By John F. Stolz, Ph.D., Member, Allegheny Group
Back in 2021 the then Wolf Administration announced that Pennsylvania landfills would have to start monitoring for radium in their leachate (the wastewater produced by a landfill). The concern grew out of reports that landfills taking oil and gas waste were generating leachate with radioactive radium (radium 226 and 228). The Marcellus Shale is well known for its "Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials" or NORM. While scientists and environmental groups anxiously awaited seeing the test results, the PA DEP was conducting their own two-year study.
Now that report "Radium in Untreated Leachate Investigation" has been released. The press release that accompanied the report states "A final report from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) shows that there is no significant risk to human health from radium in landfill leachate." However, what the report actually concluded was that the "DEP did not identify any levels of radiation associated with the landfill radium leachate investigation that raised concern for environmental protection or public health and safety." [emphasis added]. The press and the industry picked up on "no significant risk," but DEP doesn’t actually have a basis on which to make that claim.
On the contrary, the study was flawed and based on questionable methodologies. First, several of the methods employed (EPA 901.1, 903, and 904) are designed for testing finished drinking water, and are known to not accurately measure and, for 903 and 904, significantly underestimate the amount of radium in complex samples (like produced water from oil and gas wells, and leachate). The raw data provided in the appendices revealed there were problems with the results with even some of the methods blanks (controls used to evaluate the testing equipment) were radioactive.
More significant was their use of the discharge limit of 600 pCi/L as a threshold for action. That limit applies to facilities licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (i.e., nuclear power plants), and only under certain conditions. These are landfills and should be held to the more general industrial discharge limit of 60 pCi/L. According to Table 2 of the report, all the landfills potentially exceeded this more appropriate threshold by a large margin.
Lastly, the report as designed did not assess "risk" (no risk assessment analysis was done) nor was it reviewed by outside reviewers. Had it been properly reviewed, problems with the report would have been identified. What is known is that waste water treatment plants that have taken leachate from landfills with oil and gas waste have had issues with their operations often resulting in violations of their discharge permits. This has caused issues downstream including higher levels of radioactivity in the sediment and deterioration of water quality. It's unfortunate that the PA DEP has failed again to protect the citizens of Pennsylvania in order to support the fossil fuel industry.
This blog was included as part of the May 2026 Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!