Stanford Study Tells Us What We Knew 3 Years Ago About Wastewater

A new research study from Stanford University titled "Enhanced Formation of Disinfection By-Products in Shale Gas Wastewater-Impacted Drinking Water Supplies" proves what we already knew more than three years ago: When you send frack wastewater untreated, or lightly treated, to a municipal sewage treatment plant--the plant can't get the residual water clean enough to not cause problems down river. Back in 2011, then-PA DEP Sec. Michael Krancer ended the practice of municipal treatment plants without special equipment from processing frack wastewater (see PA DEP, Marcellus Shale Coalition Admit Drilling Wastewater Likely Contaminating Drinking Water). Not long after it was shown that bromide levels--one of the hazards of treating frack wastewater with chlorine--had fallen after the ban (see Marcellus Wastewater Ban Leads to Lower Bromide in PA Rivers). Here we are three years later and a new study says the same thing...

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