The sites hardly glow in the dark, but all of the state’s active landfills would have to be equipped with radiation detectors according to new regulations proposed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. While New York state doesn’t allow high-pressure horizontal hydrofracking, or fracking, for natural gas, environmentalists want tougher restrictions on debris from traditional wells that exist in western New York. Additionally, many of the state’s 27 active landfills already have the detectors, according to DEC. […] the four landfills in western New York which accept drilling waste are equipped with the devices. […] Stephen Acquario, executive director for the state Association of Counties, said road crews in some instances use brine to enhance the effectiveness of road salt for melting ice.
Any solution? A clash over safe road brine sources
Andrew Casler, acasler@ithacajournal.com | @AndrewCasler6:30 p.m. EST January 9, 2015
Environmentalists say the New York state practice of spreading brine from underground gas storage onto highways, including those in Tompkins and Broome counties is a health concern.
New York state spreads brine from underground gas storage onto highways, including those in Tompkins and Broome counties, to keep drivers safe, but that practice could have its own health consequences.
According to Riverkeeper, a Hudson Valley-based environmental advocacy group:
•The brine is inadequately tested for radioactive material before it’s spread onto highways, with approval based on tests for radioactive material conducted 15 years ago.
•The salt-water solution can find its way into drinking water supplies from highway run-off.
•The mixture has a carcinogenic chemical that exceeds Environmental Protection Agency standards for drinking water.
State Department of Transportation officials counter that the salt-water mixture is safe and approved by New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation. Further, brine can form a protective barrier on roads that stops snow and ice accumulation, and it can help rock salt stick to asphalt.
“It helps plows keep up when there is heavy snowfall,” DOT spokesman Beau Duffy said.
DOT crews in Tompkins and Broome counties get their brine from a gas storage cavern in Harford, a Cortland County town about 20 miles east of Ithaca. The mixture can be known as “storage brine,” Duffy said.
The state spreads an average of 80,000 gallons of storage brine annually on state roads in Tompkins County, Duffy said. It spreads around 33,000 gallons on state roads in Broome County.
State crews also spread the storage brine in Cayuga, Chautauqua, Cortland, Onondaga and Seneca counties.
“(DEC) tested it, and it’s been deemed safe for us to use,” Duffy said. “We wouldn’t be able to use it without their permission.”
Environmentalists say the state hasn’t done enough to assure the storage brine is safe to use.
They point out that the DEC doesn’t know the radiation content of all storage brine that DOT spreads, and the substance can contain toxins at levels that exceed EPA safe drinking water standards.
“I don’t think that people should be reassured at all. I’m not,” said Misti Duvall, a staff attorney for Riverkeeper.
Riverkeeper obtained storage brine testing results from the DEC, and the testing did not include results for NORM, or naturally occurring radioactive material, Duvall said. The DEC doesn’t require NORM testing for brine, she said.
Without that data, Duvall said, it’s unclear how much radioactive material is dispersed when state trucks spread storage brine.
“If this is something that has been looked at by DEC, and NORM is not a concern, then we need to know why that is,” she said. “If it’s something that could be potentially a concern, there should be individual testing for NORM there as well.”
The DEC results showed that the storage brine contained benzene, a carcinogen that has been linked to blood disorders such as anemia; toluene, a chemical that has been linked to nervous system, kidney and liver problems; and chloride, a water contaminant that affects water taste, color and odor but is not considered a risk to human health.
“The concern is that you don’t want to see any of those getting into your drinking water at all,” Duvall said.
In the DEC storage-brine testing results, benzene levels ranged from 0.053 to 0.036 milligrams per liter; toluene ranged from 0.011 to 0.006 milligrams; and chloride ranged from 209,000 to 220,000 milligrams per liter, she said.
“When you put brine on the roadways, a lot of time, it does run off,” Duvall said. “If there are water supplies nearby, it can run into those water supplies.”
The high levels of chloride can increase salinity in waterways and harm wildlife, she added. The corrosive substance also can increase wear on vehicles and road infrastructure, such as bridges, she added.
Brine from gas drilling
Until 2012, DOT Region 6 crews spread “well-production brine,” which is brine that flowed up from New York state gas and oil wells.
