For more than a half-century, there has been a widespread and largely unmonitored practice of spreading wastewater from oil and conventional gas drilling, by the millions of gallons, onto dirt and gravel roads in rural Pennsylvania.
The practice has found itself awash in controversy in recent years as a number of scientific studies have found that the wastewater brine contains unhealthy levels of radiation from naturally occurring radium as well as toxic chemicals such as benzene, iron, manganese, strontium, barium, aluminum, zinc, lithium, copper and lead.
In addition to being a hazard to human health, runoff of the wastewater can harm nearby streams, killing aquatic life and over time making streams too salty for trout, the studies found.
A recent study by Penn State found the brine is no more effective than plain water for dust control and in some cases can damage roads.
The oil and gas industry has fought back, saying the brine is a free and effective tool for municipalities and does not cause any harm to people or the environment when spread in the right places and the right times.
Just spray your roads with industrial waste to control dust. What’s the worst that could happen?
Wow that’s a crazy story, thanks for linking
The oil and gas industry has fought back, saying “We’re making money hand over fist destroying our planet, and can use that money to destroy you in any number of ways, so that we can continue destroying the planet beneath our feet.”
anyone remember this past election when both sides supported fracking and oil like it was going out of style and still do?
this is only going to get repeated and be a huge horse shit show that if cleaned up will only be done by a small group with a small amount of funding to do so with such as in Oklahoma where the Native Americans had to clean up after things like that mining town that collapsed in on itself
Hey hey now - Harris was extremely underwhelming on climate change but let’s not act like there was no difference in their stances.
PA’s DEP is a complete joke.
But the practice continued, largely thanks to a regulatory loophole that exempts wastewater that is similar to a commercial dust-control product. Oil and gas drillers claim that well wastewater is in fact similar to a dust suppressant sold commercially.
Penn State researchers tested the product and found it was in fact the same as oil and gas drilling wastewater — because it was drilling wastewater, contaminants and all.
I hate this country sometimes.
That’s on top of the usual salt used to reduce ice on roads.
no matter what, don’t fucking vote for Josh Shapiro for president. I’m begging you.
If the alternative is Trump or the current GOP, I will absolutely vote for him.
Unfortunately, I don’t believe we’ll have anything beyond controlled opposition moving forward in national elections. So I doubt it’ll ever come up.
please don’t vote for him.
Thanks for being polite, I guess?
But I hope you understand that your comment means literally nothing to me.
As a Pennsylvanian who understands how two-party system voting works, I would vote for a double Josh Shapiro before I’d vote for a republican.
And I’d hate every second of it. But the other option is, well, I guess we’ll see for the next 4 years.
he pied pipered his way into the governors office, after he promised to use his office as ag to fix the opioid crisis. he lied. not only did he not fix it, his method was to prosecute people overprescribed, instead of the pharma companies. he backs the police, he’s building a cop city. he is a fucking Republican.
please don’t vote for him for president.
In our form of government, you only ever vote for the least worst candidate. If he wins the Democrat primary, he’s likely to be the least worst option.
Until we get something like FPTP voting, of course.
I am not going to vote for him again. it made me sick to do it in 2022 after he squandered his ag position and then helped mastriano win the primary.
I can’t disagree with the feeling. There’s a limit to everyone’s ability to “hold their nose and vote”. But if it’s a third Trump term (because they repeal that amendment), then I’m motivated.
Josh Shapiro supports Israeli genocide in Gaza and was dunking on Luigi. Americans will accept anything as long it is slighting better than “something”
Yes, that’s what I said. Two party system. Until we change that, the only thing you can do is vote for damage reduction.
We need at least FPTP.
lol we got Trump dude. You can count on this country voting for the worst person.
For a second I thought “fracking” was supposed to be a euphemism
Wait is this what “Oil Stone” or “Loose Oil” roads are? I drove on those all the time.
Believe it or not, straight to cancer.
