Guarding the water: DEP's waste request should have been an order
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It's good news for Pennsylvanians that the Department of Environmental Protection and gas drilling companies have acknowledged the need to halt the disposal of Marcellus Shale wastewater at municipal and commercial treatment plants, but the state agency should have gone further.
DEP asked drillers to stop taking the wastewater to 16 plants, including those in Clairton and McKeesport, by May 19. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and environmental groups have criticized the practice because the plants are not equipped to remove bromides and other dissolved solids from the wastewater before it is released into the rivers and streams that are sources of public drinking water.
Bromides are non-toxics, but when exposed to chlorine disinfectants in public water treatment plants they create trihalomethanes -- THMs -- that can cause cancer and birth defects.
Drillers contacted by the Post-Gazette said they would comply voluntarily, which also is good news. In addition, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a group that represents most of the companies, for the first time acknowledged that industry discharges were partly responsible for higher levels of certain pollutants that have been found in Western Pennsylvania's waterways.
With the industry now accepting the validity of research by Carnegie Mellon University and the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, along with the commission's stated commitment to solving the problem, why didn't DEP issue an order, rather than simply make a request?
A spokeswoman said DEP believes necessary changes can be achieved through voluntary compliance, and we hope that's true. But, with what appears to be agreement among all responsible parties that the drilling wastewater produces pollutants that the treatment plants can't adequately filter out, why wouldn't DEP impose a mandatory order as soon as possible?
Doing so would give the department muscle -- in the form of fines and other sanctions -- in case some drilling companies don't abide by the rules that their fellow operators now have agreed to follow.
The longer state regulations wait to make certain that dangerous practices are halted, the longer it will be until the state's drinking water supplies are unquestionably safe.
First Published April 22, 2011 12:00 am
