EPA Shale Wastewater Rule Will Crush PA’s Conventional Drillers
In June MDN reported on yet another new unlegislated law (called a “rule”) issued by the rogue federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that bans the disposal of wastewater from oil and gas drilling via public wastewater/sewage treatment plants (see EPA Bans Disposal of Frack Wastewater at Public Sewer Plants). The rule is meant to ban wastewater coming from unconventional (shale) wells, and not conventionally drilled oil and gas wells, which are shallow wells compared to shale wells. However, conventional drillers in Pennsylvania are raising the alarm that the way the rule is written, it will prevent them from disposing their shallow (and much lower volumes of) wastewater by carting it to the local sewage treatment plant–as many of them do now. The upshot is that the EPA needs to revise its rule…
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We believe this bit of news is exclusive to MDN–we’ve not seen it anywhere else, yet. In early August MDN reported that the novel legal argument offered by the radical leftist PA-based group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) in Grant Township (Indiana County), PA claiming to represent a local ecosystem had failed (see 
In August 2015, MDN told you that one of the biggest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, Antero Resources, floated the idea of building a $275 million state-of-the-art frack wastewater treatment plant in Doddridge County, WV (see 
In January, three liberal Democrat county commissioners from Fayette County, WV, with the backing and help of the radical WV Mountain Party, voted to ban injection wells in the county (see 
There is a new development in the case of an illegal ban on injection wells passed by Highland Township in Elk County, PA. In 2013 the radical leftist PA-based group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) convinced ignoramuses in Highland Township to pass a so-called Community Bill of Rights. Seneca Resources, a driller with leases and an active drilling program in Elk, had planned to drill an injection well on their own property to dispose of their own flowback and produced water. The CELDF-inspired ordinance Highland Twp prevented it, and Seneca threatened to sue the town (see 
In July MDN told you about exciting new publicly-financed research at West Virginia University that finds waste from Marcellus/Utica drilling (“frack waste”) is not radioactive or hazardous (see 
This is somewhat old news, but still news for MDN as we’re just learning about it. You may recall back in March MDN reported on a truck crash that resulted in a spill of 5,000 or so gallons of frack wastewater from Utica drilling, some of which ended up in the Barnesville Reservoir #1 (see 
Good news for Marcellus/Utica drillers. There are signs that a Youngstown, OH-area injection well that has been shuttered since 2013 will re-open. You may recall the sad story of D&L Energy, a Youngstown, OH operator of several wastewater injection wells. D&L’s owner was Ben Lupo, who also owned sister company Hardrock Excavating, operating both companies under the D&L Energy Group umbrella. In September 2012, Lupo instructed a Hardrock employee to dump untreated frack wastewater down a sewer drain that emptied into the Mahoning River. Lupo and the driver were found out in early 2013 (see 
Not long after Michael Krancer was appointed Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection in 2011, he “requested” (which was more order than request) that municipal sewage treatment plants still accepting and processing Marcellus drilling wastewater stop the practice. At the time there were 15 plants accepting Marcellus wastewater. Under pressure from Krancer, they ended the practice in May 2011 (see 
We have to confess this story completely escaped us–until now. But we think we know why. We spotted a story (below) in a Wheeling, WV newspaper about an Ohio driller who was caught–back in 2011–dumping about 50 gallons per week of brine from some of his oil wells into an open ditch in Monroe County, OH. The story implies the brine (i.e. wastewater) is from fracked wells. The story is wrong. The brine is from conventional oil wells, not fracked shale wells. The driller/operator of the wells is one Donald Hercher and he’s just been sentenced to four days in jail, two years of probation, and a $70,000 fine. Aside from setting the record straight, the reason the story interests us is because of several other aspects of Hercher’s punishment–he’s being forced to write and publish an article in three trade journals “to educate readers on the ‘Waterways of the U.S.'” and to donate $5,000 to a private organization…
In January, three liberal Democrat county commissioners from Fayette County, WV, with the backing and help of the radical WV Mountain Party, voted to ban injection wells in the county (see 
An update on the notorious case of illegal frack wastewater dumping near Youngstown, OH that happened in 2012 and 2013. Ben Lupo, previous owner of D&L Energy and its associated company Hardrock Excavating, directed employees to dump frack wastwater hauled by Hardrock into a drain that emptied into a stream that emptied into the Mahoning River near Youngstown, OH (see 
As MDN has previously pointed out, even during the downturn in the oil and gas market, there is at least one sub-sector that’s expanding: wastewater. Long after a well is drilled and fracked, once it begins producing, that well will continue to produce not only natural gas and/or oil and other hydrocarbons–it will also produce water from the depths. We’re not talking about groundwater or aquifers that sit several hundred feet down. Those water sources are well-protected by well casing. There is also abundant supplies of mineral-laden water deep in the earth that comes out of the borehole for years after a well is drilled. When drillers were sinking holes as fast as they could–and fracking them–that salty/minerally water from the depths (often called brine or saltwater) would be recycled and used for more drilling. But when there’s little or no drilling–what do you do with all that brine/wastewater? You still have to get rid of it. So the wastewater hauling/recycling/disposal industry is actually expanding. BlueJack Energy Solutions is one such new company, begun to service several shale plays including the Marcellus/Utica. Yesterday BlueJack announced it has received $100 million in investment capital from Energy Spectrum Partners–to help get the company launched quickly and into a full gallop…
It’s good to know that “research” can still be purchased at the once-great Duke University. For years now the radical Park Park Foundation has been buying its research from a few select professors at a few select universities. One of the scientists for sale is Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment (see 
A group of radical/leftist environmental groups have just launched their latest “sue and settle” case against the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). For a description of the despicable practice of sue and settle, where our own government colludes with these groups in a faux lawsuit which “forces” an agency to do what it wanted to do but couldn’t otherwise under existing laws, see this MDN story: 