State calls for stop in using plants to treat tainted water. Drillers ready to comply.
End near for drill pollution
by DAVID B. CARUSO
April 24, 2011
Pennsylvania’s top environmental regulator says he is confident that the natural gas industry is just weeks away from ending one of its more troubling environmental practices: the discharge of vast amounts of polluted brine into rivers used for drinking water.
On Tuesday, the state’s new Republican administration called on drillers to stop using riverside treatment plants to get rid of the millions of barrels of ultra-salty, chemically tainted wastewater that gush annually from gas wells.
As drillers have swarmed Pennsylvania’s rich Marcellus Shale gas fields, the industry’s use and handling of water has been a subject of intense scrutiny.
The state’s request was made after some researchers presented evidence that the discharges were altering river chemistry in a way that had the potential to affect drinking water.
Locally, the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority has run into strong public opposition to a potential plan to build a treatment facility for the wastewater in Hanover Township. Many residents say they are concerned about environmental contamination as well as increased truck traffic bringing tainted water in for treatment.
The sanitary authority has consulted PA Northeast Aqua Resources to conduct a feasibility study on building a plant to treat wastewater produced by Marcellus Shale gas drilling.
John Minora of PA Northeast Aqua Resources said the initial study is complete, and the sanitary authority is now working on a second study with Red Desert/Cate Street Capital, a company seeking to build the plant next to the WVSA’s current facility.
For years, the gas industry has bristled and resisted when its environmental practices have been criticized.
But last week, it abruptly took a different tone.
Even before the initiative to end river discharges was announced publicly, it had received the support of drillers. By Wednesday evening, a leading industry group, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, had announced that its members were committed to halting the practice by the state’s stated goal of May 19.
“Basically, I see this as a huge success story,” said Michael Krancer, acting secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection. “This will be a vestige of the past very quickly.”
After May 19, almost all drillers will either be sending the waste to deep disposal wells — mostly in Ohio — or recycling it in new well projects, he said.
While the movement to end the wastewater discharges followed years of environmentalists’ criticism, the most influential push may have come from within the industry itself.
Among major gas-producing states, Pennsylvania is the only one that allowed the bulk of its well brine to be treated and dumped in rivers and streams. Other states required it to be injected into deep underground shafts.
Publicly, the industry — and the state — argued that the river discharges were harmless to humans and wildlife.
Just months ago, the industry was actively opposing new state regulations intended to protect streams from the brine, saying fears about the river discharges were overblown.
But simultaneously, some companies were concerned.
John Hanger, Krancer’s predecessor as the state’s environmental secretary, said that as early as 2008 he had been approached by two of the state’s most active drillers — Range Resources, of Fort Worth, Texas, and Atlas Energy, now a subsidiary of Chevron, warning that the state’s permissive rules had left rivers and streams at risk from the salty dissolved solids, particularly bromides, present in produced well water.
“They came to me and said, if this rule doesn’t change, there could be enormous amounts of wastewater high in (total dissolved solids) pouring into the rivers,” Hanger said.
Almost since then, the companies have been working on alternative disposal methods.
“We never thought that it was a good practice to begin with,” said Range Resources spokesman Matt Pitzarella.
For months, drillers have been introducing technology that returns brine to deep wells, rather than discarding it as waste. By the end of last year, this reuse was being considered by most big drillers as the industry’s future.
Efforts to curtail the waste flow accelerated, though, after a series of critical media reports, increased pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency, and new research that raised questions about whether drinking water was being compromised.
After reviewing that research, Range Resources began lobbying other drillers to confront the problem once and for all, and to do it publicly, Pitzarella said.
The water that flows from active wells is often contaminated with traces of chemicals injected into the wells during a drilling procedure called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which breaks up the shale and frees natural gas. The flowback water also brings back from underground such naturally existing contaminants as barium, strontium, and radium.
Worries about the contaminants took on added urgency after the Monongahela River, a western Pennsylvania waterway that serves as a major source of drinking water for Pittsburgh and communities to its south, became so salty in 2008 that people began complaining about the taste.
The Department of Environmental Protection responded by curtailing the amount of wastewater sent to plants on the Monongahela. It also wrote new rules barring wastewater treatment plants from accepting more drilling wastewater than already permitted unless they were capable of turning out effluent with salt levels that met drinking water standards.
