State Has No Specific Rules on Containing Fracking Water Spills
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
26 April 2011
By Timothy Puko
Murky rainwater pools on hundreds of square feet of black plastic that
covers the ground beneath the drilling rig at Consol Energy Inc.'s
Nineveh gas well in Morris, Greene County.
The plastic should catch any minor spills of gas- and chemical-laced
water at this Marcellus shale wellhead.
For larger spills, the ground is graded, sloping four feet from one
side of the well pad to the other, to channel runoff into a containment
pit.
When deep drilling starts, the company will have at least a one-foot
high berm around the pad and enough emergency equipment to siphon away
more than 10 million gallons of water in a catastrophic spill.
And yet, state regulators don't require any of those measures to
contain a blowout similar to one last week at a Chesapeake Energy Corp.
well in Bradford County that sent thousands of gallons of chemically
laced drilling fluid into a tributary of Towanda Creek. The Sierra Club
asked the Department of Environmental Protection to revise its
deep-shale well permit system because of the incident.
"What happened to Chesapeake, that's a concern for me, too," said Jeff
Boggs, vice president of drilling operations for Consol. "I can't say
that with what we do, that's never going to happen to us. We try to
think out all the contingencies that could happen. ... What separates
you is your plan and how you react."
DEP leaves emergency planning up to gas drillers, and despite concerns
over salty, toxic wastewater and spills that contaminated waterways at
two Pennsylvania sites since June, the department says it doesn't have
specific rules for how companies should contain spills.
The Chesapeake spill, stopped after two days of work to cap the well,
shows mandated contingency plans are inadequate, said Thomas Au,
conservation chair of the Sierra Club's Pennsylvania chapter and its
water quality committee's co-chair.
Chesapeake had containment measures there, but the amount of flowback
overwhelmed them, regional DEP spokesman Dan Spadoni wrote in an
e-mail. Chesapeake said it used a sump and dug ditches to channel the
spill water into a previously constructed sediment trap.
Berms and impermeable plastic are common on the company's wells,
especially in hilly, rainy areas near waterways, the company said in a
statement. At the Bradford County well, it had an earthen berm that was
somewhat compromised by recent rains.
DEP relies on prevention and contingency plans, and erosion and
sediment controls that it requires from each driller to handle
emergencies, said Jamie Legenos, its spokeswoman in Harrisburg.
"I would imagine it would be a good practice if they would write it
into the law," said University of Pittsburgh professor Radisav D.
Vidic, who studies wastewater from shale drilling. "When the flowback
water comes out, they have those sand catchers and stuff, there's a lot
of splashing around. ... It would just be common sense to say, 'Look
here, if I'm preparing food at home, I'm going to put something
underneath to clean it up.' "
Drillers must explain what they'll do with spilled water and chemicals,
and have countermeasures in place for spills, according to the DEP
website. They must include a list of clean-up equipment and up-to-date
contact information for permitted waste treatment facilities and
haulers to take it away.
If the department outlined more specifics, it would help set a baseline
of best practices the industry should use to contain spills, Vidic
said. The department did just that for the drilling process in
February, outlining new specific rules to improve drilling, casing,
cementing, testing, monitoring and plugging to keep oil and gas from
leaching from wellheads into public water sources.
Spokesmen could not say whether the department has considered
tightening the rules for what goes in those plans. The DEP is
constantly reviewing all of its regulations, said Katy Gresh, a DEP
spokeswoman in Pittsburgh.
"I just don't think that (spill containment) is something we can say,
'Yes, we're definitely working on this,' or 'No, we definitely aren't,'
because we're always considering everything that comes to us," Gresh
said.
Chesapeake suspended all well completions in the Marcellus shale while
it investigates the accident and inspects its other wellheads,
according to a company statement. The well has been stable and has not
been leaking since Thursday, and efforts at a permanent cap are
ongoing, spokesman Rory Sweeney said.
"At Chesapeake, our commitment to the environment and doing things the
right way justifies all of these costly measures which are above and
beyond any PA DEP requirements," the statement read.
The best innovations are coming at water impoundments, Range Resources
Corp. spokesman Matt Pitzarella said in an e-mail. Electronic
monitoring and underground drainage systems are allowing workers to
spot leaks faster and keep water in catch basins and closed loops that
lead water back to the impoundments.
Spill kits, absorbent materials and vacuum trucks all help, and they
are all accounted for in engineering and emergency plans approved by
the DEP, he added.
"You have to try to rehearse the worst-case scenario as best as you
can," said Sam McLaughlin, vice president of Consol's Southwestern
Pennsylvania Operations. "We need to get as efficient at emergency
response as we are at drilling the gas well."
Timothy Puko can be reached at tpuko@tribweb.com or 412-320-7991.