When a garbage truck from a shale gas well set off radiation detectors at a South Huntingdon landfill on April 19, it drew attention from township officials.
But they aren’t the only ones watching what’s become a growing issue all over Pennsylvania. The number of garbage trucks setting off radiation monitors had a fivefold increase between 2009 and 2012, drawing renewed attention from state officials who hadn’t believed radiation would be a big problem from the state’s drilling industry.
South Huntingdon is trying to block MAX Environmental Technologies Inc. from receiving DEP permission to accept a higher level radioactive waste, supervisor Melvin Cornell said.
“This stuff they compile as they dump it. It will grow and grow and grow,” Cornell said. “Hey, if there’s nothing wrong, take it down, and make a playground with it where they live. That might sound harsh, but we don’t want it here.”
Between 2009 and 2012, radiation alarms went off 1,325 times in 2012, with more than 1,000 of those alerts just from oil and gas waste, according to data from the Department of Environmental Protection.
The state’s landfills have to one day be fit for people to live on after they close, so the state has to make sure they aren’t allowing a dangerous build-up of radioactivity, officials said.
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The state began requiring radiation monitors at landfills in 2002 because of medical waste. But oil and gas waste — which brings up naturally occurring radiation formerly locked a mile or so underground — has become an increasing concern.Read more: http://triblive.com/business/headlines/3945499-74/gas-radiation-radioactivity#ixzz2TJBq34Zm
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◇See also Fracking waste water can be highly radioactive.