Wednesday, May 23, 2018

What's worse: dumped sludge, or sludge spun out about it?

I written Monday about massive water discoloration after a sand mining bulldozer sank in a retention pond near the Trempealeau River.

Turns out that 10 million gallons of yellow sludge has flowed into nearby waters and fields, but the company says there are no health issues.
10 million gallons of mine sludge turns Trempealeau River orange; officials investigating spill after dramatic rescue
The contents of the pond were primarily “water, silt, clay and sand,” though Hi-Crush environmental compliance manager Jeff Johnson said it could contain “trace elements” of a polyacrylamide, a chemical used to remove silt from the water, which is used to process the sand for use in natural gas and oil wells. 
Preston said regular tests of water released from the mine site “show no indication of substances that are harmful to wildlife, humans or the environment.” 
I don't think anyone would want that chemical in their drinking water or river fish dinner. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would think the high sediment content would choke the fish.

Anonymous said...

I could not understand how Hi-Crush was in the DNR’s Green Tier program considering their compliance history. Now this. You probably could start with Jeff Johnson coming from the DNR...Also, too many statements for this industry from the companies and WMC.