skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Saturday, March 29, 2025

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

JD, Usha Vance visit Greenland as Trump administration eyes territory; Maine nurses, medical workers call for improved staffing ratios; Court orders WA to rewrite CAFO dairy operation permit regulations; MS aims to expand Fresh Start Act to cut recidivism.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The Dept. of Health and Human Services prepares to cut 10,000 more jobs. Election officials are unsure if a Trump executive order will be enacted, and Republicans in Congress say they aim to cut NPR and PBS funding.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Rural folks face significant clean air and water risks due to EPA cutbacks, a group of policymakers is working to expand rural health care via mobile clinics, and a new study maps Montana's news landscape.

Red Flags Raised Over Radioactive Frack Waste Company

play audio
Play

Thursday, July 7, 2016   

FRANKFORT, Ky. - The paper trail of a company that dumped West Virginia radioactive frack waste into Kentucky landfills is raising serious questions. This spring, regulators cited Advanced TENORM Services for dumping the low-level radioactive waste in two municipal landfills. Not long after, the company disabled its website and moved its formal physical address to the West Liberty Public Library.

But Tom FitzGerald, director with the Kentucky Resources Council, said state records show Cory Hoskins, who runs the company, is also connected to at least one other firm involved in a similar situation at a separate state landfill.

"Cory Hoskins is also working in Ohio and has a couple of different company names," he said. "How much other stuff, these elevated levels of radionuclides, ended up in our landfills?"

Neither Hoskins nor Advanced TENORM Services has returned calls requesting comment. The Kentucky Attorney General's office is investigating.

TENORM is Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials. In this case, a sludge that contains concentrated radium and uranium that occurs naturally in the Marcellus and Utica shales. One West Virginia company tested the waste, and decided not to take the contract to deal with it. FitzGerald said the cutoff line in Kentucky law is five picocuries per gram or radium, just a fraction of what the West Virginia waste company seems to have found.

"We know that the waste tested in West Virginia had elevated levels of radionuclides," he added. "If it came across the border with a concentration of more than five picocuries per gram, it violated Kentucky law."

By law, low-level radioactive waste has to go to specialized facilities, at as much as 10 times the cost of dumping it in a conventional landfill. Some in the waste-disposal industry argue that most TENORM is not that dangerous. But FitzGerald points out that landfill employees could face lung cancer from exposure to the radium.

"There's a number of workers out there who likely did not understand the nature of the material they were handling, and were exposed to elevated levels of radium 226, which is particularly a concern if it's inhaled," he said.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Mississippi's three-year recidivism rate reached 40% in 2023, according to state task force data - among the highest in the United States. (Pixabay)

Social Issues

play sound

For thousands of Mississippians leaving prison each year, a single question looms large: Who will hire me? State lawmakers could remove some of the …


Health and Wellness

play sound

Rural communities in Missouri are bracing for a tough reality as they plan ahead for the possibility of federal cuts to programs such as Medicaid…

Social Issues

play sound

This has been "National March Into Literacy Month" but it may become tougher over the summer to "march" into a public library and ask for help finding…


Students harvest food grown in the school greenhouse and use it for meals in their culinary program's in-house restaurant and cafeteria, creating a sustainable cycle. (Courtesy of Exact Solar)

Environment

play sound

Groups in Pennsylvania are asking Congress to preserve federal clean-energy tax incentives. Concerned about the possible repeal of 30% energy tax …

play sound

By Sara Hashemi for Sentient.Broadcast version by Freda Ross for Texas News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration John…

The USDA reported since April 2024, there have been avian influenza virus detections in 336 commercial flocks and 207 backyard flocks, for a total of more than 90.9 million birds affected.(Adobe Stock)

Environment

play sound

West Virginians are more concerned about bird flu's effect on grocery costs rather than health implications, and Republican voters are more likely to …

Social Issues

play sound

The federal HALT Fentanyl Act advancing through Congress would increase prison time for fentanyl traffickers. Kentuckians convicted on distribution …

Social Issues

play sound

Labor groups representing thousands of Minnesota state workers find themselves at serious odds with Gov. Tim Walz over his move this week to reduce …

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021