Radioactivity in oil and gas production has been identified for decades, but the recent surge in petrochemical production through hydraulic fracturing has brought the issue of radioactivity in drilling byproducts under new scrutiny.
The recent publication of a two-year investigative report in Rolling Stone magazine on radioactivity in drilling waste fluid – brine – has raised concerns about wastewater disposal from oil and gas operations in southeastern Ohio.
Washington County alone has 11 Class II deep disposal wells. Most such wells – designated for the disposal of waste water and drilling fluid from oil and gas drilling operations – are located in eastern Ohio, in part because of their proximity to oil and gas deposits. The wells require permitting from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Oil and Gas Division, but analysis of the fluid contents is not required.
The most recent map of Class II injection wells showed 225 active wells in Ohio, with another 7 being drilled and 16 more under permit.
The Rolling Stone investigation – America’s Radioactive Secret, reported and written by Justin Nobel – includes the findings of a wastewater truck driver in eastern Ohio who kept samples of brine he transported and sent them to a lab for analysis. Four of the 11 samples analyzed showed radiation levels above 3,500 picocuries per liter. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the article said, requires industrial discharge to remain below 60 picocuries per liter.
Teresa Mills, a member of the Buckeye Environmental Network, said Friday that the organization made sure every lawmaker in Ohio received a copy of the article.
“At this point, I know a lot of legislators are aware of it,” she said. “Prior to the article being published, we already had formed a task force to stop brine spreading, we’re going to the legislature to get that stopped.”
Brine-spreading is a long standing practice that involves use of drilling wastewater as an ice or dust control material for rural roads. Under Ohio law, local governments can allow the use of brine from shallow, vertical wells, but the brine cannot include flowback fluids from hydraulic fracturing. The state law includes a number of restrictions, such as not applying the brine to vegetation or within 12 feet of a waterway, but does not address radioactivity. The law became effective in 2000 and was last revised in 2013.
Washington County Engineer Roger Wright said brine is not used on any roads in the county.
Brine – referred to in the industry as “produced water” – is highly salinated water trapped underground in oil and gas deposits that comes to the surface when the deposits are penetrated by drilling. In most wells, the amount of produced water far exceeds the oil and gas reached by the well, often by a factor of ten. The amount of produced water requiring disposal in the U.S. last year was in the order of 18 billion barrels.
Brine trucks moving wastewater from extraction sites to disposal wells are a common site on the highways of Washington County. The brine is generally re-injected under pressure into disused wells, in effect returning it to the same underground strata it came from. The practice has been criticized by local and national environmental groups, both for disturbances in the strata that are thought to provoke earthquakes and the potential for contamination of aquifers.
The oil and gas industry is exempt from providing a chemical analysis of those fluids. Ohio has become a destination for wastewater disposal from surrounding states, with millions of barrels of the waste product being imported annually from West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Torch CAN DO, headquartered in the community of Torch, just inside Athens County on U.S. 50 and about 15 miles west of Belpre, was established by a group of concerned residents in 2015 to raise public awareness of the potential hazards of injection wells. The drilling route for the wells sometimes crosses aquifers on the way down to disposal depths between 5,000 and 10,000 feet below the surface, raising concerns that leakage could contaminate well water with a variety of carcinogenic chemicals and radioactive compounds.
Although aquifers normally lie several thousand feet above oil and gas deposits, the practice of hydraulic fracturing affects the integrity of the rock formations to an unknown extent.
Felicia Mettler is a member of the Torch group.
“My mother and father-in-law live 1,800 feet from an injection well, and they have to live with constant shaking and nerve-wracking noise,” she said. The wastewater is pumped into the wells under pressure, creating vibrations in the vicinity of the wells. “We (Torch CAN DO) felt an obligation to tell people about this … the wells are already contaminated with C8 (perfluorooctanic acid, a byproduct of the process used to manufacture Teflon coatings at the DuPont facility in Parkersburg).”
Mettler said that since 2005, six million barrels of brine have been injected into wells in Athens County alone. Loren Coney, another Torch CAN DO member, noted that the aquifers in Athens County and much of the rest of southeastern Ohio have never been mapped, contributing to the uncertainty about locating disposal wells.
“We’re gaining another two million barrels every year,” Mettler said. A barrel is equal to 42 gallons.
“In 1983, Ohio took primacy over oil and gas from the federal EPA,” Coney said, referring to a Reagan-era agreement that put the industry in Ohio outside the federal jurisdiction.
The Rolling Stone article notes the potential impact on brine truck drivers, who are exposed to the liquid during their daily work, and the danger presented by equipment, such as trucks, tanks, pumps and hoses, that acquire radiation from the brine.
That hazard is addressed briefly in federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration guides dealing with the handling of naturally-occurring radiation, with a reference to a 1989 study by the Department of Environmental Quality in Louisiana. The report makes numerous recommendations about worker safety in handling pipe and other equipment used in oilfield work.
“Of particular interest … is the growing awareness of related problems of the radioactivity content of produced waters and contamination of equipment and facilities in the oil and natural gas production and processing industries,” the report stated. “The magnitude of the problem is difficult to estimate, but it is not unrealistic to expect contamination at all oil and gas production sites and pipe handling facilities.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission requirements cover only the use of radioactive tracer materials in the exploratory phase of drilling, not naturally-occurring radioactive materials in the extraction process.
The disposal of oil and gas waste products in Ohio falls under the jurisdiction of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Oil and Gas Division. The division examined the Rolling Stone article and sent responses to several points.
“The levels of radioactivity in oil and gas brine do not meet the regulatory threshold of Class 7 radioactive material and to our knowledge never have …” the division said in response to an assertion that brine should be classified as hazardous material.
The division was not, however, dismissive of the matter.
“The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement will be publishing a commentary in the near future that calls for a full study of technologically-enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material in the oil and gas industry,” the division said in an email. We take this issue seriously and devote a lot of our professional time time working on these problems and trying to raise awareness.”
Meanwhile, concerns about the possibility of aquifer contamination and hazards to people who handle oil and gas equipment continue. The tanks, trucks, pumps, hoses and pipe exposed over long periods of time to brine can acquire dangerous levels of radioactivity in accumulated scale and corrosion. The oil and gas division said in response to an inquiry that portions of the Ohio Administrative Code apply to contaminated materials, but there is no requirement for equipment to be measured for radiation.
“… some operations regulated by the Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management, such as oil and gas waste facilities, are required to implement radiation protection plans,” the division said. There also are, the division said, provisions in the administrative code for disposal of contaminated equipment.
The Ohio Oil and Gas Association said the movement of brine is regulated by several agencies.
“Our members and their staffs are well equipped and trained to follow these strict rules and regulations since they are in place for their protection and the protection of our environment,” a statement from the association said.
Mills said she feels the protections are not adequate.
“It’s very hard to regulate radioactive isotopes. For every law, there’s a loophole, and if there’s a way out of the law, it’s just smoke and mirrors,” she said. “We’re looking at all the options to increase awareness.”
Michael Kelly can be contacted at [email protected].
America’s Radioactive Secret: Rolling Stone magazine January 2020
rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/oil-gas-fracking-radioactive-investigation-937389/
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