Water Groups Meet to Discuss Area Waterways
Morgantown Dominion Post
28 September 2010
By David Beard
How to balance water quality against the economic interests of coal and
gas extraction is a tricky affair, and a panel of local water resource
advocates looked at possible solutions Monday night.
It was the fall meeting of the Corps of Engineers and River
Recreational Users Summit at the Morgantown Airport.
The Pittsburgh District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers oversees
the watershed basins in a 26,000-square-mile area including parts of
Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Its territory includes the Upper
Monongahela, which is fed by local waterways such as Dunkard Creek and
Scotts Run.
The problem: “We don’t have enough water. We’ve got to realize that,”
said Frank Jernejcic, Division of Natural Resources District 1
fisheries biologist.
Once upon a time, it seemed we did, but such things as the 2009 Dunkard
Creek fish kill showed that isn’t the case.
Coal mining and Marcellus Shale gas-well drilling put total dissolved
solids (TDS) — which affect aquatic life and drinking water quality —
into waterways, he said. Erosion — natural and man-made — also affects
water quality.
From his view, three steps are needed: Control TDS, control erosion,
and enact enforceable regulation.
“Guidance doesn’t work,” he said.
In the case of gas drilling, for instance, he said, rules need to cover
where and when to withdraw water, how much and who decides.
Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the West Virginia Water Research
Institute, looked at another, complementary approach that requires no
regulation.
It’s called a load-weighted discharge program, and it relies on
voluntary cooperation by mining and gas drilling companies.
Dunkard Creek and other streams, he said, have predictable high- and
low-flow periods.
Companies can develop a coordinate pumping plan — extract water and
discharge mine waste or frack water during high flows. For the mines,
discharging during high-flow periods allows them to open storage space
for low flows.
Dumping waste during high flows doesn’t change the annual amount of TDS
going into the streams, he said. It instead dilutes it, reducing the
pollutant effects — meaning the fish can survive and the drinking water
is cleaner.
He noted that mines along Dunkard Creek have adopted such a plan, and
the TDS level this year “is a lot better than last year” when the fish
kill occurred.
Duane Nichols, a member of the Upper Mon River Association — composed
of 19 watershed groups across West Virginia and Pennsylvania — spoke on
behalf of a new coalition, the West Virginia Pennsylvania Mon River
Area Compact, of which UMRA is a member.
He observed that companies don’t always respect lowflow
issues.Monday,for example was a low-flow day on the Tygart River, but
Friends of the Tygart observers logged Marcellus water extraction
trucks removing 84,000 gallons from the river during the course of two
hours.
The Compact has drawn up a set of four resolutions to present to
legislators and the Army Corps.
They are:
- Water withdrawal for Marcellus fracking and other operations
must be regulated and permitted.
- A state Department of Environmental Protection review of oil
and gas extraction has proven inadequate, and a special legislative
session is needed to review the issues. In addition, the extraction
industry should be responsible for the costs of all environmental and
socioeconomic impacts resulting from its activities.
- Because the issues cross state lines, the Army Corps, U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Geological Society should
prepare a “guidance document” to apply to the issues in all affected
states.
- The U.S. government needs to create an interagency task
force to examine all the existing extraction problems and then
establish a long-range planning office to handle them.