Marcellus Waste Recycled Mostly In-House
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
14 May 11
By Andrew Conte
The largest explorers of Marcellus shale gas said on Friday in response
to federal regulators that they have started recycling most of their
wastewater and no longer send it to treatment plants.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week asked the six
largest Marcellus exploration companies to explain how and where they
dispose of the chemical-laced, salty water that flows back to the
surface from drilling operations. The companies have until May 25 to
respond.
"We will certainly provide the information," said Jim Gipson, spokesman
for Chesapeake Energy Corp. "However, we are currently recycling and
reusing the vast majority of our produced water in Pennsylvania and
have been for quite some time. We do not utilize wastewater treatment
facilities."
Water that cannot be reused, he said, gets sent out of state to
underground injection wells.
Pennsylvania has three such active wells: two in Clearfield County and
one in Erie County, according to state regulators.
Besides Chesapeake, EPA requested the disposal information from Atlas
Resources; Talisman Energy USA; Range Resources — Appalachia; Cabot Oil
and Gas Corp.; and Shell. Together, those companies do more than half
of the Marcellus shale gas drilling in Pennsylvania.
A spokesman for Talisman said the company recycles 100 percent of its
wastewater. Range Resources recycles about 90 percent of its flowback
and has the rest either fully treated at facilities that clean it to
distilled water standards or pumped into disposal wells, a spokesman
said.
Shell said in a statement that its "waste management techniques aim to
reduce volume and minimize environmental impacts through maximized
reuse of residual water."
Officials at the two other companies did not respond to the Trib's
request for information.
"We want to make sure that the drillers are handling their wastewater
in an environmentally responsible manner," said Shawn M. Garvin, EPA's
mid-Atlantic regional administrator.
Federal officials took aim at the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection, which has primary responsibility for
regulating drilling impacts. The state agency imposed a Thursday
deadline for drillers to voluntarily stop sending flowback to
wastewater treatment plants that are not designed to remove the
chemicals and salts.
The EPA wants the state to provide closer oversight of how Marcellus
shale wastewater might be affecting drinking water. The agency wants
notice from Pennsylvania whenever a treatment plant accepts flowback
water, and it called on the state to apply drinking water standards
near discharges and to "consider more 'representative' " sampling of
drinking water facilities downstream from facilities that treat
flowback.
"As the frontline regulatory agency of the natural-gas industry in
Pennsylvania, we work with EPA and will continue to do so," said Katy
Gresh, DEP spokeswoman.
The shale industry is "aggressively and tightly regulated" by state
officials, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a trade group that includes
the six drillers, said in a statement. "EPA overstepping its regulatory
authority and duplicating efforts underway at the state level" does not
make common sense, it said.
"The state is aggressively taking action to protect our environment,"
said Matt Pitzarella, a Range Resources spokesman.
"The DEP for us in Pennsylvania has much greater capability to provide
the level of oversight to protect the public and ensure the industry is
following the law," said Dave Spigelmeyer, vice president of government
relations for Chesapeake.
Andrew Conte can be reached at andrewconte@tribweb.com or 412-320-7835.