Relax, It’s Just a Run-of-the-Mill Nuke Spill
www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/26/relax-its-just-a-run-of-the-mill-nuke-spill/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=relax-its-just-a-run-of-the-mill-nuke-spill
by DAVE LINDORFF
April 26, 2012
The Limerick Incident Wasn’t an “EPPI”
A little over a month ago, back on March 19, at 3:00 in the morning, the Limerick Nuclear Power Station, which runs two aging GE nuclear reactors along the Schuylkill River west of Philadelphia, had an accident. As much as 15,000 gallons of reactor water contaminated with five times the official safe limit of radioactive Tritium as well as an unknown amount of other dangerous isotopes from the reactor’s fission process blew off a manhole cover and ran out of a large pipe, flowing into a streambed and on into the river from which Philadelphia and a number of smaller towns draw their municipal water supplies.
No public announcement of this spill was made at the time, so the public in those communities had no idea that it had occurred, and water system operators had no opportunity to shut down their intakes from the river. There was no report about the spill in Philadelphia’s two daily newspapers or on local news programs.
Only weeks later, after the regional office of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was finally sent an official report by Exelon, the owner of the plant, did a public notice get posted on the NRC’s website, after which some excellent reporting on the incident was done by Evan Brandt, a reporter for a local paper called The Pottstown Mercury.
We contacted the NRC regional office with oversight over Limerick and were told that Exelon had only reported the incident to state authorities — the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA). A call to the DEP elicited a response that the state agency, now in the hands of a Republican governor who has shown open distain for environmental concerns ranging from nuclear waste to regulation of natural gas fracking chemicals, that it did not feel it was necessary to issue any public report on the spill. “Exelon assured us that it was not an EPPI incident,” explained DEP regional office spokeswoman Deborah Fries.
“What’s an EPPI?” she was asked. “It’s an Event of Potential Public Interest,” Fries replied.
In other words, Exelon and the state’s DEP and PEMA officials, meeting behind closed doors, agreed that the spilling of up to 15,000 gallons of radioactive isotope-laced reactor water into a river that supplies drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people was not an event of “potential public interest,” and so they didn’t make it public, thus insuring that it would not become a matter of public interest, or even of public knowledge! The logic is impeccable, though the NRC subsequently protested that Exelon should have reported the incident to the commission, which would automatically have posted it on its website as public notice of a spill.
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Ex-DEP Official Says All Pa. Oil, Gas Waste Needs Treatment
www.manufacturing.net/news/2012/04/ex-dep-official-says-all-pa-oil-gas-waste-needs-treatment
Mon, 04/16/2012
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A former top environmental official says Pennsylvania’s successful efforts to keep Marcellus Shale wastewater away from drinking water supplies should be extended to all other oil and gas drillers.
“It’s the same industry. It is the same contaminants. And the goal should be the same,” said George Jugovic Jr., who was formerly the Department of Environmental Protection’s southwest regional director. He’s now president of PennFuture, an environmental group.
An AP analysis of state data found that in the second half of 2011 about 1.86 million barrels — or about 78 million gallons — of drilling wastewater from conventional oil and gas wells were still being sent to treatmentplants that discharge into rivers.
The core issue is whether a problem in waterways has been solved, or if more needs to be done.
In 2010 health experts raised alarms when they found soaring levels of ultra-salty bromides in rivers and streams that are major sources of drinking water. The general view was that wastewater from Marcellus Shalegas drilling — polluted with heavy bromides from deep underground — was contributing to the problem.
High levels of bromides can contaminate drinking water with levels that exceed national safety standards and are potentially harmful. Though not considered a pollutant by themselves, the bromides combine with the chlorine used in water treatment to produce trihalomethanes, which may cause cancer if ingested over a long period of time.
Bromide levels were so high in rivers during 2010 that they caused corrosion at some plants that were using the water.
But since the spring of 2011 most Marcellus drillers have been recycling the fluids, or sending then to deep underground wells mostly in Ohio.
The gas-rich Marcellus, which lies thousands of feet underground, has attracted a gold rush of drillers who have drilled almost 5,000 new wells in the last five years. But the state also has about 70,000 older oil and gaswells, according to DEP statistics, that target different, shallower reserves.
