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On September 30, DEP told the Low-Level Waste Advisory Committee shale gas fracking operations in Pennsylvania sent nearly 236,00 cubic feet of radioactive TENORM waste to out-of-state low-level radioactive waste facilities for disposal, more volume than all the industries combined in the four-state Appalachian Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact.
On September 29, DEP told the Low-Level Waste Advisory Committee shale gas operations in Pennsylvania sent 138,336 cubic feet of radioactive TENORM waste to the Waste Control Specialists low-level radioactive waste facility in Texas for disposal. Click Here for DEP table on TENORM waste. Read more here.
See for instance Benestad (2016). The most important problem with the sun-climate explanation is that there has been no long-term change in either solar activity or cosmic radiation over the last hundred years that can explain the global warming we are now seeing. 679-688, 2016. References R.E.
Sara Innamorato (D-Allegheny) co-chaired a hearing by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee on the environmental and health dangers associated with oil and gas drilling waste in Pennsylvania. We are concerned because radium-226 and radium-228, both present in oil and gas waste, can cause bone and connective tissue cancer.
million gallons of toxic, radioactive drilling waste on unpaved roads in the Commonwealth. Feridun’s attempt to use the Oil and Gas Division’s Oil and Gas Reporting Electronic (OGRE) system to track where the waste has gone revealed many problems with the system’s design and entries that should set off alarms but don’t.
A variety of studies have documented that radioactivity is brought to the surface with natural gas and oil production and travels through natural gas pipelines, oil refining systems, natural gas processing and liquid and solid waste disposal and treatment facilities. Haley, M.D., Why Does It Matter?
Wolf’s PFAS Action Team Report noted there is a concern wastewater plant sewage sludge also contains PFAS and policies are needed to properly manage this waste. Similar concerns would be present in oil and gas waste treatment facilities. Read more here. See Paragraph 71 in appeal.] Read more here. See paragraph 78-98 of EHB appeal.]
In an effort to further protect Pennsylvania’s waterways and drinking water, the Department of Environmental Program announced it will soon require all Pennsylvania landfills – including those that accept unconventional oil and gas waste – to conduct quarterly testing of leachate for radiological contaminants.
Where We Are With The Issue At a June 10, 2024 hearing on House Bill 2384 (Vitali-D-Delaware) that would ban road dumping by the House Environmental Committee, DEP said, The Administration is supportive of this clear ban on the practice and views the Solid Waste Management Act as a sound vehicle for such statutory language. Read more here.
The Department of Environmental Protection has advised 18 municipalities where road dumping of oil and gas wastewater has occurred the practice is illegal and considered waste disposal. DEP labels a total of 84 townships as “waste facilities” where road dumping of the wastewater has occurred. Read more here. Read more here.
What the DEP staff did not address or mention was another office in DEP-- DEP’s Bureau of Waste Management-- allows the road dumping of conventional oil and gas drilling wastewater as a dust suppressant under its co-product regulations and this practice continues. There is a ban on road spreading of fracking waste. Read more here.
Klapkowski said the waste issue was being discussed, because of, “the scale and scope of the program, things that weren't really talked about much because maybe you can deal with it as a one-off because we were plugging 10 or 20 wells a year. There are some options for waste management that involve on-site disposal. said Klapkowski.
Hess, Former Secretary Department of Environmental Protection The information submitted to DEP’s Bureau of Waste Management from eight conventional oil and gas companies to justify allowing them to dispose of millions of gallons of wastewater by spreading it on dirt roads fails to meet the requirements of DEP’s 25 Pa Code Chapter 287.8
However, DEP and the public don't really know how much liquid and solid waste 61,655 conventional oil and gas wells generated in 2022 (over 57 percent) and where it was disposed, treated or recycled because operators failed to submit their waste generation and disposal reports. Read more here. Read more here. Read more here.
Background On Road Dumping From Penn State’s new study -- Using oil and gas wastewater from conventional wells to control dust was considered a beneficial use of the residual waste on the state’s 25,000 miles of dirt and gravel roads, since it was thought to have a chemical composition and behavior similar to commercial dust suppression products.
