radioactive fracking – A family in Cecil Township, Pennsylvania, is pressing questions about radioactive oil-and-gas waste after their son Luke Blanock died at 19 from Ewing sarcoma. Years later, a seven-acre storage yard near a public trail was permitted to handle radioactive waste
When Janice Blanock walks the trail near her home in the Pittsburgh suburbs. she doesn’t see just a scenic route for joggers and bike riders. She sees a seven-acre storage yard of used pipes and discarded hoses. separated from the Westland Branch of the Montour Trail by chain-link fence gaps large enough for people to slip through.
For more than a decade, Blanock’s worry has been personal—and it has only sharpened with time. Her teen son. Luke Blanock. died of Ewing sarcoma. a rare and highly aggressive pediatric bone cancer. after he was diagnosed six years after a first case of the disease appeared in Cecil. Now. standing near the yard. she asks whether the radioactive waste linked to oil-and-gas operations could be connected to what happened to Luke—and whether it could endanger other children who pass the site.
“I thought, ‘Is it possible that this could be radioactive?’” Blanock said. “Then I figured, ‘No, they wouldn’t do that … People are riding bikes and taking walks with their infants.’”
“I look at this site and I wonder if this has any connection to my son’s cancer,” she continued. “And could it happen again to other innocent kids playing in the creek and on the fields?”
The yard sits in Cecil Township. a community of around 15. 000 in southwestern Pennsylvania’s Washington County. along a 60-mile rail trail system. The industrial operation is part of a facility that handles radioactive oil-and-gas waste. and it is embedded in the Marcellus Shale region. where deep gas deposits run beneath Ohio. West Virginia. and Pennsylvania.
Ownership and permits are central to the timeline of Cecil’s transformation. The Cecil yard was owned for more than 20 years by Weavertown Transport Leasing. During the 1990s, the company transported hospital waste to the site for temporary storage and processing. In the mid-2000s. when new drilling technologies made it possible to tap deep gas deposits. the region became a valuable area for extraction—and for the handling of radioactive oil and gas waste.
In 2007 and again in 2013, Weavertown Transport Leasing asked the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to modify its permit for the Cecil facility—described as “situated on 50 acres with a rural population”—to accept more waste. Each time, the DEP complied.
During the same era, Cecil changed from an Appalachian mining community into a growing Pittsburgh suburb. In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek named it “one of the best places” in Pennsylvania to raise a family.
Ewing sarcoma entered that family story first as a local marker and then as a personal verdict. Cecil’s first case of Ewing sarcoma appeared in 2008, when a local teen was diagnosed. Six years later, Luke Blanock and his parents learned he had Ewing sarcoma. By 2019—three years after Luke died at 19—six kids in Cecil’s school district. Canon-McMillan. had received the same diagnosis. including the catcher on Luke’s baseball team. according to an investigation by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Research to date has turned up no links between Ewing sarcoma and exposure to radiation. Still, what the Blanock family and their supporters say they see at the yard—combined with the known harms of radiation—has kept the concern alive.
Weavertown Transport ceased operations at the Cecil facility in 2019, and for several years the yard sat empty. In 2022, a locally based company named 5D Field Services applied for a permit to take over the property. In May 2025, the DEP issued 5D a permit to temporarily store, handle, and process radioactive oil-and-gas waste at the facility. Those operations are conducted in a series of buildings and pads on a hill above the storage yard.
The permit allows 5D to accept 1,500 tons of waste a day. The DEP said: “The benefits of the project to the public clearly outweigh the known and potential environmental harms.”
During an Oct. 14, 2025 inspection of the site, the DEP’s Bureau of Waste Management found that operations were being conducted “as approved,” with no violations.
But in April—before that later inspection—access and warning signs became part of the dispute. During a trip through the region with environmental-justice organizer Jill Hunkler. the director of Ohio Valley Allies. the site was visited after a tip from Lois Bjornson. a Washington County organizer with a Pennsylvania group called the Clean Air Council. The yard’s fence had two large gaps that made parts of it freely accessible to the public. There were no signs warning against trespassing or about the presence of radioactivity.
Later that week, the reporting returned with Yuri Gorby, a former U.S. Department of Energy scientist who worked at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Hanford Nuclear Site. Clad in protective latex gloves. Gorby collected peels of rusty metal flaked off the pipes—a type of waste generated in oil-and-gas development referred to by the industry as pipe-scale. He placed the material in plastic bags, labeled it, and sent it to labs for analysis.
Using a Ludlum 3000 Digital Survey Meter. Gorby then measured radiation on several of the thousands of pipes dumped at the site. One pipe. with an opening wide enough for a child to crawl into. registered a dose rate of 4.88 milliroentgens per hour—nearly 1. 000 times the location’s background radiation levels. A 2016 report from the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers says radiation levels greater than twice background represent a contaminated workspace that “should be surveyed for loose contamination” and “promptly cleaned up and drummed.”.
