Plum, PA Injection Well Questionable Even with Final Permit
Yesterday MDN told you that miracle of miracles, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has finally, after more than two years of evaluation, granted a permit to build a wastewater injection well in Plum Boro in Allegheny County, near Pittsburgh (see Miracle! PA DEP Approves Plum (Pittsburgh) Injection Well Permit). Penneco Environmental Solutions, the company that received the permit, now says with the collapse of oil prices and Marcellus/Utica production being questionable, “all bets are off” with respect to the injection well project.
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In early 2018, the federal EPA approved a new Marcellus wastewater injection well for the Pittsburgh suburb of Plum Boro (see 
The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) published a notice in Saturday’s Pennsylvania Bulletin that the agency is proposing changes to the Residual Waste General Permit WMGR123, which governs the processing, transfer and beneficial use of oil and gas liquid waste to develop or frack an oil and gas well. Some of the changes include defining certain terms, including “processing,” “transfer,” and “storage”; changing the application from a registration to a determination of applicability; revising sampling and analysis requirements; and revising the frequency of inspections.
We spotted a new scientific study published in an upcoming edition of the journal Water Research. The study is called: “Sulfate precipitation in produced water from Marcellus Shale for the control of naturally occurring radioactive material.” Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh have found a way to strip out radioactivity from produced water coming from Marcellus wells so the water can be boiled to produce clean water and usable minerals/salts.
Last year MDN told you about New Jersey-based Omni Energy Group and their application to build two new injection wells in Belmont County, OH near St. Clairsville (see 
The radical organization Earthworks has been exposed for making a false accusation against the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), claiming the DEP ignored complaints of potential environmental violations in the shale patch due to distractions over the coronavirus pandemic. Earthworks claimed a frack wastewater treatment plant in Potter County is leaking onto the ground. DEP said it did investigate and no, there is no leak.
This is truly disappointing. A few weeks ago we told you that Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled a long-running lawsuit involving Grant Township (Indiana County, PA) will continue on through the court system (see 
In a disappointing decision, Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court recently ruled a long-running lawsuit filed against Grant Township (Indiana County, PA) will continue on through the court system. For the past several years we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township, a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well. Part of the ordinance was tossed. However, Commonwealth Court has decided the town can continue to try and make a case that it should be able to override state law with its home-cooked regulations because by doing so they will somehow protect citizens’ health, which the town says is allowed under PA’s poorly-written Environmental Rights Amendment (ERA).
Water is the lifeblood of shale drilling. Water must get to the pad for use in drilling and fracking. But then, after the drilling is done and the well is connected, produced water continues to flow from the borehole for years to come. All that water must be managed. In the early days of Marcellus/Utica drilling every spare gallon of produced water got recycled for reuse drilling the next well. With a slowdown in new M-U drilling, produced water is piling up. What can be done to manage it? The 
University of Texas at Austin researchers have just published two new wastewater studies in two different peer-reviewed journals. One study quantifies, for the first time, how much water is produced from oil and natural gas operations in major shale plays (including the Marcellus) compared with how much is needed for fracking. In some plays, there is so much water coming out of the ground from oil and gas wells (after fracking, called produced water) that the volume coming out is more than enough to drill and frack all of the new wells in those plays. No freshwater sources required. In the Marcellus, we use more water than could be provided by recycling produced water from our wells. The second study looks at the potential for using produced water in other sectors, like agriculture, for those plays where there is an abundance of extra produced water.
Empire Pipeline LLC, based in New Orleans, Louisiana, NOT to be confused with the National Fuel Gas Company subsidiary Empire Pipeline (in NY and PA), has purchased “an operational and financial interest” in TROO Clean Environmental LLC, based in Belmont County, Ohio. TROO provides recycling of Marcellus/Utica frack wastewater.
Keystone Clearwater Solutions, a company that provides water services for shale drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, is “coming home” in a sense. We told you in November that SC Water, LLC, a Pennsylvania-based natural gas and oil industry investment group, announced it had signed an agreement to buy Keystone Clearwater from American Water for an undisclosed amount (see 
Southwestern Energy continues to be a trailblazer among Marcellus/Utica shale drillers. The company voluntarily participates in several environmental programs aimed at lowering methane emissions, including the TrustWell™ Responsible Gas Program and the ONE Future organization (see 