TOXIC, HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS FROM FRACTURING WASTES USED TO
DRILL DEEP GAS WELLS – MARCELLUS SHALE – to POTWs in
PENNSYLVANIA, NEW YORK, WEST VIRGINIA, OHIO
http://www.allbusiness.com/energy-utilities/utilities-industry-water/13859967-1.html
PA – “ FRACKING” DEEP GAS WELLS – TOXIC, HAZARDOUS
CHEMICALS DISCHARGED TO SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANTS –
FROM THERE TO SURFACE WATERS AND SLUDGE “Some of the waste water is taken to DEP-approved municipal sewer authorities
that dilute it with their regular effluent before discharging it into a river or stream.’
“no one is saying how much arsenic, manganese, cobalt, chromium and
lead is in the stuff. Depending on the concentration, it could be a
hazardous waste."
http://www.propublica.org/article/wastewaterfrom-gas-drilling-boom-may-threatenmonongahela-river
"Gas drilling companies currently dispose of their
wastewater in Pennsylvania’s municipal sewage
plants and in some industrial treatment plants,
which then discharge it into rivers and streams.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency warns
against [9] this form of treatment, because the
plants aren’t equipped to remove TDS or any of
the chemicals the water may contain. Of even
more concern, TDS can disrupt the plants’
treatment of ordinary sewage, including human
waste."
http://tribune-democrat.com/editorials/x587174708/Gas-drillings-threat-to-our-water
John Hanger, secretary of the state Department of
Environmental Protection, said, “Fracking wastewater
is one of the most toxic substances on earth.”
Incredibly, the gas drilling industry wants to dispose of frack wastewater
by pumping it into rivers and streams, but DEP said no. The industry
appealed to the Independent Regulatory Commission and lost 4-1.
Frack wastewater destroys municipal sewage treatment plants and requires
special high-hazard treatment facilities, one of which is planned for
Somerset County.
Citizens and officials in the region must now be concerned about airborne
carcinogens and the safe disposal of liquid effluent or sludge. Discharge
into any watercourse is questionable. Sludge must be rendered totally
inert.
"-- We should expect our representatives in Congress to sponsor and
support the FRAC Act (House Bill 2766 and Senate Bill 1215) that would
remove the gas industry exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Government needs to know the chemicals used in fracking so they can be
tracked if, and when, they migrate into water tables and wells. The gas
industry must be required to protect drinking water.
-- At the state level, Pennsylvania needs a moratorium on deep-well drilling.
Six-digit fines and bonds are pocket change to a drilling company.
Multimillion, and multibillion, dollar fines are required."
*******************************************************************
http://www.marcellus-shale.us/drilling_wastewater.htm
Our look at
GAS DRILLING WASTEWATER
Flowback and Brine Treatment in Pennsylvania
Gas drilling companies will try to convince you that using up to 6million gallons of water for fracing one gas well doesn't amount to a
massive amount of water. Even if they are successful in making that
argument with you, the next topic becomes flowback or brine. What
do you do with the crap that comes back out of the ground?
The Municipal Authority of McKeesport accepts 80,000 gallons per day,
which is then mixed with treated sewage and dumped into the Monongahela
River upstream from Pittsburgh. Hawg Hauling is part of Chesapeake
Energy.
[ note:
http://www.amwater.com/alerts/alert14496.html
Alert Notifications
PWSID:
Elevated Levels of Bromide in the
Monongahela River
Elevated Levels of Bromide in the Monongahela River
Issue Date: 09-172010
The
Monongahela River is our primary source of supply for your
drinking water. According to the DEP, the river has experienced
elevated levels of bromide for the past two years. Bromide is an element
typically found in salt water and rock
http://www.propublica.org/article/wastewater-from-gas-drilling-boom-maythreaten-monongahela-river Oct. 4, 2009
With Natural Gas Drilling Boom, Pennsylvania Faces an Onslaught of
Wastewater
Workers at a steel mill and a power plant were the first to notice something
strange about the Monongahela River last summer. The water that U.S.
