River Watch: Monongahela Water Quality Debate Bubbles Up
Army Corps invites various interests to join watershed study
Pittsburgh Business Times
10 December 2010
By Anya Litvak
As the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers embarks on a study of the Upper
Monongahela River watershed and searches for stakeholders in the
process, it might be wise to prepare for a crowd.
The number of voices with concerns about water quality in the region is
growing. State regulators are concerned about high levels of total
dissolved solids and sulfates. The business community is worried about
mandated reductions in discharges to the waterway. Oil and gas
contractors will need to treat their water to a drinking water standard
if they want to discharge it into the river come Jan. 1. And a number
of researchers and independent groups are watching how the region’s
energy industry is affecting the watershed.
The Corps’ Mon River study, which will involve public meetings in the
spring to identify issues in the watershed, appends an Ohio River Basin
Comprehensive Reconnaissance Report that identified several priority
watersheds for closer inspection. It also will look at fish and
wildlife and navigation issues.
“We’re already aware that the water quality issues are going to be the
big issue,” said Corps environmental resource specialist Ashley
Petraglia.
The study will take about a year and a half and, should further funding
be identified, may lead to recommendations for projects to improve the
watershed. In the meantime, the Corps is looking to start a dialogue
about stakeholder concerns through the public meeting process.
Debates about water quality must be qualified by how it’s measured,
especially when it comes to total dissolved solids, which takes a few
steps to assess. There are three ways to gauge TDS counts. One is to
analyze a sample in the lab testing for concentrations of specific
salts and metals. Another is to take water samples and boil them,
weighing the sample before and after evaporation to measure the weight
of the remaining solids. Both of these are labor intensive and cannot
be done in real time. A quick and continuous way is to use conductivity
readings, assuming that TDS counts are 70 percent of conductivity
measurements. Conductivity indicates the presence of ions in the water
that can carry an electric current.
The Corps’ Pittsburgh District uses both, and according to Rose Reilly,
a biologist with the agency, decades of historical data shows both
measurements to be very close.
According to her calculations, the Mon River at Elizabeth inched above
500 parts per million twice in August, during periods of very low flow,
which prevented dilution. That’s based on conductivity measurements.
But not everyone is satisfied with the formula. Last week, the
Allegheny Conference on Community Development told its members to rally
the DEP against seeking an impairment designation for the part of the
river near the Elizabeth Lock and Dam because the conference claimed
the state agency was relying on conductivity readings rather than
direct samples. The DEP has indicated to the Environmental Protection
Agency that it might seek the
designation based on elevated levels of TDS and sulfates in the water.
It had not done so by midday Thursday.
David Sternberg, an EPA spokesman, said the agency typically grants
about 95 percent of such requests from states and that deliberations
last two months on average.
If the DEP asks and is granted the impairment label for the Mon,
facilities with permits to discharge into the river would become part
of a TDS reduction plan and would see their permits amended for lower
discharges, according to DEP spokesman Michael Smith.
Among the companies discharging into the area of the Mon around the
Elizabeth Lock and Dam are U.S. Steel, Allegheny Energy, CONSOL Energy
Inc. and Eastman Chemical.
“The data shows that the river is in compliance,” said Ken Zapinski,
senior vice president for transportation and infrastructure with the
Allegheny Conference. “There were genuine problems in 2008. but thanks
to DEP’s actions, and thanks to industry cooperating and coming up with
new and innovative (solutions), (TDS counts) are below the regulatory
limit of 500 parts per million.”
He noted that coal producers have adjusted their discharges to periods
of high flow so as to dilute them and many oil and gas producers, who
Zapinksi said were unfairly targeted by the DEP after the TDS spikes in
the fall of 2008, now are recycling their wastewater to avoid
discharging into the rivers.
Zapinski said the conference would be interested in being part of the
watershed study and talking about these issues with the Corps.
Judging water quality is far from straightforward
Total dissolved solids have become the proxy for concern over the
quality of the Monongahela River.
“In general, the consensus is, over the past two years, the water
quality has changed,” said Jeanne VanBriesen, director of Carnegie
Mellon University’s Center for Water Quality in Urban Environmental
Systems. “It is saltier than it was yesterday, and there is a concern
that is worth investigating.”
Ron Schwartz, assistant regional director with the Department of
Environmental Protection’s southwestern district, said the worst year
for the Mon River in recent memory was 2008, when TDS concentrations
spiked repeatedly during the summer months.
“In 2009, there were a number of values over 500 (parts per million —
the drinking water standard) and in 2010, we do have some above 500,”
he said, but, overall, the quality of the water has improved.
Nevertheless, Schwartz cautioned that flow rates over the past three
years were three times higher than the historical low point, meaning a
dry season could make TDS spike.
To further complicate things, not all total dissolved solids are
created equal. Researchers have been studying the compounds that make
up TDS and looking for certain markers to link them to the industries
that produce them.
For example, Mon River water has traditionally been high in sulfates,
which are an indication of mine water discharges. Sulfates make up
about 50 percent of TDS, according to measurements. Chlorides comprise
about 10 percent. In the fall of 2008, when TDS spiked, so did chloride
readings, and regulators began to suspect Marcellus Shale flowback
water, which is extremely high in salt content when undiluted, was
being disposed in the river. But a direct link was difficult, since
chloride also is present in wastewater from power plants.
VanBriesen began to test for bromide, another salt typically found near
the ocean and in some Marcellus Shale water, as a unique marker of
flowback water disposal. She’s found it in very low concentrations,
which showed a spike in mid-July and subsided in August.
The DEP is looking into the finding, Schwartz said, but stressed no
link to the oil and gas industry has been established. “The obvious
isn’t always the reality,” he said.
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