People of Yorkshire: How much radiation do you like in your morning cuppa?

Last Updated: May 27, 2016By
160527 United Utilities treatment works Davyhulme

The United Utilities treatment works at Davyhulme, from which radioactive water used in fracking was released into the Manchester Ship Canal.

Radioactive water from fracking was released into the Manchester Ship Canal.

… in accordance with a government-approved licence.

… and now North Yorkshire Council has approved a plan for fracking there.

What do the people of North Yorkshire think of their councillors now?

The MP for Stretford and Urmston has demanded to know why waste water from fracking was dumped into the Manchester Ship Canal.

Kate Green spoke out after a BBC Inside Out programme aired on Monday, January 27, 2014, reported that before October 2011, radioactive water from Cuadrilla’s fracking operations was handled at United Utilities (UU) treatment works in Davyhulme and, after treatment, released into the Manchester Ship Canal.

A UU spokesman said water from Cuadrilla’s Preece Hall site was treated at Davyhulme, but under a licence granted by the Environment Agency (EA) and this treatment stopped in September 2011, when the EA amended the licence.

The spokesman said the effluent released into the ship canal complied with the EA-granted licence.

Ms Green has now written to the chief executiveof UU to ask how much radioactive waste water from fracking was treated at Davyhulme before the regulations changed, and how much waste was released into the Manchester Ship Canal or elsewhere.

“I am extremely concerned that radioactive waste water has been released into our local waterways,” said Ms Green.

Source: MP demands answers on why waste water from fracking was dumped into the Manchester Ship Canal (From Messenger Newspapers)

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7 Comments

  1. Dez May 27, 2016 at 8:54 pm - Reply

    Strange green peace have not been down there already with their test kits measuring the radioactivity in the canel. Cannot understand why the Environ Agency has also not defended their position with lots of clean water reports..

  2. jeffrey davies May 28, 2016 at 7:53 am - Reply

    hmm whot about the fish glowing in the dark idiots rule

  3. wildswimmerpete May 28, 2016 at 12:18 pm - Reply

    Sewage treatment won’t remove radionuclides from the effluent stream, that requires ion-exchange or chelation, both processes are extremely expensive if undertaken on a large scale. Even now, sewage plants have been only recently begun stripping nitrates and phosphates from the effluent stream that can otherwise lead to eutrophication of receiving waters, let alone radionuclides. Any radionuclides in fracking water will be extremely diluted but that’s not the point. It’s up to the frackers to treat their wastewater before sent on to the sewage plant. The prospect of spent fracking wells being used for dumping low-level liquid nuclear waste leaves me cold. My credentials: I was involved radiological monitoring of water bodies. I still have the equipment I used as I could be asked to resume testing.

  4. Florence May 28, 2016 at 2:47 pm - Reply

    One of my ex-colleagues many years ago did a PhD thesis on the effects of radioactivity on cells. He found that there was no lower limit – any additional load over and above the natural back ground would cause cellular / DNA damage. It was published at the time that the cancer cluster around Sellafield was in the news. Needless to say, his academic career failed to blossom.

  5. mohandeer May 28, 2016 at 6:02 pm - Reply

    Buttons for sharing have disappeared. I’ve copied and pasted and stuck it on my F/B but don’t know if you got credit. Not very good with this IT stuff.

    • Mike Sivier May 29, 2016 at 12:27 am - Reply

      Thanks for doing that – I’m looking into the sharing issue.

  6. Roland Laycock May 29, 2016 at 8:01 pm - Reply

    If the US can do it so can we

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