Drilling Water May Be Cause of Fish Kill
DEP points to salty discharge from mine
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
14 October 2009
By Don Hopey,
A heretofore undisclosed underground flow of mine pool and methane gas
well drilling water into Consol Energy's Blacksville No. 2 Mine may
have contributed to the salty, polluted discharges that caused the
massive, month-long fish kill on Dunkard Creek.
But Consol said that's not so, and its investigation, along with those
of federal and state environmental agencies into the now six-week-old
ecological disaster, is continuing.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said its stream
sampling shows discharges high in dissolved solids and chlorides from
the Blacksville No. 2 Mine are the "primary immediate source" of the
fish kill that last month wiped out aquatic life on 35 miles of Dunkard
Creek along the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border.
The DEP also said in a letter to the West Virginia Department of
Environmental Protection, dated Oct. 2, that it has obtained
information that water from the inactive Blacksville No. 1 Mine in the
Pittsburgh coal seam is flowing into the active Blacksville No. 2 mine
pool.
"Our data shows it's the discharge from Blacksville No. 2, but we have
a lot of questions about where all that water originated and we're
asking those questions," said Helen Humphreys, a DEP spokeswoman.
In a letter to Consol dated Oct. 7 but made public yesterday, the DEP
asked the company to provide information on any underground connections
and water flows or pumping between its active Blacksville No. 2 Mine in
West Virginia and its inactive Blacksville No. 1 Mine in Greene County,
Pennsylvania.
It also requested that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revoke
the federal deep well injection permit that allows Consol to dispose of
coalbed methane drilling waste water in the inactive mine through the
Morris Run Borehole. The EPA ordered Consol to stop injections at the
end of September but has taken no action on the permit.
Consol has repeatedly said that the water in the inactive Blacksville
No. 1 mine is not flowing or being pumped into the active Blacksville
No. 2 mine. Yesterday Consol spokesman Tom Hoffman said the company's
chemical analysis of water from the active mine shows its chloride
level is the same as it was before it began using the borehole.
That shows, Mr. Hoffman said, that either there is no infiltration of
water into Blacksville No. 2 or the chloride levels of the water in the
two mines are nearly the same.
"We've been discharging from (Blacksville No. 2) for more than a year
at essentially the same levels," Mr. Hoffman said. "No one on our side
is prepared to say that the fish kill is related to the discharge. And
I don't think it's fair to say the Blacksville No. 2 discharge is the
primary factor."
Mr. Hoffman said "multiple environmental factors were involved,"
including toxins released by a non-indigenous golden algae.
The Pennsylvania DEP said that algae -- which may have "hitchhiked" to
the Mason-Dixon Line on drilling rigs brought up from Texas to work in
the Marcellus shale gas fields in Pennsylvania and West Virginia -- was
able to flourish in a brackish Dunkard Creek because of the high levels
of dissolved solids and chlorides discharged into the stream by
Consol's treatment facility.
"We don't agree and don't think the West Virginia DEP agrees," said Mr.
Hoffman.
Fish, freshwater mussels, salamanders and aquatic insects started dying
on Sept. 1, and continued dying throughout the month. According to the
Pennsylvania DEP, the pollution also threatened water quality in the
Monongahela River, which is a source of drinking water for 850,000
people in southwestern Pennsylvania.
The Pennsylvania DEP asked the West Virginia DEP, in its Oct. 2 letter,
to "take necessary enforcement measures" to control pollution
discharges of total dissolved solids, chlorides and sulfides from the
Blacksville No. 2 mine treatment facility.
That Consol treatment facility, which does not remove dissolved solids
or salts, stopped treating and pumping mine water into the creek as the
fish kill progressed last month. But Pennsylvania DEP wants assurances
that the previous pollution loads will not be discharged into the creek
again when it becomes necessary for Consol to resume pumping and
treating water from its active mine.
"We have also observed that the levels of chlorides being discharged
from ... the Blacksville No. 2 Mine are unusually high for a discharge
solely from a deep mine," the Pennsylvania DEP said in that Oct. 2
letter.
The West Virginia coal seam being mined by Consol has an unusually high
chloride content. The West Virginia DEP approved orders in 2004, 2007
and 2008 allowing the company's treatment facilities to discharge
unlimited amounts of chloride into the creek until 2013.
The EPA, which said two weeks ago it didn't know about those
agreements, is reviewing them because they appear to illegally suspend
federal water quality standards.
"The department has been clear all along: This has been a tragic
event," Ms. Humphreys said. "And we are going to take the necessary
steps to methodically collect all information so that when we determine
the responsible party we can take appropriate enforcement action."
Don Hopey can be reached at dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.