By John Noël, National Oil & Gas Campaigns Coordinator - Follow John on Twitter (@Noel_Johnny)
This week EPA proposed an update to a 30 year old Clean Water Act program that regulates oil and gas wastewater discharges to sewage treatment plants, or publically owned treatment works (POTWs). In the past we know that oil and gas companies have sent millions of gallons of wastewater to these plants which then discharge it to local rivers, lakes and bays.
The problem is that these sewage plants were never designed to treat wastewater coming from unconventional oil and gas operations, that is, those using fracking or other modern technologies which allow the industry to access previously unreachable oil and gas reserves. Unconventional production generally is code for the majority of new oil and gas wells drilled today.
This new unconventional wastewater contains all kinds of harmful pollutants including extreme salt contents, heavy metals, benzene/BTEX compounds, chemical additives from the fracturing fluid and even radioactive elements. After a few high profile case of the pollutants slipping through the treatment process and showing up in dangerous concentrations downstream, and cases of unconventional constituents jamming up the sewage plants treatment process – EPA recognized the need to update the Clean Water Act Effluent Limitations Guidelines which regulates wastewater discharges.
In line with current scientific understanding of treatment technologies and harmful pollutants contained in oil and gas wastewater, EPA proposed a prohibition on all discharges of unconventional wastewater to municipally owned sewage treatment plants. This week Clean Water Action launched a campaign to help build grassroots support for the rule during the 60 day public comment period.
You can act now and let EPA know you support the Agency’s efforts to move forward with commonsense updates to the Clean Water Act. This rule will protect our lakes, rivers and bays from oil and gas wastewater pollution and close a longstanding gap in federal regulation. Check out this page for more information on this proposal and other oil and gas issues.
