updated 10/13/11
Chemung County Landfill
On August 4, 2011, NYSDEC Commisioner Joeseph Martens issued a decision on a petition challenging the legality of disposing Marcellus Shale drill cuttings in a New York landfill owing to the potentially high level of radioactivity in the cuttings. The Commissioner dismissed the petition but only after directing NYSDEC Staff to conduct a dozen or so investigations into safety measures. A summary of the decision can be found here. The decision in full is available here.
Until 2005 the Chemung County Landfill was a county landfill. The county generates 60,000 to 80,000 tons of solid waste for disposal per year, and all of that went to the landfill, very little came to the landfill from anywhere else. In 2005 the county leased its integrated waste management operations --the landfill, a recycling facility, transfer stations and several other facilities-- to a subsidiary of Casella Waste Systems of Vermont, New England Waste Systems of New York (NEWSNY). In late 2009 NEWSNY began disposing drill cuttings from Marcellus Shale drilling sites in Pennsylvania. In early 2010 NEWSNY applied for a modification of the landfill's permit to increase waste volume 50 percent, and began diverting county waste to other landfills in order to devote the space to drill cuttings.
NEWSNY disclosed in the proceeding that it has been disposing Marcellus Shale drilling wastes in Angelica (Hyland Landfill) and Painted Post (Hakes C&D Landfill) as well as Chemung. This is occurring after comments in 2009 by New York State Department of Health, USEPA, and a number of environmental scientists and organizations called on DEC to study the waste management needs of Marcellus shale gas development. DEC is studying the issues, but that study is not done, Nevertheless, today DEC allows disposal of Pennsylvania shale gas wastes in New York landfills.
Marcellus shale drilling wastes
In early fall 2009 NEWSNY began accepting Marcellus shale drilling wastes from Pennsylvania. They did not notify DEC until December, and DEC approved the practice on January 21, 2010. By March and April of 2010 over half the total waste receipts for the landfill were Marcellus shale drilling wastes, a rate of over 60,000 tons per year. Also in March and April of 2010 NEWSNY accepted about 180 tons of contaminated soil from Marcellus shale drilling site in PA, contaminated by spills of frac fluid. Both kinds of waste are at least 25 times more radioactive than background at the surface.
In April 2010, after learning about disposal of the drilling wastes, Residents for the Preservation of Lowman and Chemung (RFPLC) filed a petition to intervene in a DEC permit proceeding, initiated by NEWSNY to obtain permission to increase its waste acceptance rate from 120,000 to 180,000 tons per year. RFPLC argued that the tonnage increase is part of a larger plan the county committed to in its lease agreement with NEWSNY, to obtain progressive tonnage increases up to 417,000 per year, and is specifically intended to take advantage of lucrative contracts with more Pennsylvania shale gas developers to take their waste. NEWSNY's attorney also represents some of the Pennsylvania drillers.
RFPLC's evidence that Marcellus shale drilling wastes can be 1,000 times more radioactive than naturally occurring background radiation at the surface was recently ruled irrelevant to the legality of expanding the landfill to take more such waste. This is discussed further below.
Substandard landfill engineering
RFPLC's evidence that Marcellus shale drilling wastes can be 1,000 times more radioactive than naturally occurring background radiation at the surface was recently ruled irrelevant to the legality of expanding the landfill to take more such waste. This is discussed further below.
Substandard landfill engineering
The Chemung County Landfill emerged from a gravel pit in the 1960s, without bottom liners of any kind and without a siting study as would be routine today. It is located in an environmentally and historically sensitive area surrounded by farms, a growing rural population and the Newtown Battlefield, one of the most important pre-Revoutionary War battlefields in the nation. The landfill is few hundred feet from the Chemung River, in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and a few feet from (if not directly over) an unconfined primary aquifer. If the landfill is allowed to continue dumping radioactive Marcellus shale drilling wastes, a containment failure at the landfill could have catastrophic consequences. Even routine operations pose the risk of leaks and exposure of landfill workers and others who come in contact with wet, leaking drilling waste to excessive levels of radioactivity from concentrated, naturally occurring Radium-226 and -228 and their byproducts, such as radon, a known cause of lung cancer.