Researchers say the bromide levels did drop last summer, but they had also expected even more of a decline after virtually all of the Marcellus Shale drillers stopped disposing wastewater into plants that discharge into rivers.
But conventional oil and gas wells weren’t included in last year’s recycling push — a loophole that state environmental officials downplayed at the time.
Jugovic said DEP secretary Mike Krancer should now take “the next step” and get voluntary compliance from the rest of the gas industry.
“It’s hard scientifically to justify a distinction between treating conventional wastewater differently. The wastewater is being disposed in plants that are not capable of treating those contaminants,” he said.
Dave Mashek, a spokesman for the Pa. Independent Oil & Gas Association, declined to comment.
Kevin Sunday, a DEP spokesman, claimed that the volume of conventional oil and gas waste is “substantially smaller” than the Marcellus amounts.
But the AP found that 78 million gallons of oil and gas wastewater were still being taken to treatment plants in the last half of 2011 — about 33 percent less than the Marcellus quantity that was raising concerns in 2010, but still a substantial amount. If that rate continues, the conventional wells will send about 150 million gallons of the wastewater to treatment plants that discharge into rivers this year.
Sunday said the agency encourages wastewater recycling, “regardless of the industry involved,” and added that the conventional oil and gas drillers don’t produce as much wastewater as the Marcellus drillers.
Sunday also said that the agency has created a new, revised permit to encourage recycling of waste. Ten facilities have applied for the new permit, and if all are approved, that would double the number of such facilities in the state.
David Sternberg, a spokesman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, didn’t directly answer a question about whether there was any scientific justification for treating the non-Marcellus waste differently. Sternberg said EPA, which urged Pennsylvania regulators last year to halt the dumping, is working closely with state regulators “to ensure that, where wastewater treatment facilities are accepting oil and gas wastewaters, discharges from these treatment facilities are in compliance with the Clean Water Act.”
Jugovic said that some previous assumptions about the non-Marcellus waste turned out to be false. For example, there were suggestions that it generally contained much lower levels of bromides and other contaminants.
He said some of the shallow wells had very high levels of total dissolved solids and other contaminants that can be a problem for drinking water supplies.
Jugovic also said that the fact that 97 percent of Marcellus drillers appear to be complying with the wastewater restrictions raises a fairness issue. Why, he asked, should the conventional oil and gas drillers and the remaining 3 percent of drillers get a pass?
Now, researchers are waiting for expected lower river levels in the summer, to see if the bromide problem has really gone away. The higher flows in early spring dilute any contaminants and make it harder to draw conclusions about the bromides.
DEP asks gas driller to help remedy Franklin Twp. methane spike
citizensvoice.com/news/dep-asks-gas-driller-to-help-remedy-franklin-twp-methane-spike-1.1287800#axzz1pfKvaAid
DEP asks gas driller to help remedy Franklin Twp. methane spike
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: March 20, 2012
The Department of Environmental Protection has asked a natural gas drilling company to step in and help three Franklin Twp. families whose well water contains high levels of methane.
State environmental regulators have not determined the source of the gas and are not saying WPX Energy is responsible for the methane, DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly said. But in a letter to the driller Friday, regulators asked that WPX help address the problem.
“They can offer to put in (methane) mitigation systems. They can offer to buy bottled water. We did ask them to vent at least one well,” Ms. Connolly said.
“We’re looking at a situation where some temporary fixes need to be put in, and we’re putting the ball in WPX’s court.”
The department began investigating elevated methane in the water wells in December when residents along Route 29 in the hamlet of Franklin Forks noticed discolored water and intermittent eruptions of gas and water from their well.
WPX has been cited by the DEP for flaws in the steel and cement barriers in two of its Marcellus Shale wells closest to Franklin Forks, but the company has said those well casings were properly installed and cemented.
WPX spokeswoman Susan Oliver said that the company received the message from DEP late Friday and reached out to the department Monday to set up a meeting this week.
“WPX Energy has been a good neighbor to the Endless Mountain area,” she said, adding that the company has spent more than $2 million on road repair, charitable giving and flood relief in the last year.
