High levels of radiation found in creek near drilling wastewater site in western Pa.

A new study published in the journal of Environmental Science and Technology has found high levels of radiation and salinity in a creek near a drilling wastewater treatment facility in western Pennsylvania.

The Duke University study took numerous samples of water discharged downstream of the Josephine Brine Treatment Facility into Blacklick Creek in the Allegheny River watershed from the summer of 2010 to the fall of 2012. Sediment in the creek contained levels of radium that were 200 times greater than normal or background levels, along with high levels of salts like chloride and bromide in the surface water.

These elements come from a naturally occurring brine that is released along with natural gas during the hydraulic fracturing or fracking process. That radioactive brine, known as “flowback,”is either injected back underground or sent to facilities like Josephine where the wastewater is treated and then deposited into rivers and streams.

Professor Avner Vengosh, one of the study’s lead authors, said the radium and salt levels found in the creek are “problematic” and could lead to bio-accumulation of radiation in bugs and eventually, animals further up the food chain like fish.

“That’s why in the U.S. they have a limitation on how much you’re allowed to dispose from a site and to a certain level, to define it as radioactive waste disposal site,” Vengosh said. “The values we measured in the sediments in this site are far, far exceeding these threshold values.”