An Overview of Fracking Waste in New Jersey

Federal and State Regulatory Gaps Exist

To extract the natural gas, drillers need to inject massive amounts of water and toxic
chemicals and sand to break up the deep rock formations during hydraulic fracturing or
"fracking. The massive amount of wastewater that comes back up after fracking, as well
as the drill cuttings or muds, pose major disposal problems.
Nearly 30 years ago, before the shale boom was even a gleam in the oil and gas
industrys eye, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considered
whether oil and gas development waste should be regulated under the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Among the agencys many conclusions in a
report to Congress were:

Such wastes contain a wide variety of hazardous constituents.

Regulatory gaps exist.
[Waste management] practices vary substantially in the protection they provide
to the environment.
For the major waste streams, EPA was unable to identify any new
technologiesthat offer promise for wide application in the near term.
Despite these conclusions, EPA decided to exempt oil and gas development waste
from the definition of hazardous under RCRA.

Between 1995 and 2009, the number of oil and gas wells in production grew more than
20% (141,000); by 2013, natural gas wells had increased more than 65% (189,000) and
the average rate of oil production had gone up nearly 40%. Today, there are more than
1.1 million active oil and gas wells nationwide. Most of these wells are hydraulically
fractured and all of them produce large quantities of liquid and solid waste. Yet RCRA
still does not apply to oil and gas development waste. Consequently, it is categorized as
non-hazardous and its management is largely subject to state discretion.
Fracking wastewater includes toxic drilling chemicals from fracking fluid including
methanol, ethylene glycol, formaldehyde, napthalene, benzene, toluene and xylene. To
date, over six hundred chemicals have been discovered in fracking fluids. 47% of these
products have the potential to affect the endocrine system, including human and wildlife
development and reproduction. About 30% of these chemicals are also human
carcinogens. The wastewater also includes total dissolved solids, heavy metals, and
radioactivity picked up underground during fracking.
Fracking wastewater not only includes all the chemicals used for drilling, but it also can
consist of heavy metals and radioactivity picked up underground. The New York
Department of Environmental Conservation found that the chemicals in fracking fluid
have adverse effects on the nervous system, liver, kidneys, blood-forming tissues, have
been associated with leukemia and death. In a November 2011 advisory to the industry,
the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJ DEP) said that fracking
waste "may contain petroleum hydrocarbons from drilling fluids and elevated
concentrations of heavy metals and radionuclides." The NJ DEP has issued revised
guidelines on drill cuttings that would continue to allow this polluted and often
radioactive material to be dumped in our landfills and lack of adequate tracking of this
waste means that it could even be coming here now. This inaction by the NJ DEP
underscores the need for local action to stop fracking waste disposal.

Unfortunately, in September 2012 Governor Chris Christie vetoed a bill that would have
banned New Jersey treatment plants from accepting fracking wastewater. Again in
August 2014, Christie vetoed legislation that would have banned the state from treating
or storing fracking wastewater and fluids. Legislation is urgently needed to prohibit the
treatment, storage and discharge of dangerous fracking wastes in our state. As of right
now, polluted drill cuttings or muds can be dumped in our landfills, liquid waste can be
injected in to disposal wells, liquid waste can be mistreated at treatment plants that
cannot handle the volatile organic compounds or radioactivity properly, and liquid waste
can be sprayed on roads as a de-icer or dust suppressant.
The Problem of Fracking Waste
Every fracking site, of which there are thousands across the U.S., produce about 1.2
million gallons of wastewater. That means the oil and gas industry are looking for ways
to dispose of billions of gallons of dangerous wastewater each year. The methods are
highly experimental and have resulted in contamination of communities. We must not
leave our community, our roads, and our waterways at risk.
Many of the questions asked about oil and gas field waste decades ago persist, including
what it contains and how it is, and should be, treated and disposed of. Also debated is
whether states have the ability and resources to adequately protect water, soil, and air
quality in the process.
A series of high-profile events has drawn public attention to the limitations and risks of
current disposal facilities and methods. In addition, research studies and investigations
have begun to document the contaminants present in oil and gas field waste and the
pathways through which they enter the environmentand can ultimately impact human
health. As more problems with waste storage and disposal capacity have grown alongside
the number of wells and scale of operations, many policymakers and advocates have
started to ask: as drilling continues, where is all the waste going and what happens as a
result? Tracking fracking waste and ensuring it is all disposed of properly, especially
across state lines, has been a challenge for Pennsylvania, creating more of a concern for
neighboring states.
Pennsylvania has already produced more than 1.3 billion gallons of contaminated
wastewater. New Jersey is in need of protections from fracking waste as we neighbor
Pennsylvania where a flood of waste is produced every day. Further, fracking could even
occur here in northern New Jerseys gas-bearing shales, in the Delaware River
Watershed, or adjacent New York State should bans be lifted, creating an even greater
stream of toxic waste we cant handle and cant afford to accept.
Fracking waste is such a complicated mixture of chemicals that sometimes, after mixing,
the chemicals become hard to identify without the industry providing full disclosure,
which they are not legally obligated to do in order to protect the proprietary list of
chemicals they use to drill a well. The industry is expected to police itself in reporting the
contents of the wastewater to the treatment plant.
Even when the chemicals are identified, there is no safe way to treat fracking wastewater.
Biologic treatment plants that use disinfection by-products like chlorine to remove total
dissolved solids do not work for fracking waste. In 2011, Pennsylvania regulators asked
the gas industry to stop taking the wastewater to municipal wastewater treatment plants