The well-production brine was spread in Allegany, Chemung, Schuyler, Steuben, Tioga and Yates counties, according to Duffy. DOT stopped spreading the well-production brine after purchasing brine-making equipment, he added.
State crews never spread well-production brine in the Tompkins or Broome region, Duffy said.
Duvall argued that well-production brine has great potential to contain NORM, and the DEC needs to test for it.
“When a well is producing oil and gas, and you have that production brine coming up, you’re not just getting the fluids (that) went down initially, and you’re not just getting the oil and gas,” she said.
Every substance that’s down there is also flowing up, including NORM, she said.
The well-production brine test results that Riverkeeper obtained from the DEC showed no testing for NORM.
But the DEC did give Riverkeeper a single well-production brine test that showed benzene and toluene levels — 1.730 and 1.77 milligrams per liter, respectively, Duvall said.
Instead of testing well-production brine for NORM, the state bases its policy on test results published 15 years ago.
That round of testing, done after radioactive contamination of drilling waste was observed in other parts of the world, looked for radium isotopes in brine and other material associated with 74 gas and oil wells in upstate New York.
The study found that most brine, drilling equipment and other material sampled was at background levels for radioactivity, or just above, though several brine samples were appreciably higher than that.
The DEC concluded that spreading well-production brine posed no radiological risk, even to someone who walked almost every day for 20 years on a dirt road regularly treated with brine.
Man-made brine, a solution
When the DOT stopped spreading well-production brine in parts of New York, it wasn’t because of environmental concerns, but because the agency was looking to save money, Duffy said.
Man-made brine is cheaper because it doesn’t need to be trucked in from gas wells, he said.
“Our use of natural well brine has been decreasing and will continue to decrease as we mix more of our own,” Duffy said. The man-made brine is a mixture of 23 percent rock salt and 77 percent water.
In Chemung County, state crews spread man-made brine, and RiverKeeper said the solution is safer.
“That brine is just salt and water, and we do recognize that there are benefits to using brine rather than using rock salt on the roads,” Duvall said.
Though storage brine is spread on state routes that run through Broome County, the county highway department has found that pure rock salt and sand are the best materials to keep roadways clear in the winter.
“The county had tried brine in the past but got away from it years ago because they didn’t feel it was effective,” said Broome County Communications Coordinator Gabe Osterhout.
Tompkins considers ban
Tompkins County Legislator Dan Klein, D-Danby, said he’s planning to bring forward a law in March that would ban the spread of storage and well-production brine on all roads that pass through the county.
The law could affect highway departments throughout Tompkins County, but it’s unclear whether the legislation would stop the state DOT.
Duffy said it’s hard to say whether the DOT would heed the law, because it’s hypothetical at this point.
“Based on case law, we believe such a ban would not apply to the state highway system,” he said after talking with DOT lawyers.
If the law is passed, it’s likely that the most Tompkins could do is ask the state to stop spreading storage-brine on roads that pass through the county, Klein said.
“We might be able to claim that we have jurisdiction over the state, but on a practical level, there’s way no way to enforce that. We’re not going to sue the state; we’re not going to fine the state,” Klein said after talking with the county attorney.
“In the end, we might not actually be able to do anything about it,” he said.
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle staff writer Steve Orr contributed to this report.
•The state Department of Transportation spreads brine on state roads that comes from gas storage facilities, and testing has showed elevated levels of toxic materials.
•Environmentalists warn that the brine could pollute drinking water through runoff and storm events.
•The DEC is basing its safety approval in storage brine on 15-year-old tests for radioactive material.
The person I spoke with answered the phone so likely knew not much.
The HEADQUARTERS of env products and svcs are in Syracuse – they are a big outfit. They have facilities in PA, and from what I was told there are no storage facilities nor transport of PA waste from their outfit from PA to NY – they store it there in PA. Just opened another facility near Pittsburgh. the space they have here in syracuse is not large.
warrants more looking into but their facilities in PA are huge so I do not doubt they are not bringing it to store here anyway. needs a looksee on how they have to report disposal…and where. likely is coming to NY but I sorta doubt Syracuse.
