Amish Wade Into Fracking Wastewater Fight

An Amish community in Pennsylvania has waded into an advocacy battle over wastewater.

“More than 50 Amish who live along and travel those dirt roads [and their non-Amish neighbors] have signed petitions asking [officials] to stop what they say is the too frequent and excessive spreading of briny liquids that are sickening residents, polluting nearby streams and farm ponds, making the roads slick and dangerous to drive and quickly rusting out cars, trucks, trailers and buggies,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Brine spreading for dust suppression “has been going on for decades, and in Pennsylvania the practice is widespread, especially in rural areas of the state’s northern tier counties,” the report said.

In Farmington, PA, tanker trucks spray brine — wastewater from gas and oil well drilling — onto the roads where many Amish kids walk barefoot in the summers, the report said. It is not unusual to see Amish buggies making their way down the same roads.

The brine is a cheap way to wash road dust away for health and aesthetic reasons, the report said, but the brine itself is now raising health concerns. “Brine, a byproduct of oil production, is between 10 and 30 times saltier than seawater,” the Associated Press reported.

Noah Byler, who is Amish, explained the concerns, which have pulled Amish community members to handwrite “NO BRINE” signs on roadside posts, according to the Post-Gazette.

“It seems every time they put brine down on the road he gets sick,” he said, referring to his 12-year old brother. “Last summer he had to go to the hospital once for his breathing problems. He has an inhaler now.”

Siri Lawson, a non-Amish resident, described the community reaction to brine.

“The Amish are desperate to get it stopped,” she said, per the report. “They’re worried about their wells, about their water, about the industrial smell, about having to drive their buggies through it, and their health. There’s a general feeling of malaise, and many have developed breathing problems and cancers, but they don’t put two and two together.”

Township officials say that Farmington follow state rules, and that many township residents do want dust suppression.

“It’s all certified and documented and tested safe, and the [the state] is notified,” one official said. “[The state] has checked us out more than once and we’re doing nothing incorrectly.”

Farmington, PA, is located in Fayette County, an energy-industry hot spot, according to NPR, which counted nearly 260 active natural gas drilling wells in the county.

“Brine from oil fields was used on North Dakota roads for decades until the Health Department stopped the practice in 2007. Brine’s use on roadways is allowed on a limited case-by-case basis,” the AP reported.

To read more about brine visit Water Online’s Produced Water Treatment Solutions Center.