Shocking (or maybe not) piece at The Smithsonian site--still active despite shutdown--on results of scientists testing water near one of the many fracking sites in Pennsylvania.
Their analyses, made on water samples collected repeatedly over the
course of two years, were even more concerning than we’d feared. As published today in the journal Environmental Science and Technology,
they found high concentrations of of the element radium, a highly
radioactive substance. The concentrations were roughly 200 times higher
than background levels. In addition, amounts of chloride and bromide in
the water were two to ten times greater than normal.
“Even if, today, you completely stopped disposal of the wastewater,”
Vengosh says, there’s enough contamination built up that”you’d still end
up with a place that the U.S. would consider a radioactive waste site.”
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