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Oil and gas wastewater leaves radium in Pennsylvania stream sediments
High levels of radium found downstream of treatment plants years after fracking wastewater disposal reportedly ended
Wastewater in Pennsylvania has been shuttled to treatment plants to remove contaminants and then released into local streams. Because of public concerns about high levels of bromide in fracking wastewater, which can be transformed into harmful disinfection by-products such as trihalomethanes during wastewater treatment, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection asked fracking operators to stop sending wastewater to these facilities in 2011, and they have reportedly complied. But this request does not cover conventional oil and gas producers, who still send wastewater for treatment and release into some streams in the state.
Vengosh and his colleagues suspected that this source would also contaminate stream sediments with radium. So, from 2014 to 2017, they tested for it at three sites where streams receive this treated wastewater.
Near outflow pipes from the treatment plants, the researchers measured up to 650 times as much radium in the stream sediments as in sediments upstream. The overall levels of radioactivity in these sediments was similar to those the group previously found in sediments where fracking wastewater was being released, Vengosh says. |Read more|