{"id":45659,"date":"2019-04-26T08:09:35","date_gmt":"2019-04-26T13:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=45659"},"modified":"2019-04-26T08:09:40","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T13:09:40","slug":"epa-decides-not-to-regulate-fracking-wastewater-as-pennsylvania-study-reveals-recent-spike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=45659","title":{"rendered":"EPA Decides Not to Regulate Fracking Wastewater as Pennsylvania Study Reveals Recent Spike"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"page-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2019\/04\/25\/fracking-wastewater-disposal-health-pennsylvania-environmental-protection-agency\">EPA Decides Not to Regulate Fracking Wastewater as Pennsylvania Study Reveals Recent Spike<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/styles\/full_width_blog_image\/public\/blogimages\/Fracking%20wastewater%20pit.jpg?itok=S-Hb3CIT\" alt=\"Liquid drilling wastewater pond \"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>On April 23, the&nbsp;U.S.&nbsp;Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told two environmental groups that it had&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.environmentalintegrity.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/EPA-Response-to-CD-ECF-No.33-4-23-19.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">decided<\/a>&nbsp;it was \u201cnot necessary\u201d to update the federal standards handling toxic waste from oil and gas wells, including the waste produced by&nbsp;fracking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>State regulators have repeatedly proved&nbsp;unable to prevent the industry\u2019s toxic waste from entering America\u2019s drinking water supplies, including both private wells and the rivers from which public drinking water supplies are drawn, the Environmental Protection Agency concluded in a 2017&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/hfstudy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">national study<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The corrosive salt-laden wastewater from fracked wells has been&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/oil-and-gas-wastewater-used-de-ice-roads-new-york-and-pennsylvania-little-310684\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">spread on roads<\/a>&nbsp;as a de-icer. It\u2019s been sprayed into the air in the hopes of evaporating the water \u2014 a practice that spreads its blend of volatile chemicals into the air instead. Oil industry wastewater has even been used to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/environment\/2015\/07\/oil-wastewater-fruits-vegetables-farms\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">irrigate crops<\/a>&nbsp;\u2014 in California, where state regulators haven&#8217;t set rules to keep dangerous chemicals like the carcinogen benzene out of irrigation&nbsp;water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If equally contaminated waste came from other industries, it would usually be designated hazardous waste and subject to strict tracking and disposal rules designed to keep the public safe from industrial pollution. But in July 1988, after&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/03\/04\/us\/04gas.html?ref=drillingdown\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">burying clear warnings<\/a>&nbsp;from its own scientists about the hazards of oilfield waste, the&nbsp;EPA&nbsp;offered the oil and gas industry a broad exemption from hazardous waste handling&nbsp;laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The\u00a0EPA&#8217;s decision this week echoes\u00a0that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EPA\/status\/1121407651307556864\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/ext_tw_video_thumb\/1121407227435339776\/pu\/img\/Ib2c0DkfTbsYbNmn?format=jpg&amp;name=small\" alt=\"Embedded video\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EPA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/profile_images\/632228259879628800\/-gvVhzPn_normal.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EPA\"><strong><\/strong><strong>\u2714<\/strong><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EPA\/status\/1121407651307556864\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Watch EPA\u2019s new featured <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/EarthWeek2019?src=hash\">#EarthWeek2019<\/a> video focused on this year\u2019s theme \u2013 clean water. Today, over 92% of community water systems in the U.S. meet all health based standards, all of the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cRather than acting in the best interest of the public,\u00a0EPA\u00a0has continually shirked its duties and left our communities\u2019 health, drinking water, and environment at risk,\u201d said Adam Kron, senior attorney at the Environmental Integrity Project&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00a0\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EPA Decides Not to Regulate Fracking Wastewater as Pennsylvania Study Reveals Recent Spike On April 23, the&nbsp;U.S.&nbsp;Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told two environmental groups that it had&nbsp;decided&nbsp;it was \u201cnot necessary\u201d to update the federal standards handling toxic waste from oil and gas wells, including the waste produced by&nbsp;fracking. State regulators have repeatedly proved&nbsp;unable to prevent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[5317,331,1214,412,619,11167,3184],"class_list":["post-45659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-desmog-blog","tag-fracking","tag-fracking-wastewater","tag-hydraulic-fracturing","tag-pennsylvania","tag-sharon-kelly","tag-us-epa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45660,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45659\/revisions\/45660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}