Methane, the primary component of natural gas, has seeped into water supplies through faults or weaknesses in Marcellus Shale wells in other areas of Susquehanna County and the region.
The department also is investigating a natural methane seep in nearby Salt Springs State Park as a possible cause of the well contamination.
Ms. Connolly said she did not have a copy of the letter to WPX to release on Monday.
Tammy Manning, whose family of seven lives in one of the affected homes, said the amount of methane dissolved in her well water rose from 38.9 milligrams per liter during a DEP test in December to 58.4 milligrams per liter during a test this month.
A flammable gas, methane can pose a fire or explosion risk when it escapes from water and becomes trapped in enclosed spaces.
The atmosphere in the open gap in Mrs. Manning’s water well was 82 percent methane during a recent DEP test, she said – too rich to pose an explosion risk, she was told.
Methane is generally explosive at a concentration of between 5 and 15 percent in air.
As of Monday afternoon, her well was still not vented.
Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com
Driller fined for Northern Tier releases
citizensvoice.com/news/driller-fined-for-northern-tier-releases-1.1269832#axzz1ltij0snT
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: February 10, 2012
State environmental regulators have fined Chesapeake Appalachia $565,000 for three incidents at Northern Tier natural gas well sites, including an April 2011 wellhead failure in Bradford County that released thousands of gallons of wastewater into a nearby stream.
The company paid $190,000 for the failure during hydraulic fracturing of the Atgas well in Leroy Township as part of an agreement with the Department of Environmental Protection announced Thursday.
The April incident took six days to fully control and caused the company to suspend its Pennsylvania fracking operations for three weeks, regulators said. It drew national attention and raised concerns about the safety of the gas extraction process.
“The governor and I expect the highest standards to be met and when they are not, we take strong enforcement action,” DEP Secretary Michael Krancer said in a statement. “We will continue to be vigilant on that front. The protection of the state’s water is paramount.”
Environmental regulators found elevated levels of salts and barium at the confluence of a nearby stream and Towanda Creek on the day after the Bradford County spill but saw the contaminants decline to background levels over several days, DEP said.
Chesapeake continues to perform groundwater monitoring at the site. Sampling over four months showed results consistent with groundwater quality in the region, according to regulators. The company said the incident caused no lasting environmental impact.
The penalties announced Thursday also include $160,000 in fines for building a North Towanda Township well pad with “extremely high, steep slopes” in a wetland without permission, DEP said. Heavy rains in October 2010 caused part of the pad’s slope to fail, sending sediment into Sugar Creek and other small streams and wetlands.
Chesapeake removed the fill from the wetland and must build about three acres of replacement wetlands as part of its agreement with DEP.
Chesapeake also paid $215,000 for a March 2011 incident in Potter County, where sediment from an access road and well site ran off into a high-quality stream during heavy rain. The sediment clogged the water-treatment filters at the Galeton Borough water supply plant downstream, requiring $190,000 in repairs and upgrades that were paid for by Chesapeake, DEP said.
The company blamed a “pre-existing, poorly maintained logging road” for most of the sediment.
In a statement, Brian Grove, Chesapeake’s senior director of corporate development for the region, said the company “worked proactively with all appropriate regulatory agencies throughout the response and analysis of these incidents to achieve compliance, identify and implement operational improvements and ensure proper resolution.”
The company has enhanced its operations because of the incidents, he said.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
DEP secretary answers questions on Marcellus Shale drilling
republicanherald.com/news/dep-secretary-answers-questions-on-marcellus-shale-drilling-1.1269964
by mark gilger jr. (staff writer mgilgerjr@republicanherald.com)
Published: February 10, 2012
ORWIGSBURG – State Sen. David Argall, R-29, and the Schuylkill County Chamber of Commerce co-hosted a lunch meeting Thursday with state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer.
The controversial subject of Marcellus Shale drilling was the topic of discussion as Krancer answered questions from chamber members concerning the bill passed Wednesday by the House of Representatives that established a county-option drilling impact fee and the state review of local drilling ordinances.
“At the end of the day, my job is to make good choices – which I think we are – to obtain this resource and use it in a safe and effective manner,” Krancer said Thursday at the meeting at Madeline’s restaurant.
