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Cannot Afford to Risk

I encourage my neighbors to join in the efforts to bring about a ban of toxic fracking waste in Madison. Although Connecticut doesn’t currently have fracking taking place in the state, we’re allowing future regulations to bring this radioactive and carcinogenic waste into our state. This is part of state law passed in 2014 that mandates the Department of Energy & Environmental Protection write rules and submit them for review by this summer.

A simple Google search will yield studies by Yale and other institutions documenting the health hazards of this material. Radium 226 has a half life of 1,600 years and is linked to, among other cancers, childhood leukemia. Radium and many toxic chemicals found in fracking waste have been shown in Yale studies to cause cancers and reproductive and developmental problems.

More than 6,600 spills of fracking waste have been documented in just four states, more than 50 percent of them associated with the moving and transfer of the waste, according to Food & Water Watch. Connecticut is facing the risk of spills if we allow this waste to be treated, stored, and transferred in our state.

The current state moratorium covers only some wastes, and only from hydraulic fracturing. The proposed ban for Madison, which has already been passed by 33 towns in Connecticut, closes the many loopholes that the state leaves open, banning wastes from all drilling and extraction processes for oil and gas wells, as well as materials such as road de-icers and contaminated construction fill created from the waste.

Madison cannot afford to risk the costly ramifications of future clean-up, which in many cases is not even possible. Costly burdens to our town budget and finances aside, the even greater concern is the health of our townspeople, particularly our children and future generations.

Briana Benn-Mirandi

Madison