newsCOUP Public Herald Studios

“I Turned Blue”: Workers Share Horrifying Experiences Treating Fracking Wastewater
Project: TENORM  Published: December 2023
by Joshua Boaz Pribanic for Public Herald
"I'm pretty sure I was at death's door. If I wouldn't have gone to the hospital and got oxygen and got help, I would've been in bad, bad shape."
Over the past six months, Public Herald has been contacted by four additional Eureka workers who are for the first time sharing their stories about the dangers of treating fracking wastewater.  
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Public Herald has found that since 1948, in the name of conservation, the Montana government has been using a poison linked to Parkinson’s disease in lakes, ponds, and rivers across the state. FWP records obtained by Public Herald show that since 1948 Montana agencies have applied rotenone 253 times at more than 200 different water bodies, to an estimated length of 533 miles of surface water.

The Yellowstone series from Public Herald is investigating the pollution and treatment of waterways in Montana, and throughout the United States. If you have a story to share about water, contact our team. For more stories in this series subscribe to newsCOUP.

“They’re a Bunch of Liars” – Records Expose Lies About Injection Well Safety
Project: newsCOUP  Published: October 2022
“Everybody right now that’s in the DEP’s oil and gas management are liars,” Barr told Public Herald. “They’re really, really bad. They’re covering up, and they just cover up, cover up.” Just north of Pittsburgh, close to the city’s water supply, an injection well in nearby Plum Borough suffered mechanical issues in 2021 the same time that residents next door reported water problems. DEP concluded that the injection well wasn’t causing their water pollution.
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“The EPA never saw this application until I brought it to their attention…meaning, DEP gave [Eureka] a fake permit,” Senator Muth told Public Herald. On public record, on at least three occasions, DEP claims it secured a waiver from EPA, which skipped federal approval. But, Senator Muth said, EPA officials told her they’d never seen the permit let alone issued a waiver.

We Found The Names of Radioactive Waste Locations That Government Kept Secret
Radioactive Oil & Gas Test Sites Uncovered & Mapped by Public Herald
For about six years, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has obscured the radioactive hazards of oil and gas operations. Now, for the first time, all 144 names and locations are being released by the team at Public Herald.
 
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“A Permanent Reactor” Fracking’s Radioactive Health Threat to Ohio Will Last 1,600 Years Without Action
Don't miss this final episode in the Ohio three-part series about the "permanent nuclear reactor" — created from mountains of fracking waste piling up in communities across America.
“This is a permanent reactor near your house, and it will always be a reactor because the waste got pooled together. And it will make as much radon and radium today as it will tomorrow and the next day and the next day and 30 years from now and 100 years from now and 500 years from now because the half life of this stuff is like, forever … So while it’s a naturally occurring material, when you concentrate it, you create a reactor.”
If you missed Part 1 & 2 you can listen to those reports or read the story at https://publicherald.org/tenorm.
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