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Niagara Falls Reporter receives photos of ‘frack
water’ taken at sewer plant

By Frank Parlato

Secret- shots of ‘frack water’ taken at the
Water Authority Sewer plant on Buffalo
Avenue. The illegal frack water has been
removed, according to city officials.

Secretly-shot photos were sent to the Niagara Falls Reporter last Thursday of what purports to be 2.5-gallon containers labeled “frack water," taken at the Niagara Falls Water Authority at the sewer facility on Buffalo Ave.

 The Reporter investigated and found it was true: hydraulic fracturing waste water, also known as fracking water, was being stored illegally at the Water Authority.

 It is illegal because last March, the Niagara Falls City Council passed an ordinance that bans hydrofracking-related activities, including the treatment of  “fracking” waste within city limits, as well as storing, transferring or disposing waste from fracking activities.

 The ordinance was similar to a ban imposed by the City of Buffalo in February of 2011 and by other municipalities since then in New York State.

 The photos obtained by the Reporter were sent to the city's acting Code Enforcement Director Dennis Virtuoso and Police Chief John R. Chella on Thursday. Both men met with Water Board Executive Director Paul Drof later that day. The city officials learned the photos were authentic. It was fracking water, according to Virtuoso, who said that Drof explained that fracking water had been accepted by the facility prior to passage of the ordinance for testing. 
Drof said he did not know it was still there.

Virtuoso said Drof arranged for its removal by the “Pennsylvania company that brought it there.”

 “I was there at 1 p.m. and (Drof) had it out of there a little after 2," Virtuoso said.
 
The New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation is in the process of developing guidelines for fracking which is not yet legal in New York State. The state is now in its fifth year of reviewing its policies, seeking public input and reportedly studying and visiting other states that currently allow hydraulic fracturing.

 Niagara Falls’ anti-fracking ban followed speculation that the Water Authority might be interested in having their facility treat hydro-fracking waste water as a way to boost income. 

Councilman Glenn Choolokian, an employee of the city’s water board, pushed for the anti-fracking measures.

 Fracking involves blasting high volumes of water and sand, mixed with chemicals, down deep wells thousands of feet underground to break apart gas-rich rock formations called shale to release previously inaccessible pockets of natural gas. 

Wastewater is created when that water, sand, and chemical mixture returns to the surface immediately after the hydraulic fracturing is carried out and continues to emerge from the well after production begins. The waste water contains the water mixture pumped down the well as well as contaminants naturally found within underground rock formations. 

Fracking wastewater can be toxic to humans and aquatic life, radioactive, or corrosive, if released into the environment, or exposed to humans, and includes salts, oil, grease, metals, naturally occurring radioactive material and the chemicals used in fracking.

 Advocates say the process can be done safely and could bring big money to the city, or any water treatment facility capable of treating it, and help keep water rates down and aid in the creation of jobs. 

 Moreover, advocates say fracking will provide a “Saudi Arabia” of clean, natural gas that will help America become less dependent on energy-rich foreign nations.

 It was envisioned that fracking water, if treated at the Niagara Falls Water Authority, after the extraction of most chemicals, would be released into the Niagara River. 

 Shortly after the anti-hydrofracking ordinance was passed, Niagara Falls Water Board member and then-Chairman Mike McNally said the City Council "overstepped their boundaries." He, along with board member Nicholas Marchelos, voted to sue the city over the ban. Their measure failed when they were outvoted by board members Renae Kimble, Thomas Vitello and Ted Janese who voted against filing a lawsuit against the city. 

Drof told the Reporter, "Whether (hydrofracking wastewater) could be treated successfully at publicly-owned treatment works or privately-owned treatment works, that's for New York State to determine. (but) no wastewater treatment plant puts out drinking-quality water….  It is treated to a point where it is considered to not be environmentally harmful." 

In the end, the secret photos prove one thing:  If nothing else, the council was astute – if it was their plan to nip fracking waste water treatment in the bud - in banning it when they did.

 There was clearly a plan afoot to test, if not treat, fracking water in Niagara Falls in anticipation of the day when the State approves waste treatment of it.

 

 

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com Aug 21 , 2012