No Fracking Way

More dirty details about hydraulic fracturing:

Of more than 179 wells producing wastewater with high levels of radiation, at least 116 reported levels of radium or other radioactive materials 100 times as high as the levels set by federal drinking-water standards. At least 15 wells produced wastewater carrying more than 1,000 times the amount of radioactive elements considered acceptable.

And this is just the 40% of waste water that is recovered from the surface. What about the other 60% that remains underground, migrating into the water table?

The Times reviewed data from more than 65 intake plants downstream from some of the busiest drilling regions in the state. Not one has tested for radioactivity since 2008, and most have not tested since at least 2005, before most of the drilling waste was being produced.

And in 2009 and 2010, public sewage treatment plants directly upstream from some of these drinking-water intake facilities accepted wastewater that contained radioactivity levels as high as 2,122 times the drinking-water standard.

There's a pretty simple solution, that I'm sure we can count on Republican lawmakers to pursue: Make sure the facilities don't test for radiation. If you don't know about a problem, then it doesn't exist.