Vermont Env Products and Services headquarters are in Syracuse. On PA DEP site they are listed as taking “used frack fluid for storage and ultimate disposal.”
I called their HQ here in Syracuse and was told no PA wastes are coming to Syracuse – they have a couple of large ‘storage’ facilities in PA, one east and one west I believe – where they store the “used frack fluid.” was assured none is coming to Onondaga county, who just passed a county wide waste ban.
I asked about definition of used FF – the person did not know – and I asked about radioactivity, keeping workers and equipment safe etc. – and she said that Env. Products and Svcs are not licensed for two types of waste – explosive or radioactive so what they deal with in PA cannot be radioactive “or they would have to tell us.” yeah.
Response to where “ultimately disposed of” – vague. Response to where “Reused?” – to frack.”
So I wrote the company rep on the website and asked about same – composition of used FF, disposal, reuse destinations, radioactivity – never got an answer. Have not had time to circle back yet.
3) Are PA drilling wastes being being spread on NY roads?
I have heard the above as rumors, however I have found no authoritative source.
This article suggests it, but offers no proof. A woman from New Hartford (Oneida Co.)
just contacted me reporting a orange-brown fluid spread on her roads.
Do you have direct knowledge of this? Published source?
Where we know the wastes are going:
The existing research I’ve seen lists the following sites as having accepted
drilling wastes from PA:
Is Brine from Propane Storage Domes Any Safer Than Drilling Waste?
Emerging Trend to Spread Drilling Waste on Highways
More and more highway departments across the country are adopting the practice of spreading brine on the roads to suppress dust in the summer and to melt ice in the winter. To a large extent this trend is fueled by the ever mounting volumes of salty waste produced by the country’s high volume hydraulic fracturing boom. Looking for ways to dispose of the waste, many drilling companies are supplying this brine free of charge to cash-strapped municipalities.
But is it safe to spread this on our roads and highways?
Citizensand local officials are beginning to have second thoughts. They’re concerned about exposure to residual drilling chemicals, toxic heavy metals and radioactivity often found in drilling waste -especially waste coming from the Marcellus Shale. On December 18th the Tompkins County Legislature voted to prohibit the disposal of fracking waste on county roads. This past June, Assemblywoman Barbara Liftonand 75 other New York State legislators from both sides of the aisle sent a letter to Governor Cuomo urging him to ban the use statewide of drilling waste on our roads (http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/documents/letters/2012/06/13/legislators-letter) .
Alternative Sources of Brine
Still, the inexpensive deicing efficacy of brine compared to the use of rock salt is very attractive to municipalities. That’s why responsible highway departments are seeking other sources of brine for road spreading. Some are fabricating their own brine by mixing road salt with fresh water. Others have found non drilling related sources of brine, hoping to eliminate the possibility that it could contain residual fracking chemicals. New York State Department of Transportation Region 3 (http://www.ithaca.com/news/trumansburg/article_cb12da0e-5ce5-11e1-a920-0019bb2963f4.html ) and many local municipalities are using or are looking into using non drilling related brine from the former TEPPCO gas storage facility at Harford Mills which now belongs to Enterprise Products Partners (“one of the largest publicly-traded energy partnerships and a leading North American provider of midstream energy services” http://www.enterpriseproducts.com/corpProfile/businessProfile.shtm ).
This brine comes from two large salt domes used for storing propane. The brine is kept in a large holding pond on the surface and is pumped underground to stabilize the structure of the domes when gas is removed and sent to market. When new gas is pumped back into the domes for storage, brine is pushed out to the surface and stored again in the large holding pond. This repetitive cycle of filling and removing liquid from the domes erodes the salt structure over time and increases the capacity of the domes. It also increases the volume of brine they produce, sometimes more than the holding pond can handle. Enterprise Partnership sells this excess brine to the state and to municipalities for road spreading.
Is Enterprise Partnership’s Brine Safe for Road Spreading?
Here are six things worth researching in more detail.
