To spread on icy highways, no less. And
then where does it go?
As the slogan says, "Don't Frack With Our
Water"!
See below.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 9:26 AM
Subject: Insane !
This is insane ! DOH to spread fluid laced with know
cancer causing agents on roads to deice in Winter! Spreading the toxins across
the landscape to enter our rivers and water supply ..... This stuff is what
killed all in Dunkard Creek months back ...... This only aides the gas
drillers . in trying to solve the problem of where to Fracking fluid
will go . Now we know.. THere is only one official Fracking water treatment
plant in the state and thats in the Northern panhandle! Joes a
gas man .....
August 13, 2010
State to use gas-well brine on winter
roads
By The Associated Press
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Salty wastewater from natural-gas
wells may end up on West Virginia
roads this winter under a new agreement between the
state departments of Environmental
Protection and Transportation.
The agreement to let highway crews use the brine to
treat snow- and ice-coated roads establishes
new limits for pH, iron, barium, lead, oil and grease,
benzene and ethylbenzene.
DOT spokesman Brent Walker said the brine can also be
mixed with rock salt to prevent clumping
or sprayed on roads before
precipitation.
The Division of Highways will take bids for
brine supply and is hoping to pay about 5 cents a
gallon, Walker said. It plans to distribute
about 1.2 million gallons to 123 sites around the state
to
start the season.
Highway crews had been relying on brine made with rock
salt mined from the Great Lakes region.
"That ended up containing a fair amount of soil, and
with that you get iron and other metals," said
Scott Mandirola, head of the DEP's Division of Water and
Waste Management. "It was going
relatively unchecked. We sat down and looked at some
specs and came up with some limits that
were better than the quality of what was currently being
used."
Mandirola said some of the brine could run off into
state waterways -- but that's always happened,
and deicing is necessary for public
safety.
"What we came up with here is equal to or better than
what's been happening," he said.
The brine will come from producing wells, Mandirola
said, not from the hydraulic fracturing of
Marcellus Shale wells. That fluid, used
in unconventional horizontal drilling, contains additives
that make it thicker and slicker.
That fracking water also could contain naturally
occurring radioactive material, which Mandirola
said has been found in some spots in
Pennsylvania.