Gas drilling's dirty side effect: Radioactive material....

Gas drilling’s dirty side effect: Radioactive material brought up from Barnett Shale during production
10:01 AM CST on Sunday, November 11, 2007 By Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe / Staff Writer
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first in a series of four stories on radioactive material generated by natural gas production in the Barnett Shale.
http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/drc/localnews/stories/DRC_NORM1_11-11.1fb48b711.html

"In Denton, Tarrant and Wise counties, all kinds of equipment — from pipes and separators to frac and brine-hauling tanks — have been decontaminated in [just] the past two years.

Texas Railroad Commission rules allow the industry to self-monitor for NORM, and many operators are slow to decontaminate the radioactive residue because of its cost, industry insiders say. Furthermore, only two of nearly 200 operators registered with the commission in the Barnett Shale’s core counties — Key Energy Services and Devon Energy — have provided for such decontamination in the past two years."

"Statewide, 140 such sites were decontaminated from January 2005 to the present, according to documents obtained from the Department of State Health Services, which oversees decontamination of the state’s hottest radioactive waste."

Radioactivity found in the Copper Belt

"V. Enhanced pollution due to technological processing. Waste elements that are put into the waste heaps release toxins into the environment, in an affect called “technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials” (TENORM) by Environmental Protection Agency. In other words, when you bring toxic metals, which are buried in the ground with no potential to harm human health, to the surface, put them in waste dumps exposed to the air, and subject them to various technological processes, there is a potential for adverse affects on human health. This is particularly true in Arizona where there are abundant deposits of radioactive metals and poisonous arsenic. In 1999, Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D. C. published a report on this uranium and radioactive chemicals in the “Copper Belt” of Southern Arizona. Following is an excerpt from that report:

Nearly all rocks, soils, thorium, radium, radioisotopes,naturally occurring radioactive purposefully or inadvertently technologically enhanced naturally as any naturally occurring human exposure has been activities (NAS, 1999). . . .

Levels in excess of the federal MCLs and state guidelines were found in groundwater and surface water samples, as well as soil and sediment samples at abandoned and active copper mines. TENORM exceedences were also found in groundwater at active and inactive copper mines. Uranium byproducts were recovered from heap leach dumps and in-situ operations that feed SX-EW and ion exchange circuits at several copper mines. Radioactivity was discovered in copper mineral processing waste streams. Elevated levels of radioactivity were also found to occur in the process solutions and process wastes."

For entire report, see: www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/tenorm/402-r-99-002.pdf

http://www.savethesantacruzaquifer.info/Superior.htm