http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/04/15/3768123/west-virginia-creek-fracking-pollution/
[links and images in on-line article]
As Fracking Chemicals Reach A Creek Companies Fight Against A Fracking
Waste Ban
by Alejandro Davila Fragoso
Apr 15, 2016 8:00 am
The smell of gas surrounding the northern streets of Lochgelly, West
Virginia, was so pungent that Brad Keenan could taste it as he was
driving home with his windows up that evening in 2004. He called 911 and
the gas company, thinking a punctured gas line was to blame, but the
smell and the evacuation it prompted came from something few knew
existed in town: fracking waste.
“I had no idea what was going on,” said Keenan, 54, who by then had been
living for two years near Danny E. Webb Construction Inc., a dumping
site for fracking fluids. “You couldn’t even drive out there because the
smell was so bad,” he told ThinkProgress.
At least two open pits holding fracking wastewater were responsible for
the smell that got homes evacuated and forced some businesses and a
daycare center to temporarily close, according to interviews and
published reports. After state citations and complaints, pits were
covered giving some temporary relief to affected residents. Keenan
notes, however, that Wolf Creek, a major waterway traversing his
140-acre property, is polluted.
Twelve years have passed since the emergency evacuation put a
little-known, state-permitted fracking disposal site under the county’s
spotlight, yet things haven’t improved. The company is still marred in
controversy. Locals worry about confirmed fracking chemicals in Wolf
Creek as it connects to the water supply. And last year, the state
renewed Danny E. Webb Construction’s permit to continue disposing
fracking waste in underground injection wells, also known as brine
disposal wells. The Environmental Protection Agency has jurisdiction
over these wells only if diesel fuel is among the chemicals.
A fracking waste ban
The feud in Fayette county is now likely to intensify with two companies
facing officials who, in the coming months, will defend in federal court
an ordinance approved in January that banned fracking waste disposal.
Hearings were set for this month, but habitual court delays are already
being reported. One argument officials have raised against fracking
waste in Fayette is that zoning laws don’t even allow traditional landfills.
In interviews, officials also said they’ve revised their ordinance to
appease the industry, which they say doesn’t use fracking for local gas
extraction in the first place. But Danny E. Webb Construction Inc. and
EQT Corp, an oil and gas company from Pennsylvania, still object saying
the county lacks jurisdiction and the ordinance is so broad it could
shut down gas and oil extraction.
And with that, Fayette County has become part of a growing list of
communities struggling to keep brine wells at bay through local laws.
There are more than 30,000 fracking waste disposal sites across the
country, according to interviews and multiple published reports. But New
York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and now West Virginia have counties
favoring laws limiting brine waste disposal. The trend has been
particularly robust in New York, where more than 10 counties have passed
ordinances controlling fracking waste in the last couple of years.
States, too, are limiting fracking waste with Nebraska creating the most
recent legislation. Industry often fights back, and in some instances,
they win. Last year a federal court in Pennsylvania ruled against a
town’s “community bill of rights” that limited brine disposal.
In Fayette, a county of some 46,000 people, residents and officials fear
Danny E. Webb Construction wells are leaching toxic chemicals into
nearby Wolf Creek, a waterway that feeds into the New River, a major
tourist attraction and a water source for thousands of people. West
Virginia American Water, the local water utility, told ThinkProgress the
water supply is being monitored and the New River Water Treatment Plant,
located more than 10 miles downstream from Wolf Creek, meets high
standards. Still, studies conducted in the last couple of years in Wolf
Creek seem to substantiate some of the concerns. In 2014, Duke
University scientists sampled Wolf Creek and found elevated levels of
chloride, bromide, manganese, strontium, and barium; all chemicals
associated with fracking wastewater.
Tainted waters
Claims of leaching even got a boost this past week after a peer-reviewed
study conducted by the United States Geological Survey and other
universities reported endocrine disrupting chemical activity, or EDCs,
in Wolf Creek at levels that could alter development and reproduction in
wildlife, researchers said. After sampling various areas including a
neighboring stream, scientists measured significantly greater EDCs on
and downstream of the Danny E. Webb Construction site.
These revelations come at a sensitive time for the public, the
government, and water utilities around the country are scrutinizing
water quality after towns like Flint, Michigan, showed that local, state
and federal agencies can simultaneously overlook tainted water supplies.