Those rules, though, left most of the existing wastewater treatment plants alone, and between 15 and 27 continued to pump out millions of gallons of water that scientists said was still high in some pollutants.
Over the past year and a half, a handful of researchers, including Jeanne VanBriesen, a professor of civil engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, and Stanley States, director of water quality at the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, have been collecting evidence on an increase in bromide in rivers that were being used for gas wastewater disposal.
The industry has, until now, expressed mostly skepticism about any possible link between drilling waste and water quality problems.
When The Associated Press reported in January that some drinking water systems close to gas wastewater treatment plants had struggled to meet EPA standards for trihalomethanes, the article was written off by industry groups as irresponsible, as was a similar report by The New York Times in February that focused on the presence of radium in drilling waste.
But in recent weeks, Range Resources arranged for VanBriesen and States to present some of their preliminary findings on bromide to a gathering of industry representatives.
VanBriesen said she cautioned that her own findings didn’t necessarily point the finger decisively at natural gas waste as the main culprit behind rising bromide levels.
Still, her presentations had an impact, she said.
“I think what you are seeing is a realization that the problem isn’t going away,” VanBriesen said. “I’m not pushing the panic button … but it’s a directional change that you don’t want to continue.”
Marcellus Shale Coalition President Kathryn Klaber said that after reviewing those findings, her group now believes the industry is partly responsible for the rising bromide levels.
In her letter to Krancer on Wednesday, she promised that the industry was taking action, but also encouraged state officials to evaluate whether other “sources” were contributing to the problem.
Krancer promised that evaluation would indeed happen, but he said he believed the gas industry’s actions would lead to immediate improvements in river bromide levels.
Look closer at this clean energy
http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion/look-closer-at-this-clean-energy/10965/
April 24, 2011 at 6:00 am by Jay Jochnowitz, Editorial page editor
Opinion: Getting natural gas out of the ground turns out to be pretty dirty business. Energy shouldn’t come at the price of drinkable water and clean air.
The natural gas industry likes to portray its product as abundant, domestic and clean. Perhaps it thinks two out of three isn’t bad.
We don’t. Nor should Congress and the government agencies entrusted with protecting our drinking water and environment.
Time and again lately, we’ve received fresh warnings that mining this source of energy is far from a clean process, despite the industry’s often artfully parsed claim that the method of choice — horizontal hydraulic fracturing — is safe.
The process involves drilling deep underground, down and horizontally, and pumping in millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals under high pressure to crack the rock and release trapped gas. The industry is using fracking to tap portions of the Marcellus Shale, a gas-rich rock formation that lies under six states, including New York. The state has yet to issue permits while it drafts regulations.
Among the latest rebuttals to the industry’s claim of safety:
Thousands of gallons of chemical-laced water spewed into a stream last week from a well in Bradford County, Pa. Homeowners and farmers don’t know if their water is safe now for people and animals. This follows well contaminations elsewhere in the state, which embraced the rush to drill.
While the industry likes to note that chemicals are only a tiny fraction of the fracking mixture, a congressional investigation found that it added up to 866 million gallons, including hazardous and carcinogenic compounds, pumped into wells in at least 13 states from 2005 to 2009. And while underground, the water can become radioactive. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has told Pennsylvania to test drinking water for radium.
Pennsylvania officials have halted the disposal of drilling wastewater through treatment plants that discharge into rivers and streams that provide drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people. The plants, it turns out, aren’t equipped to remove the pollutants.
A Cornell University study concluded that fracking contributes to global warming even more than coal or oil burning by releasing methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The industry — which has sought to block release of methane emission data — dismissed the peer-reviewed study as lacking credibility.
New York has prudently held off issuing drilling permits at least until regulations are finished this summer. We urge the state, once again, to continue its moratorium until the EPA finishes a study into the safety of hydraulic fracturing, most likely next year. That study, focusing on water, should be expanded to air quality in light of the Cornell report.
Likewise, the interstate Delaware River Basin Commission, which controls a watershed that spans New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, and supplies water for millions including New York City residents, should wait for the EPA study, too, before issuing its own drilling regulations. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman should follow through on his threat to sue the commission if it doesn’t take the time for a proper environmental study.
Finally, Congress needs to fix mistakes it made in 2005 to exempt hydrofracking from federal clean air and water standards. Lawmakers need to let the agency charged with protecting the environment do its job in regulating an industry that has proven to be anything but clean.
