Fracking's Thurst for Water: A Delicate Dance Between Gas Industry
and River Commission
Yet overall, the industry uses far less than what it is allowed,
says Susquehanna River Basin Commission
Philadelphia Inquirer
30 August 2011
By Andrew Maykuth
WYSOX, Pa. -- The Marcellus Shale natural gas industry has a huge
thirst for water -- to hydraulically fracture a single gas well
requires upward of a thousand tanker-trucks of water.
And so during the summer, when some streams in gas-rich northern
Pennsylvania naturally turn into trickles, the Susquehanna River Basin
Commission pays close attention to ensure that drilling interests don't
suck the state's creeks dry.
The commission, an interstate agency responsible for managing the
Susquehanna watershed, this summer has suspended withdrawals from as
many as 40 permitted locations because of seasonal low flows. Most of
the suspended locations affect gas drillers.
But the shale-gas industry, now moving rapidly from an exploratory to a
production phase, has hardly missed a beat. Fracking continues, largely
unabated.
The commission allows drillers to withdraw up to 98 million gallons per
day at 142 locations, though in reality, the industry uses far less
than what it is allowed, the commission says. The permitted amounts are
based on elaborate computations tied to historical stream flows. When
stream levels fall below a certain level, withdrawals must stop.
Anticipating the seasonal fluctuations, natural gas operators have
built vast networks of impoundments -- plastic-lined ponds -- to store
water from the rainy seasons.
"The natural gas industry is trying to capture some of the large spring
flows because they know they can't take water all summer," said Paula
Ballaron, the commission's manager of policy implementation and
outreach.
But drillers can continue to pump water out of larger rivers even in
the summer because the volumes the commission allows are small compared
with the total flow.
Public confusion about where the drillers can legally withdraw water in
the summer -- and where it is banned -- has caused an increase in
complaints to the commission. The agency has three inspectors based in
Sayre. They prowl the basin looking for violators.
"Since the drilling started, we get calls from some people who claim
the river flows have never been lower than this," said Eric R. Roof,
the commission's director of compliance. "People are very concerned."
Most complaints are unfounded, he said. Withdrawals that the public
reports as suspicious turn out to be legal pumping by municipal road
crews, garden centers and nurseries that are allowed to withdraw small
amounts of water. Gas drillers have sufficient, metered withdrawal
points to meet their needs.
"We're not seeing these wildcat withdrawals," he said.
Complicated process
The business of withdrawing water is more complicated than simply
inserting a hose into the river and pumping. The commission requires
drillers to document and meter the withdrawals, and to pay for them.
Chesapeake Energy Corp., the state's largest driller and among the most
active in Bradford County, operates a withdrawal point on the
Susquehanna River in Wysox that is unaffected by the commission's
dry-weather "passby" flow restrictions.
Chesapeake's pump station, drawing water from an intake buried on the
riverbed, fills five towering 21,000-gallon tanks nearby, while a
parade of trucks waits to fill up at four adjacent computer-controlled
stations. It takes about 10 minutes to fill a 3,360-gallon tanker
truck. Tractor-trailer tankers, which hold 4,620 gallons, take a little
longer.
When the metered withdrawals reach the site's daily limit of about 1
million gallons -- that's enough to fill more than 200 trucks -- the
system automatically shuts down until midnight.
"It's a massive amount of water, no doubt about that," said Brian
Grove, Chesapeake's director of corporate development.
The commission estimates that the industry, based on projected
drilling, will need about 30 million gallons a day.
By comparison, suppliers of public water in the basin consume 325
million gallons a day and power plants require 190 million gallons a
day for coolant. A single nuclear reactor proposed in Luzerne County
would require 30 million gallons of water a day.
"Power plants may draw much more water, but it's a stationary
withdrawal, unseen by the public," said Brian Grove, Chesapeake's
director of corporate development. Even recreational activities --
watering golf courses and making snow at ski resorts -- consume more
water than natural gas production.
But until the industry finishes building freshwater pipeline networks
to move water out of view to remote drilling sites, the industry is
reliant upon thousands of tanker trucks to ferry water to their
impoundments. And the truck traffic makes the industry's water
consumption very visible indeed.
Chesapeake maintains 51 impoundments in the region that can hold up to
15 million gallons each, Mr. Grove said. A single impoundment might
require 4,000 round trips to fill.
After a well is drilled, the hydraulic-fracturing procedure requires
upward of 5 million gallons of water, which is injected under high
pressure along with sand and additives to shatter the shale to release
the natural gas. About 15 percent of the fluid returns to the surface
immediately as wastewater, most of which, the commission says, is being
recycled in new fracturing operations.
The regulators
The commission devised its gas-drilling regulations early in the
Marcellus Shale boom, before opposition had organized. It was also
unhindered by the politics that have stymied the Delaware River Basin
Commission, whose area captures a far bigger population, including
Philadelphia and its suburbs.
"If it's a sustainable withdrawal, we have no legal basis for denying
it," said Susan Obleski, the commission's spokeswoman.
Gas drilling has been a boon for the commission, whose budget has
doubled since 2007 to $10 million. Its fee income, mostly from
gas-industry charges for drilling-site approvals and water withdrawals,
has increased sixfold to $6.2 million.
The gas industry, meanwhile, has tapped into the commission's
workforce. Chesapeake has hired two high-ranking commission officials,
Michael G. Brownell and Jennifer L. Hoffman, to staff its
regulatory-affairs office.
Some environmentalists are worried that drilling has moved forward more
quickly than the agency's ability to understand its consequences, and
they are concerned about what will happen when drilling expands into
New York, where the Susquehanna's tributaries are smaller and more
sensitive.
"Nobody has done a build-out of what will happen when drilling is
permitted in New York state, which will have a significant impact,"
said Katy Dunlap, the eastern water project director of Trout Unlimited
Inc.
The commission says it is currently conducting research to test the
procedures it uses to determine when water withdrawals should be halted
on each stream, or "passed by."
"Our passby flow policy sets these at pretty conservative levels," said
Ms. Ballaron, the commission's policy chief. She said the agency is
confident its procedures are sound.
For commission inspectors such as Andrew J. Orsborn, the water
withdrawals are taking on a routine.
When he was hired 18 months ago, Mr. Orsborn said, he looked forward to
an adventurous life of sleuthing on the industry.
"When I first started, I thought, 'They've got to be cheating,' " said
Mr. Orsborn, 30, who has a degree in a wildlife management. " 'I'm
going to catch them now.' "
Despite conducting surprise inspections of water stations and drilling
sites at nights and on weekends, and following a few water trucks
clandestinely to confirm the legitimacy of their work, Mr. Orsborn said
most violations he has found were minor -- improper signage at well
sites or errors in paperwork.
"What I've found," he said, "is that they're mostly self-policing."
Andrew Maykuth: 215-854-2947 or amaykuth@phillynews.com.