Hazardous Waste

Introduction

The natural gas, plastic, chemical, electric generation, and waste disposal industries can all generate hazardous waste that must be properly disposed of, sometimes at facilities that can create significant air pollution. When new industrial facilities operate, they often require new hazardous waste disposal operations to handle the additional waste streams, which creates additional air and water pollution. Even hazardous waste treatment facilities generate their own waste streams that must be disposed of at other hazardous waste treatment facilities.

The Problem

Hazardous waste from industrial operations typically contains high levels of heavy metals like lead, mercury, and cadmium as well as likely carcinogens such as 1,4-Dioxane. Incinerating waste produces an ash that is often hazardous and still must be landfilled, undoing any possible benefit of waste incineration while creating significant amounts of air and water pollution. 

Fracking is generating increased amounts of polluted, potentially radioactive wastewater that requires extensive treatment and storage. Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale contains radioactive substances like uranium, thorium, radium-228 and radium-226. Normally these substances are safely underground, but fracking creates pathways that could potentially lead to human exposure. The same abrasive chemicals that are injected underground to release methane gas can also release radiation that contaminates fracking wastewater. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), short-term exposure to radiation can cause nausea and vomiting  and long-term exposure to smaller amounts of radiation can raise the risk for cancer. EPA also concluded that children and fetuses are more susceptible to the effects of radiation.

The Solution

Clean Air Council works with frontline communities and local governments to prevent hazardous industrial waste, oppose waste incineration in all forms, and advocate for extensive testing of waste streams to identify pollutants of concern. The Council advocates for the safest, most protective business practices possible regarding the treatment, disposal and storage of wastewater related to fracking or other other industrial waste in the region.

Successes

• Clean Air Council is proud to have succeeded in the long-running campaign to prevent the construction of the formerly proposed Elcon hazardous waste incinerator. The Elcon facility would have created significant amounts of smog-causing air pollution in already overburdened Bucks County. It would have also resulted in up to 25 trucks per day bringing in hazardous waste to the facility, not including the truck trips to deliver treatment chemicals or to take away newly produced waste. Read more at cleanair.org/stopelcon.

• Clean Air Council successfully opposed a hazardous waste incinerator in Bristol, PA. Clean Air Council staff informed local residents and institutions of the proposal to incinerate a variety of hazardous wastes in Bucks County, which would have created large amounts of air pollution, hazardous waste byproducts, and massive amounts of truck traffic in the region. Council staff also generated significant media attention on this dangerous proposal and it was quickly withdrawn by the potential developer.

Current campaigns 

Clean Air Council works to fight against past, present, and future environmental racism and protect public health around landfills, waste storage tanks, and waste incinerators in Pennsylvania. 

• Clean Air Council is monitoring and engaging the public in industrial permits at several polluting facilities in Chester, PA, located directly along the Delaware River and discharging dangerous water pollution. Chester’s residents have long been subjected to environmental racism and injustice in the form of multiple major pollution sources clustered together in a community of color. The Delaware County Regional Water Authority (DELCORA) operates an incinerator in Chester that incinerates sewage, industrial wastewater, industrial food processing, grease, medical waste and industrial waste that can include asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls, and drilling fluid, among many others. DELCORA also accepts significant amounts of toxic material from at least 13 different landfills. Delaware County opposes the attempt to privatize DELCORA and has taken legal action to block the sale. Clean Air Council assisted nearby residents in opposing the transfer of the solid waste permit to a private company.

Past Work

• In June 2020, the Council supported residents near the Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill in requesting a public hearing concerning the Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill’s application to evaporate liquid runoff (leachate) from its site. The Council also drew attention to already poor air quality in Westmoreland County as well as the health impacts of evaporating leachate for nearby workers and residents.Since the landfill had been accepting fracking waste for 10 years, the Council urged the DEP to ensure that potentially radioactive leachate and residue from fracking waste were properly treated. In May of 2019, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) prohibited the company from continuing to send their leachate to outside waste treatment plants.

• In August 2021, the Council assisted residents in Hanover Township, Beaver County in opposing a 220,550 gallon fracking waste tank farm. Clean Air Council found several shortcomings in Range Resources’ application.

• In September 2021, Council staff helped Susquehanna County residents submit official comments opposing the construction of a fracking waste storage and treatment facility proposed in Dimock, PA due to the operator’s bad track record and lack of detail about where it would send potentially radioactive waste.

• In August 2020, Clean Air Council assisted residents near the border of Southwest Philadelphia and Darby, PA (along the Darby Creek) in demanding a public hearing on stormwater management at Sunoco’s Darby Creek Tank Farm, which stores large amounts of petrochemical products near a historically black community.

Take Action

Ask your state senator and representative to remove the hazardous waste loophole for fracking industry waste.

Contact Russell Zerbo at rzerbo@cleanair.org if you are concerned about a waste proposal in your community.