Clearfield County well to hold fracking wastewater

www.centredaily.com/2011/12/11/3016382/clearfield-county-well-to-hold.html
By Cliff White cwhite@centredaily.com
Posted: Dec 11, 2011

It’s an old story by now in Pennsylvania: local residents upset about a Marcellus Shale-related well proposed in their back yard.

But there’s a difference in the well planned for Brady Township, Clearfield County. Instead of taking gas out of the ground, the well is intended to store fracking wastewater deep in the folds of the earth. Neighbors are up in arms, but the debate marks a new step in the evolution of the Marcellus Shale play.

“Injection of flowback fluids or fluids from the production process has been a common procedure for a long, long time, but it’s still relatively rare in Pennsylvania,” said Tom Murphy, co-director of the Penn State Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research. < http://marcellus.psu.edu/ >

Flowback water is a briny, silty and potentially toxic cocktail created as a byproduct of the hydraulic fracturing process, when millions of gallons of water are pumped at high pressure into a gas well to create fractures in rock formations, thereby releasing trapped gas. Environmental regulations require drillers to capture and dispose of wastewater that commonly flows back out of the gas well when it is fracked.

In September, Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer asked gas drilling companies to stop sending theirflowback watertotreatment facilities that released it into Pennsylvania’s waterways. Since then, the industry has mainly relied on two methods for frackwater disposal: recycling facilities that treat the water and dilute it for reuse, or injection wells, mostly in Ohio, that store the wastewater deep underground.

Both options will continue to play a role in how Pennsylvania’s gas drillers dispose of their wastwater, Murphy said.

“There’s a very stiff movement toward recycling more and more of that (waste) fluid, but even when its recycled at a zero discharge plant, sometimes water gets so briny it can’t be used again and has to be taken to an injection well,” he said.

Since Krancer’s request, there has been a leap both in the amount of water recycling facilities and the number of trucks hauling wastewater to Ohio. There’s not enough local capacity to handle all the flowback water being created by the rapidly growing industry, Murphy said, and because of the high cost of drilling an injection well, the previous lack of financial incentives to do so, and less-than-ideal geology, Pennsylvania only has a handful of injection wells, while Ohio has about 150.

“Other states have hundreds or thousands of injection wells,” Murphy said. “Companies in the Marcellus are now looking for a variety of options to deal with their wastewater, and injection wells are increasingly looking like a good option for them to add to their porfolios in Pennsylvania.”

Enter Mike Hoover, president of Windfall Oil and Gas, of Falls Creek. In May, he leased land in the Highland Street Extension area of Brady Township, about two miles east of DuBois, with the intention of applying for a permit to drill and operate an injection well there.

“Taking care of frack water from the Marcellus Shale is the drive behind it, the real economics behind it,” he said. “It’s always been my conviction disposal into a deeper (rock) formation is the real solution (for wastewater).”

Hoover’s plan calls for a 7,300-foot-deep well that will deposit flowback water into the Oriskany sandstone formation, about 6,000 feet below the deepest part of the aquifer. The site, with a large formation of porous rock contained between harder, less permeable layers, is perfect for wastewater storage and is “completely safe,” he said.

“The EPA sets the guidelines we follow,” he said. “The facility design is going to be such that there are so many failsafes that there’s not really not any kind of safety concern.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates injection wells under the Safe Drinking Water Act, has very high standards for implementation of the Underground Injection Control Program, and strictly enforces its rules, according to Karen Johnson, head of groundwater and enforcement for the EPA’s mid-Atlantic region.

“There are requirements for casing, cementing, construction –multiple layers of protection,” she said. “The whole regulatory program is based on protecting ground water that could potentially be used for drinking water.”

Keeping drinking water clean and potable is just one of the concerns of Brady Township residents living close to the proposed well site.

“They say if it’s done right and nothing catastrophic happens, technically it could be safe,” said Marianne Atkinson, a retired postal worker who, with her husband, own 100 acres adjacent to the proposed well site. “But with an operation this complex, there are a lot of risks involved. And there’s going to be a lot of trucks — maybe dozens per day — and a lot of noise.”

Atkinson and a group of neighbors formed a coalition to oppose the well, and have gained the support of their township supervisors and county commissioners, she said. The commissioners sent a letter to the EPA asking for a thorough review of the plan before it is approved, Commissioner Mark McCracken said.

The review will come soon. Hoover said he will submit the permit application by the end of the year.

“I’ve been surprised at the public outcry over this facility,” he said. “I think it’s more due to people not understanding the process than anything else.”

Atkinson said Marcellus Shale gas extraction is happening too fast without enough scientific basis to do it safely.

“They need to slow down, back off, and do more research because the gas isn’t going anywhere,” she said. “Right now, it’s not a question of if there will be a spill, it’s a matter of when.”

Brady Township isn’t the first Pennsylvania township to face a fight over a proposed injection well, as two wells approved earlier this year in Warren County have been appealed by citizens’ groups.

With 22 injection well applications pending — Pennsylvania has just seven active wells — the township likely won’t be the last battleground in the state, either.

Cliff White can be reached at 235-3928.