PSU study: Spraying brine on roadways is hazardous
Spreading wastewater from non-shale oil and gas drilling and fracking on unpaved roads is a cheap way for municipalities to suppress dust and melt snow, but a Penn State University study says the practice has potentially high costs for human health and the environment.
The study, published in the journal “Environmental Science & Technology” last month, said the wastewater contains salts, radioactivity and organic contaminants “often many times higher than drinking water standards.”
The toxicity of the wastewater is a concern because rain can wash heavy metals, oils and radium, a carcinogen, from roads into nearby watersources, the study said.
“It’st rue that breathing road dust is a health risk,” said William Burgos, a professor in PSU’s Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering and the study’s lead author. “But trading one environmental risk-driver for radium and hydrocarbons, well, I don’t know if that’s the best trade-off.”
Mr. Burgos said the study’s
analysis of wastewater used on roads in 14 townships found median radium levels between 1,200 and 1,500 picocuries per liter. The federal Safe Drinking Water Act limits radium levels in drinking water to 5 picocuries per liter, and radium in industrial waste discharges must be less than 60 picocuries per liter.
“Road spreading of conventional oil and gas wastewater is the single largest source of radium being introduced into the environment in Pennsylvania,” Mr. Burgos said.
According to the study, from 2008 to 2014, road spreading released more than four times the radium into the environment than did treatment facilities handling oil and gas wastewater, and potentially more than 200 times the radium that was released in spills.
Another point of concern, Mr. Burgos said, is that none of the roadway wastewater spreading reports filed with the state Department of Environmental Protection by 53 other municipalities contained any radium measurements.
The findings are timely because a bill moving through the Pennsylvania Legislature would rewrite the oil and gas law for conventional drilling operations and remove many existing restrictions on spreading brine on roads.
Environmental organizations, the Gov. Tom Wolf administration and the DEP have voiced objections to the Republican-backed legislation, though not specifically on its brine-spreading provisions.
Last month, the DEP, in response to an appeal of a 2017 state brine spreading plan in rural Farmington Township, Warren County, shut down its road spreading permit program, leaving roads dry and dusty across almost 200 townships in 22 counties that previously had spread brine.
Neil Shader, a DEP spokesman, said the department had reviewed the PSU study, “and the data in it is something that DEP will consider as new regulations on brine spreading are being developed.”
Pennsylvania and Ohio are among 13 states that allow municipalities to use drilling andfracking wastewater from conventional, non-shale gas wells on roads to keep down dustor melt snow.
The study cited two cases in Ohio where the spreading of oil and gas wastewater on roads resulted in groundwater contamination and salinization, and it noted that contamination of surface water can kill fish, macroinvertebrates, amphibians and other salt-intolerant species.
In 2016, Pennsylvania municipalities spread more than 11 million gallons on roadways, or about 6 percent of all the wastewater produced by conventional wells. Most road brining in Pennsylvania occurs in the northwestern part of the state from April through August.
In Pennsylvania, much morewastewater is produced by shale gas wells, also known as “unconventional” wells, but the state, like Ohio and West Virginia, does not allow wastewater’s application on roadways because it can contain even more toxic chemicals,the study said.
Mr. Burgos said that while hydraulic fracturing chemicals are similar to those used in drilling conventional and non-conventional wells, shale gas well wastewater generally contains higher levels of radioactivity.
Asked if conventional oil and gas drilling wastewater should be used on roadways, Mr. Burgos said no.
“If you are going to use oil and gas brines as beneficial use disposal, you should not use it in its untreated form,” he said. “You need to provide some sort of treatment before you spread it on roads, and radium, as a carcinogen, is an issue.”
He said if wastewater is treated to minimize human contact with the radium and the organic hydrocarbons it contains, that would decrease its potential for harm but significantly increase its cost for the mostly rural governments that spread it.
According to the study, townships save an average of $70,000 a year using free wastewater as a dust suppressant instead of purchasing any of the more than 190 commercial treatments for unpaved roads.
“That’sone of the study recommendations, but it doesn’t solve their economic problem,” Mr. Burgos said. “Seventythousand is a significant amount of a small township’s road maintenance budget, and using brine is a big savingsfor them.”
Elam Herr, assistant executive director for the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, said House Bill 2154, the conventional drilling law rewrite, was scheduled for a vote Tuesday by the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, but no action was taken “because of some other concerns.” The supervisors organization has backed the legislation.
“The [DEP] raised some issues with the bill, but it could be brought up again at any time for a vote,” he said.