Shale-tax debate heats up
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Shale-tax_debate_heats_up_04-24-2011.html
MARC LEVY
Posted: April 24, 2011
One big unknown is whether House Republican leaders will allow a floor vote.
HARRISBURG — Ready, set and … introduce your Marcellus Shale severance tax bill (or local impact fee bill or whatever you want to call it).
Two Republicans, Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati of Jefferson County and Rep. Kate Harper of Montgomery County, are preparing to introduce bills on top of at least six others already kicking around the GOP-controlled Legislature, adding fuel to what could be one of Harrisburg’s liveliest debates this spring.
Nearly every Democrat, a majority of Republican senators and at least a dozen House Republicans are expected to support some type of tax or fee on the booming natural gas industry. That makes it seem that something might actually pass, more than two years after then-Gov. Ed Rendell raised the prospect of a tax.
Still, the debate is likely to expose divides, especially among Republicans.
For instance, some Republicans, particularly in moderate southeastern Pennsylvania where there is no drilling, want natural gas money to help underwrite the state’s environmental protection, cleanup and enforcement efforts. But other GOP members want the money to remain in drilling communities, and some oppose a tax or fee outright.
“In my area, you have all of the anxiety (over drilling pollution) and very little of the benefit and that makes for a difficult situation in the Republican caucus,” Harper said.
It also seems clear that any tax or fee that passes would have a lighter touch on the wallets of major international energy companies, including Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp., than in most other states. Right now, Pennsylvania is the nation’s largest natural gas-producing state that does not tax the activity.
One big unknown is whether House Republican leaders will allow a floor vote on such a proposal.
“Right now, our goal is an on-time, no-tax budget,” said Steve Miskin, a spokesman for House Speaker Sam Smith, R-Jefferson, and House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny. “We’re not looking at any new taxes or fees.”
Miskin acknowledged that a number of House Republicans are interested in a tax or fee.
“But if it means Harrisburg doling it out one way or another, there are concerns,” he said.
Another unknown is whether Gov. Tom Corbett would even sign a bill that taps natural gas money to pay for anything more than a locally managed program that addresses the cost of damaged roads or contaminated water.
Efforts to impose a tax or fee to help statewide environmental causes may hit a brick wall if Corbett insists that, in keeping with his campaign pledge not to raise taxes or fees, none of the natural gas revenue may migrate to Harrisburg.
He has said that he will listen to proposals for a local impact fee, and otherwise is letting the discussion happen in the Legislature and on a task force he appointed to assess a range of shale-related issues.
“I believe that people are all over the board on what (a local impact fee) means,” Corbett said Thursday. “But in my mind, you do not bring the money to Harrisburg.”
Sen. Charles McIlhinney, R-Bucks, is a co-sponsor of a bill introduced by Democratic Sen. John Yudichak of Luzerne County, saying it is a fee-based approach that he believes should meet muster with the governor because it pays for the state’s costs to deal with natural gas-related damage and regulation that otherwise is borne, in part, by taxpayers in his district.
“Why is my constituents’ tax dollar paying for cleanups in Cambria County or Tioga County?” McIlhinney questioned. “I’m not saying take tax money out of there and send it to other places in the state, but we should tax it there and make it pay for the damage it causes.”
Yudichak’s bill would assess a severance tax of 2 percent on the shale gas, rising to 5 percent after three years.
Four bills introduced by Democrats — two in the House, two in the Senate — would assess higher tax rates, making them less likely to win support. Another bill, introduced by Republican Sen. Gene Yaw of Lycoming County, would allow property taxes to be assessed on the value of Marcellus Shale wells, as it is on coal and limestone.
Scarnati is revealing little detail about his bill. Harper’s bill would divide money mainly between education, environmental causes and drilling communities. It would assess a severance tax of 1.5 percent for five years, before rising to 5 percent.
“Everybody wants fair taxation and everybody understands that if you let one group off, somebody else has to pick it up,” she said. “The industry, by the way, is paying this tax in every other state and I think they’re expecting it” in Pennsylvania.
She acknowledged that her bill would carry a lower tax rate than some of her allies want, but she said she crafted it that way to garner a veto-proof majority should Corbett try to reject it. And if House Republican leaders refuse to hold a floor vote on it, she said she will try to work with an ally to attach it as an amendment to another bill.
