Shell plans to begin operations this summer at its new industrial complex along the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. The plant will use ethane produced at the region鈥檚 natural gas wells to make tiny polyethylene plastic pellets, which some people call nurdles.
They鈥檙e used to make many kinds of plastic products.
But nurdles can also end up in waterways, which is why environmental groups, working with local researchers, have started searching for nurdles in the water near the plant. They鈥檙e trying to establish a baseline of what鈥檚 in the Ohio now, and will continue to survey the river after the plant opens, so they can tell if nurdles from the plant are getting into the river.
Plastic in the region鈥檚 rivers
Captain Evan Clark says he鈥檚 pulled out more than a million pounds of trash from Pittsburgh鈥檚 rivers over the past 15 years with Allegheny Cleanways, and millions more pounds along the shorelines. He鈥檚 amazed at how much of it is plastic.
Now, Clark is with the and regularly leads cleanup groups.
鈥淔or our volunteers, the eye-opening experience of seeing that such a massive percent of what we pull out of the river is plastics is really eye-opening and educational,鈥� Clark said, standing behind the wheel of the group鈥檚 boat.
They find things like the plastic film that covers cigarette packs, fleece clothing, grocery store bags, and soda bottles.
Clark pulls to the side of the Ohio River, at the boat launch in Monaca, a few miles upriver from Shell鈥檚 ethane cracker. He鈥檚 bundled up in waders, with a hoodie pulled over his head to protect him from the wind.
Eric Harder, the with the Mountain Watershed Association, is among a few others waiting to get on board. 鈥淢ost people do not know what a nurdle was when I first would tell them about it,鈥� Harder said.
What are nurdles?
Nurdles are the size of a lentil. They鈥檙e the raw material used by manufacturers to make other plastic products. It takes more than , and over a thousand nurdles to make a soda bottle.
When Shell鈥檚 multi-billion dollar opens, it will produce 1.6 million metric tons of plastic pellets a year.
鈥淢ost people, I tell them that the cracker plant looks like an engineering masterpiece, and it does look amazing, like someone took a long time to design it all,鈥� Harder said. 鈥淏ut it does, you know, make plastics.鈥�
When those trillions of tiny plastic bits are transferred onto trains and trucks, they can spill. This has happened in places like Texas and Louisiana, where
鈥�With the nurdles, it鈥檚 really important to understand how much of the product might be slipping into our river systems,鈥� said Heather Hulton VanTassel, executive director of Three Rivers Waterkeeper, who is also on the boat.
can ingest these microplastics. Researchers have found that bind to them in the water. The environmental groups are collecting nurdles now, to build a baseline of plastics in the river, so they can tell if there are any spills from the cracker plant after it opens.
Nurdle Patrol Protocol
They stop the boat, and using a metal pole, Eric Harder lowers a large sock-like filter onto the water. 鈥淎nd then we just sit and wait for ten minutes,鈥� he explained.
As the sock floats along the surface, it catches debris.
They are following a procedure similar to the shoreline for citizens, developed at the University of Texas, Austin.
After 10 minutes, Harder pulls the filter sock out of the water and empties the contents through a filter into a bucket. Among the twigs and other debris, they find a couple of squishy white balls. It鈥檚 styrofoam, not nurdles.
Then they pour the debris through a smaller sieve, 鈥淎nd then kind of visually inspect everything, and usually, right away we鈥檒l be able to see a nurdle that鈥檚 fallen out of there,鈥� Harder said.
鈥淣othing here,鈥� said James Cato of Mountain Watershed Association, as he looks through, 鈥渟eems like maybe another little piece of styrofoam.鈥�
They go through this protocol at five different spots spanning the width of the river, and at various locations up and downriver of the Shell plant.
After one filtering, Cato points out a piece of harder, more dense plastic: a nurdle. It鈥檚 a gray-yellowish color. He keeps looking through the debris and sees a newer-looking nurdle.
鈥淭his one is perfectly round, and it still has that kind of glowing quality. The other ones are yellowed, and they鈥檝e been eroded down into more irregular shapes. So who knows how long they鈥檝e been out here,鈥� he said.
Cato opens a box of new amber-colored vials, sent to them by a lab at the University of Pittsburgh. Amber vials will help preserve the chemical contents that are absorbed by the microplastics.
Cato opens a vial and drops in one of the nurdles they found. They鈥檒l send it to researchers at local universities to analyze.
A lab at the University of Pittsburgh will analyze whether other sources of pollution may be concentrating on the surface of nurdles. At Penn State Behrend, researchers will look at the chemical makeup of nurdles they collect. Duquesne University will be collecting fish and sampling for nurdles in fish guts, and the West Virginia Water Resources Institute will survey the river鈥檚 conventional water quality parameters.
This new partnership is funded by The Heinz Endowments. (The Allegheny Front receives funding from The Heinz Endowments and Duquesne University.)
Eric Harder says now, with the researchers鈥� help, they have developed a more scientifically valid protocol. 鈥淲hen it was just one person being like, 鈥極h, let鈥檚 look here for some nurdles.鈥� And, 鈥極h, I found some, it must be from them,鈥� 鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a lot different from now when we have university scientists.鈥�
Researchers want citizen scientists to survey for nurdles too
The coalition is also working on a map to share with the public, to create guidance for citizens who want to partake in scientifically valid nurdle surveys as well.
The researchers want volunteers to follow the by visually inspecting for nurdles in designated locations. If a nurdle is detected within 10 minutes, citizens are to continue surveying for an additional 10 minutes. They are asked to collect all nurdles they observe and report their findings into the nurdle patrol database.
Shell and regulators respond
In an email, Shell鈥檚 spokesperson said the pellets produced at the plant 鈥渃annot be allowed to make their way into local waterways under any circumstances,鈥� and that the company built multiple barriers to capture any plastics that may spill at the plant. It has joined , an industry program designed to ensure containment of plastic pellets and other products, like plastic flakes and powder.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said in an email that the plastic pellets are regulated under the state鈥檚 Clean Streams Law, and under the Solid Waste Management Act, and that the Shell plant will be subject to regular inspections.
Still, Captain Evan Clark says the more nurdle patrols they do, and the more people hear about it, the better.
鈥�Not only just to Shell but to everybody else who鈥檚 interested in this in the plastic issue, seeing that people are taking it seriously enough to spend the time and the money to be out here doing the work does a ton to just raise the visibility,鈥� he said.
And the more eyes on Shell, he says, the more likely it will be careful not to pollute the river.
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