Radioactive sludge removed
A small amount of low-level radioactive sludge stored in two roll-off boxes at a drilling site in Smith Township since early March was disposed at a West Virginia landfill Tuesday, a Range Resources spokesman said Wednesday.
The sludge from the Malinky well pad was supposed to be disposed at Arden landfill in Chartiers Township on March 1, but sensors at the entrance detected “above background” radiation in the containers, meaning they could not be disposed of there.
Instead, Range Resources requested special permission from state Department of Environmental Protection regulators to return the roll-off boxes and sludge to its well site at 296 Joe Cain Road, about a mile from Midway.
DEP spokesman John Poister said the sludge contained 212 microrems of radiation and that level of exposure would not affect workers at the site or nearby residents.
The DEP granted the company a special exemption to store the waste at the site for up to a year – eight other similar permits have been granted across Western Pennsylvania so far this year – but it was trucked from the site Tuesday and deposited in a landfill near Bridgeport, W.Va. Poister said DEP was not a part of the transportation or disposal process because the sludge was taken to another state.
“This is not a dangerous level, but we like to see them move it out and make sure it’s safely disposed of,” Poister said. “I think the company feels that way, too.”
It’s not unusual for a low level of radiation to be a byproduct of horizontal drilling when the shale is fractured. A similar situation occurred earlier this month at a wastewater impoundment in Mt. Pleasant when about 20 inches of water and four inches of sludge tested for “above background” radiation levels. That sludge, which preliminary test results showed had 350 microrems, was also stored on-site in a roll-off box.
“This is not an entirely uncommon occurrence for any industry that manages waste, from hospitals to oil and gas to residential sewage,” Range Resources spokesman Matt Pitzarella said.