Steel and Allegheny Energy used to power their plants contained so much
salty sediment that it was corroding their machinery [2]. Nearby residents
saw something odd, too. Dishwashers were malfunctioning, and plates were
coming out with spots that couldn’t easily be rinsed off.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection soon identified the
likely cause [3] and came up with a quick fix. The Monongahela, a
drinking water source for 350,000 people, had apparently been
contaminated by chemically tainted wastewater from the state’s
growing natural gas industry. So the DEP reduced the amount of
drilling wastewater that was being discharged into the river and
unlocked dams upstream to dilute the contamination.
But questions raised by the incident on the Monongahela haven’t gone
away.
In August, contamination levels in the river spiked [4] again, and the DEP
still doesn’t know exactly why. And this month the DEP began
investigating whether drilling wastewater contributed to the death of
10,000 fish on a 33-mile stretch of Dunkard Creek, which winds
through West Virginia and feeds into the Monongahela. A spate
of other water contamination problems [5] have also been linked
to gas drilling in Pennsylvania, including methane leaks that have
affected drinking water in at least seven counties.]
*******************************************************************
Somewhere between 30% and 70% of the water used for hydrofracing a gas well returns to the surface as flowback. In addition to
the frac fluids added by the gas drilling companies, this water picks
up other contaminants from deep in the Earth (~ 7,000 feet deep)
with one of the most notable being salt.
These fluids contain sodium and calcium salts, barium, oil,
strontium, iron, numerous heavy metals, soap, radiation and other
components. This fluid combination becomes brine wastewater,
and tanker trucks hauling it are labeled with a RESIDUAL WASTE
placard. Treated brine is also sold for deicing and other
applications that utilize calcium chloride, often being applied to
roadways.
Brine wastewater is difficult and expensive to treat, one of the same
reasons we aren't using much ocean water for agriculture and
residential applications. The saltiness of this wastewater creates a
high level of TDS (total dissoved solids). Incomplete processing of
this brine wastewater, especially when dumped into rivers used for
drinking water, creates a high TDS situation that causes drinking
water treatment plants problems, like Trihalomehtanes. High TDS
water reacts with chlorine when it is processed.
The gas industry estimates the amount of highTDS wastewater needing disposal in
Pennsylvania will increase from 9 million gallons
per day in 2009 to 20 million gallons per day by
2011
In other parts of the United States, gas drilling operations dispose
of their wastewater deep in the ground, by using deep injection
wells. However, the geology around Marcellus Shale doesn't lend
itself as well to accepting deep injections, so the wastewater gets
dumped back into Pennsylvania watersheds. Early on in Marcellus
drilling, many municipal treatment plants were accepting this briny
wastewater that weren't equipped to process it. Add that situation to
low river levels due to drought and you begin to have real problems.
“Monongahela River, = drinking water at risk . . .
Pesticides harm fish and wildlife . . .
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08356/936646-113.stm
State concerned about waste water from new gas wells
Sunday, December 21, 2008
By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08356/936646113.stm#ixzz0gI8zQrOV
Keith Srakocic/Associated Press
drilling rig used to bore thousands of feet into the earth to extract natural gas
from the Marcellus Shales deep underground is seen on the hill above the pond
on John Dunn's farm in Houston, Pa., in October.
Gas well drillers tapping into the deep Marcellus Shales add up to 54 substances,
some of them toxic, to the water they use to fracture that rock and release the gas.
And the state Department of Environmental Protection doesn't know what
chemicals, metals and possibly radioactive elements are in the waste water that is
pushed out of the wells. It is discharged into the state's waterways including the
Monongahela River, from which 350,000 people get their drinking water.
"That's the bigger issue. They don't have an analysis of what's in the waste
water they're pulling out," said Dr. Conrad Dan Volz, assistant professor in the
Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. "What they're
putting into the wells can chemically change and be added to underground, and
no one is saying how much arsenic, manganese, cobalt, chromium and lead is
in the stuff. Depending on the concentration, it could be a hazardous waste."
Each well drilled into the Marcellus Shales, which lie at least a mile deep beneath
parts of Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio, uses up to 4 million
gallons of water to fracture the rock and release natural gas. The chemicals are added to
the "frac" water that is pumped into the wells under high pressure to reduce
friction in the pipe and allow the water to flow more freely into the rock layers.