Background On Road Dumping From Penn State’s new study -- Using oil and gas wastewater from conventional wells to control dust was considered a beneficial use of the residual waste on the state’s 25,000 miles of dirt and gravel roads, since it was thought to have a chemical composition and behavior similar to commercial dust suppression products.
Using oil and gas wastewater from conventional wells to control dust was considered a beneficial use of the residual waste on the state’s 25,000 miles of dirt and gravel roads, since it was thought to have a chemical composition and behavior similar to commercial dust suppression products. Read more here.] Read more here. Read more here.
That means much less waste and a better deal for the environment. That’s why gas-powered cars need complex and expensive radiator systems with their associated belts, pipes, and heat exchangers. As of 2016, wind provided 8 percent of US electric generation. Gasoline engines are riddled with inefficiencies.
Updates To Conventional Drilling Regulations Still Pending Since 2016, when an update to conventional oil and gas drilling regulations were killed by the General Assembly and Gov. Read more here. Click Here to read the 2022 compliance report summary. Culture Of Non-Compliance’ On December 29, 2022. 28 to Nov. 30 to Oct. 28 to Nov. 30 to Oct.
Read more here. -- Radiation Levels In Storage Tank Prompt Decontamination: On June 28, DEP inspected the Sensinger shale gas well pad operated by Chesapeake Appalachia LLC in Franklin Township, Bradford County in response to a notification that over 800 gallons of production wastewater was released over a 10 day period on the well pad.
Krishnan Ramamurthy, DEP Deputy Secretary for Waste, Air, Radiation and Remediation, explained it this way-- “Conventional wells [were] pretty much exempted from any permitting requirements, regulatory requirements. For the first time we are addressing those. Read more here.
Metcalfe was again critical of DEP’s delay in finalizing this regulation when DEP knew of the EPA’s oil and gas emission limit requirement starting in 2016. He did not mention, Rep.
-- WNEP: Kindness Tree Dedicated At Marywood University -- Penn State Extension Home Garden News: Changes In Fertilizer Law; Wildflower Seed Mixes; Creating A Stumpery -- Inquirer: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater Is A PA Tourist Attraction; But You Can Spend The Night At His Lynn Hall In McKean County Public Participation -- DEP: New Location For (..)
Failure to submit the reports, which are vital to determine the condition of the wells and where the waste they generate goes for disposal or treatment, goes back to at least 2021. Read more here. Click Here to read the 2022 compliance report summary. Culture Of Non-Compliance’ On December 29, 2022. Read more here. 30 to Jan. 25 to Dec.
Krishnan Ramamurthy, DEP Deputy Secretary for Waste, Air, Radiation and Remediation, told the EQB in order to have a complete SIP [State Implementation Plan] revision meeting the mandatory requirements of EPA, Pennsylvania must cover both conventional and unconventional oil and gas facilities sources. Read more here.
[PaEN] -- PennLive: PA Senate Republicans Pass Bill Allowing Large-Scale Energy Projects To Bypass State Agencies -- Bill Reported Out Of Senate Committee Would Allow Pipelines Like Mariner East To Apply For Waivers Of Any PUC Regulation, Law Or Policy [PaEN] -- PA Capital-Star: PA Senate Committee Advances Bill To Allow Utility Companies To Request (..)
A new study released November 2 by authors from the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University shows constant exposure of residents living next to and using roads spread with conventional oil and gas drilling wastewater results in higher levels of exposure to radiation in the wastewater when the appropriate exposure scenarios are used.
Randomly selected individual on-site drill cutting and wastewater disposal plans submitted by conventional oil and gas drillers call for drilling wastes to be “dispersed directly to the environment,” according to a review by PA Environment Digest. Read more here. Read more here. Read more here. Read more here. Read more here. Read more here.
Penn State studies found the amounts of at least 25 of the chemicals they tested for exceeded environmental and health standards and radioactive radium exceeded industrial waste discharge standards. The guidelines were administered by DEP under the Clean Streams Law, Solid Waste Management Act and the Oil and Gas Act. Read more here.
