EPA to regulate waste disposal from oil and gas drilling?

KRON: Sure, so we have basically a booming oil and gas industry, and that’s driven by hydraulic fracturing and the development of shale resources and these have resulted in a vastly increasing amount of wastes, both in terms of wastewater, millions of gallons per well; in terms of drill cuttings, hundreds of tons per well; and all these wastes have to go somewhere for disposal. So the problem is that these disposal practices and the needed controls haven’t kept pace with this increasing waste stream. So what we’re asking EPA to do is to update its waste disposal rules under the Resource Conservation Recovery Act specifically to address these oil and gas wastes.

CURWOOD: What’s this waste composed of and how safe is it for the public to be near it?

KRON: So there are basically two main components of this waste. There’s the wastewater, and that’s all the water that’s being used for hydraulic fracturing and to some extent drilling. And then you’ve got the more solid wastes, which are drill cuttings, drilling muds, and frac sands. The wastewater has high-level salts, it’s got certain radioactive materials from underground, it’s got every type of hydraulic fracturing chemical that’s added to water when it’s first injected into the wells and then you’ve got the drill cuttings which have high levels of metals. We’re talking barium, mercury, lead, high levels of radioactive components from the formations underground and just a variety of organic components such as benzene and toluene and whatnot. So there are a variety of different levels of these components depending what type of waste and where it goes, but what we’ve known is that the public should not be in direct contact with these wastes.

CURWOOD: So, briefly what are some of the concerns you have about what’s been happening to the waste?

KRON: There are a variety of different practices that the industry uses to dispose of these wastes, and so these are underground injection wells, which we’ve recently seen proliferating across the nation. These are open-air ponds and pits where industry stores and to some extent disposes of its wastes, spreading wastewater on roads and fields, and also just sending more solid wastes to your typical landfills. Just, county landfills can accept this waste.

CURWOOD: So you want to see this stuff better regulated. Why has the EPA not updated the rules for this kind of oil and gas extraction as it’s, well, supposed to?

KRON: That’s a very good question. EPA looked at this years ago back in 1988, and even back then it said that the generic rules that govern oil and gas waste, these do not fully address gas waste concerns. So it proposed to tailor the rules to address the specific chemicals and components and waste disposal practices of the oil and gas wastes. In particular, it said that we need to be able to deal with these large-volume wastes like wastewater and drill cuttings. For whatever reason, EPA never make good on that promise, so we’re here 27 years later and were asking EPA to do what it saw fit to do back than, well before the fracking boom, well before we got these vast quantities of waste.

CURWOOD: By the way, Adam, what have various states done to regulate this fracking waste with this vacuum of updated federal regulation?

KRON: So the states have done a variety of different things. Some states have done a pretty noble job of it. Some have handled it in less of a protective way. So, for example, one state that has been in the news a lot is New York. It recently been banned high-volume hydraulic fracturing which by and large was a result of a study of looking into the issue very specifically and considering the fact that New York draws so much of its water from the area in which this oil and gas fill-in would take place. The sort of irony of this is that even though New York has banned high-volume hydraulic fracturing, it still allows the industry to come to New York in the form of waste disposal. So you’ve still got spreading of oil and gas wastewater on New York’s roads. You’ve still got drill cuttings going to New York’s landfills. So even what many consider to be the best state for the regulation of oil and gas industry still has this blind spot when it comes to the actual regulation of the waste itself.

CURWOOD: So if you and your partners were in charge of regulating fracking wastewater, what would the rules say?

KRON: I think, for one, the underground injection wells, they need across-the-board very specific regulations to address this rising concern with earthquakes, what they call ‘induced seismicity’. States that have never had earthquakes before in recorded history like Ohio are seeing hundreds of them. We need to address this in a certain way, whether that means reducing the number of deep wells, whether that means reducing the volume of injected wastewater, something needs to be done. Second we need to look at these open-air ponds and pits that accept wastewater and some certain solid wastes from industry. These are notorious for leaking, for spilling, and just getting into groundwater, and getting into surrounding creeks. Some states have taken the measure of banning them outright and saying “you have to store your waste in tanks” and that’s a pretty good read on the situation. Third, spreading wastewater on roads and fields just shouldn’t be done unless it can be proven that this has constituents that are safe for human contact. And then finally, just landfills. Right now, your basic typical landfill can accept oil and gas waste, and that needs to stop until we’re able to better assess what are in these drill cuttings and which landfills are truly capable of handling them.