after concerning levels of trihalomethanes were detected in the state's waterways. This
harmful chemical can be generated when bromides in fracking wastewater react with
chlorine during the disinfection phase of conventional wastewater treatment. Chemical
treatment plants generally use granular activated carbon treatment, but these don't work
either and many of the compounds pass right through, such as benzene and phenol.
Carbon would not take out total dissolved solids, including various toxic metals.
As the gas industry continues to expand and tap into additional natural gas formations,
the list of products used during drilling will grow, creating a larger span on contaminants
in the wastewater. New products and chemicals continue to be introduced into the market
as a result of increasing competition among those who manufacture and sell products;
and product specialization to address the geology and varying geochemical conditions of
the natural gas formations. This makes keeping track of the contaminants in the waste
even more difficult.
Fracking Wastes in New Jersey
In 2009 and 2010, about 1.4 million gallons of partially treated wastewater collected from
hydraulic fracturing wells outside the Delaware River basin were processed and flushed
into Delaware waters through the commercial side of DuPonts wastewater plant in
Deepwater, New Jersey, near the foot of the Delaware Memorial Bridge. Delaware
regulators only learned when contacted by The News Journal in May 2012 that the
drilling wastewater passed through DuPonts plant for treatment, exiting from a discharge
pipe under the river on Delawares side of the state line.
On June 15, 2012, Reuters reported that data from the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection showed waste from Pennsylvania had gone to facilities in
Elizabeth, South Kearny, and Carteret. The AP later reported the waste consisted of drill
cuttings (PA residual waste code 810) and drilling fluid (PA residual waste code 803). 1.5
million gallons of frack wastewater and 478+ tons of drill waste have already come to
New Jersey and been dumped in our communities. Some of the waste that entered South
Kearny was so radioactive it violated facility permit limits.
Frack waste is so complicated to treat that there are no facilities that can safely purify it,
though some treatment plants accept the waste, jeopardizing our drinking water. The
federal government hasnt even issued treatment guidelines yet for fracking wastes. In
New Jersey we have 70 wastewater treatment plants above drinking water intakes on the
Passaic River and another 60 sewage treatment plants exist above drinking water intakes
on the Raritan River. Fracking waste must be banned in our NJ municipalities so it does
not find its way in to our water system.
Gas companies have already dumped toxic and radioactive frack waste in New Jersey and
without local protections against fracking wastes theres nothing to stop the oil and gas
industry from continuing to use our state as dumping grounds. The support of local
government is vital to protect our public health, our communities and water supplies from
this dangerous pollution.

Elizabeth, NJ did the right thing and protected the health of residents by banning fracking
wastes in their town. We, too, are in need of local legislation to prevent transfer,
treatment, disposal, storage, application to a roadway or otherwise release into the
environment of fracking wastes. NJ is the most densely populated state in the nation and
is already facing a slew of pollution from other sources. Now is the time to stand up for
the health and safety of residents and ensure that our legacy is not one of industrial
pollution.
Legal Precedent & Home Rule
The March 15, 2013 memo from the New Jersey State Legislature Office of Legislative
Services states that municipalities do have the ability to ban drilling for natural gas. The
document also states that a municipality cannot ban the siting of a plant to treat fracking
waste unless the municipality is able to demonstrate a reasonable basis for the
prohibition, which is very easy to do when discussing the harmful substances in fracking
wastewater. The document admits that: municipalities have the authority to protect the
public health and safety, a reasonable basis for a local ban is necessary, and the land use
must be consistent with other industrial uses to make the legislation not vulnerable to a
court challenge.
The document does not address the issue of road spreading of wastes, injection wells, or
landfills. It does, however, address the issue of preemption in regards to a municipal ban
on treating fracking wastewater at a treatment plant, stating that wastewater treatment
plants operate under a permit issues by the NJ DEP to regulate discharges of pollutants in
to the states waterways and that any plant treating fracking wastewater would be
required to comply with a permit issued by the state. But accidents between residents
vehicles and large tanker trucks full of fracking wastewater would be a costly and
dangerous mess, and does warrant action.
Further, Elizabeth, NJ, after discovering that fracking waste had come there, decided to
pass a local ban on fracking waste. This law, to date, has not been contested and is legally
viable. Also, New Jersey is a Home Rule state, meaning that legal right to local
governance is written in the states constitution. More than a hundred communities across
New York have used their states Home Rule to ban fracking wastes from being dumped
in their municipality and none of these bans have been challenged on the grounds of
interstate commerce.
Article IV, Section VII (11) of our New Jersey Constitution guarantees that: "The
provisions of this Constitution and of any law concerning municipal corporations formed
for local government, or concerning counties, shall be liberally construed in their favor.
The powers of counties and such municipal corporations shall include not only those
granted in express terms but also those of necessary or fair implication, or incident to the
powers expressly conferred, or essential thereto, and not inconsistent with or prohibited
by this Constitution or by law."
And the Home Rule Act of 1917 N.J.S.A. 40:42 et. seq. offers the following protection:
"In construing the provisions of this subtitle, all courts shall construe the same most
favorably to municipalities, it being the intention to give all municipalities to which this
subtitle applies the fullest and most complete powers possible over the internal affairs of
such municipalities for local self-government.