New Jersey Mulls Barring Pennsylvania Drilling Waste

Scott Detrow

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Scott Detrow is a congressional correspondent for NPR. He also co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015 to cover the presidential election. He focused on the Republican side of the 2016 race, spending time on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, and also reported on the election's technology and data angles.

Detrow worked as a statehouse reporter for member stations WITF in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and KQED in San Francisco, California. He has also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

June 14, 2012 | 12:00 PM

New Jersey legislators are considering barring hydraulic fracturing waste from entering the Garden State.
While more and more fracking fluid is being treated and recycled, a large amount of brine, fluid, drill cuttings and other materials are shipped to landfills, water treatment centers and deep injection wells.
Here’s the AP report:

New Jersey lawmakers will consider legislation aimed at keeping wastewater from hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania from entering the Garden State.
The Assembly’s Environment Committee is due to vote on the measure Thursday afternoon.
The Senate’s Environment committee approved a similar measure last week, and also voted earlier this year voted to ban the practice known as fracking.
It’s unclear how much wastewater is currently being sent to New Jersey.

According to data compiled by FracTracker, two New Jersey landfills are currently accepting waste from Pennsylvania drilling sites. Most of the commonwealth’s out-of-state waste goes to Ohio, where it’s been tied to earthquakes.