Fracking Begins at City Site
Full operation will take two weeks
Morgantown Dominion Post
1 October 2011
By David Beard
Fracking has begun at Northeast Natural Energy’s Morgantown
Industrial Park well pad. “We are under way. Things are going
well,” Northeast President Michael John told The Dominion Post
early Friday.
Horizontal well fracking is done in stages, starting at the far
end of the horizonal bore and working backward.
Morgantown Utility Board (MUB) General Manager Tim Ball said the
first stage was completed at about 9:45 a.m. Friday.
Ball said all safeguards are in place and “we are on site to
observe.” Northeast has two wells on the pad. The full operation
is expected to take about two weeks, Ball said. MUB’s website
shows the agency is testing Monongahela River water at five
locations. Water quality data is available at http://mub.org. According to
Northeast’s agreement with MUB, which was incorporated into
Northeast’s permits, the company will collect all fracking wastes
in appropriate containers and ship them offsite to an approved
landfill or injection well. It is documenting all shipments.
The recovered water will either be recycled for use at a different
well or injected into an approved deep well, John said.
The full list of fracking chemicals is also posted, along with
material safety data sheets for each.
The fluid is chiefly water, 89.23 percent, and sand, 10.67 percent
(numbers are rounded).
The other chemicals are:
- FRW-18, hydrotreated light distillate, a
friction reducer, .026 percent.
- GW-3LDF, a gellant, composed of petroleum
distillate, .031 percent, and guar gum, .018 percent.
- Alpha 1427, a biocide composed of five
ingredients, including water and ethanol, totaling .017
percent.
- Scaletrol 720, a scale inhibitor composed of
ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol, totaling .008 percent.
- Ferrotrol 300L, for iron control, composed
of citric acid, .002 percent.
- GBW-20, a breaker, biodegradable with no
hazardous ingredient, .0002 percent.
- CI-14, a corrosion inhibitor composed of
five ingredients including methanol, fatty acids and olefin,
totaling .002 percent.