Free Republic

People in seven states, from South Dakota to Texas, were awakened Saturday morning, September 3, by Oklahoma’s most powerful earthquake in recorded history. The 5.8 tremor was centered near Pawnee, OK. Several buildings sustained minor damage and there were no serious injuries. That we know. What we don’t know is what caused the quake—but that didn’t stop the alarmist headlines from quickly blaming it on “fracking.”Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein promptly tweeted: “Fracking causes polluted drinking water + earthquakes. The #GreenNewDeal comes with none of these side effects, Oklahoma. #BanFracking”A headline in Forbes stated: “Thanks to fracking, earthquake hazards...

The Environmental Protection is admitting to a spill from a treatment plant it set up after it dumped 3 million gallons of toxic wastewater into a Colorado river last year. The EPA said Thursday night that the spill happened on Tuesday, and officials are still attempting to determine how much and what metals were contained in the sludgy discharge, ... The Navajo Nation sued the agency over the spill last week after the EPA inspector general and the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into the incident a few days before the Aug. 5 anniversary of the 2015 spill. The...

A site run by Denbury Onshore LLC in southwestern North Dakota has spilled more than 120,000 gallons of oil and wastewater into pastureland after a mechanical failure. Some estimated 17,000 gallons of oil and 105,000 gallons of drilling wastewater containing saltwater and chemicals leaked into pastureland near the city of Marmarth when a tank sensor failed, news agencies quoted state regulators as saying. The tank overflowed on Wednesday, and by Friday, workers were excavating the affected pastureland, which is being equated to the size of a football field.

A group of Mexican engineers from the Jhostoblak Corporate created technology to recover and purify seawater or wastewater from households, hotels, hospitals, commercial and industrial facilities, regardless of the content of pollutants and microorganisms in just 2.5 minutes. The system, PQUA, works with a mixture of dissociating elements, capable of separating and removing all contaminants, as well as organic and inorganic pollutants. "The methodology is founded on molecularly dissociating water pollutants to recover the minerals necessary and sufficient in order for the human body to function properly nourished," the researchers explained.Notably, the engineers developed eight dissociating elements, and after extensive...

Abandoning years of official skepticism, Oklahoma’s government on Tuesday embraced a scientific consensus that earthquakes rocking the state are largely caused by the underground disposal of billions of barrels of wastewater from oil and gas wells.The state’s energy and environment cabinet introduced a website detailing the evidence behind that conclusion Tuesday, including links to expert studies of Oklahoma’s quakes. The site includes an interactive map that plots not only earthquake locations, but also the sites of more than 3,000 active wastewater-injection wells.The website coincided with a statement by the state-run Oklahoma Geological Survey that it “considers it very likely” that...

California state regulators allowed oil companies to dispose of wastewater in clean groundwater supplies for years, according to a new report. The San Francisco Chronicle, citing a review of state data, reports that oil companies built more than 170 waste-disposal wells feeding into bodies of groundwater that could otherwise have been used for drinking or irrigation during one of the area’s worst droughts in centuries. The wells are primarily located in the state’s agricultural Central Valley region, which was particularly devastated by the drought.

Energy company Range Resources said Thursday it has agreed to pay a $4.15 million fine for environmental violations at a western Pennsylvania site that handled natural gas drilling waste. The penalty is the largest the state has ever imposed on the shale gas industry. Range, based in Fort Worth, said in a statement that it accepts the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection fine and is “deeply disappointed” over the violations at Washington County wastewater impoundments, about 25 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. The fine was imposed for leaks at open pits Range operates to store the so-called flowback waste from natural...

Beaver dams have so far prevented about 1 million gallons of fracking wastewater discovered spilled July 8 from a rural North Dakota pipeline from spreading too far. But area residents, environmentalists and even a Republican state legislator all want more reliable measures. The spill of the toxic saltwater, a byproduct of hydraulic fracturing, came from gas extraction operations at the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation and occurred days before it was discovered. The federal Environmental Protection Agency said the underground pipeline spilled about 24,000 barrels, or 1 million gallon, in North Dakota’s thriving oil and gas region. The water, which can...

