Our Landfills are Filling with Drill Cuttings

WV-DEP Holds Final Hearing on Drilling Waste Disposal

From an Article by Michael Erb, Wheeling Intelligencer, July 31, 2014

CHARLESTON – A handful of passionate opponents spoke out Wednesday against proposed rule revisions for the disposal of waste material from drilling sites. The comments came during a public hearing at the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection in Charleston.

Members of the Wetzel County Solid Waste Authority, as well as a representative of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, urged officials to reconsider the rules, which opponents say do not protect waterways and the public from toxic and radioactive materials which leach into drinking water.

According to the WV-DEP, the proposed rule revision establishes protocols for the proper handling, management and disposal of drill cuttings and associated drilling mud generated in the exploration and production of oil and gas from the horizontal drilling process. It also requires radiation and leachate monitoring at all facilities receiving drill cuttings and associated drilling mud.

Bill Hughes, a resident of New Martinsville and chairman of the Wetzel County Solid Waste Authority, said the authority hired two companies to draft reports on possible air and water issues stemming from the placement of drill waste in state landfills. Both reports, he said, ultimately stated there was a likely risk to health and too many unknown factors, such as the level of chemical and radiation exposure.

“We’re doing things that are really unexamined, unexplored,” Hughes said. “This is uncharted territory. We are literally guessing in the dark and we’re hoping it’s not glowing in the dark.”

Hughes said the WV-DEP is too slow to regulate these kinds of issues, often waiting until years after companies have established a broad environmental footprint in an area before beginning to address concerns.

Hughes said since 2011 the state has allowed hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of tons of toxic and radioactive materials to be dumped in state landfills with little oversight or thought of long-term consequences. “It’s the long view that motivates me,” Hughes said. “What is the state going to be like for our children and grandchildren?”

Angie Rosser, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, echoed those concerns. “These practices are in essence an experiment and the rivers and people of West Virginia are the subjects of this experiment,” she said. “We cannot cut corners when it comes to protecting our waters and our health. This problem will not go away. I’m very concerned about our state’s handling of this issue.”

Tom Aluise, spokesman for the WV-DEP, facilitated Wednesday’s hearing. “We’ll take all the comments into consideration and submit our agency-approved rule to the Legislature for consideration for the next session,” he said, adding the public has been submitting written comments for 30 days, with the period ending Wednesday.

Aluise said a temporary rule is in place governing how the materials from horizontal well development must be stored and tested for radiation. Only a handful of landfills in West Virginia are allowed to accept the materials, nearly all of which comes as a byproduct of horizontal drilling in the Marcellus shale.

The proposed Solid Waste Management Rule 33CSR1, once approved by the Legislature next spring, would replace the emergency rule that went into effect July 10. “The emergency rule is the exact same thing as the rules we are discussing here tonight. It was put into place to make these guidelines effective immediately,” Aluise said. “You need to have a permanent rule in place once the temporary rule expires.”

Aluise said all public comments will be included in a report along with the agency’s final recommendation.

The full proposal can be viewed on the WV-DEP’s website here.

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Attorney Thornton Cooper among the solid waste bill's critics

Citizens speak against frack waste bill

From an Article by Rachel Molenda, Charleston Gazette, February 17, 2014

CHARLESTON, WV — Of 20 speakers at a House hearing Monday, only one — an industry representative — spoke in favor of a bill that would exempt natural gas drilling waste in the Marcellus Shale region from the state’s landfill tonnage limits.

Charlie Burd, executive director of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia, said the bill — supported by the state Department of Environmental Protection — “recognizes the reasonable approach” of disposing such material.

“West Virginia’s commercial landfill regulations are among the strongest and most comprehensive in the country,” Burd said. “Disposal of these materials in commercial landfills will assure that these materials are handled in a highly regulated and environmentally positive manner.”

