Frack sand spreads in Stowe
health department spokesman, said all industrial facilities, whether major sources or minor sources of air pollution, are required to have an operating permit and meet Allegheny County air quality rulesand any applicable state andfederal regulations.
Peter Thompson of T Square Associates, Inc., the safety/environmental engineer for MRIE, said MRIE applied for an operation permit in 2006 and received a “predraft” permit from the ACHD in 2010. The facility-wide permitis “pending,” he said.
Mr. Thompson said the company has received dust complaints from nearby residents and taken a number of actionsto address those issues.
“MRIE has an extensive program of engineering controls, work practices, training and other active measures to suppress dust in and around the facility,” he said.
The company wets down roads within its warehouse and river dock areas daily, uses a street sweeper inside its facility and on Nichol Avenue outside the plant four days a week, and is in the process of designing and installing a truck wash to reduce the amount of sand coming off the vehicles as they leave the facility.
The company also monitors air quality twice a year at various locations within its 100-acreindustrial footprint.
Cheryl McDermott, a Stowe councilwoman, said the council has fielded citizen complaints about MRIE and noticed the sand “all over the roads,” but insisted the company is working hard to be a good neighbor.
“It put up a screen to keep the dust out of the Presston neighborhood. It’s putting in a truck wash station. It sweeps the streets and had monitors on its fence,” Ms. McDermott said. “They’re good people over there.”
But even with all of those efforts, the sand still falls from or leaks out of railcars and from trucks headed to shale gas well fracking operations. It’s particularly visible on and along Route 51, also known as Island Avenue, north from the McKees Rocks Bridge for a mile to the Neville Island Bridge. That’s the route the tri-axle sand trucks take from MRIE to Interstate 79 and then to individual well fracking sites.
At the well pads, the sand is mixed with millions of gallons of water and a mixture of chemicals, then pumped under high pressure more than a mile underground. As explosive charges crack the tight shale, the sand particles are propelled into the cracks to hold the shale apart and release the gas.
The best frack sand is mined in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri andArkansas. Mr. Thompson said MRIE receives sand from several sources but declined tobe specific, citing “confidentialclient information.”
Last week, at the end of Ohio Street in Presston, MRIE’s clamshell crane could be seen scooping the sand from a barge and dropping it into open dump trucks onthe riverside loading dock, causing white clouds of sand particles to billow from the truck beds into the air over theriver and neighborhood.
Sherry Wilson lives on Orchard Street, one block over from Ohio Street, and said the sandy dust and gritty feel inthe air is never-ending.
“We get the dust all the time,” she said from inside her tiny, tidy fenced front yard last week. “The dust is horrible. I have a brass and glass table inside and if I leave my window open, by the end of the evening I can write my name in the dust. And the sand sticks on and under our vehicles when it’s wet.
“I don’t think,” she adds before heading inside, “that MRIE is doing any good for anybody down here.”