The measurements, as described in the reporting, raised stark exposure scenarios. A child spending five hours inside that pipe would face radiation exposure that surpasses limits the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency established to protect workers cleaning up radioactive-waste sites. If the same child fell asleep inside the pipe for a full day. the reporting says they would awaken with an exposure surpassing the annual radioactivity limits set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Along another section of the yard, there was a tall, bright pile of hoses described as a “radioactive castle” beckoning youth to climb.
In November. samples of the scale were sent to Sheldon Landsberger. a nuclear engineer at the University of Texas at Austin. Landsberger found the material contained radium-226 at 3. 108 picocuries per gram—about 622 times the limit of 5 picocuries per gram set by the EPA to protect the public at Superfund sites. Landsberger said the levels were “significantly higher than allowable legal levels under EPA.”.
Samples sent to Eberline Analytical, a radiological analysis lab in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, showed high levels of radioactive lead and bismuth as well.
In mid-April, the reporting returned to the yard and collected additional samples of loose scale near the fence dividing the yard from the Montour Trail. Landsberger found radium-226 levels of 3,302 picocuries per gram—660 times the EPA limit.
With the information in hand. the reporting says a letter was sent in late April to two dozen federal and state officials. including Pennsylvania Health Secretary Debra Bogen. DEP Director Jessica Shirley. a state radiation complaint line. Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office, top officials at the EPA, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The letter said: “Given the unusual and extraordinary contamination present at this site … I felt the need to. before publishing anything in the media. notify appropriate agencies and officials.”.
In early May, the state’s Bureau of Waste Management visited the site and concluded that “no waste was observed throughout storage lot … no additional actions are needed at this time. Complaint can be closed.”
In response to questions for the story. DEP spokesperson Neil Shader said. “The department will continue reviewing the information provided and conduct any additional inspections or follow-up actions necessary to ensure compliance with applicable laws. regulations. and permit requirements.” A Pennsylvania Department of Health spokesperson. Neil Ruhland. said. “We do not have additional information to share.” Cecil Township did not reply to questions.
When the site was visited again in mid-May, there were still large gaps in the fence and no warning signs. A trail through tall grass along the yard’s edge suggested people were using the openings. The bent grass led to an open area where the dirt was strewn with pipe-scale.
Silverio Caggiano, a board member of the Buckeye Environmental Network, described the fear as practical and urgent. A former battalion fire chief with four decades of experience tackling threats posed by hazardous and radioactive materials. including weapons of mass destruction. Caggiano said that if kids were frequenting the site as a playground through the summer. they “could be getting a lifetime dose.”.
Caggiano also pointed to what could spread contamination beyond the fence line—storms that blow through the yard and winds generated by trains running on tracks along the yard’s north side. He said the radioactive pipe-scale drifting around the yard could be scattered further. and he suggested it could be exploited by bad actors willing to put the public at risk.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission previously responded to the April letter, stating: “No additional action is required on our end. We hope this clarification is helpful. Have a great day.”
The EPA, in response to questions, pushed back on the idea that nothing was done. EPA spokesperson Brigit Hirsch said: “It’s absolutely untrue to say nothing has been done about this. PA DEP received your outreach and has visited the site. EPA stands ready to assist to protect human health and the environment as requested and as appropriate under the law.” Hirsch also directed people to report suspected violations through the EPA’s tip page.
Neither 5D nor Weavertown Transport Leasing replied to questions.
The dust-up over Cecil’s waste yard arrives in a broader political landscape in Pennsylvania shaped by fracking promises. fraying trust. and shifting public oversight. In the late 1990s, Texas drillers pioneered high-volume hydraulic fracturing, and by the mid-2000s fracking had arrived in Pennsylvania. John Quigley. who ran the Pennsylvania DEP in the mid-2010s. told Inside Climate News that when it came to radioactivity. “there was obviously a problem that the state was not dealing with.”.
As residents said state agencies ignored concerns, health documentation emerged from within communities. “Headaches. fatigue. dizziness. nausea. nosebleeds. blood test show exposure to benzene and other chemicals. ” reads a typical Pennsylvania entry on List of the Harmed. a website that later expanded to include more than 21. 000 entries from fracked communities nationwide.
The New York Times investigated fracking in Pennsylvania in 2011. describing drilling sites operating around the clock. equipment and waste hauled along back roads. and drilling-waste pits some as large as a football field “close to homes.” The reporting cited odors like “raw sewage mixed with gasoline.”.