Gov. Tom Corbett is expected to sign the bill, which received a vote of 101-90 in the House. The Senate approved the same bill Tuesday.
“The House made the right call. The Senate made the right call. We thank them for that and all of Pennsylvania should thank them,” Krancer said.
The danger of water contamination has been one of the harshest criticisms raised against the drilling and was addressed Thursday by Krancer.
“There is a culture of half-truth and misinformation and that is where I try to help out by providing information,” Krancer said. “I think it was Mark Twain that said, ‘A lie makes it halfway around the world by the time the truth gets its boots on.’ Well, I’ve seen that a lot in the last few years.”
The latest legislation extends drilling to 500 feet from existing buildings or water wells, 1,000 feet from water used by a supplier, and 300 feet from any body of water greater than one acre.
Drillers can also be held responsible for pollution of waterways within 2,500 feet of a well for up to one year after completion. Previously, responsibility lasted only six months after completion of a well within 1,000 feet of a body of water. Maximum penalties for violations were also increased from $300 to $1,000.
“We have county commissioners and conservation districts on board saying let’s go for it, and in light of that I really have to say that the folks that are decrying the legislation are really out on the fringe,” Krancer said. “The House and the Senate did absolutely the right thing and it’s a huge step forward to be able to responsibly harness this great resource that is under our feet.”
The law allows counties with active wells to collect impact fees from drillers. Wells producing less than 90,000 cubic feet of gas per day will be exempt from the fee, which can be enacted by a county 60 days after the law is put into effect and can be retroactive for 2011. The bill also gives municipalities the ability to pursue an impact fee if not put into place by the county.
The fees will be collected by the Public Utility Commission and 60 percent will go to municipalities with the ordinance and 40 percent will be used for state environmental projects.
“I think the number-one priority of this administration is to get Pennsylvanians working again,” Krancer said.
While answering a question, Krancer said the bill also addresses concerns of municipalities losing their zoning privileges. He said the bill is simply a way to create uniformity of environmental standards and municipalities will retain zoning ordinances.
“It’s about private property and allowing those who want to use their private property the way they want to use it,” Krancer said.
Another question asked Thursday concerned the possibility of creating a level playing field for the booming Marcellus Shale industry in the Northeast.
“We are not going to live in a world where a state does not compete with another state,” Krancer said. “Capital competes, even within its own company. Capital is mobile and it will go. Economics is amoral.”
PennEnvironment Research and Policy Center has voiced its disapproval of the law based on an argument that it will strip control from local governments and will set one of the lowest impact fee rates in the nation.
“We have opposed the bill since it lacked any kind of local provisions,” Erika Staaf, clean water advocate for PennEnvironment, said Thursday. “If legislators were looking to pass a proposal that will allow more gas drilling near people’s homes, and the parks, playgrounds and schools where our children play and spend their days, then mission accomplished. Prior to the bill, drilling was kept to where it was wanted. At this point, any company can just drill in a commercial district.”
Drillers cited for 3,300 environmental violations in 4 years
citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/drillers-cited-for-3-300-environmental-violations-in-4-years-1.1269336#axzz1ltij0snT
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: February 9, 2012
Marcellus Shale drillers in Pennsylvania were cited for more than 3,300 violations of state environmental laws in the last four years, according to a tally released Wednesday by the environmental organization PennEnvironment.
The data, compiled from state records, revealed a wide array of violations committed by 64 different companies.
More than two-thirds of the violations were for problems likely to have an environmental impact while less than a third were related to paperwork or permitting, according to PennEnvironment’s sorting of the codes the state uses to designate violations.
The organization removed duplicate violation data and looked to descriptions or legal citations in violation reports to interpret violations classified under non-specific codes by state regulators, PennEnvironment spokeswoman Erika Staaf said.
Erosion and sedimentation problems were the most common source of environmental violations, with 625 citations, followed by faulty pollution prevention controls (550), improper waste management (340), and pollution discharges (307).
PennEnvironment found that Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. had the most violations with 412, including 161 in 2011 – the most violations by a Marcellus Shale driller last year.
