(The Center Square) — Urban-rural tensions are dividing lawmakers over whether to reinstate the practice of spraying oil and gas wastewater on roads to suppress dust.
“It really comes down to a risk assessment: do the environmental impacts outweigh the benefits that could be produced,” retired geologist and hydrologist Bert Waite said at a House Republican Policy Committee hearing on saltwater spraying. “Most people would agree that some environmental impacts are unavoidable and acceptable in order to have safe roads to drive on.”
The hearing followed a June discussion in the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, where the use of salt on roads to suppress dust was questioned. The state allowed the use of salt on unpaved roads for decades, but the Environmental Protection Agency ended the practice three years ago. Other states, including Ohio and Michigan, also use salt to minimize dust and ice on rural roads.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Greg Vitali, a Havertown Democrat, would put the end of the wastewater treatment into law. About 4 million gallons of saltwater have been used on roads since 2018, and critics say illegal dumping continues to be an “open secret.”
Local officials do not support an end to salt spraying, arguing that it is economical and less harmful than other dust and ice control methods.
“The brine is often donated to towns at no cost, benefiting both the producer of the brine and the towns that need to properly maintain their roads,” Waite said.
If you don’t use it, problems will occur.
“Dealing with the dust problem has been a challenge since the salt application ban went into effect,” said Jim Trussell, chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Hamlin Township in McKean County. “For four years we’ve been applying for grants from the (Community and Economic Development Agency and) the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to resurface these roads, but so far we’ve been denied.”
Paving the dirt roads would solve the dust problem, but Pennsylvania has not followed the example of neighboring states.
“The government in Harrisburg doesn’t realize how bad the dust is in this part of the state. We live on clay soil and we have more dirt roads than paved roads. A lot of people don’t like the dust,” said Steve Goodwill, road superintendent for Columbus County in Warren County. “We just don’t have a huge budget to do these things.”
Unlike the federal government, New York State has a Rural Road Paving Program funded by the state budget to rehabilitate unpaved roads.
“The state of Pennsylvania is not giving us anything,” Goodwill said.
In the view of local officials, Harrisburg was more of an obstacle than a partner.
“Frankly, this is just an example of a policy made by people who don’t have dirt roads, who don’t have this problem at all, but the idea of putting byproducts of the oil and gas industry on the roads sounds unpleasant to them,” Venango County Commissioner Sam Breen said.
Environmental concerns raised in some studies were dismissed as lacking transparency and rigor.
“This was an investigation that needed to be done to see what was really going on on the ground,” said Rep. Martin Causer, a Republican from Bradford. “There are a lot of secrets in this (Penn State) investigation, a lot of questions remain…. My point is, they got what they paid for.”
Former Environmental Protection Secretary David Hess argued in June that a ban on salt spraying is the only way to prevent wastewater from polluting the environment.
But lawmakers were skeptical that the saltwater would cause much harm.
“After years of using conventional saltwater on our roads, this is the cleanest environmentally friendly area in the state,” said Sen. Scott Hutchinson, a Republican from Oil City. “We have good rivers with good trout stocks, we have drinkable streams if we want to. People come here because we have a beautiful environment.”
Some see the saltwater ban as part of a broader strategy.
“There are groups in Pennsylvania who want to get rid of natural gas, oil and coal,” said Republican Rep. Mike Armanini of Dubois. “This is another ploy in their plan to attack the natural gas and oil industries. If we left those three industries alone we’d be one of the fastest growing states in the country, but because we’re not benefiting from them we’re at the bottom.”
