From the letter:
Dear Deputy Secretary Perry & Regional Director Miller:
It has come to our attention that the Department is “currently working with stakeholders to develop new regulations that would codify the brine spreading approval process”1 of oil and gas wastewater. We at Earthworks, along with the signatories below, urge the Department to cease any effort to reinstate the dispersal of oil and gas waste into the environment, a scientifically unsound, ineffective practice that poses significant, documented risks to the environment and public health.
Instead of a potential rulemaking, we urge the Department to conduct a thorough investigation of the immediate and longer-term effects of dispersing untreated oil and gas wastewater into the environment for dust suppression and de-icing. In particular, we urge the Department to begin by investigating and reporting to the Governor’s office and the public how authorization of road spreading of oil and gas well “brine” for dust control, in violation of Solid Waste Management Act 35 P.S. § 6018.103 and its residual waste regulations, occurred for decades with no serious efforts to examine efficacy or impacts.
