Rolling Stone article on radioactivity in fracking brine

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An article published in Rolling Stone[1] claims that Radium found in brine produced alongside oil and gas makes the brine "highly radioactive", and suggests that the radioactive contents are responsible for various illnesses and ailments suffered by workers and others[2].

This article examines the claims made in the article and attempts to assess their accuracy.

In general the article comprises a number of anecdotes, with little concrete detail< e.g. in the third paragraph we are told that "a worker walked around his truck with a hand-held radiation detector ... and told him he was carrying one of the “hottest loads” he’d ever seen" but we are not told how "hot" the load was or whether its level was a cause for concern.

The article contains

Claims

1: Peter's samples

The narrative of the article suggests that the industry is downplaying dangerous levels of radioactivity, e.g. in the 5th paragraph:

Many industry representatives like to say the radioactivity in brine is so insignificant as to be on par with what would be found in a banana or a granite countertop, so when Peter demanded his supervisor tell him what he was being exposed to, his concerns were brushed off; the liquid in his truck was no more radioactive than “any room of your home,” he was told. But Peter wasn’t so sure.

The article goes on to tell us that some brine samples Peter collected "registered combined radium levels above 3,500, and one was more than 8,500" (picocuries per litre).

How dangerous is this level?

One curie is 3.7*1010 disintegrations per second.[3] so one picocurie is 3.7*10-2 per second. For the sample with 8500 picocuries from radium that is 314.5 disintegrations per second.

Natural exposure from radioactive potassium in the body is 4433 disintegrations per second.[4] Whilst these potassium disintegrations release beta particles (89%) and gamma rays (11%) rather than the alpha particles released by radium disintegrations, the relative numbers give a sense of the scale of hazard posed by even the worst sample of brine.

2: Yuri Gorby

The article tells us that:

Radium in [Marcellus shale] brine can average around 9,300 picocuries per liter, but has been recorded as high as 28,500. “If I had a beaker of that on my desk and accidentally dropped it on the floor, they would shut the place down,” says Yuri Gorby, a microbiologist who spent 15 years studying radioactivity with the Department of Energy. “And if I dumped it down the sink, I could go to jail.”

Radioactivity of some natural and other materials.jpg


1 picocurie is 3.7*10-2 bequerels[3] so 28,500 pC is equivalent to 1054.5 Bq.

This chart[5] suggests that this level of radioactivity is comparable to that of granite, or even coffee, and several orders of magnitude lower than would be classified as even low-level radioactive waste.

Ian Fairlie

Rolling Stone cite Ian Fairlie, who they quote as saying “bringing this stuff to the surface is like letting out the devil”. Fairlie's assessments of many aspects of radiation and nuclear energy seem to be far removed from the scientific mainstream,[6] consistently claiming greater harms than consensus opinions.

Why radiation?

The article itself seems to be adopting from the outset a position that

  1. there are health problems caused by brine, and
  1. these problems are caused by radioactivity in brine.

The first proposition does not seem to have been established: the article itself states that "the extent of any health impacts are unknown, mostly because there hasn’t been enough testing."

carcinogen benzene, heavy metals, and toxic levels of salt, while fracked brine contains a host of additional hazardous chemicals

Burgos’ paper found it contained not just radium, but cadmium, benzene, and arsenic, all known human carcinogens, along with lead, which can cause kidney and brain damage.

AquaSalina was found by a state lab to contain radium at levels as high as 2,491 picocuries per liter.

Radioactivity “is the way into the Death Star,” says Melissa Troutman, an analyst with the environmental group Earthworks.

  1. "America’s Radioactive Secret" by Justin Nobel, Rolling Stone, 21st Jan 2020
  2. the article quotes:
    • cancer,
    • sores and skin lesions that take months to heal,
    • regular headaches,
    • nausea,
    • numbness in fingertips and face,
    • joint pain "like fire",
    • a six-month-pregnant woman sitting on the edge of her bathtub whose hip cracked in half,
    • burning rashes and odd swelling across the body,
    • excruciating eye, nose, and lung burning,
    • swelling of the tongue "to the point [that] teeth left indentations",
    • profound overgrowth of polyps in sinuses preventing nose breathing,
    • two cats, six chickens, and a rooster dropping dead,
    • a sheep birthing babies with the heads fused together,
    • trees dying,
    • pain in bones "so bad I can’t move”, “like someone taking a drill bit and drilling into your bone without anesthetic”,
  3. 3.0 3.1 "Radiation Units and Conversion Factors", US Department of Health and Social Services, Radiation Emergency Medical Management
  4. "Radioactive Human Body", Harvard University, Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations
  5. source unknown
  6. E.g. Fairlie's articles for The Ecologist include claims for casualties of Chernobyl and Fukushima which are orders of magnitude greater than those of UNSCEAR