CURWOOD: So the criticism from industry and perhaps some inside of the EPA itself is that you guys just want to shut down fracking, don’t like fracking. The response?

KRON: No, we want it to be done right. Congress gave EPA the power to protect the public and to protect the environment and EPA’s not doing that right now. If EPA actually comes up with those rules and industry finds it just can’t meet them, that’s on industry. That shows that it’s not safe. But we think it can be done safely. We think that with proper rules the public can be protected properly.

CURWOOD: Now, of course, you can’t sue the federal government directly, you have to file a notice of intent to sue the government. In theory, of course, they have 60 days to fix the defect. What would the response from EPA look like and how likely do you think that would be?

KRON: You know, we’re pragmatists. We know that to get a rulemaking done takes a year or more. 60 days is not a lot of time, but we’re hopeful that in that time EPA can come to the table and give us good indication that it plans to do something, that it has a commitment to what it saw fit to do back in 1988.

CURWOOD: Adam Kron is an attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project. Adam, thanks for taking the time with us today.

KRON: Great, thank you, Steve.

Related Links:

Environmental Groups Start Legal Process to Sue EPA over Fracking Waste

Environmental Integrity Project press release on the lawsuit

Deep Injection Wells: How Drilling Waste Is Disposed Underground

USGS: About Induced Earthquakes

EPA’s Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

About Adam Kron

Four Trucks in Five Minutes

SWA Opposes Disposal “Cell” in Wetzel Landfill

From an Article by Lauren Matthews, Wetzel Chronicle, March 11. 2015

Bill Hughes of Wetzel County Solid Waste Authority appeared before the Wetzel County Commission March 4 to give updates regarding a case before the Public Service Commission.

The case in question is Case Number 13-0832-SWF-CN, named Lackawanna Transport Company, dba Wetzel County Landfill. The case deals with the Wetzel County Landfill’s application for an amendment to their Certificate of Need. The fulfillment of this application would enable the landfill to build a special cell where drilling companies could dispose of drilling waste.

Hughes noted that the case started in June 2013. He added that 96 letters have since been sent into the PSC regarding the case, all but one objecting to the landfill’s application. A decision is expected within the next several months, with final briefs being filed in mid-March.

Hughes expressed criticism of the legislature in that “there’s a lot of loose ends that the legislature did not account for,” when passing bills regarding disposal of drilling waste. “The PSC doesn’t know what to do with this case,” Hughes noted.

“The legislature says to take the drill waste to landfills,” Hughes noted, but added that “we don’t have proper waste characterization,” expressing concern about possible hazardous materials in the waste. Hughes noted that in the past two years the Wetzel County Landfill has taken “half a million tons” of drilling waste, that is only “partially characterized.”

Hughes noted that Cider Run Road, which leads to the landfill, is “trashed.” “The roads are torn up. All the trucks are now going to a well pad. There is a well pad above the landfill . . . all that traffic – the municipal solid waste traffic, drill cuttings traffic, a holding pond up there . . . all that uses one road. It has caused a lot of congestion, and it’s in deplorable condition.”

Hughes noted that with all the drill waste the landfill has taken in, and consequent revenue, “you’d think they could fix the roads.”

“There’s a lot of residential traffic on those roads,” Hughes notes, adding that a local resident testified before the PSC as to all of the trucks damaging the roads.”

Hughes stated that the State is not quite willing to help. “As you guys know, Charleston folks tend to live in Charleston. I have not been able to convey to them that this is an inconvenience for the neighbors.”

“This landfill now has a 40-year lifespan based on current consumption,” Hughes stated, noting that the landfill previously had a 120 year lifespan.

“Drilling has slowed down, but it’s a temporary lull,” Hughes added. “We have many unresolved issues, some environmental, some traffic, and everything in between. We have yet to have a clue as to what’s going in the ground.”

