Do you remember when we shouted a big, fat “No!” to radioactive waste in Allegany County? It’s been a while since that fight, so maybe it’s OK that radioactive trash with radium 226 and more has been trucked into the Hyland Landfill in Angelica since 2010.

Maybe it’s OK if the the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation decides that we want even more.

The trash, described as having about 25 times the natural background radiation level of radium 226 and other radioisotopes, as well as a variety of heavy metals, carcinogens and other toxic chemicals and compounds, has the innocent name of drill cuttings.

Casella’s Hyland Landfill is among five landfills in New York accepting drill cuttings from gas drilling operations in Pennsylvania and other states.

These drill cuttings were treated as hazardous waste until a law, often tagged the Halliburton Loop Hole, said that any landfill could handle them like ordinary household trash.

Leachate, the liquid runoff from landfills, was also redefined as nonhazardous, so leachate from these drillings can be transported to New York state water treatment facilities. Where does the leachate from Hyland go? It is trucked to the Wellsville waste water treatment plant and then dumped into the Genesee River?

How much radium 226 is in the leachate? Radium 226 is water-soluble, so shouldn’t that be measured before it’s dumped into the Genesee?

What other chemicals are in those drill cuttings? Does the Wellsville waste water treatment plant remove that stuff? Does anyone even know what to look for?

Upstate Laboratories Inc. pleaded guilty in federal court this week, admitting that employees regularly falsified chemical tests of water and soil for several years. What lab is testing water and soil around Hyland and Wellsville’s water facility?

Should the DEC permit even more tons of drill cuttings to be brought to the landfill, every day? Should the DEC have a hearing on the many questions? Send your opinion, postmarked by July 22, to Mary E. Hohmann, NYSDEC Region 9 Allegany Sub-Office, 182 E. Union St., Suite 3, Allegany, NY 14706-1328.

Or email by Sunday to Mary E. Hohmann at r9dep@gw.dec.state.ny.us

Tell her we deserve a public hearing on the request to increase the tonnage of drill cuttings to be accepted at the Hyland facility in Angelica. Tell her we need to know what chemicals are going into our land and into our river. Allegany County once cared about this issue. Tell Mary Hohmann that we still do.

(Ms. Hardman lives in Wellsville.)