New USFS study demonstrates fracking waste should be treated as
toxic waste By Alan Septoff July 7, 2011 Just in time for
Friday's hearing on the fracking in National Forests, this came
yesterday from our friends at Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility (PEER): A new study has found that wastewater
from natural gas hydrofracturing in a West Virginia national
forest quickly wiped out all ground plants, killed more than
half of the trees and caused radical changes in soil chemistry.
These results argue for much tighter control over disposal of
these fracking fluids, contends Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The new study by Mary Beth
Adams, a U.S. Forest Service researcher, appears in the July-
August issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Environmental
Quality. She looked at the effects of land application of
fracking fluids on a quarter-acre section of the Fernow
Experimental Forest within the Monongahela National Forest. The
explosion of shale gas drilling in the East has t