Fracking wastewater contaminated— and likely radioactive

[joeybee12]

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, extracts oil and gas from deep underground by injecting water into the ground and breaking the rocks in which the valuable hydrocarbons are trapped. But it also produces wastewater high in certain contaminants — and which may be radioactive.

In a study published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, researchers found high levels of radioactivity, salts and metals in the water and sediments downstream from a fracking wastewater plant on Blacklick Creek in western Pennsylvania.

Among the most alarming findings was that downstream river sediments contain 200 times more radium than mud that's naturally present upstream of the plant, said Avner Vengosh, a co-author of the study and a professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke University. Radium is a radioactive metal naturally found in many rocks; long-term exposure to large amounts of radium can cause adverse health effects and even diseases such as leukemia. [5 Everyday Things that Are Radioactive]

The concentrations of radium Vengosh and his team detected are higher than those found in some radioactive waste dumps, and exceed the minimum threshold the federal government uses to qualify a disposal site as a radioactive dump site, Vengosh told LiveScience. While the Josephine Brine Treatment Facility removes some of the radium from the wastewater, the metal accumulates in the sediment, at dangerously high levels, he added. Radium can make its way into the food chain by first accumulating in insects and small animals, and then moving on to larger animals, like fish, when they consume the insects and smaller animals, Vengosh added. But it's not known to what extent this is happening, since this study didn't address that question, he said.


http://www.nbcnews.com/science/fracking-wastewater-contaminated-likely-radioactive-8C11323012

[hunter]

1. Fossil fuels are every bit as bad as nuclear power, and sometimes worse.

"Clean" natural gas isn't.

That doesn't make me pro-nuke. I'm a Luddite. I think 90% of our current economy ought to be abandoned.

"Economic productivity" as it is now defined will kill this civilization.

[joeybee12]

2. What really gets me is "clean" coal...

Fracking ridiculous!

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. Much worse, really

more people have died in coal mining accidents, oil well and platform explosions, gas explosions, and from lung cancer and other respiratory diseases caused by breathing smog than have died as a result of civilian nuclear accidents, probably more by many orders of magnitude.

[DirkGently]

3. Gasland.

[joeybee12]

4. I ahve got to watch that..thanks for the reminder...nt

[Agony]

5. Split Estate

is worth watching as well ----> http://www.splitestate.com/index.html

"Imagine discovering that you don't own the mineral rights under your land, and that an energy company plans to drill for natural gas two hundred feet from your front door. Imagine having little recourse, other than accepting an unregulated industry in your backyard. Split Estate maps a tragedy in the making, as citizens in the path of a new drilling boom in the Rocky Mountain West struggle against the erosion of their civil liberties, their communities and their health."

it's on NetFlix if you have that.

[joeybee12]

9. No, and I just checked the library...they don't have it...thanks, tho...nt

[DirkGently]

8. And I think there's a sequel out about now.

"Gasland 2."

The first one was amazing / horrifying / completely engrossing.

[joeybee12]

10. Just put it on hold at the library...it's something I've been meaning to watch...nt

[KoKo]

6. K&R!