Chesapeake Appalachia, Chief Oil and Gas, and Talisman Energy USA all had more than 300 violations during the four-year study period, although Talisman cut its violations from 154 in 2010 to just 30 in 2011, according to the report.
Of drillers with more than 10 Marcellus wells in the state, XTO Energy, an ExxonMobil subsidiary, had the highest rate of violations, with an average of three violations for every well it drilled.
Staaf said the study “demonstrates that Marcellus Shale gas drilling companies are either unable or unwilling to comply with basic environmental laws that have been put in place to protect the health and environment of Pennsylvanians.”
The organization called on state leaders to halt shale gas drilling until companies prove it can be done safely.
The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group, said PennEnvironment lost all credibility when it circulated a photo of a flooded drilling rig from Pakistan last fall and mistakenly described it as a Marcellus Shale operation.
“Natural gas development, which supports nearly 229,000 jobs in the Commonwealth, is aggressively and tightly regulated,” coalition spokesman Steve Forde said. “Suggesting otherwise may grab a headline or two, but such claims are simply not supported by the facts.”
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Landfill proposes to mill Marcellus waste
citizensvoice.com/news/landfill-proposes-to-mill-marcellus-waste-1.1267758#axzz1lW6h1Lkv
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: February 6, 2012
Keystone Sanitary Landfill plans to process rock waste from natural gas drilling at its properties in Throop and Dunmore in a switch from its years-old practice of accepting already processed waste from the region’s Marcellus Shale well sites.
The first-of-its-kind facility in the state, proposed in a permit application to the Department of Environmental Protection in December, has raised concerns in Throop, where community leaders oppose Keystone taking the waste at all.
“Bad enough bringing the stuff here,” Throop council President Thomas Lukasewicz said, “but treating it here is almost like adding insult to injury.”
Keystone proposes to import the rock waste, called cuttings, in “unprocessed or unsolidified form” then mix it in a custom-designed mill with lime-based material to solidify it for disposal or as a replacement for soil to cover the working face of the landfill at the end of each day.
The landfill has been accepting cuttings for years from Marcellus Shale drillers who mix it with lime or sawdust at their well sites. The cuttings are displaced as the drillers bore to and through the gas-bearing rock about a mile underground.
Keystone accepts 600 tons of cuttings daily, the landfill said last spring in an application to increase its total daily waste capacity, which is pending. It wants to increase its daily intake of cuttings to at least 1,000 tons – the processing capacity of the mill.
The cuttings will be captured in water-tight containers placed at drill sites, trucked to the landfill and processed six days a week, according to the application.
Efforts to reach Keystone site manager Joseph Dexter were unsuccessful.
Penn State Cooperative Extension associate David Yoxtheimer, a member of the university’s Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research, said it makes sense for the landfill to want to process the rock waste itself so the finished product used for daily cover is uniform.
“It would ensure they would get a more consistent material that meets their needs,” he said, “rather than get 10 different companies giving them the material which would probably vary in composition and texture.”
It might also be appealing to gas drillers, whose space at a well site is limited and whose costs might be higher with the current practice of processing containers of waste on site, one by one, he said.
Although Keystone refers to the lime-based material – either quick lime or lime kiln dust – as a “bulking” or “drying” agent for the sometimes-saturated cuttings, it is also used to counteract the potential for the rock to produce acidic runoff.
The gas-rich layers of the Marcellus Shale coveted by drillers also contain pyrite, which, when exposed to oxygen and water, can produce acidic, metals-laden fluid similar to the acid mine drainage associated with the region’s abandoned mines.
“If you mix it with enough lime it might counteract those properties,” Yoxtheimer said.
Keystone does not expect the cuttings to change the chemistry of the landfill’s wastewater, called leachate, which is treated then discharged through sewer lines to the Scranton Sewer Authority, according to its application. But it is not entirely sure what might concentrate in the rain and wash water that runs off the mill site into its treatment system.
“Given that this process is the first of its kind in Pennsylvania, there is not data on the exact makeup of the wash water that will be collected, stored and disposed of as a result of Keystone’s drill cuttings processing facility,” the landfill wrote in its application.
