Is more water being polluted from Youngstown fracking incident?

[Rick Rowlands]

Lets do some math.  Lets figure that the 20,000 gallons was not all chemicals but perhaps at most 10% chemicals, that puts it at a total of 500 gallons of whatever this stuff was in the river.

On Feb. 6, 2013, approximately 5 days after the dumping of 20,000 gallons into the Mahoning, the river flow rate on the Beaver River at Beaver Falls was 34,400 gallons per second.  Would 500 gallons really have that much of an effect on the 20.8 billion gallons of water that flowed by their intakes during this week in question?  Not a chance.

Here is a theory.  There are algae blooms that thrive in cold water, but when the water warms up the algae dies and sometimes causes foul taste in water.  Now it was unseasonably warm on January 30. High of 64 degrees that day.  Perhaps an algae bloom died in one of the feeder lakes such as Meander or Berlin, that water flowed down the river to beaver Falls where it was picked up at the water plant.   The dead algae is not toxic but does taste bad. 

[Youngstownshrimp]

I think you guys need to let the educated professionals handle this, unless you have facts to enable you to be a part of this discussion.

[Billy Mumphrey]

Jay, are you saying the mayor, ODNR, the Ohio EPA, etc, failed to notify communities downstream that the dumping had occurred? Now this is criminal!

[jay]

So why didn't the Sammarone administration call the down stream cities and warn them that
Dumped Well Waste Water Was Heading Their Way?

[Billy Mumphrey]

Found this on the web.Beaver water woes tied to Ohio drilling A Beaver County drinking water supplier says  liquid drilling wastes dumped illegally in Ohio are linked to water  problems in his county, where local and state officials claim Ohio  investigators failed to tell them about pollution headed their way.  The Beaver Falls Municipal Authority has had sporadic problems since autumn with organic contaminants and foul taste and odors in the water it pulls from the Beaver River, General Manager  James A. Riggio said on Friday.   Riggio pointed to Hardrock Excavating LLC,  which federal prosecutors blamed on Thursday for dumping brine and  oil-based drilling mud upstream in Ohio from Nov. 1 to Jan. 31. "It just seems too much of a coincidence  right when there was this other issue going on," Riggio said. "There's  no way I or you can prove that. But we haven't done anything differently at our plant." The plant, with 17,000 customers in  municipalities from Big Beaver south to Conway, plus Zelienople in  Butler County, had problems long before Hardrock allegedly started  dumping, said John Poister, regional spokesman with the Pennsylvania  Department of Environmental Protection. But it's hard to rule out a  connection with recent problems, in part because Ohio officials never  gave notification or details about the dumping to the DEP, its officials said. "I don't know" why they did not, said Gary  Clark, spokesman for the DEP's Northwest Region. "I've never worked with Ohio EPA before. I would think (they would notify). That would be my  thought. ... We have yet to get a call from them."  Ohio investigators witnessed illegal dumping on Jan. 31, according to several news reports. Company workers used  fresh water to flush oil field waste liquid into a storm drain, sending  at least 20,000 gallons of contaminated water into the Mahoning River  watershed, according to state and federal officials.  The Mahoning reaches Pennsylvania in  Lawrence County, where it flows into the Beaver River. That water flows  into the Ohio River.  Drinking water intakes in Mahoning, Lawrence County, and Midland may have been downstream, but DEP officials are  unsure. Authorities there could not be reached.  Officials at the Ohio Department of Natural  Resources could not be reached. Chris Abbruzzese, a spokesman for the  Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, said, "I'm sure" the agency  notified Pennsylvania officials, but he did not call back as promised to confirm details.  There are no immediate health risks for anyone drinking water from the Beaver Falls authority, Riggio said.  The organic contaminants were only  precursors to cancer-causing agents, and follow-up testing detected none of those agents, he said.  In the days after the alleged Jan. 31  dumping, the Beaver Falls intake had a 12-hour period of taste and odor  problems, Riggio said. Workers used about 500 pounds of carbon — five  times the typical amount — to filter the water.   Timothy Puko is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7991 or tpuko@tribweb.com.