Among the chemical additives are formaldehyde, a human carcinogen; various
acids; a variety of petroleum compounds and several pesticides that are toxic to fish
and other aquatic life. Many of the chemicals, depending on their concentrations,
can also cause human skin, eye and nose irritations, and damage kidney, heart, liver
and lung function.
Much of that frac water -- about 40 percent of the total used -- is pushed back to the
surface by the gas released from the shale, and it must be disposed of.
"Yes, we're concerned," said Mark Hartle, chief of aquatic resources for the Pennsylvania
Fish and Boat Commission. "And we're more concerned with the recovered fluids from
the wells than with the water they use to do the fracing initially. The problem is, we're not
sure what they're ending up with so we don't know the constituents of the discharges."
Lou D'Amico, executive director of the Independent Oil & Gas Association of
Pennsylvania, said frac water chemical concentrations are low and treatment facilities are
removing much of the metals and dissolved solids from the waste water.
"Companies are committed to huge investments to treat the waste water, because without
that we're out of business," Mr. D'Amico said. "We're very aware of all the environmental
and public concerns, and our mission is to develop the Marcellus shale as an economic
benefit to Pennsylvania and in an environmentally sensitive way."
He said drilling and fracing companies are doing a wide-ranging survey of the waste
water, also known as "flow-back water," to show it is not a health hazard.
Tom Rathbun, a DEP spokesman, said the department also is doing a chemical
analysis of the waste water, a study that should be done by the first of the year.
"We have a general idea but want to know for sure," Mr. Rathbun said. "If it's different,
we will make the necessary adjustments.
"I don't think they've been doing enough Marcellus Shales drilling so far to make a
difference," Mr. Rathbun said. "But the gas industry needs to come up with a way to deal
with this. A couple of companies want to do on-site water treatment, and others are
looking at different recycling technologies."
He said there are now only about 20 active Marcellus Shales gas wells. But there has
been drilling activity at more than 300 in Pennsylvania, and another 250 have been
issued state permits.
The drilling and water discharges have attracted the attention of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency.
"It is an issue that's been on our radar for a while and currently a matter we're looking
into," said Dave McGuigan, associate director of EPA's regional office of permits and
enforcement. "The question is what is in [well waste water] and what are the
treatment facilities doing with it."
Some of the waste water is taken to DEP-approved
municipal sewer authorities that dilute it with their
regular effluent before discharging it into a river or
stream. Some is trucked to one of the state's six
industrial water treatment facilities, where metals, oils
and some dissolved solids are removed but where waste
salts are a disposal problem exacerbated by the volume
of the waste water.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08356/936646-
113.stm#ixzz0gI83Ailh
"The salts are the biggest issue right now and the most expensive thing to remove from
the highly concentrated brines," said Paul Hart, president of Pennsylvania Brine
Treatment Inc., who owns three of the state's six industrial treatment facilities and wants
to build six more.
Mr. Hart criticized the DEP for slow action on permit applications for new treatment
facilities, for regulating the well water as waste, which limits the ability of drillers and
treatment facilities to recycle it, and for failing to determine the composition
of the waste water.
"The Marcellus has wide variations in the amount of iron, barium and salt, and we need
to know the high and low marks so we can treat it and we're still determining that," he
said. "Right now we don't know as much as we'd like to know."
The drilling companies provide the DEP with lists of chemicals they add
to the water but not the amounts of specific mixtures, claiming that is
proprietary information.
Four of the chemical compounds are complex pesticides that scientific
assessments have determined are "very toxic to fish." One, 2.2Dibromo-3-nitrilopropionamide, retards fetal development in rabbits.
The pesticides are added to the drill water to stop the growth of algae in temporary
holding ponds and tanks built next to the drilling pads. Algae and other "biofilms" can
foul pumps used to push the water underground and into the shale.
None of those chemicals should be discharged directly into surface water such as the
Monongahela River, said Dr. Volz, who is studying the effects of pollutants in the
rivers.
"If there's enough biocide to kill algae, by the looks of this bromated compound
there's enough to do damage to fish," Dr. Volz said. "Throwing it in the water is
just crazy."
He said formaldehyde, which is a human carcinogen, "is always a concern," but any
risk is impossible to assess without knowing its concentration.