Hughes referenced House Bill 107, which imposes a dollar per ton fee put on drilling waste, “that goes to the state to help repair the roads.” “Nothing has happened,” he added, noting that the fee is not dedicated just to the landfill operation. “It’s any road affected by drilling operations.”

“I have thousands of photographs,” Hughes stated. “You have 200 trucks going through there per day. I sat there myself for two hours, and saw 20 trucks going one way and then the other road. It’s absurd to allow that road, which is a residential traffic road, to get in that condition. I was down there yesterday, and it’s getting worse with the freezing and thawing. There are fractured pieces of roads; it’s all busted up. They need to have it widened, with a ditch and drainage.”

“The money is there, but there is no political will to let it happen.”

The current case involving the WCSWA and the Wetzel County Landfill (owned and operated by Lackawanna Transport Company) can be found on the West Virginia Public Service Commission’s site, accessed at www.psc.state.wv.us.

After accessing the website, choose “Case Information” from the menu on the right hand side of the page. Then choose “Case” under the Search heading on the right hand side of the next page. Several options are available. Choose to search by Case Number, and in the drop-down menu choose “Is.” 13-0832-SWF-CN

Cider Run Road 1-19-2015

Click the case number link, and then choose “Count total letter . . . ” Choose the case number link again, and this will lead you to all activity records involved in the case. Visible under Case 13-0832-SWF-CN’s files on the website are opening statements from counsel for both the WCSWA and Wetzel County Landfill (Lackawanna Transport Company – LTC)

Eastern Panhandle Officials Meet in Capitol

WV Senate Rules Committee Moves to Ban Marcellus Waste from Eastern Panhandle

From an  Article by the Editor, MorganCountyUSA.org, October 21, 2014

The West Virginia Legislative Rule Making Committee yesterday moved to close a loophole in state law that would have allowed radioactive Marcellus shale waste into the LCS Services Landfill in Hedgesville, West Virginia.

The Committee unanimously passed a rule that provides that “a commercial solid waste facility that is located in a county that is, in whole or in part, within a karst region as determined by the West Virginia Geologic and Economic Survey, may not accept drill cuttings and drilling waste generated from horizontal well sites.”

The Eastern Panhandle is a karst region.

Karst topography is a landscape formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks and is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes, dolines, and caves. It is porous and exceptionally vulnerable to water contamination and pollution.

Clint Hogbin, chairman of the Berkeley County Solid Waste Authority, said that the passage through the committee was a “giant step forward,” but warned that the rule was not final until the full Senate and House pass it. They will take it up when the new legislature convenes in January 2015.

Hogbin says that the LCS Services landfill has yet to accept Marcellus waste and that it is unlikely that it will before the legislature takes up the measure in January. Hogbin attended the Committee meeting yesterday along with William Madert of the Jefferson County Solid Waste Authority.

The Committee is comprised of six Senators and six members of the House of Delegates. The Committee is chaired by Senator Herb Snyder (Jefferson County). Senator John Unger (Berkeley County) also sits on the committee.

Hogbin said he was concerned about Pennsylvania fracking waste finding its way down I-81 into the LCS Landfill in Berkeley County. He said that fracking waste from West Virginia is currently being disposed of in five landfills. Hogbin said that the Waste Management landfill in Harrison County takes in more Marcellus waste than the rest of the state landfills combined take in regular garbage waste.

Earlier this year, the West Virginia legislature passed a law – HB 107 — that allowed the industry to dump unlimited amounts of drilling wastes in segregated cells at certain municipal waste landfills. The law also allows municipal waste landfills without special cells — like the Eastern Panhandle’s only landfill — the LCS Services Hedgesville landfill — to accept Marcellus waste — but it cannot exceed its tonnage limits.

Hogbin says that the Hedgesville landfill has yet to accept any drilling waste, but it nevertheless has the legal authority to do so, even though its sits atop a significant karst region. Hogbin said that Senator Donald Cookman (Hampshire) first identified the loophole and tried to close it earlier this year, but his efforts were turned back by the House of Delegates.

Cookman then began pushing for a rulemaking fix. Yesterday, Cookman praised the work of the rules committee. “It was imperative that the Legislative Rule-Making Committee pass the provision in order to further protect West Virginia’s water,” says Cookman. “I vow to continue working with my fellow lawmakers and the citizens of this great state to make sure West Virginia’s waters remain pure and free of pollution.”

