Wastewater In New York Found To Be Radioactive From Gas Drilling

ProPublica:

As New York gears up for a massive expansion of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, state officials have made a potentially troubling discovery about the wastewater created by the process: It's radioactive. And they have yet to say how they'll deal with it.

Read the whole story: ProPublica

Comments

[blaharumph]

good radio interview link on this:
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/10/watchdog_new_york_state_regulation_of.
they also offer a transcript form of the interview and video if you prefer that to plain audio.

[OkieMon]

bush exempted all this from clean air and clean water rules.....the toxic gift that keeps on giving.....

[mamacat]

Another example of something the Bush White House messed up, that the Obama White House has to clean up.

Things would be so much simpler if people would just learn their lesson and stop voting for Republicans.

[lightningbolt]

Some of the worst pollution from fossil fuels comes from extracting them. We must invest heavily in renewable clean energy as soon as possible.

[ElectronoftheOne]

Indeed, even without the potentially disastrous spills, the drilling process requires 5 million gallons of water and 1,200 truckloads per well, and each well takes 4 to 5 weeks of 24/7 drilling operations to complete. The surfactants added to the fracking fluids consist of proprietary formulas of carcinogenic chemicals, which when mixed with whatever unknown substances may already exist in the shale, could form even more toxic compounds. We can live without natural gas, but we can't live without clean air and potable water.

If natural gas is being developed as a transitional fuel source, why not just skip directly over to cleaner renewable resources. Imagine the solar, wind, and geothermal installations that could be placed on the same acreage now occupied by the drilling platforms in these images:

http://www.un-naturalgas.org/image_gallery.htm

[Pem3]

Well at first I was thinking it came from a plant of ours or an illegal dumping, no we were forcing it to the surface ourselves. I wonder if this is just a localized geological deposit or is to be found in most shale deposits.

[KIVPossum]

This is not unique

[research]

Frack Pickens!

"Natural" Gas "new" reserves are from "fracking" the shale.

This requires massive amount of water, and contaminates the water table.

"Fracking" Is the perfect word to describe it.

[jsarets]

Yup, these aren't your parents' fossil hydrocarbons that sprung forth all light and sweet and $$$.

Those reserves are a dying breed. Nowadays we've turned to fracking apart rock formations and forcing water in a high pressure to extract the heavy, sour, salty sludge and gases trapped inside.

This is what passes these days for "proven reserves", scraping the bottom of the barrel to see if we can isolate energy from prehistoric toxic waste that then becomes modern toxic waste.

If we're not extremely careful, we're going to kill ourselves harvesting the back side of the peak oil/gas curve. I'm not sure it can be cost-effective to do it safely -- so I figure it will likely be done unsafely.

[KIVPossum]

As long as their is a profit to be made what does safety have to do with it?

[KIVPossum]

THERE.

Starting to spell like a republican.

[jsarets]

Ah, yes, the costs of health and safety are usually externalized.

[emily00011]

when are people going to get angry about this? T hese gas companies are ruining wells and water supplies around the whole country.

[ElectronoftheOne]

When the Bush/Cheney administration exempted gas hydrofracturing from EPA's Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, it left New York's Department of Environmental Conservation to protect the state from the environmental threats inherent in drilling for natural gas with "fracking" fluids. The DEC is currently receiving comments on the proposed regulations which will define the extent of its control over the drilling operations in NY. Once the regulations are finalized, the department would require a vastly expanded staff to enforce them, and will likely have to rely on the industry to police itself. As this newspaper article from one of NY's Marcellus shale towns illustrates, there is reason for New Yorkers to be deeply concerned about the degree to which the DEC can be relied upon for adequate environmental protection from natural gas hydrofracturing operations:

http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20091108/NEWS01/911080372&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

[joebaggadonuts]

At least when the Roman Empire fell, the groundwater wasn't contaminated. Damn you fools.

[Thermodynamics]

Radium is chemically similar to calcium.

Your body grabs it and saves it in bones. This makes it much more dangerous than a similar amount of radioactive material that that passes through the body once or just shoots you with rays, etc. Permitted levels have to be much lower for radioactive materials that are saved by the body.

Radium is the heaviest of the alkaline earth metals: beryllium, magnesium, calcium, strontium, barium, radium. They all have two electrons in their outer shells so they all have similar chemical characteristics. For example, dolomitic limestone is a carbonate rock made of both calcium and magnesium.

[Tim303]

Thanks for the info.

[KIVPossum]

Thanks. Chemistry is a language I've never learned.