“I’ve been in the Legislature for 11 years,” Harper said. “One thing you learn is there is more than one way to get to a goal.”
Advocate: Driller’s fines low
MATT HUGHES mhughes@timesleader.com
April 23, 2011
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Advocate__Driller_rsquo_s_fines_low_04-22-2011.html
Environmental advocate: DEP hasn’t fined Chesapeake enough in past; heavy fine merited if violations caused the blowout.
A state environmental advocate said Friday that Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection has handled natural gas driller Chesapeake with kid gloves in the past and should fine the company heavily for any violations related to a blowout in Bradford County.
A blowout Wednesday at Chesapeake’s Atgas H2 well in LeRoy Township, Bradford County, spilled a reported 30,000 gallons of salt-saturated and chemical-laced produced water from the well pad and into a tributary of Towanda Creek.
Crews successfully plugged the leak Thursday, and Chesapeake has been sent a notice of violation by DEP.
Jan Jarrett, president of Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future, or PennFuture, a nonprofit environmental and energy advocacy organization, said state fines levied against the company have been too low to provide a deterrent effect and have been significantly lower than fines assessed other gas drillers for similar violations.
In February, Chesapeake allowed vapors to catch fire at a well site in Washington County, creating a danger to the nearby community.
In March, DEP ordered Chesapeake to stop work on a well pad in Galeton, Potter County, because the company failed to implement proper erosion controls, allowing sediment from the pad to pollute a stream that provided drinking water to the local community.
DEP did not fine the driller for either incident, Jarrett said, and she questioned why.
Following a blowout at an EOG Resources well in Clearfield County, which like Wednesday’s blowout spilled flowback water into the surrounding environment, DEP fined the driller $400,000 and temporarily suspended EOG’s operations statewide.
If Chesapeake is found to be at fault for the Bradford County blowout, she said a similar tough penalty is warranted, if not overdue.
“You don’t fine somebody if they are not breaking any laws, but if the investigation finds that they have, then they should be fined and fined heavily,” Jarrett said, adding, “they should not be allowed to operate until they can prove that they can drill safely.”
Chesapeake has voluntarily suspended all hydraulic fracturing operations at its wells in Pennsylvania and West Virginia while it determines what went wrong.
“A full investigation will be conducted to determine the root cause of the failure, evaluate best management practices and make any and all necessary corrections before returning to normal operations,” Chesapeake spokesman Brian Grove said in a statement Wednesday.
With 344 wells drilled, Chesapeake ranks among the most active companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale, rivaled by other giants Range Resources and Atlas Energy. The company has also been issued 1,229 drilling permits, 17 percent of all Marcellus Shale permits issued through April 1.
The company also ranks among the most frequent violators of DEP regulations. DEP inspectors found 364 violations at Chesapeake Marcellus Shale gas wells between January 2008 and March 31, ranking the company second only to Cabot Oil & Gas, now infamous for its alleged contamination of drinking water wells in Dimock, in number of violations.
Jarrett said Chesapeake ranks only eighth in the value of total fines assessed in the last five years, paying $61,000.
Jarrett said that’s too low.
“Fines are meant to motivate; it’s not just punishing a company for any particular incident or for violating environmental law, but fines motivate companies to focus on the future,” she said. “It’s a deterrent.”
DEP spokesman Kevin Sunday responded that “DEP has pursued aggressive enforcement actions in the past, and will continue to pursue aggressive enforcement actions as necessary.”
“The enforcement process is a vital and integral component of the department’s commitment to overseeing this important industry grow in an environmentally and economically conscious manner,” Sunday said.
Chesapeake did not respond to a reporter’s request for a reaction to Jarrett’s statements.
Gas well blowout: Operator suspends fracking in state
Chesapeake: Flow from leak in Bradford County well stopped. Cause of breach still unknown.
LEROY TWP. – As a natural gas well in Bradford County continued to leak super-salty flow-back water after a blowout Wednesday, well operator Chesapeake Energy suspended all hydraulic fracturing operations in Pennsylvania on Thursday.
The leak, which began in an accident Tuesday night, produced water and natural gas until about 10 p.m. Thursday, when Chesapeake said it had stopped the flow.
Chesapeake’s Atgas H2 gas well in LeRoy Township, near Canton, suffered a blowout when a piece of equipment failed during hydraulic fracturing just before midnight Tuesday into Wednesday, sending a reported 30,000 gallons of water spilling from the well pad, some of it reaching a tributary of Towanda Creek.
