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Almost no one knows. So it keeps going on -- and getting worse.
Seemingly made difficult to understand, permits to pollute our drinking water by the fossil fuel industry essentially equal no control.
Should the extraction companies violate their permits, they are simply told to stop doing so within a period of months or be fined. At the same time, the jobs that are supposed to make it all worthwhile, are few, temporary and generally go to out-of-state workers.
Meanwhile, affected communities become decimated by crime, drugs and skyrocketing housing prices.
The latest effort by the WV legislature and the WV Dept. of Environmental Protection is to issue a "General Construction Permit" to such industries. This permit does not require public notice for fracking operations due to their smaller size. With no public notice, communities do not know to demand pre-drilling water quality tests and so cannot sue when pollution occurs.
Further, the federal government is as guilty as the State. For decades the EPA knowingly allowed PFAS-forming chemicals in frack drilling fluids to make them "slick". PFAS are chemicals that destroy liver and kidneys, cause cancer, do not break down in the environment and accumulate in our bodies.
Yet PFAS are only one of hundreds of chemicals in frack waste. Many are proprietary so that no one knows their health effects including first responders.
One toxin, 4-NQO, forms during the fracking process and was found in dangerous amounts in every one of 24, randomly-chosen frack waste samples from drilling sites in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Cancer-causing in parts per trillion, 4-NQO is not economically detectable by water treatment facilities.
Gas and oil drilling wastes are created at an average of 5 million gallons per frack. Besides frequent accidents and spills, they have been seen being dumped clandestinely into waterways and used as road deicers and dust suppressants. In West Virginia, riddled with coal mines and karst tunnels, safe disposal of that much liquid is impossible.
However, due to industry influence, West Virginians are kept in the dark regarding this ongoing threat.
Barbara Daniels
Morgantown