I have previously posted about the improper disposal of oil filter socks in North Dakota fracking operations. The filter socks are tubular nets that strain liquids during the fracking oil production process. The used filters contain small amounts of naturally occurring radioactive materials. There are legal restrictions that are intended to prevent the disposal of the filters in standard landfills. The illegal dumping is a result of the fracking companies reluctance to spend the time and money to properly dispose of the filters in dumps in other states such as Montana, Colorado and Idaho that permit more radiation in waste. My first post talked about abandoned flatbed trucks with bags of filters, filters found in garbage cans on Indian reservations and an abandon service station in Noonan near the Canadian border that was found to contain hundreds of used filters.
On Thursday, the State of North Dakota confirmed that a new illegal dump site for filter socks had been found near the town of Crosby near the Canadian border. Fifteen garbage cans and twenty five plastic garbage bags full of filter socks were discovered at the site. The previous owner of the land is in jail on an unrelated criminal charge. The new owner is cooperating fully with the State Environmental agency. Apparently the filter socks were covered with snow and not visible when the property was sold recently.
Secure Energy Services, a Canadian company that had been hired to clean up the new Crosby dump, found twice as many filters there as had been originally estimated. They also reported that they had removed forty five cubic yards of radioactive waste from the abandoned service station at Noonan, the largest illegal filter sock dump site found in North Dakota. The Canadian company was concerned about the possible contamination of soil at the Noonan dump site and was carrying out analysis of soil samples. The State has no plans to clear up the site beyond removing the filter socks.
Local and state officials in North Dakota support the creation of a dump site in North Dakota that can take the radioactive filter socks. It is assumed that if there was a legal nearby dump for the filter socks, companies would be less likely to carry out illegal dumping. In some cases, fracking companies even disposed of their filter socks in the trash bins of competing fracking companies.
In the United States, the support for new nuclear power plants is being eroded by the availability of cheap natural gas from fracking. For opponents of nuclear power generation, it is ironic that fracking for natural gas creates radioactive waste that is being improperly disposed of in view of the fact that problems in dealing with radioactive waste are among the major complaints against nuclear power.
Crosby, North Dakota:
