Council Supports Closing Fracking Waste Loopholes that Contaminate Drinking Water
Growing up in Southwestern Pennsylvania is a beautiful experience. The region’s rivers, mountains, and picturesque small towns and beautiful cities make this an ideal place to live and grow up in. People in the area goboating, water-skiing, and swimming in the summers andhiking, snowboarding, and skiing in the winters. Fall brings beautiful,world-renowned colors, while spring is a budding new world to explore. Could you imagine a better place to live and raise a family?
However, there’s a terrible secret that the fracking industry has tried to hide from families living in the region: there is radioactive material from fracking appearing in our waterways and drinking water.
The fracking industry has taken advantage of an outdated loophole in PA law that labels fracking waste as residual waste. This is known as the radioactive fracking waste loophole. This dangerous loophole permits industry to dump radioactive fracking waste in local municipal landfills, which then turns into a watery substance called leachate. While there has been in-depth reporting on the gas industry’s radioactive secret, including from reporter Justin Nobel from the Rolling stones, many Pennsylvania residents remain unaware.
One landfill in Westmoreland County is threatening the entire Monongahela River when it knowingly accepted radioactive waste. The leachate from the fracking waste in this landfill became radioactive, and was piped directly into the Monongahela River to the Belle Vernon sewage treatment plant.
Water treatment centers in the surrounding region were confused about why all of their beneficial bacteria were dying. The chemicals released by the radioactive leachate were killing everything good and bad. Despite the public health impacts from the radioactive leachate, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection lets operations continue at the landfill company with only a small fine.
No resident should be forced to deal with radioactive material in their drinking water. Shockingly, most Pennsylvanians that live in Southwestern Pennsylvania are being exposed to radiation.
The solution is simple. We must close the fracking waste loophole by labeling fracking waste as radioactive. This would prevent the oil and gas industry from being able to dump radioactive fracking waste in municipal landfills.
Clean Air Council is supporting legislation in the Pennsylvania House and Senate introduced by House Representative Sara Inamoratoe and Senator Katie Muth that would repeal the language under Title 58 that exempts the oil and gas industry from complying with the provisions of the Solid Waste Management Act and classify drilling waste as “hazardous waste” under the Solid Waste Management Act.
The Council is dedicated to ending this radioactive fracking waste loophole and protecting drinking water for the millions of people who depend on it in Southwestern Pennsylvania .
For more information about this issue, please contact Lois Bower-Bjornson, Outreach Coordinator, lbb@cleanair.org
