Fracking documents show radioactive pollution that sewage and water plants can't handle

A review of documents obtained from the Environmental Protection Agency, Pennsylvania regulators and natural-gas drilling companies show the dangers of hydraulic fracturing are greater than previously understood, The New York Times reports. "The wastewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle," Ian Urbina writes. Other documents show some EPA scientists worry that fracking wastewater is a threat to drinking water.

Those concerns are partially based on a 2009 study by an EPA consultant that was never released to the public but found "some sewage treatment plants were incapable of removing certain drilling waste contaminants and were probably violating the law," Urbina writes. The newspaper also discovered never-reported studies from EPA and another from an industry group that all concluded "radioactivity in drilling waste cannot be fully diluted in rivers and other waterways," Urbina writes. Still federal and state regulators are allowing most sewage treatment plants to accept drilling waste without testing for radioactivity, which is found naturally in many shales. For a diagram showing how fracking works, from Pro Publica, click here.

"Most drinking-water intake plants downstream from those sewage treatment plants in Pennsylvania, with the blessing of regulators, have not tested for radioactivity since before 2006, even though the drilling boom began in 2008," Urbina writes. Fracking, which uses millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals to release natural gas from dense shale formations, is the bright spot in domestic energy production. However, some experts fear that adequate safety precautions are being sacrificed to reduce dependence on foreign sources. "We’re burning the furniture to heat the house," John H. Quigley, who left last month as secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, told Urbina. "In shifting away from coal and toward natural gas, we’re trying for cleaner air, but we’re producing massive amounts of toxic wastewater with salts and naturally occurring radioactive materials, and it’s not clear we have a plan for properly handling this waste." (Read more) (NYT graphic showing well sites, water plants and amount of radioactivity over the federal limit found in wastewater from 149 Pennsylvania wells; click on map for larger version, here for online interacvtive map)