But these requirements are for the most part immaterial, according to experts. “Sewage treatment plants were not designed for dealing with the hazardous or radioactive materials found in fracking wastewater,” said Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University. “They’re designed to deal with sewage. There’s toxic stuff in the fracking waste that interferes with what the plants are trying to do to reduce [harmful] bacteria and nutriments, and you could have more pollution. I can’t imagine why the DEC thinks it’s reasonable to allow that.”
Howarth pointed to the example of Pennsylvania, which recently banned the treatment of fracking wastewater from municipal WWTPs after pollutants from the wastewater caused unprecedented problems in waterways that supplied drinking water.
He and other experts cited the example of the Monongahela River, which supplies drinking water to nearly a million residents of Pittsburgh and was found to have very high concentrations of total dissolved solids (TDS), which contain toxic metals and are a byproduct of fracking wastewater.
Pittsburgh had to find alternative sources of drinking water until the problem was fixed, which was difficult and costly. Besides the brininess, the river water was also found to have increased levels of bromide, another byproduct of the fracking waste. When combined with chlorine, used to disinfect the drinking water, bromide produces toxic substances called trihalomethanes, which has been linked to increased cancer rates and birth defects if ingested for long periods of time. Tests by several water authorities in the Pittsburgh area had revealed unacceptable levels of trilalomethanes in recent years.
An article in The New York Times that was published last February revealed that fracking wastewater sent to treatment plants in Pennsylvania also contained radioactive materials, in some cases 100 times as high as the levels set by federal drinking-water standards (at 15 wells, the level was 1,000 times the safe standard).
In response to the rising concerns about the drinking water contamination, the Pennsylvania Department of Protection first reduced the amount of fracking wastewater that could be treated in WWTP to 5 percent of the initial amount, then 1 percent, then banned it entirely starting last spring. (The ban was initially voluntarily, and the industry complied, saying it was resorting to recycling the fracking wastewater and shipment of the waste to Ohio.)
DEC downplays it
In New York, Emily DeSantis, spokeswoman for the DEC office in Albany, said that no wastewater treatment plant had yet been successfully permitted to accept the hydrofracking wastewater. She claimed that plants that have been processing gas-drilling wastewater are getting it from vertical-well operations, which she implied is less toxic. (See sidebar.) “Modifications would need to be made of facilities in New York before they could accept any wastewater,” she wrote in an e-mail. DeSantis also suggested that the volumes of wastewater would not be significant, given that “the gas drilling industry has made great strides in its reuse of wastewater — 90 percent is recycled.”
I think this is BS – a story meant to scare people with poor facts. Try some actual journalism for a change…
Based on what? If you genuinely care to find the truth, take a ride down to Bradford county, PA. I did, and I saw for myself firsthand the aftermath of hydrofracking. People are being poisoned, robbed (of land equity), and gagged (gag orders in exchange for water from the perpetrators of the aquifer contamination). Thousands of people’s lives have been utterly destroyed by hydrofracking. It’s not too late yet for you to see this, and do something to protect yourself from the same fate.
Perhaps, Bobalo Smith works for a gas company who wants to drill.
This is not news. Any industrial waste water can be considered uber-toxic. Uber being borderline hysterical. So much for un-biased reporting.
Why does one have to be un-biased about facts? Why are you so biased against simple caution and common sense?
Congratulations to the Kingston times for this informative article. Do you want to end up like the impoverished landowners in Appalachia? This is as destructive as mountain top removal coal mining. Don’t believe the hype the gas companies are spreading. We have a lot to defend.
speaking and acting graphically to wake up a population that has been Resting In Peace(r.i.p.) for so long seems to be unavoidable. Thank you for this information. I think more of this sort of reasoning is highly necessary.
Bobalo Smith and Ed Leighton,
Please explain why you think my article is “BS” and biased. What is the basis for your insinuation that disposal of fracking wastewater is safe, and that it’s “borderline hysterical” to assume otherwise? I, and the Kingston Times, strive for accuracy so we would very much like to know why you think this article is inaccurate.
Good journalism.
And when, for goodness sake, are we going to stop these insane methods of getting energy from the earth?! When, oh, when, will we use solar for our needs?
When Mario Cuomo was NYS governor, and the Shoreham nuclear plant was about to go online, protests erupted and he actually heeded the warnings of the dangers to NY residents and land: It didn’t open. So, Andrew? Do what your dad did and pay attention to the people. Stop hydrofracking; stop nuclear plants; do something honorable and make it a law that buildings be “solarized”; do it for the next generations, would ya?
People in favor of this terribly toxic method of getting energy from the earth support it for the love of money, and the lack of imagination and vision, lack of respect for nature. They insult and degrade those of us with higher values for being truth-tellers, and questioners of authority. Horizontal fracturing is a monstrous proposal. Any morally and intellectually average fifth grader would agree. The waste of our water resources alone is reason enough to reject it. Millions of gallons of clean water per well. Sick! All the other problems, such as what to do with the toxic waste just make it more and more abominable. People who don’t acknowledge this are just ridiculous, and amoral, or perhaps immoral, at least on environmental stewardship issues. Who told them they can do whatever they want in life, regardless of the costs? They must learn to respect others and not just steamroll their way through life. We must stop them from destroying what most of us consider to be sacred and irreplaceable.
It seems Mr. Smith and Mr. Leighton would rather get their information from industry propaganda. Or maybe they are actually serving as paid industry propagandists. As with any battle over public opinion, I imagine the gas companies have a few people who are tasked with spreading misinformation and criticizing objective reporting on the most serious fracking issues. As a reasonable environmentalist, I used to accept natural gas as the so-called bridge to an alternative energy future. I used to think, well, at least it’s cleaner than coal and less risky than nuclear. I almost invested in natural gas equities, hoping to make a killing from the inevitable boom. But no longer. As I wade through the troubling facts and become educated about the impacts, it is more and more obvious that this industrial process is not worth it. I hope Gov. Cuomo comes to this realization soon–we need to speak up and help him realize that it’s just not worth it. Those who favor hydrofracking and who aggressively criticize its opponents are either uneducated about the facts, or paid off in one way or another, it’s that simple. Those who believe that an economic boom is inevitable as soon as the first new well is permitted are sadly naive. Get with it folks. Stick to the facts. Reject the propaganda. Before it’s too late.
THANK YOU, Kingston Times and Lynn Woods. The article represents impeccable journalism, and if anything it was understated in terms of the damage toxic, radioactive, produced frack fluid would do to the
Kingston Waste Water Treatment system.
1) The toxic chemicals are labeled “Hazardous Waste” when they are put into the wells. When they return to the surface they magically turn into “industrial” waste. The magic of the industry’s lobby efforts, that is.
2)Waste treatment plants use live creatures–bacteria–to process sewage. This fluid is full of biocides and other poisons which will destroy the bacteria.
3)World renown sewage expert, Al Appleton, says the fluid will go in and then back out into the Rondout without mitigation.
4)The fluid is super salty, beyond anything sewage plants can handle
5)The trucks, which would ruin our lovely Rondout neighborhood, would not be marked with specific contents because the compounds are proprietory, exempt from Clean Water laws and vary greatly from drill pad to drill pad.
6)Kingston might be tempted (for the hefty fees involved) but would be nuts to accept this stuff.
thanks again, Kingston Times.