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Untreated Radioactive Wastewater from Hydrofracking Dumped in Rivers, Stream
Newly disclosed figures show wastewater produced from the natural gas drilling practice of hydrofracking has contained radioactivity and other contaminants at levels far exceeding federal limits. According to the New York Times, internal government documents show at least 15 wells produced wastewater with more than 1,000 times the amount of radioactive elements considered acceptable. The wastewater is sometimes brought to sewage plants ill-equipped to properly treat it and then disposed into rivers supplying drinking water. At least 12 sewage plants in three states discharged partly treated wastewater and waste into rivers and streams. The documents also show government regulators and industry officials knew of the problems with the wastewater disposal and treatment but took no action. On Tuesday, protesters rallied following a New York City Council hearing on plans to open the parts of New York state watershed to drilling. This is Joe Levine of the group N.Y. H20.
Joe Levine: "They know it’s contaminating, and they’re doing it anyway. The 18,000 wells is a projection. There could likely be very many more than 18,000 wells. They haven’t been approved. They would be allowed to proceed if these regulations are completed and put out. So once they complete these regulations, gas drilling will be able to commence in the Delaware River Basin."
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19 Comments so far
Show Allwe are, currently, two creatures: a worker, and an animal...
the worker poisons the water supply earning his money to pay the rent...
his shift ends, and the animal, one and the same creature, returns home to drink the poisoned water, along with his family...
if we cannot purge the worker, and his master, the banker, the animal will die...
What part of DRILL, BABY, DRILL didn't you understand ?
I sure wish Amy Goodman would name the SPECIFIC rivers and streams and SPECIFIC states where this dumping is happening. Surely she more than anyone should know that injustce has an address. Only then can poeple organize against it.
So I will have to tell you. The specific place where this is going on is the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers of Western Pennsylvania - source of water for millions all the way down to New Orleans. NOT New York; NOT the Delaware Basin, (hundreds of miles and a sub-continental divide away), like her report seems to imply.
But who cares about dirty old ugly rust belt?
everytime I encounter the subject of fracking, I think of you, Cat...
not that we don't have our own issues out here in Hanfordland, but you sure seem to be staring up at the rising wall of a looming chemical tsunami...
and not alone, as you so clearly state...
may things go as well for you as possible...no pun intended...
Speaking of workers, 15 years ago an engineering firm offered me a job on the Hanford nuclear cleanup and told be I would have 500 years of job security.
I opted for a little less job security a long way from Hanford.
I noticed that glaring omission too. Why not email her and ask? Is it so you know, for sure, the places that she was referring to? I found the report exceedingly disturbing.
Hey anybody here eat Hershey Bars?
I had a friend a while back that was bragging to me how she was given a big tour of the Hershey's plant. I tried to talk to her...but she had the memory of a flea and only believes in rainbow and butterflies....where nothing can go wrong...go wrong...go wrong...
Yeah, don't be a Debbie Downer by bringing up these glaring truths.
P.S. Let her know that Hershey's was the victim of a hostile takeover by Nestle.
Fracking should only be done in the yards of those who order the fracking. And they must have no neighbors within 500 miles.
thank you...
a tester is a good idea...
BillyY4,
Sorry to hear about your, er, need to change you user name.
Considering radon's 3.8 day half-life, how much is really left from the time it exits the well until it comes out the burner of your kitchen stove? Then again, a lot of the time the gas spends in storage or transit is in underground storage facilities in prorous geologic formations, which no doubt contain uranium and radium to replenish the radon content.
I assume that one could purchase a radon test kit and place it over their range in the kitchen instead of the basement.
"I e-mailed CD but they never explained why they busted my old posting name."
At risk of having to find a new nick myself, I will just say, they never do explain. They mostly go after people who they think are "too left". But, that isn't you.
But wait! This is legal because these energy companies bid on this BLM land FAIR and SQUARE with enough funds to cover their auction bids. On the other hand- Tim DeChristopher because he is not an real FRACKER, and didn't have enough money to play the public commons BLM auction game or buy a national park, will therefore be sent to jail for FRACKING up the FRACKING system.
Swell, selling death one cubic foot at a time.
Let me guess,
That big nasty natural gas has to go.... in favor of:
100 more nuclear plants running at 120 percent of max designed power. I dunno, what's worse? Water that can be flushed out or the very ground you stand on being uninhabitable for 600 years? Just ask the downwinders of Chernobyl how that is working out. Whoops, you can't: many of them died of radiation poisoning and cancer. An area the size of Alabama got nuked when the meltdown (of which we've had three of already in the US) couldn't be controlled.
Lucky for all, those meltdowns didn't see lava burning into the groundwater or consequentially, Pennsylvania, for example, would still be uninhabitable. Three Mile Island was actually a hydrogen explosion (NRC called it a burn) that blew doors off hinges and nuked the unsuspecting farmers not smart enough to run for it. But the nuclear mafia covered it all up and used that dangerous accident as a model of "good result" to increase the output of US plants by 20 percent.
Hot rain and tasty Hot Hershey bars was the result! But our fawning corporate media just won't cover things like Ray McGovern's arrest accurately. He's a "heckler" and radiation is harmless to you!
And god forbid someone should use their brains around here. Let's see; what should we do to avoid radiation? Install a kitchen exhaust fan or spend trillions on new nuclear plants?
Geee, what's worse? 1000 times background radiation with Natural Gas, or millions of times background radiation with nuke plants?
I have a pretty good idea...
now, send in the clowns, er, nuclear trolls...
TJ
I always appreciate you coming here. I never figured out why being anti-nuclear power is so de-rigueur for the US left. No enough of them are engineers or scientists I guess. Nuclear power plants provide good union jobs, and, as an engineer for MSHA, I could only wish coal mines had even a fraction of a (US or European) nuclear plant's fatal accident rate. They pollute a hell of a lot less than a coal-steam plant too.