"In 2009 and 2010, the Delaware River near Wilmington got a little-noticed early taste of the waste left behind by the controversial natural gas drilling method called fracking. Some 1.4 million gallons of partially treated wastewater collected from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, wells outside the Delaware River basin were further processed and flushed into Delaware waters through the commercial side of DuPont Co.’s big wastewater plant in Deepwater, N.J., near the foot of the Delaware Memorial Bridge."

"Delaware regulators only learned when contacted by The News Journal last week that this drilling wastewater passed through DuPont’s plant for treatment, exiting from a discharge pipe under the river on Delaware’s side of the state line.

Some environmental groups have branded the DuPont incident a chemical shell game that proves Delaware has a direct stake in an interstate fight over fracking regulations, even though the nearest gas-bearing layers of Marcellus Shale are well north and west of watersheds that provide northern Delaware’s drinking water."

Jeff Montgomery reports for the Delaware News Journal May 20, 2012. [2]