Previously, Fred talked at
length about the geology of aquifers and the threat that hydrofracking poses to
our water resources. This week he comments on the dangers inherent from the Marcellus Shale itself.
FS: The Marcellus Shale is
radioactive – it carries radium 226, and other “daughter” radionuclides that
are degraded remnants from the uranium that was in the earth. They are present
at levels 25 times natural background, so if officials say, “this is no
different than the brick in your house or the stone in your garden” that is not
true.
GM: So how is this a problem?
FS: Radon, which is the gas
that comes off from Radium is water
soluble. So as this methane gas, with
radon in it, is released from the shale and is coming up through water
resources and aquifers, the radon can actually go into solution and that is a
serious thing because if radon gets into your water and then you drink it, it
goes into the cellular level of your body. It’s not the same as breathing it
and it’s not the same as alpha particles hitting your clothes and bouncing off,
which is the argument they like to use about radon, “ oh, they just bounce off
your blue jeans and that’s it.” If Radon is in your water it is the worst,
because it then bio-accumulates and sits there emitting alpha particles inside
of you that directly affect your cells.
GM: So are you saying that something that was
contained deep within the earth can start to migrate because drilling, fracking
and pressure disturbs it and creates pathways for it to migrate?
FS: Yes. The natural
pressures down a mile deep are huge – like in the ocean – so anything in a
gaseous state is going to want to get to an area of lower pressure. That’s just
the way it works. It is going to find those pathways and as I have said, to
think we have everything all sealed off is naïve.
GM: So if radium is present in the Marcellus Shale is
radium present in the gas from the Marcellus shale?
FS: Potentially, yes. This is an exposure danger
that needs to be assessed, researched, and taken very seriously.
GM: I understand that the Hyland Landfill in Angelica
is accepting drill tailings from the fracking in Pennsylvania.
FS: It is true. Thousands of
tons. This is an extension of the same issue because the tailings and cuttings
come from the Marcellus Shale drilling. Some are just ground up bedrock, but it
is the tailings and cuttings from what we call the “black shale,” the Marcellus
layer, this is a nasty deposit from roughly 350 million years ago that is of concern. Another
issue is that the tailings –they are kind of like a soup, dry out, so there is
dust associated with it, and when it is transported this is also a problem.
GM: Are the tailings being monitored?
FS: Allegedly. But there is a
lot of conjecture about the ability of these monitors to pick up the daughter
radionuclides. They think everything is fine, but I believe if you took a radon
test up there you might find there is a lot of radon coming off the site.
GM: You described radon’s water soluability – what
about the danger from the landfill that takes these tailings? What about the
leachate from the landfill itself?
FS: That is exactly the
point. I made this point emphatically in the Energy Committee, that we needed
to warn the Wellsville treatment plant because all of the leachate from Hyland goes
to Wellsville, where it then gets treated and discharged into the Genesee
River. What is the quality of the water that they are putting in the river?
That’s the bottom line that we should know. It’s not routinely required to test
their emissions. We don’t know what the long term, cumulative effects are of
the radioactivity associated with the landfill, the leachate, the air, sewage
treatment plants and the accumulation in the equipment. Studies of this kind of
low-level radioactivity haven’t been done. No one has tested radioactivity and
leachate long term, or done cumulative projections. We pretend to know what we
are doing. Something that we do know about are the heavy metals in the leachate
from the landfill.
GM: Where do the heavy metals come from?
FS: The Marcellus was an ancient sea bed,
extremely salty. There is a lot of salt and bromides that come up with the
tailings and cuttings and when they are introduced to the landfill they alter
the chemistry and it changes the rate of composting.
GM: Just like my garden compost when I put some salty
material in it.
FS: Correct. And this caustic
liquid from the tailings and cuttings migrates down through the landfill and
causes the materials already in the landfill to release heavy metals. This
moisture is a different animal than rainwater. It changes the chemistry of the
landfill. I alerted the Board of Health and Wellsville stopped taking the
leachate for a short time, but the leachate backs up and it’s a lot of revenue
for Wellsville.
GM: Wellsville can handle this material?
FS: They think they can. They
are treating it for bacteria and running it through their settling beds. The
environment of these beds can absorb a lot of the heavy metals.
GM: Are there other ways in which radioactivity from
the Marcellus can impact us?
FS: Another significant issue
is that when you run radioactive material through your pipes it accumulates on
the little joints and seams and as it accumulates these things become more and
more radioactive. The corners of the sludge pits that don’t get cleaned out all
the way – over time, and the pipes that bring the gas up out of the ground.
They become radioactive. So the question is, what are you going to do with
these pipes and transmission lines? Is radon gas being delivered to people who
don’t have their stoves vented? Is radon actually going to be increased in the
homes of people who are using Marcellus gas? So here we are 20 years later with
the threat of radioactivity again in Allegany County and a major threat to the
environment. Thousands of tons of this material have been put into Angelica.
It’s scary. Themes in history do indeed repeat themselves, and it is here, now,
already.
Continued Next week: Part #3: Quality of life.
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