DEP Online Tool Addresses Dry Weather Stream Withdrawals
The tools are designed to advise operators in the natural gas
industry when it is safe to withdraw water.
The State Journal
12 August 2010
By Pam Kasey
For the past two years, high salinity in the state’s streams during the
dry late summer season has raised concerns over natural gas industry
water withdrawals that reduce flows even further. As this summer’s dry
season kicks in, residents have a tool: the West Virginia Department of
Environmental Protection’s Water Withdrawal Guidance Tool.
“The DEP secretary has made it very plain that we are not tolerant of
streams being dried up,” said Mike Stratton, Water Use Section manager
at DEP.
It was about mid-August these past two years when the level of
dissolved solids — salts, mainly — shot up in parts of the Monongahela
River drainage.
In 2008, late summer low stream flows combined with incompletely
treated natural gas well brine to cause problems for industrial and
drinking water uses on the Mon River in Pennsylvania.
Then, in late summer 2009, salty mine drainage in Dunkard Creek, a
major Mon River tributary at the West Virginia-Pennsylvania border,
resulted in the death of all of the fish and mussels on more than 30
miles of the creek.
But over this same two years, withdrawals from surface waters by
natural gas companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale have increased.
A single Marcellus “frack” job to crack the shale and release trapped
hydrocarbons uses millions of gallons of water, sometimes pumped and
hauled from streams.
The Marcellus water-use issue has come up in a decade during which the
state is getting clear about how much water there is and how to protect
water quantity and regulate uses.
It started with the Water Resources Protection Act of 2004 and, with
the broader Water Resources Protection and Management Act of 2008, will
result in a water resources management plan in 2013.
Midway through this planning process, Stratton said, WVDEP developed
the Water Withdrawal Guidance Tool to advise operators in the natural
gas industry when it is safe to withdraw and from where.
Stratton said the guidance tool is the first place to go — not only for
gas well operators but also for residents concerned about withdrawals.
Users get withdrawal recommendations by clicking in the watershed of
interest on an online map of the state.
The map is divided into about 30 regions, each of which delivers
recommendations based on readings from a U.S. Geological Survey stream
gauge.
Recommendations for withdrawals from any stream in the Northern
Panhandle and northern Wetzel County, for instance, are derived from
the flow measured at a gauge in Wheeling Creek.
When the flow is over about 150 cubic feet per second, the tool
recommends withdrawals anywhere. With flows between 38 and 150 cfs,
withdrawals are recommended only from Wheeling Creek, Fish Creek, Grave
Creek and the Ohio River — which, because of its size, supports
withdrawals at any time.
Flows below 38 cfs result in a recommendation of no withdrawals
anywhere but the Ohio River. Recommendations are updated frequently and
can reflect rapid changes.
Flow at the Wheeling Creek gauge dropped from about 60 cfs to about 40
on Friday, Aug. 6, all measurements that allow withdrawals from the
region’s major streams.
But it dropped below 38 cfs on Saturday morning — no more withdrawals.
And with hot, dry weather, flow measured only in the 20s midday on
Sunday and just 17 cfs by Monday afternoon.
For a resident who witnesses a withdrawal that the guidance tool
advises against, Stratton suggests documenting the facts: the company,
the location, the specifics of the activity observed and the date and
time. Time-stamped photographs, he said, are especially helpful.
Jody Jones, WVDEP associate counsel representing the Office of Oil and
Gas, said inspectors aim to respond to complaints within 24 hours.
Complaints have infrequently turned up operators who are withdrawing
against the advice of the guidance tool, he said, and operators so far
have cooperated with inspector requests that they move to larger
streams.
State law has not yet gotten to the point of establishing penalties for
overwithdrawing a stream, but Jones said those who choose to ignore the
guidance tool’s recommendations may be pursued based on statutes
regulating oil and gas activity and water quality.
DEP made the guidance tool available in January in combination with a
natural gas well permit addendum that requires operators to specify
expected water volumes and sources.