Frackers Finding Some Opposition in PA

frack­ing in Dimock PA

I said I wasn't going to post much about frack­ing in Penn­syl­va­nia, but this was too big to pass up:

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Cit­ing poten­tial­ly unsafe drink­ing water, Penn­syl­va­nia called on com­pa­nies drilling in the Mar­cel­lus Shale nat­ur­al gas for­ma­tion to stop tak­ing waste­water to 15 treat­ment plants by May 19.

Tuesday's announce­ment was a major change in the state's reg­u­la­tion of gas drilling and came the same day that an indus­try group said it now believes drilling waste­water is part­ly at fault for ris­ing lev­els of bro­mide being found in Pitts­burgh-area rivers.

Gas drilling that uses mil­lions of gal­lons of chem­i­cal-laden water has rapid­ly grown in the past three years in Pennsylvania.

In oth­er major gas-drilling states, drilling waste­water is kept out of rivers large­ly by inject­ing it deep under­ground into dis­pos­al wells. But in Penn­syl­va­nia, some drilling waste­water is treat­ed by sew­er author­i­ties, large­ly in west­ern Penn­syl­va­nia, and dis­charged into rivers.

Those waste­water plants, how­ev­er, are ill-equipped to remove all the pol­lu­tants, and Penn­syl­va­nia still allows hun­dreds of mil­lions of gal­lons of the par­tial­ly treat­ed waste­water to be dis­charged into rivers from which com­mu­ni­ties draw drink­ing water.

The state Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion cit­ed ele­vat­ed lev­els of bro­mide in rivers in west­ern Penn­syl­va­nia in its announce­ment. More.

 

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