The fight over brine spreading is a rural-urban tension

(The Center Square) — Rural-urban tensions split lawmakers on whether to reinstate spreading oil and gas wastewater on roads to suppress dust.

“It all comes down to risk assessment. Are the impacts to the environment outweighed by the benefits created?” Burt Waite, a retired geologist and hydrologist, said during a House Republican Policy Committee hearing on brine spreading. “Most of us would agree that some environmental impact is inevitable and acceptable to have safe roads to drive on.”

The hearing follows a June debate in the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee where brining roads for dust suppression was called into question. The commonwealth had allowed the use of brine on dirt roads for decades, but the Department of Environmental Protection ended the practice three years ago. Other states like Ohio and Michigan have also used brine to minimize dust and ice on rural roads.

A bill proposed by Rep. Greg Vitali, D-Havertown, would codify the end of wastewater. Almost 4 million gallons of brine have been used on roadways since 2018, and critics argue that illegal dumping continues as an “open secret.”

Rural officials don’t support the end of brine spreading because, they argue, it’s economic and not more harmful than other dust and ice control methods. 

“Brine is often donated to townships on a no-cost basis, making it a win-win for the producer of the brine and the townships that need to take care of their roads in a proper manner,” Waite said.

Without its use, problems arise.

“Since the moratorium on brine spreading came into effect, the dust issue has been difficult to deal with,” said Jim Trussell, chairman of the board of supervisors in McKean County’s Hamlin Township. “We’ve applied for grants to (the Department of Community and Economic Development) and PennDOT for paving of these roads for four years, but so far, we have been denied.”

Paving dirt roads would fix the dust issue, but Pennsylvania hasn’t followed the lead of neighboring states.

“Our government in Harrisburg, they just don’t understand the dust that we have in this part of the state. We live in a clay-based environment and there’s more dirt roads than there is paved roads; we have a lot of residents that dislike dust,” Steve Goodwill, the roadmaster in Warren County’s Columbus Township, said. “We just don’t have a huge budget to do all this.”

New York has a rural road paving program funded by the state budget to convert dirt roads, unlike the commonwealth.

“Pennsylvania don’t give us anything,” Goodwill said.

Harrisburg, in the view of local officials, was a stumbling block more than a partner.

“Frankly, this is one more example of a policy that was made by a bunch of people that don’t have any dirt roads, don’t have this issue at all — but the idea of spreading something that’s a byproduct of the oil and gas industry on roads just sounds icky to them,” Venango County Commissioner Sam Breene said.

Environmental concerns raised by some studies were dismissed as lacking transparency and rigor.

“This was a study that needed to happen out in the field, to actually see what is happening,” Rep. Martin Causer, R-Bradford, said. “There’s a lot of secrecy around this (Penn State) study, and a lot of questions … what I circle back to is: they got what they paid for.”

David Hess, a former DEP secretary, argued in June that a ban on brine spreading was the only way to prevent wastewater from polluting the environment.

But legislators were skeptical that brine caused much harm.

“After many, many years of spreading this conventional brine on our roads, this is the most environmentally clean area of the state,” Sen. Scott Hutchinson, R-Oil City, said. “We have high-quality trout streams, water you can drink out of the creek if you had to. People come here because we have a beautiful environment.”

Others saw a brine ban as part of a broader strategy.

“We have a group in Pennsylvania who basically wants to get rid of natural gas, oil, and coal,” Rep. Mike Armanini, R-DuBois, said. “This is another ploy in their scheme to attack the natural gas and oil industry. If we would leave these three industries alone, we would be one of the booming states in our country. But we’re at the bottom because we’re not taking advantage of that.”