Change in PA DEP Tone Toward Marcellus Industry Noticeable

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The newly reconstituted Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection has taken on a decidedly more antagonist tone with the Marcellus drilling industry, unfortunately. You can detect this new tone, no doubt fostered by its new Acting Secretary, John Quigley (formerly from the anti-drilling PennFuture), in its press releases. Like the one below. The story is that there is a coal refuse site in Indiana County, PA used to process and store waste from coal mining. Close to that site is a wastewater impoundment where leachate (nasty water coming from the coal refuse site) was collected and stored, creating a somewhat toxic sludge under the impoundment. In addition, some shale drilling wastewater was stored in that same impoundment. It appears that most of the environment hazards come from the coal waste leachate, but notice how shale brine is intertwined, mixed in, subsumed and painted with the same toxic brush as the coal waste leachate–as if brine has the same (or worse) toxicity (which it doesn’t)…

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