Pa. Marcellus Shale Gas Drillers Recycling More Waste
Loophole allows wastewater from other wells to enter rivers
Associated Press
20 February 2012
By Kevin Begos
PITTSBURGH -- Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale gas drilling
companies are recycling more and more of their briny,
chemical-laden wastewater, in most cases complying with a request
from state officials to keep the pollutants from being discharged
into rivers that supply drinking water.
But experts are wondering if a loophole in disposal regulations is
still allowing significant quantities of one of the worrisome
compounds -- salty bromides -- into rivers and streams, or if
shale gas drillers were only part of the problem.
The new mystery is this: why hasn't the dramatic progress on the
wastewater recycling led to equally clear declines in river
bromide levels?
An analysis by The Associated Press of 2011 state data released
Friday found that of the 10.1 million barrels of shale wastewater
generated in the last half of 2011, about 97 percent was either
recycled, sent to deep-injection wells, or sent to a treatment
plant that doesn't discharge into waterways.
Some of the new disposal trends are also raising other questions.
The amount of Marcellus drilling waste injected deep underground
nearly tripled in the last six months of 2011, with much of that
going to Ohio. Officials there are examining whether the
high-pressure injections contributed to a series of small
earthquakes near one waste site.
In the same period of 2010, shale drillers sent about 2.8 million
barrels of waste -- or 118 million gallons -- to numerous
treatment plants that discharge into rivers and streams.
Those discharges raised alarms when the plants reported soaring
levels of bromides in rivers that year. Though not considered a
pollutant by themselves, the bromides combine with the chlorine
used in water treatment to produce trihalomethanes, which can
cause cancer if ingested over a long period of time.
Part of the answer to the mystery may be that the highly
publicized plan for voluntary compliance by Marcellus drillers had
a little-noticed loophole: it didn't apply to thousands of other
oil and gas wells in the state.
An AP analysis of the new state data found that about 1.86 million
barrels -- or about 78 million gallons -- of drilling wastewater
from non-Marcellus wells were still being sent to treatment plants
that discharge into rivers in the second half of 2011.
"They ought to get all of that out of the water. It's obviously
hazardous, it presents a public health hazard. What's good for the
Marcellus wells should be applied to the other wells, too," said
Jan Jarrett, president of the environmental group PennFuture.
Michael Krancer, head of the Pennsylvania DEP, declined requests
for an interview. Agency spokesman Kevin Sunday said in a
statement that "other industrial wastewater also has the potential
for high concentrations of total dissolved solids," but that
existing state standards protect waterways.
After being promoted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's
concerns, Pennsylvania sought a voluntary moratorium last May,
asking Marcellus Shale drillers to cease bringing the drilling
waste to plants that discharge into rivers.
Last summer, Advanced Waste Services, a wastewater treatment firm
with a plant in New Castle, Pa., noted that a senior DEP official
confirmed that the moratorium "does not extend to wastewater from
shallow well (non-Marcellus well) drilling and fracturing nor does
it extend to spent drilling mud and other sludge disposal."
Stanley States, director of water quality at the Pittsburgh Water
and Sewer Authority, said he believes that municipal sewage
treatment plants have stopped taking the brine water, but that
other plants continue to do so.
"I think it's still going on," States said of the dumping of
fracking wastewater into rivers. "Self-regulation does not work."
Kathryn Klaber, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an
industry group, said it was never accurate to blame the shale gas
drillers for the whole bromide problem.
"We know there are quite a few other sources going into
Pennsylvania waterways," Klaber said. "You have to start looking
at other places."
Water quality experts say coal-fired power plants and other
industries also produce bromides.
Additional water testing over the last year also appears to have
put to rest concerns that radioactivity from the drilling waste
could contaminate drinking water.
States said his agency "looked real hard" at the radioactivity
issue, but didn't find a problem in western Pennsylvania rivers.
Sunday, the DEP spokesman, said the state's water quality
monitoring network shows normal, background levels of
radioactivity. "Monitoring at public water supply intakes across
the state showed non-detectable levels of radiation; in the two
cases that detected any level, the levels were at background," he
added.
Pennsylvania also reported recent Marcellus Shale gas production
data on Friday. Drillers produced about 607 billion cubic feet of
gas from July to December. That's up from about 435 billion cubic
feet in the previous six months.
-- Associated Press reporter David B. Caruso contributed to this
report