{"id":362528,"date":"2025-12-21T21:30:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T21:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/362528\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T21:30:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T21:30:11","slug":"a-messy-trail-of-toxic-oil-and-gas-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/362528\/","title":{"rendered":"A Messy Trail of Toxic Oil and Gas Waste"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pennsylvania is ground zero for the fracking boom. It\u2019s increased natural gas production there 37-fold since 2008. That production generates a lot of waste, but the state\u2019s ability to track it has failed to keep up.<\/p>\n

A decade ago, regulators promised to improve reporting standards for the waste, which can include radioactive material, heavy metals and carcinogenic chemicals. But a new Inside Climate News investigation found huge discrepancies in state records, making it hard for Pennsylvania to enforce regulations around spills, leaks, transport and dumping on roads or in public waterways. \u201cIt could be dumped right next to somebody\u2019s house and they would not even know,\u201d a former state regulator told ICN.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kiley, who\u2019s been digging into this issue all through 2025, explains what happens to oil and gas waste in Pennsylvania, what it means for residents, and the consequences of having so few guardrails.<\/p>\n

ICN Sunday Morning is now available as a podcast! Listen and subscribe on Spotify<\/a>, Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Amazon Music<\/a>, and iHeart<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAbout This Video<\/p>\n

Perhaps you noticed: This video, like all the news we publish, is available for free. That\u2019s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can\u2019t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We\u2019ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.<\/p>\n

Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.<\/p>\n

Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don\u2019t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places? <\/p>\n

Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.<\/p>\n

Thank you,<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tKiley Bense\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tReporter, Pennsylvania<\/p>\n

Kiley Bense covers climate change and the environment with a focus on Pennsylvania, politics, energy, and public health. She has reported on the effects of the\u00a0fracking boom in\u00a0Pennsylvania, the expansion of the American plastics industry, and the intersection of climate change and culture. Her previous work has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, the Believer, and Sierra Magazine, and she holds master\u2019s degrees in journalism and creative writing from Columbia University. She is based in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania is ground zero for the fracking boom. It\u2019s increased natural gas production there 37-fold since 2008. That…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-362528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}