How Fracking Is Exposing People to Radioactive Waste

[madokie]

Radiation can accumulate in the water we drink, the fish we eat, and the soil in which our food grows.

There isn’t a lot of good news about fracking lately. Another train with volatile fracked crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale exploded in Lynchburg, Virginia igniting a ball of fire on the surface of the James River. Accidents involving these “ bomb trains” are becoming commonplace. So are recent studies indicating serious health risks from fracking and reports linking fracking to earthquakes.

With all that press you may have missed another cause for alarm: radiation risks. The oil and gas-drilling boom, aided by the practice of fracking, has unleashed some potentially scary radioactive stuff into our environment.

Fracking involves injecting large quantities (sometimes millions of gallons) of water, sand, and chemicals at high pressure deep underground to break apart shale and release trapped hydrocarbons like oil and gas. But the process can also bring to the surface water that is laced with naturally-occurring radioactive materials that were underground. In small, dispersed quantities low-level radiation is not life threatening, but what happens when those quantities start increasing in the environment, and getting into the water we drink, the fish we eat, and the soil in which our food grows?

Scientists are trying to figure that out. But it’s a difficult process to track since fracking isn’t regulated under most federal environmental laws like the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act. That means industry is charge of policing itself a lot of the time.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/fracking-can-expose-you-radioactive-waste-even-youre-far-away-drilling-site

[Champion Jack]

1. Radiation from Fracking ..... The gift that keeps on giving......and giving.......and....

[marions ghost]

2. Industry "policing itself"