New EPA Rule Prevents Sewage Plants from Treating Frack Wastewater

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The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which we’ve longed called a rogue agency (it is), is about to issue a new “rule” (i.e. unlegislated law) that prevents municipal sewage treatment plants from accepting untreated frack wastewater. It is the one EPA rule in recent memory that we can support. Of course the rule won’t change a thing. There are no municipal sewage treatment plants accepting untreated frack wastewater anywhere in the United States. It was happening in Pennsylvania back in 2011, but then-Sec. of the Dept. of Environment Protection for PA, Mike Krancer (a Republican), put a stop to it (see PA DEP, Marcellus Shale Coalition Admit Drilling Wastewater Likely Contaminating Drinking Water). Since that time there have been no sewage plants accepting frack wastewater–which proves the states are quite capable of policing such issues on their own. However, because it theoretically could happen, it’s a talking point for anti-drillers and their campaign to, irrationally, eliminate all fossil fuels, except the ones they use. Since there’s no federal law or rule against sewage treatment plants from accepting frack waste, the EPA is about to issue a new rule that officially ensures it never happens again (copy of the proposed rule below). Not wanting to let this momentous occasion go to waste, the anti-drilling zealots at so-called Environment America issued a press release congratulating the EPA (and themselves) for this new rule…

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