CCHPS Technical Meeting

Mr. Allard will be speaking to his work that provides a review of past investigations of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) and past and recent studies related to technologically enhanced NORM (TENORM) in the commonwealth’s Oil & Gas (O&G) industry, related radioactive waste disposal issues, and the potential worker and public radiation exposure. The DEP’s O&G Program and Bureau of Radiation Protection (BRP) examined the radium levels in conventional O&G wastewater in the early to mid-1990s. That work was resumed in 2013 due to a significant increase in unconventional O&G shale gas well development. A major “cradle to grave” O&G TENORM Study was conducted at that time, with results and all related documentation published online in May 2016. Follow-up to this Study’s results and recommendations were ongoing thru 2022, including the start of routine landfill leachate testing for radium. In that same year, revised guidance was issued for O&G operations that may generate TENORM, and are required to have an approved Radiation Protection Action Plan. Current and future challenges of implementing controls (e.g., for O&G brine road spreading), and communicating the appropriate regulatory balance for public, worker and environmental radiation protection standards as it relates to TENORM and waste disposal will be discussed.