Disposing of Colorado’s Waste Fracking Fluid

“Wyoming and Colorado want to use Nebraska as their dumping ground for all their toxic waste.”

Jane Kleeb with the group Bold Nebraska is working to stop the disposal of waste fracking fluid from Colorado in abandoned mines in Nebraska. Terex, a Broomfield Colorado company is seeking a permit to dump tons of fracking fluid into abandoned wells that are within 1/4 a mile of homes and ranches. Kleeb says they are seeking a moratorium on dumping fracking waste in Nebraska until more research is done on the impact.

Disposing of Colorado’s Waste Fracking Fluid kgnu

Shane Davis, credited with first coining the term “fracktivist”, says the waste fluid generated by the fracking industry poses huge environmental dangers. Davis says Colorado has been shipping its fracking waste to Utah and now has its eyes on Nebraska.

“So you have a mixture of the fracking industry’s carcinogenic and toxic chemicals mixing with naturally occurring radioactive waters down below the ground. That water in part, about 40% of it roughly comes back to the surface as toxic industry waste in liquid form, and it has to be deposited somewhere. In Colorado we have about 800 class 2 injection wells, which are those injection wells that can receive this type of toxic fluid, but we’re at capacity.”

Wes Wilson, a retired EPA engineer worked 35 years for the EPA. In 2004 he filed a statement seeking whistle-blower status from Congress after he wrote an 18-page report challenging the accuracy of an EPA study that had concluded there was no evidence that hydraulic fracturing posed a threat to drinking water. That study, he claimed, did not use established agency standards and relied on a peer review panel dominated by energy industry personnel.

Wilson, who was featured in the film Gasland, says that the country needs to turn its focus away from the fossil fuel industry towards cleaner energy, “We are Americans and we can run our economy on renewable clean energy and have less cost than these disastrous fossil fuels.”