Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Here & There Column 4-1-14


 UPS Switching To Natural Gas 

    Mail and package carrier services use a substantial amount of gasoline so it comes as no surprise that UPS recently started substituting diesel fuel with lower-emission liquified natural gas.
    The reason being that natural gas prices are much more economical.
    Transportation managers are indicating that switching to liquified natural gas could reduce our oil imports by more than a million barrels a day.
    With UPS and other major transportation companies now looking to switch to liquified natural gas the question some are asking is where is the the State of New York heading in regards to the natural gas industry as not much information has come forth from Albany as to where they are at in regards to studying the question that Marcellus shale could be naturally high in radioactivity.

  If this is a proven fact making the disposal of waste water from the drilling could become a severe problem for any drilling within the state.

   A story released almost two years ago by Abraham Lustgarten in ProPublica, the nonprofit online investigative news producer, said that the DEC has analyzed 13 samples of waste water brought up from the drilling's and found that the samples contain radium 226 in much higher levels than are considered safe....and in some cases 267 times the level safe for discharge into the environment.

  This might be a severe problem and if continued testing proves that initial finding, gas companies could be saddled with increased regulations and expenses for treating the waste water.

  The waste water is considered the most troublesome issue attached to drilling in the Northeast.
  The question here is will the DEC find it difficult to establish safe levels of exposure, since ordinary exposure from the sun, soil and bricks in homes can be 400 milligrams a year.

  The ProPublica article notes that naturally occurring radioactive materials called NORM, are common in gas and oil drilling water, particularly in brine, the water that lies in the shale and is brought to the surface with recovered drill water.

   Radium gives off radon gas, which can cause cancer to people in an enclosed space.

  In gas drilling operations in other parts of the country operators inject the waste water back into played out wells for storage but that is unlikely to happen in the Northeast.
  Communications and getting results of tests conducted by the DEC in regards to this subject at times are difficult to obtain.
   An open line of communications would be helpful to all interested parties.

 

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