Study: Treatment plant kept releasing radioactive fracking wastewater even after agreeing to stop

A study in Indiana County, Pennsylvania (Wikipedia map) by Duke University found radium in a creek downstream from a wastewater treatment plant, indicating that "the plant continued to treat and release wastewater from Marcellus [Shale] fracking sites" even though the plant and the Pennsylvania Environmental Protection Department said it stopped in 2011, David Conti reports for the Tribune-Review in Pittsburgh.

The state agency and plant owner Fluid Recovery Services "signed an agreement in May that bars the facility from accepting, treating or discharging wastewater from unconventional drilling operations, such as those used to extract natural gas from the Marcellus Shale through hydraulic fracturing," Conti reports.

Devesh Mittal, vice president of Aquatech, which bought Fluid Recovery Services this year, denied the claim. Study co-author Avner Vengosh said data from the peer-reviewed study, to be published in Environmental Science & Technology, "showed the ratio of fracking wastewater in the creek decreased but never disappeared," Conti writes. Lisa Kasianowitz, spokesperson for the DEP, "said regulators monitor what the plant discharges and have been back to the Josephine plant since May to ensure no more fracking water is treated or discharged." (Read more)