The National Association of Clean Water Agencies, which represents 300 wastewater agencies, says it has been hearing complaints about wipes from sewer systems big and small for about the past four years. That roughly coincides with the ramped-up marketing of the “flushable cleansing cloths” as a cleaner, fresher option than dry toilet paper alone. A trade group says wipes are a $6 billion-a-year industry, with sales of consumer wipes increasing nearly 5 percent a year since 2007 and expected to grow at a rate of 6 percent annually for the next five years. ... Manufacturers insist wipes labeled flushable aren’t...

As I report in Friday’s Times, disposing of the waste produced by natural gas drilling will become a larger and more contentious issue if New York State gives the go-ahead to horizontal hydraulic fracturing, which uses millions of gallons of fluids per well to release gas from the Marcellus Shale. New York already deals with waste from about 6,800 active vertical and horizontal gas wells upstate. Although these wells require just a fraction of the water that would be needed for fracking in the Marcellus, they still produce waste that needs to go somewhere. Officials with the New York Department...

FORT WORTH — In parched West Texas, it's often easier to drill for oil than to find new sources of water. So after years of diminishing water supplies made worse by the second-most severe drought in state history, some communities are resorting to a plan that might have seemed absurd a generation ago: turning sewage into drinking water. Construction recently began on a $13 million water-reclamation plant believed to be the first of its kind in Texas. And officials have worked to dispel any fears that people will be drinking their neighbors' urine, promising the system will yield clean, safe...

In a striking change of direction, the California Coastal Commission Wednesday voted 8-4 to give San Diego its third exemption from pollution standards set by the federal Clean Water Act. Just two months ago, commissioners overwhelmingly to deny the five-year waiver from “secondary” treatment levels at the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant. The facility processes sewage from more than 2.2 million people in and outside of the city's limits. The commission's reversal saves San Diego from having to retrofit the facility at a price tag of up to $1.5 billion. The last major step is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,...

Years ago when I had a full head of hair, I worked for the New Jersey Institute of Technology and gained a great respect for engineers and architects. Without them, nothing gets built, nothing works, and we would all be back rubbing two sticks together to make a fire. In early March, my local daily newspaper ran a story that was four paragraphs long and buried at the bottom of the page. Engineers see U.S. Infrastructure Sinking. It was one of those stories deemed newsworthy enough to include since it cited a report by the American Society of Civil Engineers,...

Flushed ring fished out, years later By Ann Schrader Denver Post Staff Writer Wednesday, January 19, 2005 - Arvada - More than a quarter- century ago, Jerry Duran watched his 1978 Pomona High School class ring swirl around the toilet bowl and disappear. On Tuesday, the gold ring with an aquamarine stone was headed back to Duran, who now lives in Del Norte, where he builds custom bicycles and is a ski patrol member at Wolf Creek Ski Area. Duran, who said he hadn't thought about the ring in years, said its return is "much to my surprise." Arvada Wastewater...

EPA wants Ecology to deny new discharge permits until capacity problem solved Flushing toilets could bring development in unincorporated Spokane County and Spokane Valley to a halt. Spokane County Utilities Director Bruce Rawls warned county commissioners and Spokane Valley City Council members Tuesday that their jurisdictions will reach wastewater treatment capacity by 2009 unless a new treatment plant is built. And completion of that $100 million, 10-million-gallons-per-day plant is facing some serious hurdles. "There's some question our project will be built in time to meet our (current) 10-million-gallon limit," said Rawls. Without the extra capacity, local jurisdictions will be forced...

Upgrading 8 Virginia Treatment Plants Would Cost $520M Updated: Friday, Jan. 2, 2004 - 11:25 AM NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) - Meeting demands by environmental groups to dramatically reduce nitrogen and phosphorous in waste water that ends up in Chesapeake Bay would be costly, according to a sanitation district serving Hampton Roads. Upgrading eight of the area's nine big treatment plants would require an investment of approximately $520 million. That, in turn, would cause a 70 percent rate increase that would add about $100 a year to the average residential customer's sewage bill, estimates the Hampton Roads Sanitation District,...

<p>PHOENIX (AP) --  The Flagstaff City Council approved a proposal to sell Arizona Snowbowl treated wastewater to cover bare ski slopes, despite protests from environmentalists and American Indians, who consider the San Francisco Peaks sacred.</p> <p>Snowbowl wants to pump 1.5 million gallons of the water to its ski area midway up Agassiz Peak, in what general manager J.R. Murray said is an estimated $9 million project.</p>