DEC permit proceeding for Chemung County Landfill tonnage increase
The DEC proceeding reviewing these issues resulted in a ruling from the hearing officer on September 3, 2010, posted below. The September 3 ALJ Rulings find that the radioactivity of the waste is irrelevant to whether NEWSNY should be allowed to increase its rate of disposal of such wastes. On August 4, 2011, DEC Commissioner Martens agreed, but ordered DEC staff to undertake over a dozen additional investigations into how effective radiation monitoring at the landfill will be.
These and several additional documents submitted to DEC in the Chemung County Landfill proceeding are posted below. These are listed in chronological order, since in general each subsequent submission responds to one or more submissions that precede it. This proceeding will determine whether DEC should prohibit disposal of Marcellus shale drilling wastes at the Chemung County Landfill, as RFPLC requests.
RFPLC Petition (780K), including:
Exhibit A: DEC approval to dispose Marcellus shale "drill cuttings," via email dated
Exhibit A: DEC approval to dispose Marcellus shale "drill cuttings," via email dated
Feb. 8, 2010
Exhibit B: Technical Memorandum by Marvin Resnikoff, Ph.D., Radioactive Waste
Management Associates, "Radioactivity in Marcellus Shale," dated April 7, 2010
Exhibit C: Technical review of noise impacts of increased operations, by The Noise
Consultancy, LLC, dated April 7, 2010
NEWSNY, CoPhysics, Radiological Survey Report: Marcellus Shale Drilling Cuttings, dated
NEWSNY, CoPhysics, Radiological Survey Report: Marcellus Shale Drilling Cuttings, dated
April 26, 2010 (1,370K)
DEC Staff, Letter request for information, regarding Marcellus shale spill wastes, dated
DEC Staff, Letter request for information, regarding Marcellus shale spill wastes, dated
RFPLC, Responses to CoPhysics report:
Cover letter, dated May 18, 2010
Resnikoff response, dated May 17, 2010
Ingraffea response, dated May 17, 2010
Volz response, dated May 19, 2010
NEWSNY, Request to strike RFPLC responses, dated May 21, 2010
Hon. E. Buhrmaster, Administrative Law Judge, Memorandum Rulings on NEWSNY request to
Hon. E. Buhrmaster, Administrative Law Judge, Memorandum Rulings on NEWSNY request to
Strike, dated June 3, 2010
NEWSNY, new data on frac fluid spill wastes, proposed radiation detectors, June 1, 2010 (2.4 MB)
NEWSNY June 9, 2010 submissions:
NEWSNY, new data on frac fluid spill wastes, proposed radiation detectors, June 1, 2010 (2.4 MB)
NEWSNY June 9, 2010 submissions:
DEC Staff responses, dated June 30, 2010
RFLPC responses, dated June 30, 2010
Rulings of the ALJ, dated September 3, 2010
RFPLC appeal of ALJ Rulings, dated September 21, 2010
NEWSNY responses to appeal, dated October 12, 2010
DEC Staff responses to appeal, dated November 3, 2010
G. Abraham memo to Legislators, Disposal of low-level radioactive Marcellus shale drilling waste in New York landfills, dated September 8, 2010
DEC Commisioner Joseph Martens, Decision in the matter of the application for modification of the landfill permit, dated August 4, 2011
Additional submissions regarding noise impacts are available upon request.
Susan Arbetter interviews Gary Abraham and Anthony Ingraffea, Capitol Pressroom, June 29, 2011 (podcast)
Susan Arbetter interviews Gary Abraham and Anthony Ingraffea, Capitol Pressroom, June 29, 2011 (podcast)
Drs. Anthony Ingraffea and Conrad Volz featured on This American Life, "Game Changer," dated July 8, 2011 (podcast)
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