The following blog post By Tina Curry-Bashioum was posted on the Environmental Health Project website providing a detailed look at the MAX Environmental Yukon Facility hazardous waste disposal site that accepts shale gas drilling waste in Westmoreland County. The decay chain of radium involves the release of radiation.
Radiation In Oil & Gas Wastewater A study released in May 2022 by Penn State University found conventional drilling wastewater spread on roads in Pennsylvania contains concentrations of barium, strontium, lithium, iron, manganese that exceed human-health based criteria and levels of radioactive radium that exceed industrial discharge standards.
From 2016 to 2021, DEP approved 752 plans for the permanent disposal of drill cuttings at oil and gas well drilling sites through the decades-old practice of “dusting”-- forcefully blowing drill cuttings on the ground around their drilling sites, according to DEP’s response to a Right To Know request. Code Section 78.61(d) Read more here.
Note: DEP has prohibited the road “spreading” of unconventional drilling wastewater on roads by regulation since 2016.] “In The 2010 DCNR study also found "radium values are high enough that a possible radiation hazard exists, especially where radium could be adsorbed on iron oxides and accumulate in brine tanks." [ Read more here.] “The
Read more here ] [Note: DEP changed its regulations to ban the road spreading of unconventional shale gas drilling wastewater on roads in 2016, but conventional oil and gas drillers are not included in the ban.] of the Residual Waste Management Regulations. This program falls under Chapter 287.8 2] According to Chapter 287.8
Because it's an oil and gas waste, nobody's required to carry these safety data sheets. So if somebody happened to have driven through a pool of this radiated de-icing stuff, you necessarily didn't have to have driven through this, it's now on your car. They're not even required to tell you. Kids put everything in their mouth.
Of that human-source share , about 35% comes from fossil-fuel production, processing and use (oil and gas 23%, coal mining 12%); 40% comes from agriculture (livestock 32%, flooded rice fields 8%), and 20% comes from waste, mostly landfills (because they are packed so tight that air can’t get in) and wastewater. W/m 2 from elevated CO 2.
No Laws Or Regulations Have Changed In fact, since that report, no laws have changed, the regulations we have now have been in place for nine years and remain the same, and the number of DEP Oil and Gas Program staff dedicated to enforcement remain frozen at December 2016 levels, while the number of shale gas wells drilled grew 43.6%
This number is likely a vast undercount: About 86% of Pennsylvania’s smaller oil and gas drillers did not report how they disposed of their waste in 2023. Lawmakers first banned the use of wastewater from fracking wells as a dust suppressant in 2016. In total, they reported spraying nearly 2.4 No one is enforcing the moratorium."
And no one should be surprised when workers and residents who are exposed to fracking’s toxic chemicals and radioactive waste start getting sick with a variety of sometimes common, sometimes weird, and sometimes, often debilitating and deadly illnesses. Doctors, nurses, and other health professionals aren't surprised.
“I had a certain expectation that my water wouldn't be damaged, my house wouldn't be damaged, that this gross negligence wouldn't go on, that they wouldn't get fines from the DEP, that I wouldn't be exposed to radiation, I wouldn't be exposed to chemicals,” said Latkanich. They] found benzene, styrene, and other fracking chemicals in us.
Note: It’s important to note road dumping wastewater from unconventional shale gas drilling was prohibited in 2016, and it’s essentially the same thing.] What I was trying to say earlier was that because produced fluids are waste material, we have to treat them, regulate them as waste material. I'm going to take this back.
Read more here ] In 2016, the DEP addressed concerns over naturally occurring radioactive materials pumped up from the ground and spread in wastewater on dirt roads. Read more here ] After a study of treated roads, the DEP concluded there was “limited potential” from people hiking or biking on the roads to be affected by radiation exposure.
Read more here. -- Radiation Levels In Storage Tank Prompt Decontamination: On June 28, DEP inspected the Sensinger shale gas well pad operated by Chesapeake Appalachia LLC in Franklin Township, Bradford County in response to a notification that over 800 gallons of production wastewater was released over a 10 day period on the well pad.
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