But in some instances, this exemption would surpass existing monthly landfill waste limits set by solid waste authorities. Six landfills in Brooke, Harrison, Ohio, Wetzel and Wood counties hold the gas-drilling material, which accounts for about one-third of the material accepted at each, according to DEP data from July 2012 to July 2013.

Thornton Cooper, a South Charleston attorney once employed by the state’s Public Service Commission to defend its solid waste laws in federal court, called the proposed bill “a wrecking ball that would undo an amazing amount of work that the Legislature did in the 80′s and 90′s.”

Cooper said both private and public landfills are underused and that “There is plenty of space in our landfills right now to let Marcellus Shale store the drilling contents,” throughout the state, not only in places like Wetzel County that have exceeded their limits.

Solid waste authorities are worried the bill (HB4411) would limit their ability to monitor and control these waste restrictions. The bill is pending in the House Judiciary Committee after passing the House Energy Committee.

Bill Hughes, of the Wetzel County Solid Waste Authority, told members of the House Judiciary Committee and DEP Secretary Randy Huffman Monday night that a “three-legged stool” was created more than 20 years ago requiring the DEP, the state’s Public Service Commission and local solid waste authorities “to work together in deciding sizing and environmental restrictions” of landfills.

“Unfortunately the recent memos from the DEP undid over 20 years of standing law and has now allowed our landfill in Wetzel County to exceed its legal limit by anywhere from 200 and 300 percent,” Hughes said. “The legal limit is 10,000. It’s been taking up to 40,000 tons a month.”

From a surface owner perspective, housing such waste in a landfill is better than the alternative, said Julie Archer of the West Virginia Surface Owners’ Rights Organization.

“Until recently it was actually common practice for the drillers to store their waste in open pits in the ground and to bury their drill cuttings on site on the surface owners’ land,” Archer said.

That changed in 2011 when Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s “Horizontal Drilling Act” was passed during a special session. The law said solid wastes from drilling had to be sent to permitted landfills or could be disposed of at drilling sites if the surface landowner consented.

The concern for Archer, she said, is that municipal landfills are not designed to hold “hazardous materials.” While a state-sponsored study was meant to address potential pollution from natural gas drilling, it never addressed waste from the Marcellus Shale formation, as reported by the Gazette last month.

“It’s well known that the Marcellus is radioactive,” Archer said. “Now, how radioactive, unfortunately we just don’t know because the state has insufficient data to fully understand the levels of warmth that are released from the Marcellus in the process of drilling and fracking.”

Residents in places that already receive fracking waste also expressed concern and disapproval of the bill. Fayetteville resident Mary Rahall referenced a renewed injection well permit that allows a pit near Wolf Creek to hold fracking fluids. Rahall said she worries about potentially negative health effects of such wells on West Virginians.

“I don’t feel like I can’t trust the West Virginia DEP anymore, and I’m relying on our government to protect the water and protect the people,” Rahall said. “Honestly, I never in my lifetime imagined that I would be at a hearing asking my legislators to protect me.”

Dr. Vicki Wolfe, of the West Virginia Environmental Council, said those “existing landfill caps should be maintained,” and that separate facilities should be constructed to hold drilling material at the expense of those companies, not the public.

The Rev. Jeff Allen, executive director of the West Virginia Council of Churches, said the bill “potentially externalizes the cost of fracking from a private entity to the public purse.”

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Marcellus Shale waste trips more radioactivity alarms than other products left at PA landfills in 2012

From an Article by Anya Litvak, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, August 22, 2013

Last year, nearly 1,000 trucks hauling 15,769 tons of Marcellus Shale waste were stopped at Pennsylvania landfill gates after tripping radioactivity alarms.

The trucks were pulled to the side, (checked) with hand-held detectors and some of the material was sent to laboratories for further evaluation. In the end, 622 tons were shipped to three out-of-state landfills specifically designed to dispose of hazardous and radioactive materials.

But most of the flagged waste was eventually allowed past the gates. It was safe enough to be buried along with other waste as long as it stays below the annual limits set by the PA Department of Environmental Protection and landfill operators.