In 2018. Eliza Griswold published Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America. about a southwestern Pennsylvania family’s experience in Washington County. The book won the Pulitzer Prize, and the Haney family was included in an investigation by then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro. When Shapiro released his 243-page investigation in 2020. residents in communities besieged by the industry said they were overjoyed that a top official had captured their trauma.
Shapiro’s report warned that fracking wasn’t confined to “out-of-the-way industrial parks.” It happened “under houses. and farms. and woodlands. ” with described impacts that included worms forced up out of the ground. farm animals with “deformed offspring. ” drinking water that “smell[ed] like sulfur or taste like formaldehyde and burn[ed] the skin. ” and intense nosebleeds at night.
Since becoming governor in 2023, Shapiro has altered positions. The year he took office. he launched a project called “Radical Transparency” with CNX Resources. a fracker in Pennsylvania. allowing it to monitor its own pollution data. The reporting says his administration continued to ignore calls to meet with residents in communities on the front lines.
Alison L. Steele, executive director of Environmental Health Project, said there is “a consistent and profound lack of urgency from the Shapiro administration when it comes to protecting Pennsylvanians from the health risks of fossil fuels.”
For Blanock, the central emotion is betrayal. “[Shapiro] said we Pennsylvanians have a right to clean air and water. and we thought this official really cared. but it was obviously just something to get him elected. ” Blanock said. “Think about all these rare cancers in children and adults — it’s grotesque. it’s really sickening that this can be happening in our community. literally right along the trail. You can bet money that sites like these are all over southwestern Pennsylvania.”.
Shapiro’s office did not answer detailed questions sent for the story, including whether Cecil’s operations could be linked to Ewing sarcoma cases or other rare cancers in the area.
The reporting then moves into a sharper dispute about radiation governance: whether the public and workers are adequately protected from radioactive pipe-scale and other contaminated equipment that can end up in “laydown” yards across the Marcellus region.
Tom McKnight. who hauled oil-and-gas wastewater in the Marcellus for six years. does not attribute his stage 4 thymoma cancer—an uncommon cancer of the thymus—to the work. Still, he said he was never warned that wastewater in his truck might contain elevated radium. McKnight credits a 2020 Rolling Stone article with waking him up and inspiring him to educate others. He now serves on the board of the worker advocacy group Truckers Movement for Justice.
McKnight said “laydown” yards filled with radioactive pipes like Cecil are common in the Marcellus and that “every company has a laydown yard,” because contaminated equipment has to go somewhere between jobs.
He also said that dozens of companies across Ohio. West Virginia. and Pennsylvania have permits to process radioactive oil-and-gas waste. but “not a single one of them has a permit to operate an unmarked low-level radioactive-waste landfill. ” suggesting a broader environmental and public-health problem. He described how production wastewater runs through pipes to storage tanks. how pipes can become coated with radioactive pipe scale and hoses can carry it too.
The EPA webpage on radioactive oil-and-gas waste warns that disposal can result in “environmental contamination” and “may lead to ground and surface water contamination.” It adds that those at risk could include maintenance workers and nearby residents or office workers exposed through “inhalation of radioactive dust and direct exposures to gamma radiation.”.
In Texas. McKnight said oil-and-gas-field equipment contaminated with radioactivity must be identified with clearly visible waterproof tags or waterproof markings. and pipes must be capped so radioactive material doesn’t drift out. He said that the pipes and hoses in Cecil’s pipe yard have no markings and no caps.
DEP’s permit for 5D says: “All waste-handling activities and storage areas shall be in an enclosed structure or otherwise suitably protected from the weather or kept in covered containers.” Yet in the reporting. pipes in Cecil’s yard are described as uncontained. with radioactive scale scattered across open ground. There is no barrier to prevent wind or rainwater from carrying radioactive material onto the rail trail or into the creek that runs just beyond the yard and immediately joins with Millers Run.
Less than two miles downstream of that junction, Millers Run flows past Cecil Township Park, where Luke Blanock played baseball for years. The reporting says 5D’s original permit application noted the short distance between the storage yard and the park.
Under its permit. 5D is described as being allowed to use a mixing process called “solidification” that combines radioactive oil-and-gas waste with paper dust. cardboard dust. fly ash. and cement-kiln dust. which can contain hexavalent chromium. The reporting says a recent DEP report suggests it is illegal in Pennsylvania to handle radioactive oil-and-gas waste in this way.
The reporting also says solidification is necessary because federal landfill rules cannot accept fluid or dripping waste. and that it can help operators mask the radioactive signature of the waste. allowing trucks transporting it to pass radiation monitors typical at local landfills without triggering them. It describes this as a low-cost disposal approach compared with the cost of hauling waste to disposal sites in Texas or Utah that accept low-level radioactive waste.
