Drilling Waste Pit Liners too Toxic for Disposal

As you read this keep in mind that Texas does not require that drilling waste pits be lined or fenced. We have hundreds of abandoned drilling waste pits littering North Texas.

Garfield County, CO won’t accept pit liners at the landfill anymore.

She said the liners are too bulky, and too covered with hydrocarbons and other potentially hazardous materials, to be dealt with easily.

“We really don’t know what’s on ’em,” Jordan said after the meeting, explaining that the county is unsure even what kind of pit a particular liner was used in, since the industry uses many different pits for different purposes.

There are all kinds of different pits and no one seems to know or verify what goes in those things.

“If we have a tremendous influx of these liners, it’s going to fill that landfill awfully quickly,” noted commissioner Mike Samson. “Is that wise?”

After hearing that the liners are being packed into one part of the landfill, taking up a large amount of space and possibly draining potentially hazardous chemicals, Samson asked rhetorically, “Is this creating a big nightmare for us down the road … a potential disaster?”

Dr. Theo Colborn says drilling waste pits are all potential superfund sites.

Here’s my favorite part of the article:

“If these liners are too dirty to go in our landfill, do we actually want to leave them behind?” Jordan asked.

If the pit liners are too toxic imagine what’s going into Texas soil and water and air. Texas doesn’t even require liners for pits. So, we don’t have to worry about how to dispose of dirty liners. Irony.