Pennsylvania roads are being coated in radioactive wastewater − here’s why

The Conversation is reporting on a permit issued in May twenty twenty-six by Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection that could allow oil and gas wastewater to be sold as a commercial road product. This wastewater—a radioactive brine containing the carcinogen radium and many times saltier than seawater—had been spread on Pennsylvania roads for decades to suppress dust and control ice before the state halted the practice in twenty eighteen. Yet residents continue to report the brine being applied in their communities. Researchers at Penn State who tested whether the brine actually works as a dust suppressant found it does not: it's no more effective than rainwater and actually degrades roads faster than commercial dust treatments. The brine contains radium, lead, and petroleum hydrocarbons that wash away into streams and drinking water supplies after rain, with radioactive levels in treated brine at around two thousand picocuries per liter compared to the EPA drinking water standard of five picocuries per liter. A bill to ban the practice entirely passed out of the Pennsylvania House committee in June, though a full vote hasn't been scheduled.

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