Top Dem Seeks EPA Studies on Possible Toxic Shale Wastewater
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
28 February 2011
By Daniel Malloy
.
WASHINGTON -- The top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee
is asking the Environmental Protection Agency for a slew of documents
related to natural gas hydraulic fracturing.
Responding to an investigative piece published over the weekend in the
New York Times, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., wrote a letter to EPA
Administrator Lisa P. Jackson asking for responses to various reports
in the Times story regarding toxic wastewater from fracking.
"I do not believe that the price for energy extracted from deep beneath
the earth's surface should include a risk to the health of those who
live above it," he wrote in a letter dated Saturday. "I am outraged
that state and federal regulators were evidently well aware of the
risks that the wastewater might pose, but instead chose to adopt a 'see
no evil, hear no evil approach' to regulation by ignoring them."
The Times story reported that in Pennsylvania and other states
wastewater treatment plants were unable to remove harmful contaminants
from leftover material used in fracking.
Mr. Markey asked Ms. Jackson to provide any new steps the agency is
taking to test sources of drinking water that are downstream from
treatment plants that take in drilling waste and, if no regulatory
changes are planned, to justify that decision in light of the Times
report.
He also asks for internal agency documents regarding studies of
wastewater treatment plants and their ability to remove radium and
other toxic substances from drilling waste, and other possible harmful
outcomes related to processing the byproducts of fracking.
Hydraulic fracturing, a newly booming industry in Pennsylvania because
of the Marcellus Shale natural gas deposits, involves pumping a mix of
water, sand and chemicals deep underground to break up rock formations
to release the gas.
Mr. Markey has long been a leading Democratic voice on environmental
issues. He was a co-author of the 2009 cap-and-trade climate
legislation that passed the House but failed to go anywhere in the
Senate.
Daniel Malloy: dmalloy@post-gazette.com or 202-445-9980. Follow him on
Twitter at PG_in_DC.