Natural gas holds great promise for our fossil fuel needs, but the process of extracting it from bedrock deep underground by hydraulic fracturing continues to cause grave concern. That’s because “fracking” requires drillers to blast through massive rock formations with a powerful combination of water and chemicals, creating a geyser of toxic wastewater that must be treated and disposed of carefully.
New Jersey may not have any drilling going on, but Pennsylvania has a mother lode in the Marcellus Shale and has lifted most barriers to fracking, setting off a gold rush-like pace among drillers. Environment New Jersey, a green advocacy group, estimates more than 1.3 billion gallons of contaminated wastewater has already been produced in Pennsylvania. Some drillers have already sent toxic waste byproducts to New Jersey for treatment and disposal, to South Kearny, Elizabeth and Carteret.
That should come to a halt. A bill to ban New Jersey businesses from treating and disposing of fracking waste passed with overwhelming bipartisan support from both houses. And Gov. Chris Christie should sign it into law.
It was only last summer that Christie signed a one-year ban on fracking in New Jersey, buying time until the federal Environmental Protection Agency completes two exhaustive studies. The ban was more symbolic than anything else, since no drilling is going on here, but it also served to put Pennsylvania on notice. We don’t have much fracking potential, but we are exposed to danger from both underground contamination nearby that floats into our waters, including the Delaware River Basin, and from disposal of wastewater, which this bill addresses.
We want and deserve more facts about fracking and its impact on the environment. Last year, Christie refused to make the ban permanent and we applauded that move. The latest science should inform our policies on fracking. But if we insist on waiting for the EPA ruling before allowing fracking, shouldn’t the same caution apply to how other states dispose of fracking waste on our land?