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Americas: Radium levels OK in major Marcellus rivers: Pennsylvania DEP

https://www.chemnet.com   Mar 09,2011 Platts
Water flowing downstream from seven water plants treating Marcellus Shale drilling wastewater shows no sign of elevated radium isotopes, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said Monday.

The DEP said in-stream sampling stations installed last fall showed levels of radium isotopes 226 and 228 were at or below normal levels found in nature, known as background levels.

A series of articles in the New York Times last week raised concerns that naturally occurring radioactive materials are flowing back in wastewater from gas drillers' hydraulic fractures and creeping into fresh water, posing a potential health threat.

Plants treating drilling waste water before releasing it into fresh water streams and rivers cannot remove any radioactive materials.

While clothing and skin can easily block radium's alpha-rays, if ingested it has been linked to blood and other cancers, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

In reaction to the news, two Pittsburgh-area water companies announced last week they would begin testing the river water received at the inlets for radioactivity.

The DEP said results from testing stations on both the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers, the two rivers that form the Ohio at Pittsburgh, showed no levels of radium, the DEP said Monday.

Acting DEP Secretary Michael Krancer said the in-stream testing stations sample river water before it arrives at the intakes of public water suppliers.

"We deal in facts based on sound science," Krancer said Monday. "Here are the facts: all samples were at or below background levels of radioactivity; and all samples showed levels below the federal drinking water standard for radium 226 and 228."

Five of the seven stations were near Pittsburgh or the southwestern part of the Marcellus, DRP said; the remaining two were in Tioga and Lycoming Counties in the northcentral part of the state, testing water in the Susquehanna River watershed.

No results were announced from the seven eastern Pennsylvania counties in the Delaware River Basin watershed where drilling is on hold while the federal river basin commission develops rules to regulate hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling for gas.

Also not specifically tested were two northeastern Pennsylvania counties that have been a hotbed of Marcellus drilling in the past year: Bradford and Susquehanna, which are both in the Susquehanna River's watershed.

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