Effective treatment of fracking waste is still not understood
Sackville Tribune-Post
8 September 2013
Between 20 and 40% of the water used when hydrofracking a well, returns to the
surface as waste water. The toxic chemicals contained in the waste water, derived from the original fracking fluid, include heavy metals, volatile organic compounds (voc's) and radioactive materials. This flowback or semi-treated waste water should be treated in plants specializing in the decontamination of produced water, but there are few active treatment plants with the technology to do this and some doubt that it is feasible at the present time. Insufficiently treated waste water is routinely released into lakes and rivers contaminating them with carcinogenic chemicals.
In 2011 The New York Times ran a series of articles on the radioactivity in waste water. Treatment plants that claim to clean waste water are unable to deal with any radioactive materials, natural elements found deep in the earth, which also rise to the surface along with fracking fluids. The Times study also revealed that more than 1.3 billion gallons of waste water produced by Pennsylvania wells from 2008-2010 were sent to treatment plants not equipped to remove hazardous chemicals. The Pennsylvania treatment plants subsequently discharged untreated waste into the state's major river basin which connects to waterways that are the water source for millions of urban residents.
As a result of the problems involved in treating waste water, approval to allow construction of open pits containing flowback has been granted in several states, despite the hazards they represent in the event of flooding and potential human and animal exposure.
Another option industry can employ, to avoid the nuisance and expense of water treatment, is to inject the contaminated water back into the earth. Evidence indicates that wells drilled to bury this waste have repeatedly leaked returning the chemicals to the surface once again, threatening aquifers that provide water to many rural wells.
Nova Scotia's initial experiment with gas exploration subsequently produced fracking waste water that could not be treated locally and was ultimately flushed untreated into the Minas Basin. Even though so little was done in the way of fracking the company involved didn't have the technological expertise to maintain some level of control over events that caused serious environmental harm. The government of Nova Scotia displayed a lack of regulatory oversight over an industry that was too pervasive to care about the health and safety of local residents. The question is, what might occur if Nova Scotia (currently engaged in a 2 year moratorium on fracking) or New Brunswick (preparing to move forward with shale gas exploration) start fracking in earnest?
In March of 2012 Exxon Mobil commented on the treatment process as follows: "More precise experiments and analyses are needed for a reliable evaluation. The same is true of the treatment of radioactive polluted reservoir water."* In the same article written by one of their own scientists they admit that: "We currently regard the treatment of waste water as possible, but not viable for economic reasons. Hence the preference for deep well injection."*
The only interpretation we can take from this is that the industry that has been fracking for the last ten years is allowed by governments to continue this practice without the knowledge or the means to effectively treat or dispose of the toxic hazardous waste they produce. The EPA in the U.S. has stated that they will: "gather data, consult with stakeholders and solicit public opinion on proposed categorical standards for shale gas in 2014."**
The hydrofracking nightmare is proving to be the source of one environmental horror after another, a series of interconnected events causing the contamination of air, water and land, that worsen with each new disclosure of the harm being done. We have the opportunity in the months leading up to the next provincial election to let the government know that we as residents of New Brunswick will not allow the shale gas industry access to our cities, towns and rural communities because of the potential harm that it represents to our health and well being. It's an opportunity that the folks in Pennsylvania deeply regret they never had.
Donna Mclellan for the
Tantramar Alliance Against Hydrofracking
* Rosenwinkel, Karl Heinz, State of the Art and Progressive Approaches to Flowback Disposal, 2012
**Water Environment Federation, Fact Sheet
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