The creek flows into the Susquehanna River.
Chesapeake said fluids still seeping from the leaking piece of equipment had been contained by midday Wednesday, and a secondary containment mechanism was diverting the flow of fluids away from Towanda Creek.
Equipment was removed from the well head, and crews worked to plug the leak and seal the well. Chesapeake said after 10 p.m. Thursday that workers had successfully stemmed the flow of the leak, and that they would continue to monitor it overnight.
Chesapeake spokesman Brian Grove said the exact cause of the breach remained unknown Thursday, but that it took place in a wellhead connection.
“Chesapeake has voluntarily suspended all completion operations in Pennsylvania as we evaluate this incident,” Grove said in a statement Thursday, later adding, “a full investigation will be conducted to determine the root cause of the failure, evaluate best management practices and make any and all necessary corrections before returning to normal operations.”Seven families living near the well were temporarily evacuated Wednesday morning but returned later in the day.
Chesapeake spokesman Rory Sweeney said fluid injected into the well during fracking contained chemical additives that aid the process, including corrosion and bacteria inhibitors, but the main environmental concern is with brine, naturally occurring underground salt water now back-flowing from the well with the frack fluid.
“Highly briny liquid can have some effects,” Sweeney said. “That’s why we’ve been very diligent and worked very hard to mitigate and minimize the effects to the environment.”
The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency’s daily summary report Thursday stated approximately 30,000 gallons of water leaked from the well. Chesapeake and the state Department of Environmental Protection could not confirm that figure.
DEP spokesman Daniel Spadoni said Thursday that well-containment specialist Boots and Coots International Well Control Inc., of Texas, pumped ground up tires, plastic bits and other rubber material into the well to plug the leak, and will then pump heavy mud into the hole to kill the well.
Spadoni said DEP sampled seven private wells Wednesday and eight surface water locations but had not received the results.
A field test of water from Towanda Creek entering the Susquehanna River did not indicate an impact, Spadoni added.
Grove said the well also began emitting limited amounts of natural gas early Thursday morning, and that Chesapeake and the Bradford County Emergency Management Agency performed gas-plume modeling and found that any natural-gas releases will not pose a risk to the area’s public safety.
MATT HUGHES mhughes@timesleader.com
April 22, 2011
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Operator_suspends_fracking_in_state_04-21-2011.html
More News About the Blowout:
Chesapeake suspends well completion operations
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/chesapeake-suspends-well-completion-operations-1.1136178#axzz1Jb4OFfes
Chesapeake stops fluid leak
http://citizensvoice.com/news/chesapeake-stops-fluid-leak-1.1136067#axzz1K40icpUb
After gas well leak in northern Pa., company suspends some operations
http://republicanherald.com/news/after-gas-well-leak-in-northern-pa-company-suspends-some-operations-1.1136148
Additional News on Gas Well Blowout in Bradford County
Accident at gas well in Northern Tier near creek that enters Susquehanna
http://www.timesleader.com/news/Blowout_in_Bradford_County_04-20-2011.html
Gas well blowout spills frack fluids onto farm, streams in Bradford County
http://citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/gas-well-blowout-spills-frack-fluids-onto-farm-streams-in-bradford-county-1.1135482#axzz1K40icpUb
Drilling fluid gushes from gas well
http://standardspeaker.com/news/drilling-fluid-gushes-from-gas-well-1.1135492
Natural gas well blows out, releasing fluids in Bradford County
http://republicanherald.com/news/natural-gas-well-blows-out-releasing-fluids-in-bradford-countyspill-at-well-drilling-site-causes-evacuation-1.1135593
Gas Well Spews Polluted Water
Natural gas well suffers blowout, releasing fluids in Bradford County
Thousands of gallons of natural gas drilling waste fluids spilled onto a farm and streams for more than 12 hours Wednesday after a driller in Bradford County lost control of a well late Tuesday.
The Atgas 2H well operated by Chesapeake Energy Corp. in LeRoy Twp. blew out during the hydraulic fracturing process at around 11:45 p.m., swamping the lined well pad and overflowing into a field, a small tributary and Towanda Creek, state environmental regulators said
Seven families were asked to evacuate the area until the well could be brought back under control, Chesapeake said in a statement, adding that no one was injured in the incident and no gas was emitted into the atmosphere.
