Connecticut Food & Beverage Professionals Coalition Letter
In support of a ban on fracking waste in Connecticut

Dear Connecticut legislators,

We, the undersigned, are members of Connecticut’s professional food community - chefs, restaurant owners, brewers, winemakers, sommeliers, cidermakers, cheesemakers, purveyors, processors, retailers, authors, educators – who are concerned about the impacts of fracking waste on our state’s land and aquatic resources.  

We urge you to ban the disposal of fracking waste in CT and co-sponsor Senate Bill 237.

Fracking waste poses profound environmental and public health risks. In states where fracking is already taking place, leaks and spills have stunted and killed crops and livestock, and sickened humans. The Marcellus shale play contains radium 226, radioactive material with a half-life of 1,600 years. Hundreds of toxic chemicals are used in the drilling process, many carcinogenic and hormone disrupting.  Fracking waste contains these toxic chemicals, and harmful underground contaminants brought to the surface during extraction.  

In Pennsylvania, Ohio and other states that process fracking waste, methods used for disposal have been linked to contaminated drinking water and other water supplies.  Repeated accidents, leaks and illegal dumping by waste hauling contractors occur and can be foreseeable in CT.  Excessive levels of salts and radioactive hotspots have been found downstream of wastewater treatment plants.  Run-off from fracking brine spread on roads as de-icer, spills and discharge from wastewater treatment plants may put CT farmland and irrigation water and fisheries in the Long Island Sound at risk. Once contamination occurs, it could be impossible or extremely expensive to clean up, a cost that CT taxpayers should not have to incur. Radiation cannot be mitigated, nor can contamination of underground aquifers.

This is of great concern to our community because fishing, agriculture, food and beverage production, restaurants and tourism are vital, growing, interdependent economic engines that rely on our famously pristine water and farmland for their success. Furthermore, as our customers become increasingly concerned about the social and environmental impact of our products, we feel a growing responsibility to source our ingredients sustainably.  

We ask for your leadership to prevent negative outcomes that will impact our food industries, our local economy, our personal livelihoods and those who grow, catch and produce the food that we offer our customers, guests and families. Fostering a green economy and supporting sustainable practices in agriculture, fishing, tourism and food production, not to mention renewable energy, can make our home state an example for the entire country.

Connecticut legislators, please support Senate Bill 237 by co-sponsoring and voting for this bill.

Signed,