To: The United States House of Representatives
Tell Congress: Close loophole for fracking waste
Fracking waste is often laced with cancer-causing chemicals, and can even be radioactive. But shockingly, it is exempt from our nation's hazardous waste law—the same law that protects us successfully from numerous other toxic threats.
Please support closing this loophole by cosponsoring the CLEANER Act.
Why is this important?
In the past few years, the drilling industry has created tens of billions of gallons of fracking waste, which is often laced with cancer-causing and even radioactive material.
Shockingly, fracking and drilling pollution is exempt from our cornerstone national hazardous waste laws. The result is simple and jaw-dropping: Fracking waste can be sprayed on our roads as a deicer, stored in open waste pits that overflow into our waterways -- and some Western communities are using it as water for livestock.
We can fix this, thanks to Pennsylvania’s very own Rep. Matthew Cartwright’s CLEANER Act, which will finally regulate dangerous fracking and drilling waste.
This toxic waste has already made its way into our streams, rivers and drinking water sources, putting our health and environment at risk. Consider:
* Fracking waste discharged at a sewage treatment plant in Pittsburgh led to a drinking water advisory for nearby communities.
* 44,000 barrels of drilling wastewater was discharged into Bucks County’s Neshaminy Creek through a local sewage plant.
* And, just a few months ago, a wastewater hauler illegally dumped 250,000 gallons of fracking wastewater into the Mahoning River in Ohio.
The CLEANER Act would help curb the toxic waste threat our communities face every day, such as these, by requiring the tracking of every gallon of fracking waste from the day it’s created at the drilling site and help ensure safer disposal.