The identities of those evacuated from the area were unknown late Wednesday. However, Canton Fire Chief Kim Jennings reported that the evacuees were placed in local motels.
Chief Jennings said that Canton firefighters as well as Western Alliance Ambulance personnel were on the scene throughout the day, standing by and making certain that any equipment needs were met. Chief Jennings said the Canton Fire Department left the scene late Wednesday.
Chesapeake described the problem as “an equipment failure.” Neither the company nor regulators with the state Department of Environmental Protection could provide a precise estimate of how much fluid was spilled.
Emergency crews were able to stop the fluid from flowing into Towanda Creek by Wednesday afternoon, but crews struggled to regain control of the well into Wednesday evening. The-well control specialty firm Boots and Coots was brought to the site from Texas, Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Katy Gresh said.
It was unclear Wednesday where exactly the well was leaking or why, but officials on site described the leak as originating from below the frack valve stack, an above-ground piece of equipment that controls pressure during the fracking process.
“Evidently the crack is in the top part of the well below the blowout preventer,” Skip Roupp, the deputy director of the Bradford County Emergency Management Agency said Wednesday afternoon, referring to a device used in emergency situations to choke off flow from a well. “They don’t really know what happened yet because they don’t have it controlled yet.”
At least eight DEP personnel were on scene sampling the unnamed tributary and Towanda Creek as well as eight private water supplies, Ms. Gresh said. There was no evidence the spill killed fish, she said.
The Atgas 2H well is part of a six-well pad in a remote area on LeRoy Mountain about 13 miles west of Towanda.
The hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, stage of well development takes place after a well is drilled and involves injecting millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals underground at high pressures to crack the rock and release the gas trapped there.
A portion of that fluid returns to the surface laden with salts, metals and radioactivity that occurs naturally in the shale formation and is mobilized by the fracturing process. The wastewater, called flowback water, spewed from the Atgas well on Wednesday. The exact composition of the spilled fluid had not been determined.
Chesapeake Energy, one of the state’s most active Marcellus Shale drillers, has been issued 30 notices of violations from the DEP for its operations in the state this year. The company has been cited 284 times for violations since the start of 2008 and has been subject to 58 enforcement actions by environmental regulators, according to DEP records.
Unlike a blowout at a Clearfield County gas well in June – the most serious well control incident in the state’s Marcellus Shale to date – the blowout in LeRoy Twp. never spewed a geyser of waste fluid into the air, Ms. Gresh said.
In the June incident, at a well owned by EOG Resources, natural gas and wastewater shot 75 feet into the air after drillers hit unexpectedly high pressures underground.
Ms. Gresh reported around 9 p.m. that DEP representatives were still at the scene and she had not yet been informed that the situation was under control.
When asked at the site if Chesapeake will later resume drilling the well, Brian Grove, director of corporate development for Chesapeake Energy, said he could not say until the situation is brought under control, allowing the company to make that determination.
BY LAURA LEGERE (STAFF WRITER)Published: April 21, 2011
Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com
http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/gas-drilling/natural-gas-well-suffers-blowout-releasing-fluids-in-bradford-county-1.1135253#axzz1KA1cXuZt
Workshop offered to train private well owners
The Penn State Master Well Owner Network is hosting a free workshop for private well owners in and around Tioga County, Pa., according to Stephanie S. Clemens with the Master Well Owner Network.
Natural gas drilling and its impacts on the local private wells will be addressed during the workshop, she noted.
According to a news release:
This workshop is offered as part of the Master Well Owner Network, a program intended to teach volunteers from across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania about proper management of their own private water system. In return, the volunteers must go out into their local community to educate others about the importance of proper management of private drinking water supplies.
Resource professionals such as Penn State Cooperative Extension, the Pennsylvania Ground Water Association, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency will offer this training from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 14, at the Tokishi Training Center in Wellsboro.
To become part of this network or for more information, please contact Stephanie Clemens at 814-865-2250 or by e-mail at mwon@psu.edu. Information and a volunteer application can be found at http://extension.psu.edu/water/mwon. Space is limited and applications need to be received by April 27 or until all spots are filled.
By the Review)
Published: April 20, 2011
http://thedailyreview.com/news/workshop-offered-to-train-private-well-owners-1.1134910
State calls for halt to shale wastewater treatment at 15 plants
State environmental regulators called Tuesday for Marcellus Shale natural gas drillers to voluntarily stop taking wastewater to 15 treatment plants that do not have to meet strict discharge standards that went into effect last year.
