New WV Facility Opens to Handle Radioactive M-U Waste
SECUR, a privately owned company headquartered in Pittsburgh that (among other things) cleans up radioactive waste from shale drilling, has just opened a new 10-acre branch facility in Tyler County, WV to do just that–to clean up NORM (naturally occurring radioactive materials) and TENORM (technically-enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material). The facility cleans up both liquids (wastewater) and solids (drill cuttings) that contain a tiny bit of radiation in them, making them suitable for safe disposal. No, there is no permanent storage at the facility–the site, located in Friendly, WV, is only used to clean up the stuff coming in. SECUR then repackages the material and sends it back out to licensed disposal facilities. And did we mention…SECUR is a woman-owned, small business? Nice. Here’s the good news of yet more jobs and an essential service have come to the WV part of the Marcellus/Utica…
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By our reckoning, Antero Resources’ $275 million wastewater recycling facility in Doddridge County, WV is now operational (see 
In a disappointing development, the supervisors of Smith Township (Washington County), PA have voted to turn down MAX Environmental’s request to expand the Bulger landfill they operate in the town (see 
MAX Environmental has operated the Bulger hazardous waste landfill in Smith Township (Washington County), PA since 1958. One of the primary customers for the landfill over the past 10 years has been the Marcellus industry–dumping drill cuttings (leftover dirt and rock from drilling) at the landfill. Earlier this year, MAX sold itself to Altus Capital Partners–a private equity investment firm–for an undisclosed amount (see 
Yesterday a three-judge panel from the US District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out the Sierra Club’s petitions challenging Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authorization of three LNG export projects: Dominion Energy’s Cove Point LNG in Maryland, Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG in Louisiana, and Cheniere’s Corpus Christi LNG in Texas. As we said in a post on Oct. 3rd: “The Sierra Club lawsuit against all three projects challenges FERC’s approval of them, arguing the plants negatively affect the environment and will make Mom Earth sick. While no one expects these lawsuits to go anywhere, you never know, which is why it’s important to keep an eye on it” (see 
Every now and again anti-fossil fuel nutters in New York will pop up from whatever hole they live in to claim that the couple of NY landfills accepting drill cuttings (leftover rock and dirt) from PA shale drilling will result in an environmental apocalypse. One landfill in particular, in Chemung County, seems to be the focus of their ire (see 
In 2014 MDN reported that MAX Environmental, operator of the Bulger hazardous waste landfill in Smith Township (Washington County), PA since 1958, planned to expand the landfill by 21 acres in order to handle an increase of drill cuttings and even liquid waste (which they will turn to solid waste) coming from Marcellus Shale drilling (see 
January 20th, when Donald Trump is inaugurated and decomposing swamps like the EPA get drained, can’t happen soon enough. However, before that date, the Obamadroids are doing everything they can to get their last digs in. One of them is the rogue, out-of-control Environmental Protection Agency, which will soon be swept clean by Scott Pruitt (delicious justice if ever there were some). We’ve written about the sleazy practice of “sue and settle” in the past–a practice whereby government agencies like the EPA get their friends in the radical environmental movement to sue them, then they quickly settle the case and say “See, we HAVE to do this because the court is making us do it.” Scott Pruitt knows all about that practice and it will stop on Jan. 20. But until then, the EPA continues to engage in it. The latest case they’ve just settled was brought by the odious National Resources Defense Council, Earthworks and a mishmash of other radical groups in May 2016 regarding an attempt to ban injection wells and stop landfills from accepting drill cuttings (see 
Earlier this week so-called researchers at the University of Iowa released a tragically flawed study that purports to say Marcellus Shale drill cuttings (rock and dirt from drilling) are radioactive and if you put them in your landfill, you’ll start to glow in the dark. That’s the upshot from “research” that used just three samples FROM A SINGLE WELL as the basis of the “study.” This is anti-fossil fuel hogwash by a group of grad students who want to launch their careers by making a name for themselves. What they’ve actually done is ended their short careers with shoddy research. The paper is titled “Disequilibrium of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) in Drill Cuttings from a Horizontal Drilling Operation” and appears in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters. Below is a summary of the “research” followed by an analysis by MDN friend and intrepid writer Nicole Jacobs, writing for Energy in Depth. Nicole rips apart this new study and exposes its tragic flaws…
enerGREEN360, a young Ohio company that cleans up material heading to landfills so it can get re-used instead, has a plan to clean drill cuttings from Utica drilling to reuse those cuttings as clean fill on brownfield sites. The company has its sights set on an industrial park south of Cambridge, OH as its first location to dump the treated drill cuttings. Everyone wins in this instance–less material filling up local landfills, fill needed at the industrial park, the cuttings get treated before being used (minimizing any potential exposure risks). The only ones who lose are radical environmentalists, who will try their best to demagogue this plan, painting it as unsafe and harmful to locals who live and work in the area. The only problem for enerGREEN360 is that the Guernsey County Board of Supervisors is unanimously opposed to the plan (see 
Two weeks ago MDN provided an update on the new Antero state-of-the-art frack wastewater treatment plant and landfill being built in West Virginia (see 
Imagine this: a backhoe sinks its bucket into the ground, scoops out some dirt, and the dirt is used to build a road. No big deal. Now imagine this, a very long drill goes down into the earth and digs out dirt. Because the dirt comes from deep down, some of it may be mixed with minerals not found near the surface, so a company processes the deep down dirt to remove any extra minerals, and the dirt is then essentially the same chemical composition as the dirt from near the surface–and it’s used to build a road. The dirt from deep down is called drill cuttings. Environmental Nazis repeat the magical incantation, “It’s been fracked!” and therefore they begin to hyperventilate that “fracked waste” is being used to build a road. Our example illustrates antis’ intellectual dishonesty about what drill cuttings are. When we spotted a story that a private hunting club in Lycoming County (Williamsport area) in PA will build a new road using processed drill cuttings, and the spin job done by the anti-drilling shills at the taxpayer-funded PBS StateImpact Pennsylvania, we had to laugh…