In addition to the pesticides, the chemicals added to the well "fracing" water include
acids to dissolve cement around the pipe casings and open perforations in the pipe
for the water to flow through and into the shale formation; friction reducers to
make pumping easier; and additives to keep clay from reducing the flow of the
released gas.
Different pumping companies use different frac-fluid recipes and formulas and
different combinations and amounts of those chemicals.
A report on the chemical additives requested by DEP's Bureau of Oil & Gas
Management and prepared for the Independent Oil & Gas Association of
Pennsylvania states that care and controls are used to prevent the frac chemicals
and chemical water solutions from contaminating surface and ground water near
the wells. The report also notes that water in the Marcellus Shales contains high
concentrations of dissolved solids, (TDS = total dissolved solids) making it
unsuitable as a drinking, agricultural or industrial water supply.
The DEP and public water suppliers have said the high TDS levels are not a health
concern. But David Dzombeck, an environmental engineering professor at Carnegie
Mellon University, said without knowing the chemical composition of the dissolved
solids, that's hard to confirm.
Don Hopey can be reached at 412-263-1983.
First published on December 21, 2008 at 12:00 am
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08356/936646-
113.stm#ixzz0gI7oWCDL
****************************************************************
FEBRUARY 22, 2010 PENNSYLVANIA
PA POTW FINED $75,000 FOR GAS WELL
FRACKING WATER VIOLATIONS
http://www.wasterecyclingnews.com/email.html?id=1266853081
Pa. DEP fines Jersey Shore, Pa., for sewage
violations
Feb. 22 -- The borough of Jersey Shore, Pa., must pay fines $75,000 for
operation and discharge violations at its sewage treatment plant in
Lycoming County during 2008 and 2009, according to The Pennsylvania
Department of Environmental Protection.
"The borough had several violations of its gas well wastewater acceptance
plan in addition to violations of its DEP discharge permit," said DEP Northcentral Regional Director Robert Yowell
Between September 2008 and May 2009, the borough’s sewage treatment
plant had 13 discharge violations for contaminants including fecal coliform
and total suspended solids.
In 2008, DEP approved the borough’s gas well wastewater acceptance plan,
but imposed a number of operational requirements, as well as sampling
and recordkeeping responsibilities.
The borough exceeded limitations on the amount of gas well wastewater it
could accept and accepted wastewater with higher levels of chloride
concentrations than it was authorized to treat, DEP said.
The borough was ordered to stop accepting gas well wastewater at its
treatment plant and to remove all of the wastewater stored onsite to an
approved offsite disposal facility.
Jersey Shore has complied with the provisions of DEP´s order and paid the
fine to the state´s Clean Water Fund, which pays for cleanups across the
state.
For more information, call 570-327-3659 or visit www.depweb.state.pa.us.
Contact Waste & Recycling News reporter Amanda Smith-Teutsch at 330865-6166 or asmith-teutsch@crain.com
*********************************************************************************
1.
Tulsa World: Appalachia gas 'fracking' yields a foul byproduct
Feb 3, 2010 ... Fracking a horizontal well costs more money and
uses more water, ... government standards in southwestern
Pennsylvania's Monongahela River, ...
www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=49...49... Cached 2.
Appalachia gas 'fracking' yields a foul byproduct | Energy ...
- 2:53pm
MORGANTOWN - A long-term plan for gas well drilling water
disposal may be ... in West Virginia and Pennsylvania may help
prevent a 2009 Monongahela River ...
www.allbusiness.com/energy-utilities/utilities.../13859967-1.html Cached -
3.
ProPublica: Frack Fluid Spill in PA Contaminates Stream,
Killing Fish
Sep 22, 2009 ... by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica Pennsylvania
environment officials are racing ... the first to notice something
strange about the Monongahela River last summer. ... Natural gas
is not the only wells that are "fracked. ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/.../frack-fluid-spill-in-pac_b_294975.html - Cached - Similar -
4.
With Natural Gas Drilling Boom, Pennsylvania Faces an
Onslaught of ...
Oct 3, 2009 ... Contamination in the Monongahela River has
raised questions about ... Oil and gas wells disgorge about 9
million gallons of wastewater a day in ... or fracking, which pumps
at least a million gallons of water per well ...
www.propublica.org/.../wastewater-from-gas-drilling-boom-maythreaten-monongahela-river -