Disposing of Fracking waste, better by boat or truck?

The Ohio River Could Soon Be a Thoroughfare for Fracking Waste, Worrying Residents in the Cincinnati Region

At the request of oil and gas firms, the U.S. Coast Guard, which regulates shipments on federally supervised waterways, including the Ohio River, has proposed allowing companies to ship wastewater created when extracting natural gas. A barge can carry up to 75 truckloads of waste, Coast Guard officials say.

The proposal has drawn more than 1,000 public comments, many demanding stiffer regulation than what is proposed. Many environmental experts, clean water groups, municipal leaders and residents have concerns about transportation of the salty, chemical-laced wastewater that comes out of the ground during the fracking process, which is booming in eastern Ohio and Kentucky.

The byproducts, if spilled in great volume or concentrated levels, can threaten water supplies and the health of plants, animals and people, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, leading some public agencies, such as Cincinnati Waterworks and the Northern Kentucky Water District, to ask that the waste never be sent down the river.

They and public safety leaders have expressed concern that communities won't know what's coming downstream because the companies' mixtures of fracking chemicals are protected as trade secrets and not a matter of public record.

Critics also fear the waste shipped along the Ohio could end up here for good, either disposed of in regional landfills or pumped back into the ground in waste wells — actions now legal in Ohio.

"It's not a situation where we can breathe and say, ‘Oh, not a big deal because we don't have gas,' " said James O'Reilly, a University of Cincinnati professor of public health and law and a Wyoming councilman — one of many local people fighting for more regulations on what happens with the waste produced by fracking.

Representatives of the oil and gas industry say potential threats are minor and are further minimized by shipping over water instead of land, where accident rates are higher. Right now, they say, it doesn't make financial or logistical sense for companies to lug heavy waste hundreds of miles to Hamilton County and surrounding regions.

Some, like O'Reilly, are skeptical and point to weak controls on the Ohio industry as more reason to worry. "They are not being offered enough money to do it now," O'Reilly said. But as the number of wells grows, "it's got to go somewhere."

Fracking industry continues to grow, produce more waste

Fracking — the act of injecting sand, water and small amounts of chemicals thousands of feet into the ground at high pressure to explode rock and release pockets of natural gas and oil — has been happening in Ohio for roughly 60 years.

The practice is being watched carefully by environmental and public health officials, even as Americans wait for a full analysis of potential effects of fracking on water supplies. That assessment was ordered by Congress and is expected to be released in draft form by the EPA later this year.

The drilling produces two types of waste: the rock and drilling lubricant that comes out of the ground when companies bore holes into the earth as well as the wastewater that comes out after pressurized water, sand and drilling chemicals are shot into the ground.

The rock and drilling lubricant are now being disposed of in landfills near the fracking sites, said Mike Chadsey, of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. The wastewater also stays local today, transferred into a truck, driven to an injection well and pumped back into the ground, below a tough layer of solid rock — often granite in Ohio — that experts think will keep the wastewater away from ground water sources.

"It's a brine — salt water — and traces of hydraulic fracturing chemicals," Chadsey said. "Saltier than today's ocean water."

Which is safer - transporting by truck or Ohio River barge?

Right now, the oil and gas industry is not allowed to ship fracking wastewater, but the Coast Guard is deciding what rules should be in place if the material is moved over federal waterways.

"What the industry is asking the Coast Guard to do is too easy on the industry and doesn't give us the kind of protection we need," said O'Reilly, a lecturer and author of 45 textbooks, including the standard reference textbook on state and local government solid-waste management, texts on emergency response to chemical accidents and other guides on toxic waste.

The Coast Guard proposal for barge transport would reduce transportation costs and has been requested by numerous companies in recent years, said Cynthia A. Znati, head of the hazardous materials division of the Coast Guard's Office of Design and Engineering Standards.

The office regulates the transport of cargo on federal waterways, including 270 million tons of cargo on the Ohio River, worth an estimated $30 billion a year and providing about 150,000 jobs, according to the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission.

Znati said each load of wastewater is different: "The danger depends on the concentration, dose and exposure."

Everyone agrees that a large spill into the Ohio River basin — home to roughly 10 percent of the U.S. population and providing drinking water for roughly 5 million people — would be bad.

The wastewater is known to contain naturally occurring radioactive materials and "total dissolved solids" — chemical and organic elements directly related to the purity of water — which can be bad for the environment, according to the EPA.

Znati said it would be "very rare" for an entire barge load of wastewater to spill. Water transport might prove safer than moving it on trucks, which have been known to crash, spilling the liquid, which is so salty it kills grass and can make its way to our groundwater, Chadsey said.

Source: Coshocton Tribune

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