Such unknowns have alarmed Throop officials, who petitioned the DEP to consider the mill proposal a “major,” not “minor,” modification of the landfill’s permit – a classification that would trigger a more thorough public vetting of the project.
“Throop Council feels there is enough information confirming the need for a change in the approved leachate collection and treatment method, change in the groundwater monitoring plan, and the submission of a radiation protection action plan,” all items that should trigger a major permit review, council solicitor Louis A. Cimini wrote in a Jan. 11 letter.
DEP continues to consider the proposal a minor permit modification, a spokeswoman said.
Marcellus cuttings can contain elevated levels of naturally occurring metals and radioactive material, including radium-226, which is a key concern for Throop officials.
Recent DEP tests of the cuttings at Keystone found radium-226 “slightly elevated” above the background levels found in the region’s soil, but at a level that “does not present any worker exposure, public health, safety and welfare or environmental concerns,” the agency wrote.
The radiation monitor that screens all incoming waste loads at the landfill was triggered at least 19 times between July and November, but none of those incidents involved drill cuttings, a DEP spokeswoman said.
Throop has hired a contractor to do its own testing and plans to sample loads it suspects might have elevated levels of radioactivity.
Adding to Throop’s concerns is Keystone’s proposal to speed up the approvals necessary for it to accept cuttings from new gas well pads. Instead of having a laboratory analyze and submit the chemical makeup of the waste from each pad, as required by state regulations, the landfill wants to receive a full analysis for a gas operator’s first eight well sites then a summary of that data and an “abbreviated review” for the next 20 sites.
Past data indicated only small variations between the makeup of the drill cuttings from across the region, Keystone argued. The landfill will require drillers to sign a certification form indicating they used the same drilling process and materials for new wells as for past wells.
A full analysis will be submitted to the state and Keystone once a year.
DEP has approved the expedited procedure, a spokeswoman said.
llegere@timesshamrock.com
DEP Investigating Three Spills at Gas Well
http://www.wnep.com/videobeta/3866ad3c-c127-4d9a-988c-f27dd79637bf/News/DEP-Investigating-Three-Spills-at-Gas-Well
Cabot raises new questions about EPA data in Dimock
citizensvoice.com/news/cabot-raises-new-questions-about-epa-data-in-dimock-1.1265510#axzz1lEh9vXRN
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: February 1, 2012
Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. sharply criticized federal regulators’ rationale for investigating a potential link between the company’s natural gas operations and contamination in Dimock Township water supplies on Tuesday, saying the government selectively cited or misinterpreted past water quality data to justify its probe.
The statement was Cabot’s fifth in less than two weeks seeking to raise doubts about an ongoing investigation renewed in December by the Environmental Protection Agency that involves widespread water sampling in the Susquehanna County township where Cabot has drilled dozens of Marcellus Shale natural gas wells.
The EPA is providing replacement drinking water supplies to four homes where water tests taken by Cabot, the state and others raised health concerns the agency said range from “potential” to “imminent and substantial” threats. It is also performing comprehensive water tests on as many as 66 wells in a 9-square-mile area of Dimock.
In its statement Tuesday, Cabot said the data shows there are “no health concerns with the water wells.” Instead, the agency’s decision to deliver water was based on data points the EPA selected over years of Cabot sampling, the company said, “without adequate knowledge or consideration of where or why the samples were collected, when they were taken, or the naturally occurring background levels for those substances throughout the Susquehanna County area.”
“It appears that EPA selectively chose data on substances it was concerned about in order to reach a result it had predetermined,” it said.
In its statement and through a spokesman, Cabot said the data highlighted by the EPA to justify its investigation is often old, “cherry-picked” to ignore more representative data, mistakenly attributed to the wrong sources or explained by natural conditions.
For example, the driller said the evidence EPA highlighted to show high arsenic levels in one water well was actually “a sample of the local public water supply that is provided to the town of Montrose by Pennsylvania American Water” – a contention Pennsylvania American Water refuted Tuesday with test data from the Montrose public water supply.
“We test for arsenic in all of our water systems,” Pennsylvania American Water spokeswoman Susan Turcmanovich said. “If there was any detection of arsenic at any level, it would be reported in the water quality report” sent to all of its customers and posted online. The reports for 2010 and 2011 show arsenic was not detected at any level, she said.