1. Proximity of the salt domes to the Marcellus shale.
According to DEC permits for the facility at Harford Mills (http://www.dec.ny.gov/enb2006/20060419/Reg7.html), the salt domes are located approximately 3,000 feet below the surface. And according to contour maps cited by the USGShttp://www.marcellus.psu.edu/resources/PDFs/USGS2005-1268.pdf, the bottom of the Marcellus shale layer is also approximately 3,000 feet below the surface in the vicinity of Harford Mills. Although the geologic formation where the salt is located (the Salina) is separated from the Marcellus by the Helderberg and Tristates layers, is it possible that fissures and cracks in those over lying layers and the ever expanding size of the salt domes below could allow a comingling of Marcellus Brine with the Syracuse Salt Brine of the Salina layer? If so, is the Harford Mills Facility producing a brine laden with toxins typically associated with the Marcellus layer: ie. the same heavy metals and the radioactivity (http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/materials_minerals_pdf/ogdsgeischap5.pdf )?
2. Ground water concerns in Harford Mills.
According to a report written by John Helgren, formerly of the Cortland County Health Department, back in the 1970’s a large surface spill of brine in the Harford/Harford Mills area flowed into the local surface water and then into the ground water and irrevocably polluted a number of private drinking water wells in the area (http://www.tcgasmap.org/default.asp?metatags_Action=Find%28%27PID%27,%279%27%29#Comments%20on%20SGEIS ). Current members of Cortland County Health Department say this toxic brine plume has not dissipated and is still slowly traveling underground some 40 years later.
In order to remedy the loss of drinking water to the local residents, the Harford Water District was formed. A public well was drilled and it currently supplies some 50 homes with water. Unfortunately, according to a report published by the New York Times , water from the Harford Water District has been found to exceed the health limits for arsenic, radium 226, radium 228, and radon ( http://projects.nytimes.com/toxic-waters/contaminants/ny/cortland/ny1101762-harford-water-district-1 ) .
If these pollutants exceed health limits in aquifers near the surface in Harford, what are their levels in the deeper formations –like the Marcellus, or the Salina?
3. Relevance, accuracy and frequency of testing.
Relevance. Although laboratories like LSL of East Syracuse have tested the brine at the Harford Mills Facility, are they testing for all of the substances of concern? Recent analytical results from that lab make no mention of radium, radon or of radioactivity.
The test results do mention elevated levels of bromide, but fail to mention the danger of toxic brominated trihalomethanes that can form after bromides are exposed to water purification procedures (http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/environment/bromide-a-concern-in-drilling-wastewater-212188/ ). Can the road spreading of brine containing elevated levels of bromides endanger municipal drinking water supplies where water purification procedures are in place?
Accuracy. One of the problems associated with testing brine stored open holding ponds is the presence of a layer of fresh water floating on the surface of the brine. After heavy precipitation, the holding pond can pick up significant volumes of fresh water that can temporarily dilute the brine. Can this dilution skew the accuracy of the testing? Recent test results from Harford Mills say, “Due to sample matrix interference, the sample was diluted and the reporting limits were raised accordingly.” Does this mean that the concentrations of potential toxins were not measured accurately?
Frequency. How often does the DEC require testing at the Harford Mills Facility? Is annual testing adequate? Does all brine in the holding pool originate exclusively from the Harford facility? If not, should the brine be re tested each time brine from other sources is added?
4. Cumulative effects.
Do the DEC tolerances for toxic substances in one truck load of brine take into account the cumulative impact of many truckloads applied to our roads over a season, or thousands of truckloads over decades? Of particular concern are cumulative impacts near the municipal drinking water well-heads.
5. Provenance of the Brine.
What guarantees do municipalities have that the brine coming from Enterprise Partnerships originates exclusively from the Harford Mills salt domes? Is there anything in their contracts with municipalities that commits to this? During the winter season, for example, when consumer demand for propane is high, will the facility need more brine than it has to stabilize the salt domes? Will the company then turn to drilling operators to provide them with drilling waste to serve that purpose?