Fracking Waste Disposal Still A Question

Article by Glynis Board and Ashton Marra, WV Public Broadcasting, March 10, 2014

The House and Senate have spent weeks working on House Bill 4411 dealing with the disposal of hydraulic fracturing drill cuttings in land fills. Earlier in the session, the House of Delegates held a public hearing on the issue. But members could not agree on the terms of the bill and late Saturday evening it ended up in a conference committee.

The conference agreement came down to this: landfills who want to accept drill cuttings from fracking sites must apply for permits from the Department of Environmental Protection and the Public Service Commission. So far, seven are in the process of doing so.

Those seven would be the only landfills allowed to apply for the permits for two years. They must put radon detectors at their front gates to test trucks, cannot mix the drill cuttings with municipal waste and must charge a $1 fee per ton they accept. The first $750 thousand collected will go toward a study on the waste due to the Joint Committee on Government and Finance next year.

That agreement, however, did not make it to the clerks’ desks in time to be put to a vote and the bill died, leaving no legislative restrictions on these cuttings and their disposal.

See also the very informative Video Clip in this Article.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

W.Va. bill to regulate gas drilling waste on hold

From an Article of the Associated Press (Charleston Gazette), March 10, 2014

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A bill to regulate the disposal of waste produced by gas-well drilling will likely be introduced by West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin in a special session. Lawmakers who negotiated a version both sides could agree on were unable to get the measure passed before midnight Saturday, the deadline for the regular session.

The bill would allow only seven landfills in West Virginia that have already applied to do so to create a separate area on their properties where they could store the waste. Those landfills are located in the Northern Panhandle and Northwest portion of the state.

Sen. Herb Snyder, D-Jefferson, said the bill is a huge environmental protection for the state. As it stands, the measure calls for drillings to be separated from other waste and monitored for radioactivity. “By September of this year, the waste cannot be mixed with other trash and must be put in a separate cell, and radioactivity monitors add a tremendous amount of protection over what is being done today,” said Snyder. “We have learned a lot by looking at what was done in Pennsylvania and looking at the problems they were having.’ Snyder said the studies will examine what types of metals are in the waste in addition to their level of radioactivity.

Currently, in depth studies on drilling waste have not been conducted in West Virginia. Snyder said some Department of Environmental Protection studies were conducted after the Natural Gas Horizontal Well Act; however, the Legislature determined these studies were incomplete and not sufficient, he said.

Downstream Strategies Say Data Missing

Much Data Lacking on Marcellus Drilling Waste Disposal

From the Article by Ken Ward, Charleston Gazette, October 22, 2013

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A 2011 law has provided new information about what natural gas companies are doing with the huge amounts of waste generated by West Virginia’s drilling boom, but major data gaps remain, a legislative committee heard Tuesday.

Evan Hansen, president of the consulting firm Downstream Strategies, said the state requires drilling operators to report what they do with only about 38 percent of the waste they produce.

“We have no idea what happens to the other roughly 62 percent of waste that’s being generated at the wells in West Virginia,” Hansen told the Joint Legislative Oversight Commission on State Water Resources.

Hansen offered lawmakers a sneak peek at a new report his firm is putting together to provide the first look at what West Virginia regulators know about the huge amounts of water used and waste generated by the boom in natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

Like the boom in gas production in other shale gas regions, advances in drilling technologies have fueled the Marcellus rush.

Drilling operators use a process called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which shoots vast amounts of water, sand and chemicals deep underground to break apart rock and release gas. They also frequently use a process that drills down, and then turns horizontally to allow more gas to be acquired.

During a hearing Tuesday, Hansen said the state’s Natural Gas Horizontal Well Control Act, passed by lawmakers during a December 2011 special session called by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, included some new reporting requirements for well operators.

But in examining a database maintained by the Department of Environmental Protection, Hansen’s firm found some unreliable data, gaps in required reporting, and inadequate enforcement of the reporting requirements.

For example, 35 percent of wells did not report required data, Hansen said. And West Virginia only required operators to file reports about “flowback” fluids that come back out of wells, not other types of waste, Hansen said.