Cabot said a high sodium level cited by the EPA was found in a sample that was taken after the water ran through a softener, which raised the sodium by three to four times the level found straight from the water well.
It also said arsenic and manganese – two of the contaminants found at elevated levels and flagged by the EPA – are naturally occurring and “not associated with natural gas drilling.”
Both compounds are often found in the large quantities of wastewater that flow back from Marcellus Shale wells after hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, but Cabot spokesman George Stark said the company does not use either compound in its operations and there is “no natural pathway” underground for the wastewater to reach aquifers.
The EPA did not issue a direct response to Cabot’s newest statement. Instead, it released a letter from an assistant administrator and regional administrator sent Tuesday in response to an earlier letter from Cabot CEO Dan Dinges to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson raising concerns about the investigation.
“We did not take this step lightly but felt compelled to intervene when we became aware of monitoring data, developed largely by Cabot, indicating the presence of several hazardous substances in drinking water samples, including some at levels of health concern,” wrote Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, and Region 3 Administrator Shawn M. Garvin.
“Because the data available was incomplete and of uncertain quality, we determined that additional monitoring was prudent.”
The agency began providing replacement water only after it asked Cabot to deliver water and the company refused, they wrote.
Under criticism from both Cabot and Pennsylvania regulators for their actions, the administrators also emphasized the legal and scientific basis for their actions, which they called complementary with the state’s role. The Superfund law, which the EPA said authorizes its Dimock investigation, has allowed the agency to undertake similar water deliveries and investigations at “hundreds of sites across the country … when the presence of hazardous substances posed a potential risk to drinking water.” they wrote.
“States have important frontÂline responsibilities in permitting natural gas extraction, and we respect and support their efforts,” they wrote. “But EPA likewise has important oversight responsibilities and acts as a critical backstop when public health or the environment may be at risk.”
llegere@timesshamrock.com
Officials: Threat of radon high in state
www.timesleader.com/news/Officials__Threat_of_radon_high_in_state_01-31-2012.html
By NAOMI CREASON The Sentinel, Carlisle
January 31, 2012
There are a number of concerns when buying or owning a home, but the state Department of Environmental Protection is hoping homeowners pay attention to a specific odorless and radioactive gas — radon.
Bob Lewis, the program manager for DEP’s Radon Division, finds that most people don’t really think of radon, even though Pennsylvania residents should worry about the levels in their home.
“Pennsylvania could be one of the worst states in the country,” Lewis said. “There’s a handful of states that show high levels of radon, and we’re up there. I think about 49 of the 67 counties in the state are EPA zoned 1 counties. It’s just a characteristic of our geography. It’s easy for gas to migrate through the ground.”
The federal Environmental Protection Agency splits the country into three zones of radon levels, with Zone 1 being the highest and Zone 3 having the lowest levels. Pennsylvania just happens to find itself in a Zone 1 hotspot, where levels of radon are most often above the acceptable limit. Not all of Pennsylvania is Zone 1.
Radon is a gas that rises from the soil. Radon levels are low enough outside that no one really has to worry about the risk being outside. However, radon can build up in enclosed spaces, such as homes, and increase the level of indoor radon to dangerous levels.
Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer, and the leading cause in non-smokers. Radon is expected to be the cause of 20,000 lung cancer deaths every year, according to the DEP.
“Radon affects the lungs,” Lewis said. “Because it’s a gas, you breathe it in. The particles lodge on the lining tissue in the tracheal/bronchial part of the lung, and those particles are radioactive. It gives off radioactive emissions in the lung, which affects the DNA.”
There isn’t a set exposure level of radon that means all residents will get lung cancer. Those who smoke are much more likely to get lung cancer when being additionally exposed to radon, while it could be hit-and-miss for non-smokers who live in homes with high levels of radon, especially depending on how long a person has lived in that home.
“The best possible thing you can do is test your house,” Lewis said. “It’s so easy to do. You can get a test kit that costs $25 or $30 from a home center and test your house. We generally test in the basement, so you get the worst-case scenario number. People don’t realize they could test for it. I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and that seems to be the biggest misconception.”