Citing concerns about high levels of bromides in western Pennsylvania rivers, acting Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer gave the drillers until May 19 to stop taking the waste to treatment facilities that were grandfathered into state rules that curb how much salt can be discharged into streams.
The request – which does not have the legal weight of an order – comes after federal environmental regulators, scientists and drinking water suppliers raised concerns about the drilling wastewater, which is laden with salts, metals and naturally occurring radioactive material that cannot be completely removed by conventional treatment plants.
The request came on the same day that the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group, acknowledged that drilling wastewater is contributing to elevated bromide levels in the Allegheny and Beaver rivers.
Reducing the amount of salts, or total dissolved solids, in the wastewater also reduces bromides, which are nontoxic but can turn into cancer-causing compounds called brominated trihalomethanes when combined with chlorine at drinking water treatment facilities.
“Now is the time to take action to end this practice,” Krancer said, citing “more definitive scientific data, improved technology and increased voluntary wastewater recycling by industry” since the facilities were given special exemptions to the state total dissolved solids standards when they were implemented last year.
Krancer said there are other possible sources for the elevated bromides in waterways, but the agency believes that bromide concentrations “would quickly and significantly decrease” if Marcellus drillers stopped taking the water to the grandfathered plants.
Citing research by Carnegie Mellon University and the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority that suggests the gas industry is contributing to the river bromide levels, Marcellus Shale Coalition President Kathryn Klaber said the industry “supports the appropriate action taken by DEP today” and is “committed to leading efforts, and working alongside DEP and other stakeholders, to address these issues quickly and straightforwardly.”
The majority of Marcellus Shale wastewater generated in the state is either recycled by drillers, taken to out-of-state disposal wells or treated at plants that meet the new standards, but a significant amount of the waste is still taken to plants that are not designed to treat it. That has raised concerns about toxins allowed to enter waterways upstream from drinking water intakes, especially in western Pennsylvania.
The 15 grandfathered plants are located in Allegheny, Cambria, Elk, Greene, Indiana, Jefferson, Lawrence, Snyder, Venango, Warren and Westmoreland counties. There are no grandfathered treatment plants in or upstream of Lackawanna County.
State environmental groups praised the DEP action on Tuesday, but some also expressed reservations about the voluntary nature of the request.
“It is very hard for the public to be assured that their drinking water will be protected if there is only a voluntary requirement,” Pennsylvania State Director for Clean Water Action Myron Arnowitt said.
“While DEP is taking a first step here, we hope that they will order a full stop to all Marcellus wastewater discharges to our rivers.”
By Laura Legere (Staff Writer)
Published: April 20, 2011
http://standardspeaker.com/news/state-calls-for-halt-to-shale-wastewater-treatment-at-15-plants-1.1134958
Congressional Democrats issue caution on fracking
Pennsylvania appeared on one list of dubious distinction in a Democratic congressional committee’s new report that looks at chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.
The state recorded the sixth-highest volume over a 5-year period of hydraulic fracturing fluids containing 2-butoxyethanol, or 2-BE, a substance that can cause destruction of red blood cells and damage to internal organs and bone marrow, according to the report.
Between 2005 and 2009, 14 leading oil and gas service companies surveyed by minority staff of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce injected 21.9 million gallons of products containing 2-BE, more than half of which was in Texas, the committee reported.
In Pennsylvania, 747,416 gallons of product containing the compound were injected into wells, the report said.
However, the study did not identify how much of the actual chemical itself was used or in what concentrations.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the process of injecting water, sand and chemical additives at high pressure into a well to crack rock to produce natural gas. It is used in all Marcellus Shale wells.
Amid concerns over possible groundwater contamination, congressional Democrats sought information about the chemicals used in fracking and found more than 2,500 products containing 750 chemicals and other components, some of which are toxic or carcinogenic.
The report also found that fracking companies used more than 650 products with chemical components of concern. Of them, 95 products with 13 carcinogens were identified.
The state with the highest volume of fracking fluids containing a carcinogen — 3.9 million gallons — was Texas. Utah was ranked 10th with 382,338 gallons
Pennsylvania, with 51,787 gallons, did not crack the list.
Hydraulic Fracturing Report 4.18.11
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11109/1140234-503.stm
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette