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Yet final study plans removed them. Earlier ones also called for studying landfill runoff contamination risks where drilling waste is dumped. This was also excluded despite EPA officials acknowledging that sewage treatment plants can't properly treat drilling waste before it's discharged in waterways near or supplying drinking water.
Moreover, regional studies underway or planned will be cancelled, further narrowing the possibility of full and accurate reports of hydrofracking's harm to human health.
EPA scientists said high-level administration pressure thwarted efforts to institute more rigorous enforcement even though some in Congress want it. Recipients of industry campaign contributions (bribes), of course, strongly oppose any regulations.
The Times quoted White House energy and climate director Carol Browner as 1997 Clinton administration EPA head telling 60 Minutes:
"Whatever comes out of the ground, you don't have to test it. You don't have to understand what's in it. You can dump it anywhere."
Discussing oil and gas industry toxic waste exemptions, she added that "Congress should revisit this loophole." At the same time, her history shows strong industry support. For example, in 1995, she helped ensure hydrofracking was excluded from parts of the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Today, widespread natural gas drilling "is forcing the EPA to wrestle with questions of jurisdiction over individual states and how to police the industry despite extensive exemptions from federal law."Contamination is a serious problem. "The stakes are particularly high in Pennsylvania, where gas drilling is expanding quickly, and where EPA officials say drilling waste is being discharged with inadequate treatment into rivers" providing drinking water for 16 million people.
At issue, of course, is why is this allowed to go on when human health risks are so high. Moreover, federal laws are ignored. For example, ones affecting sewage treatment plants say operators have to know what's in waste they're receiving and must assure it's safe before discharging it in waterways.
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