A crowd of over 150 people turned out last night at the Bruceton Mills Elementary School to learn more about a 250 acre landfill that is planned to be situated in close proximity to the Big Sandy and Little Sandy streams in Preston County. Amanda Pitzer, executive director of the Friends of the Cheat, discussed CCS Midstreams plans and the environmental and public health risks associated with the plan. The landfill would accept waste from Marcellus drilling operations including drill cuttings, drilling mud, and cakes of dried solids extracted from frack waste water. Pitzer explained that much money and energy has gone toward restoring the health of the streams which had been impaired by acid mine drainage. The Big Sandy is an important tributary of the Cheat River for whitewater recreation and for aiding the water quality of the polluted Monongahela River through provision of water with lower Total Dissolved Solids via the Cheat River which joins the Mon River at Point Marion, Pa. The Mon River has struggled with high TDS problems in the last few years.
The Preston County Solid Waste Authority (SWA) has the authority to deny a permit for the construction of the landfill. The SWA has already instructed CCS Midstream, a Canadian corporation, to provide an environmental impact statement. The agency has also denied CCS Midstream permission to use Hobart Benson Road as an access road.
Pitzer urged citizens to let their concerns be known to the SWA and the Preston County Commission. The next meeting of the SWA is Wednesday , 7PM, at the Preston County Extension Service Office on Court Street in Kingwood, WV.
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These is a long list of chemicals that would leach out of such a landfill, over decades of time to come, flowing into the Cheat River, Cheat Lake, and on to the water supplies along the Monongahela River from Pt. Marion to Pittsburgh. We already have fish advisories, warning against eating the fish that accumulate hazardous chemicals from the rivers of this area.
“Close proximity” is a bit vague. Exactly how close to the nearest river is the proposed landfill?
500 feet