The Radiation Action Plan that 5D submitted to the DEP in 2025 is described in the reporting as saying exposures should be kept as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA). The plan also says that if dose rates exceed 250 microroentgens per hour. the area will be marked. access restricted. and hazards communicated through postings. signs. and labeling. including the standard radiation symbol and “yellow and magenta rope.”.
On the visit described, Gorby’s measurements were nearly 5,000 microroentgens per hour.
The DEP did not reply to questions regarding solidification’s legality in Pennsylvania.
The Cecil concern echoes other radioactive waste fights in the region. The reporting cites “hundreds of lawsuits” over radioactive oil-and-gas equipment abandoned at wellheads or storage yards in agricultural or community settings. In Grefer v. Alpha Technical. involving the Grefer family. Exxon Mobil. and Intracoastal Tubular Services. a Louisiana state court jury initially awarded $56.1 million in general damages in 2001 and $1.06 billion in punitive damages. reduced on appeal to $112.3 million. The reporting describes the contamination as radioactive “scale deposited on used oilfield piping/tubulars” cleaned or maintained by ITCO and Alpha for Exxon and other oil companies.
Blanock’s own focus has long been on radium—an element she believes may matter because of how it behaves in the body. “I always go back to radium,” she said. “It sticks in my mind, because radium acts like calcium and attaches to bone.”
The American Cancer Society says Ewing sarcoma has not been linked to exposure to radium or other radioactive materials. But the reporting describes scientific research that connects radium exposure with bone cancers. including Ewing sarcoma. citing Canadian epidemiologist Murray Finkelstein’s work. In 1994. Finkelstein published research in the Canadian Medical Association Journal finding that even minor increases of radium in drinking water led to a statistically significant increase in bone cancer deaths. including Ewing sarcoma.
When asked in the story if the radium from the pipe yard—or other radium-releasing aspects of fracking development in the area—could have caused Luke Blanock’s Ewing sarcoma. Ned Ketyer. president of Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania and a former pediatrician who practiced in the area for more than 30 years. said it’s a question requiring additional research.
Ketyer said nobody can say with certainty that one exposure led to one outcome. “We may not know for generations what the true health effects of this site are,” Ketyer said. “We live on a radioactive planet where sometimes we do things that increase the concentration of that radioactivity. Reducing threats to our health wherever and whenever we can is all we can do, individually and as a society.”.
The reporting adds that Lauren Minsky, an environmental-health scientist at Haverford College in Philadelphia, says the pipe-yard site has “direct implications” for the Ewing sarcoma cluster in Cecil and for radiation-caused or radiation-linked cancers across the area.
The DEP counters with its own findings from a 2020 report. In response to questions. DEP spokesperson Shader said the 2020 report “did not identify statistically significantly higher rates of Ewing’s tumors or other childhood cancers in fracking counties — including Washington County — than in non-fracking counties. ” and said both DEP and the Pennsylvania Department of Health continue to monitor.
Shader also described the inspection schedule for the yard, saying it is inspected quarterly to ensure compliance with applicable permits, rules, and regulations, and that DEP continues to monitor activities connected to the storage and management of materials related to oil-and-gas development.
State radiation protection staff visited Cecil on June 3 to assess radiation levels and potential public-health risks. and the story says it was the first-ever inspection of this kind noted in department records going back more than three decades. Area resident and frequent Montour Trail user Kylan Bjornson said he did not personally see the DEP team take samples or investigate inside the pipes. He said the DEP team “did not have the attitude that they were looking for a problem.”.
In an email update a few days later, Shader said the tests did not turn up dangerous or unusual conditions. He said inspectors collected radiation measurements both on the facility property and along the Montour Trail to assess potential exposure. Shader said readings along the trail did not indicate radiological impacts to trail users or conditions posing public health concern. Shader said measurements on private property were consistent with materials associated with oil-and-gas development and similarly did not indicate conditions warranting additional protective actions.
The DEP has not responded to questions about the radiation levels detected by the inspection team, whether they took samples of materials from the trail or yard, whether 5D received any violations, or when the final report will be released.
Blanock’s grief has not dulled into resignation. For the 10th year in a row. she and friends plan to participate in the annual Pittsburgh Cure Sarcoma 5K run under the name Team Luke Strong. “Every year at the sarcoma walk. there are more teams created. ” Blanock told the story. saying sadly there are more sarcoma patients.
The Cecil yard—permitted again to handle radioactive oil-and-gas waste—sits in the middle of that reality, close enough to a public trail and a creek to turn suspicion into something harder: the feeling that exposure might not require permission. It might only require a gap in the fence.
Cecil Township Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale fracking waste radioactive pipe-scale radium-226 Ewing sarcoma DEP EPA Josh Shapiro Montour Trail Nuclear Regulatory Commission 5D Field Services Weavertown Transport Leasing