Though unrelated to lead pollution, fracking and its effects on water
have been front-and-center in recent times, too. The Environmental
Protection Agency is weighing whether fracking poses risks to drinking
water ahead of a report that’s been years in the making. Meanwhile,
studies examining how fracking chemicals may affect water and public
health are published regularly, as some property owners are winning
lawsuits and getting millions from the industry for water contamination.
Yet in the case of Fayette, researchers told ThinkProgress they simply
studied water chemicals, not how these chemicals got there in the first
place. So while in the study researchers note the chemicals are
associated with the waste disposal site, they don’t describe how
pollution may have happened. “The findings do not have a direct impact
on wildlife or public health, but demonstrate the potential for impacts
on wildlife or public health,” said Denise Akob, one of the authors and
a USGS researcher, in an email to ThinkProgress. She added the USGS is
expected to release more studies on this topic as the agency is
researching potential environmental impacts of unconventional oil and
gas waste.
Bad for health, bad for business
The endocrine system is a collection of glands that produce hormones
that regulate metabolism, growth, reproduction, sleep, and more. EDCs
are mostly artificial and can be found in pesticides, metals, additives
or contaminants in food, and personal care products. EDCs are also found
in brine and have been linked to adverse health effects on reproduction,
growth, and the immune system, to name a few. Hormones are essential to
multiple biological processes, said Susan Nagel, a University of
Missouri toxicologist, who also worked on the EDC study. “So if we
disrupt hormones we disrupt those processes and that is true for humans,
for mammals, for fish living in these creeks,” Nagel told ThinkProgress.
The pending question now, researchers said, is to single out the
chemicals causing the EDC activity. “We know the site is impacting the
water, and we know there is an unconventional oil and gas impact on the
stream,” said Christopher Kassotis, a Duke University researcher and
author of the study, in an email to ThinkProgress. “It’s just drilling
down to that final detail to determine which chemicals are responsible
and where they are coming from.”
Request for comment sent to the lawyer for Danny Webb Construction Inc.
went unanswered, as were calls made to the company’s phone number. West
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality didn’t reply to a request
for comment on the study or the company’s permits. And EQT declined to
comment noting the ongoing litigation. However, the study has reached
the desks of residents, county officials, and West Virginia American Water.
“We are aware of the recent article … and will continue to monitor water
quality at our withdraw site on the New River,” Laura Jordan, West
Virginia American Water external affairs manager, told ThinkProgress via
email. “Ongoing water quality testing at the New River plant and in the
distribution system confirms that water meets all federal and state
drinking water standards.”
Yet to be sure, some residents told ThinkProgress they avoid their tap
water, noting they distrust West Virginia Department of Environmental
Quality and its inaction towards alleged pollution in Wolf Creek. “We do
not drink the water, not a chance,” said Frank Lanier, 69, who lives
down the street from Danny Webb Construction Inc. Even those who trust
their tap water or live on the other end of the county worry about Wolf
Creek, saying news of tainted waters can discourage spring tourism, a
vital component of the county’s economic portfolio. “It’s bad for
business. If people think the water is polluted then they may not take
that rafting trip,” said Kenny Parker, owner of Water Stone Outdoors.
The ultimate issue
Meanwhile, officials like Larry E. Harrah II, Fayette County’s
prosecuting attorney, are figuring out how to incorporate the latest
study in the federal lawsuit that’s put the fracking waste ban ordinance
he crafted in jeopardy. In an interview with ThinkProgress, Harrah said
he’s hopeful that it will be upheld because the ordinance was revised
and updated. It now distinguishes between temporary and permanent brine
waste being kept in the county, in response to industry concerns. “I
think we have eliminated several of their arguments,” he said.
If the county were to win the lawsuit, it would become the first in West
Virginia to keep brine waste from its borders. But whether that will
happen remains to be seen. So far, EQT and Danny Webb Construction
continue disposing of fracking waste thanks to a temporary restraining
order issued shortly after county commissioners approved the ordinance.
That’s not to say the county won’t act on the alleged pollution. “If
it’s found that it was due to negligence or what have you, somebody is
going to be held responsible for that,” said Harrah adding an
investigation into how EDCs got into Wolf Creek, and whether public
health is threatened is on its way.
“Is this in our drinking water? We still need to know that,” he added.
“That is the ultimate issue here. If this stuff is in our drinking
water, and it’s because of the actions of this particular business, then
somebody is going to pay.”
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