CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Tests show that wastewater from gas field landfills contains radioactivity. That is raising concerns about the disposal of Marcellus Shale drill cuttings.

Bill Hughes, chair, Wetzel County Solid Waste Authority, said tests on water leaching from the Meadowfill landfill near Bridgeport show widely varying levels of radioactivity, sometimes spiking to 40 times the clean drinking water standard. The radioactivity occurs naturally in the drill cuttings and brine that come from Marcellus gas wells, he said, so it is in the waste dumped in Meadowfill and other landfills.

"We are putting radioactive waste in a bunch of landfills in large quantities, and we don't yet know the long-term danger of doing this," Hughes said.

Water leaching from Meadowfill averaged 250 picocuries per liter last year. The clean drinking water standard is 50, Hughes explained, adding that at times Meadowfill spiked as high as 2,000 picocuries or dropped below 40. Wetzel - the other landfill taking large amounts of the waste - also showed radioactivity.

The drinking water standards are probably too tight to use on fluids leaching from a landfill, he said, but the solid waste authority is defaulting to the tougher standard, simply because the county is not set up to deal with radioactive waste in municipal garbage dumps.

"It might not be a significant problem, because we've put a lot of other nasty stuff into the Ohio River," he said. "But especially after Elk River, we should really want to know what we are putting into the landfills and what's going into surface waters."

According to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, landfills are a safe and appropriate place to put the drill cuttings.

Hughes said the entire process shows that the state is playing catch-up to a big, rapidly moving industry.

"We haven't normally been putting radioactive material in a municipal waste landfill. We're not set up to process, handle, test, dispose. We don't know what we're doing," Hughes warned.

Concerns about radioactive drill cuttings have prompted state lawmakers to increase monitoring at the landfills. However, Hughes said, West Virginia is not moving fast enough on the issue.




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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has announced an 18-month delay in permitting a controversial oil-tunnel construction project under the Great Lakes.

Federal engineers said they need the extra time to study the massive volume of public comments submitted about the project.

Sean McBrearty, campaign coordinator for the conservation group Oil and Water Don't Mix, said the delay will push builder Enbridge's Line 5 project well beyond its original timeline.

"This was entirely predictable," McBrearty asserted. "From the beginning, Oil and Water Don't Mix, and our allies have been saying that this is going to take a lot longer than what Enbridge was trying to sell, and that likely this project will not be able to be permitted."

Line 5 is a pair of aging oil pipelines under the Mackinac Straits Enbridge wants to replace with an underground tunnel. Conservation groups oppose the project over its potential to damage the environment. A spokesman said Enbridge is "disappointed with the delay."

McBrearty emphasized environmental groups want the pipeline closed down, predicting a leak or a break under the lakes could bring damage which could last a generation or longer. He added many experts question the safety of building an underwater oil tunnel.

"We have a 70-year-old pipeline pumping 23 million gallons of oil a day, through the worst spot in the Great Lakes for an oil spill," McBrearty pointed out. "The oil tunnel may never exist, but the pipeline sitting at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinaw does exist."

A coalition of Michigan conservation groups, Native American tribes and elected officials are pushing the Biden administration to shut down the current pipeline. The original timeline for completing of the tunnel project, which could cost $2 billion, was 2024, but if it is built, it will won't be completed until 2029.

The Iowa House has passed a bill to restrict the use of eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipeline operators in the state. The measure would require the companies to receive permission from landowners before constructing the pipelines.

Right now, the pipeline companies have to get permission only from the three-member, unelected Iowa Utilities Board to use eminent domain, and landowners are completely left out of the process.

Devyn Hall, organizer for the group Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, said House File 565 would give property owners back the ability to make decisions.

"It pulls the power back into the people's hands," Hall asserted. "With landowners, they'd be able to have some control over what's happening in their lives rather than rely on an unelected, three-person board to make decisions for them."

As it stands, Iowa law has no requirement for pipeline companies to get permission from landowners before imposing eminent domain and taking it. The bill awaits action in the Senate.

Specifically, the bill would require pipeline operators to obtain voluntary easements on 90% of properties along a proposed line before employing eminent domain. At least three corporations are discussing using pipelines through to route carbon dioxide emissions out of the state in exchange for carbon tax credits, part of a larger removal strategy called carbon capture and storage.

For now, the Utilities Board has the final say over whether it can happen, which Hall argued leaves Iowa landowners vulnerable to the whims of those corporations, and unprotected under Iowa's eminent domain law.

"Right now what this fight means is it's a decision between whether we'll allow private companies to use eminent domain for private gain, or if we will stand with our own people and say these polluting companies can't have control over what happens to us," Hall contended.

The bill must pass through the Senate Commerce Committee by the end of this week, where its fate is uncertain. Several similar pipeline bills have died there.

The U.S. EPA is hosting a webinar
this week on its proposed new drinking water regulations.

The Agency has just announced plans to limit harmful toxic substances
known as PFAS in drinking water, and says cleaner water will prevent thousands of deaths and improve the lives of Pennsylvania residents.

Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania director for Clean Water Action, said the proposal is a step in the right direction to clean up the state's drinking water while preventing further contamination. He said PFAS are used in consumer products, firefighting foam, food packaging, and many other things.

"We've been increasingly concerned over the years that we have worked on this that these chemicals are getting throughout our environment," he said. "They're in our water. We're finding it in soil, we're finding it in our bodies. I think that the EPA proposal is going to be really important for Pennsylvania. "

In addition to this week's webinar, Arnowitt encouraged people to voice their concerns over the
EPA's proposal during an online public hearing May 4th. The agency expects to finalize its plan by the end of this year, at which time water utilities would have three to five years to comply.

Arnowitt added Pennsylvania has a history of PFAS contamination and the state has set higher drinking water standards, but said Pennsylvanians remain concerned about potential exposure.

"I think cancer is certainly the biggest issue that people are worried about. But there are people who experience other kinds of health problems from having water that's been contaminated by PFAS," he said.

Arnowitt said the EPA's proposal would require public utilities to monitor levels of six different PFAS and remove them if they exceed safe drinking water standards. The last day to register for the May 4th public hearing is April 28th.