Michael Giberson
The recent New York Times series on natural gas fracking suggested that poorly treated produced water was being discharged into streams and rivers in Pennsylvania, and that disposal of produced water was a larger environmental issue than groundwater contamination from poorly completed wells. A key concern raised in both industry and regulator documents discussed in the article was the potential radiation hazard, since the produced water will usually pick up radioactive components under ground and bring them to the surface. (In an earlier post I lauded one article in the series for “advancing the public’s understanding of the issue.)
An Associated Press story today reports that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has been monitoring water quality at several locations downriver from wastewater treatment plants handling the post-fracking produced water. The Pennsylvania DEP said all water samples from November and December showed levels of radioactivity “at or below the normal naturally occurring background levels of radioactivity.”
(Reader ‘Fat Man’, commenting on the earlier post, used the data accompanying the news story and a couple of simple calculations to conclude that radioactivity should not be a concern.)
ADDED: Oil and gas industry group Energy in Depth offers responses to the recent New York Times articles on fracking, see “Third times the charm” and “On Wastewater and The New York Times.”