BUSINESS NEWS DIGEST | Pa. official: End near for waste releases

Pa. official: End near for waste releases

Pennsylvania’s top environmental regulator says he is confident that the natural- gas industry is just weeks away from ending one of its more troubling environmental practices: the discharge of vast amounts of polluted brine into rivers used for drinking water.

On Tuesday, the state’s new Republican administration called on drillers to stop using riverside treatment plants to get rid of the millions of barrels of ultra-salty, chemically tainted wastewater that gush annually from gas wells.

As drillers have swarmed Pennsylvania’s rich Marcellus Shale gas fields, the industry’s use and handling of water has been a subject of intense scrutiny.

Even before the initiative to end river discharges was announced publicly, it had received the support of drillers. By Wednesday evening, a leading industry group, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, had announced that its members were committed to halting the practice by the state’s stated goal of May 19.

“Basically, I see this as a huge success story,” said Michael Krancer, acting secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection. “This will be a vestige of the past very quickly.”

Some dairy farmers not keen on deal

FAIRFIELD, Vt.

Some dairy farmers aren’t sweet on part of a proposed $30 million settlement with a giant dairy processor that they say could hurt their income.

The proposal would settle a class-action antitrust lawsuit filed in 2009 by five Northeastern dairy farms, who accused Dallas-based Dean Foods Co., Kansas City, Mo.-based cooperative Dairy Farmers of America and its marketing affiliate Dairy Marketing Services of working together to dominate the milk-buying market and hold down prices paid to farmers.

Some fear the move could lower prices paid to farmers if Dean starts shopping elsewhere.

Associated Press