One surprising revelation in LSL’s lab report is the elevated level of surfactants. It might be worth inquiring as to why surfactants would be present in a gas storage dome. Surfactants are routinely used in drilling and in hydrofracking. AirFoam HD is a brand used at some well sites in Pennsylvania, and it is composed largely of 2 Butoxy Ethanol, a known human endocrine disrupter and carcinogen. Were the surfactants discovered at elevated levels in the Harford Mills brine composed of 2 butoxy Ethanol? The reports do not say.
Geochemical evidence for possible naturalmigration of Marcellus Formation brine toshallow aquifers in Pennsylvania
The debate surrounding the safety of shale gas development in the
Appalachian Basin has generated increased awareness of drinking
water quality in rural communities. Concerns include the potential
for migration of stray gas, metal-rich formation brines, and hydraulic
fracturing and/or flowback fluids to drinking water aquifers.
A critical question common to these environmental risks is the
hydraulic connectivity between the shale gas formations and the
overlying shallow drinking water aquifers. We present geochemical
evidence from northeastern Pennsylvania showing that pathways,
unrelated to recent drilling activities, exist in some locations
between deep underlying formations and shallow drinking water
aquifers. Integration of chemical data (Br, Cl, Na, Ba, Sr, and Li) and
isotopic ratios (87Sr∕86Sr, 2H∕H, 18O∕16O, and 228Ra∕226Ra) from
this and previous studies in 426 shallow groundwater samples and
83 northern Appalachian brine samples suggest that mixing relationships
between shallow ground water and a deep formation
brine causes groundwater salinization in some locations. The
strong geochemical fingerprint in the salinized (Cl > 20 mg∕L)
groundwater sampled from the Alluvium, Catskill, and Lock Haven
aquifers suggests possible migration of Marcellus brine through
naturally occurring pathways. The occurrences of saline water do
not correlate with the location of shale-gas wells and are consistent
with reported data before rapid shale-gas development in the region;
however, the presence of these fluids suggests conductive
pathways and specific geostructural and/or hydrodynamic regimes
in northeastern Pennsylvania that are at increased risk for contamination
of shallow drinking water resources, particularly by fugitive
gases, because of natural hydraulic connections to deeper
COMMENTS
It’shard to believe that the following two headlines are about the same study:
1) New Duke research shows no fracking contamination in PA
2) Pennsylvania Fracking Can Put Water at Risk, Study Finds
But that is exactly the case about the Duke study that was reported yesterday and circulated on various lists. I have included links plus the first few lines of each story below.
Winston-Salem Journal (North Carolina) (via AP)
New Duke research shows no fracking contamination in PA
“New research on Marcellus Shale gas drilling in Pennsylvania may only add fuel to the debate over whether the industry poses long-term threats to drinking water.
A paper published on Monday by Duke University researchers found that gas drilling in northeastern Pennsylvania did not contaminate nearby drinking water wells with salty water, which is a byproduct of the drilling.
“These results reinforce our earlier work showing no evidence of brine contamination from shale gas exploration,………”
Bloomberg Businessweek
Pennsylvania Fracking Can Put Water at Risk, Study Finds
Clearly the second (Bloomberg) headline represents the authors’ intended message more accurately. In fact, the paper covers both topics – the migration of deep brines into shallow aquifers as well as the absence of evidence that these findings show a direct connection to gas drilling. However, the potential for migration is certainly indicated, which refutes the industry claim that nothing can ever move up through the thousands of feet of “impermeable” rock. The authors also point out the that the time scale for brine migration is not known but that migration of methane would be much faster, and that more investigation is necessary to understand the process.
For those interested, this was the story on yesterdays All Things Considered.
I would say this was a “balanced” story. I know that there is a lot of outrage (which I share) about “balanced stories” because of bogus counter claims by industry shills raising a “debate”, (best exemplified by climate change deniers). But in this case the authors themselves point out the limitations of their study and proper reporting should present this.
The coverage of this story (an abbreviated form of the AP story) on local NPR station WSKG was so truncated that it, in my mind, left the listener with little understanding of the study.
Jim Weiss
Yup;
Gives a window into how confused many citizens (and politicians) must be at this point (in time).
Also shows, I believe the ENORMOUS influence of the industry on the media – sorta like: no evidence that smoking causes cancer but probably even higher stakes.
GDACC 
