Where Fracksylvania Dumps Its Waste
Turns out to be in New York state, in addition to Ohio, where Fracksylvania’s toxic radioactive frack sludge is too hot to handle – so the Ohio landfills can’t take it. Because shale is radioactive, drilling horizontally through it and bringing the drill cuttings and contaminated drilling fluids (“mud”) back to the surface is basically mining radioactive material. Then fracking it with a few million gallons of toxic fluid is “solution mining” the radioactive and toxic materials out of the shale – in the form of flowback – which is either recycled, which concentrates the toxic radioactive materials, or processing it into a toxic radioactive sludge. Then there is the backflow of frack sand – fine silica, which of course what causes sillicosis. All of which the fracking gasholes have to get rid of somewhere . . . like a landfill. Or a dirt road. Or a trout stream.
Such profligate wastage of water is being facilitated in New York state by some of your friendly neighborhood environmental NGO’s, who helped the state pass a bill to provide water for frackers – for free. With NGO’s like that, who needs gas industry lobbyists ?
But look on the bright side – the toxic salty brine will keep your roads ice free in the winter, kill roadside weeds, and the radium 226 will build up in the ditches, creating a “glow zone” on either side of the road, which will make driving at night safer without your headlights. Just don’t go near the ditches or drink local well water. Or live near a road with frack brine on it or a landfill that takes frackwaste and you should be OK. For awhile.
If you live near a landfill, this fracking waste could be coming your way – in truck convoys and by the trainload - unless you prohibit such land uses in your town via a comprehensive land plan – and prohibit your town from taking frackwaste at its muni treatment plant. Cuomo won’t protect you. The DEC won’t protect you. Nor will Obama. You protect you. Many town board seats are up for grabs next year. Take one.
This from Karen Edelstein:
PA Department of Environmental Protection provides well production and waste data. I’ve pulled out the sites in PA that ship their waste to NYS from January 2011 to June 2012. Click on the dots for pop-up windows with more information. Also, know that the second button from the left will expand the table of contents so you can toggle on and off the 2011 and 2012 data.
In summary:
In 2011, 5 NYS landfills (Angelica, Lowman, Niagara Falls, Painted Post, and Waterloo) received a total of:
- 213,724.44 tons of drill cuttings
- 8590 Bbls of drilling fluid
- 1320 BBls of flow-back fluid
- 443.47 tons of flow-back fracturing sand
- 445 BBls of produced fluid
From January to June, 2012, 3 NYS landfills (at Lowman, Niagara Falls, and Painted Post) received a total of:
- 54,958.36 tons of drill cuttings
- 8199.48 Bbl of drilling fluids
- 55.7 tons of flow-back fracturing sand
Caveat – the Pa. DEP (Department of Environmental Prevarication) doesn’t really know where all this fracking waste goes out of state – they don’t even know whether the frackers are telling the truth or not and say so via a disclaimer on their website:
Pa. DEP adds disclaimer to gas drilling data site
Nov. 13, 2012, 6:04 p.m. EST AP
http://www.pennlive.com/
PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has added a disclaimer to its Marcellus Shale natural gas reporting Web page. The agency now tells visitors to the website that it can’t guarantee the “accuracy, completeness or timeliness” of production data that companies submit and that “no warranty of any kind is given by DEP with respect to the production data.”
