Wastewater

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    New Wastewater Injection Well Approved in Clearfield County, PA

    The federal Environmental Protection Agency has approved a new injection well in Clearfield County, PA. Windfall Oil and Gas received the permit allowing them to build an injection well in Brady Township that will pump wastewater from oil and gas drilling, including shale drilling, some 7,300 feet down for permanent disposal. (Self-serving advertisement: For a complete list of existing PA injection wells used by Marcellus drillers, see the just-published Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook, Volume 3.)

    Clearfield County is located roughly in the center of the state, so it’s a good location for both northeastern and southwestern shale drillers. Here’s the details about this newest injection well coming to PA:
    Read More “New Wastewater Injection Well Approved in Clearfield County, PA”

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    Tackling a Serious Issue: Low Level Radioactivity in Drill Waste

    There are a number of problems to be addressed and resolved when it comes to shale drilling–issues like truck traffic, noise, lights at night and yes, wastewater and drill cuttings (leftover rock and dirt from drilling). MDN has never shied away from discussing those issues–we need to discuss them openly and honestly for that’s the only way we solve them. Simply saying those issues are unsolvable and therefore drilling should never happen is an unreasonable and intellectually dishonest position, yet that’s what many anti-drillers do. Case in point: a single anti-driller’s objection to Washington County, OH company Envirotank Clean’s request to handle and blend semi-liquid drill cuttings that have low levels of naturally occurring radioactivity to make it safe for disposal at certified landfills ready to take it.

    Envirotank wants a permit from the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources to begin accepting what is called TENORM, or technologically-enhanced naturally-occurring radioactive material. In a self-defeating argument a single, solitary anti-driller who will no doubt recruit more to her side, says any amount of radioactive material is unsafe. We hate to tell her, but she may want to stay away from the local hospital where there’s lots of radioactive material–material that often sets off radiation alarms at landfills. Should hospitals ban cancer treatments because it produces TENORM material? According to her logic, yes…
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    CT DEEP Wants Frack Waste Reclassified Hazardous to Keep It Away

    The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) is concerned that fracking waste–both wastewater and drill cuttings–may end up coming to the state. So DEEP has asked CT legislators to consider a bill that will reclassify fracking waste as hazardous waste–even though the federal government itself doesn’t consider fracking waste “hazardous.” Apparently the DEEPers are afraid that those wily shale drillers will sneak across the border and contaminate the pristine wilds of CT, so they want to put severe restrictions on frack waste hauling with the aim of just keeping it away.

    Here’s the DEEPer story:
    Read More “CT DEEP Wants Frack Waste Reclassified Hazardous to Keep It Away”

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    New Frack Wastewater Injection Well Coming to Elk County, PA

    Looks like more injection wells are on the way in Pennsylvania. Injection wells are used to pump leftover frack fluid (and brine, naturally occurring salt water that comes of the hole longer after fracking is done) deep underground for safe disposal. There are a lot of injection wells in Ohio, and PA drillers who don’t recycle or find another way of disposing of wastewater typically ship it to OH. (Vol. 3 of the Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook, out in a week, contains what we believe the most comprehensive list of frack wastewater and landfills in existence. Pre-order a copy now!)

    Seneca Resources has just received federal approval to convert an old vertical natural gas well in Elk County, PA into an injection disposal well. The Elk injection well will pump up to 60,000 gallons per day of wastewater and brine into the Elk 3 sandstone formation. However, before they begin operations at the Elk injection well, Seneca still needs an approval from the state Dept. of Environmental Protection…
    Read More “New Frack Wastewater Injection Well Coming to Elk County, PA”

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    GreenHunter’s Wheeling Frack Wastewater Facility Hits a Snag

    GreenHunter Water, which is building a frack wastewater recycling (and potentially barging) facility in Wheeling, WV, has hit a snag. So far, it’s a pretty big snag. Last year the company received approval from the Wheeling Planning Commission to proceed with the plant, after initial resistance. So far, the WV Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has not issued any permits because they won’t and don’t need to review the plant until it’s ready to start operating. Then they’ll visit and evaluate.

    However, the WV Dept. of Transportation’s Division of Highways (DOH) has rejected GreenHunter’s plan to have trucks with frack wastewater entering and exiting the plant. The DOH rejection happened last August and according to the DOH, they haven’t heard a thing from GreenHunter since…
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    Glow-in-the-Dark Bob Hagan: Shrill and Nutty

    Ever notice that when anti-drillers can’t seem to convince the public of their views, they get nuttier? They start spinning wild yarns, like all that fracking waste is radioactive and we’re going start glowing in the dark any day now. That’s the kind of wild tale being spun by Youngstown, OH Rep. Bob Hagan (Democrat).

    Because not enough Ohioans are turning against Utica Shale drilling, it’s time to ratchet up the rhetoric and old Bob is ready to pour it on. Here’s his latest glow-in-the-dark warning…
    Read More “Glow-in-the-Dark Bob Hagan: Shrill and Nutty”

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    New Study: Conventional Gas Wells Produce 3X Wastewater as Shale

    Let’s frame this up so you have a proper understanding for the source of this information: A postdoctoral research associate dude at Duke University (a really smart student) teamed up with another smart student getting her master’s degree in environmental management at Duke, to study how much wastewater is produced by both conventional (or traditional) natural gas wells and unconventional horizontally-drilled shale wells in Pennsylvania. In essence they researched and wrote a term paper on the topic which will be published in the February issue of the journal Water Resources Research (see below). The postdoctoral dude has since left Duke and is now an assistant professor of biogeochemistry at Kent State. Hence, we have a “new study issued by Kent State and Duke University.” We’re not denigrating their accomplishments! Just giving you a proper understanding for how these “studies” are sometimes researched and how they’re reported about in the media.

    Anywho, the research from our two intrepid students shows that overall, because there are so many shale wells in PA, and because it takes a lot more water to frack a shale well than a conventional well, that (surprise!) shale wells produce more wastewater that conventional wells. The interesting aspect of their research–the finding that is worthy of putting their names in academic lights over–is that per unit of gas recovered, shale wells produce only 1/3 as much wastewater as conventional wells. Let’s put this startling discovery another way: If irrational anti-drillers banned all horizontal fracking of shale wells tomorrow in PA (whoops, the PA Democrat Party is trying to do just that!), and we went back to the days of only mining gas by conventional wells, in order to produce as much gas as we now produce today, we would produce three times as much wastewater to get it from conventional wells. We’d also have to sink way more holes in the ground to get it…
    Read More “New Study: Conventional Gas Wells Produce 3X Wastewater as Shale”

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    Glow in the Dark: Are We Being Irradiated by Frack Waste?

    radioactive zombiesThe fear-mongering continues by those who oppose shale drilling. One of the scare tactics used by anti-drillers is to say that frack wastewater and drill cuttings (leftover rock and dirt) are loaded with radiation and by disposing of it in landfills and via wastewater recycling facilities we’ll all end up irradiated, dying long slow deaths from cancer. Or worse yet, we’ll all become radioactive zombies. Hey, maybe someone could make a movie about that! (Unbelievably, they already have: see Friday Foibles: The Scientific Link Between Fracking and Zombies.)

    The Ohio EPA and Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) is not much impressed by all these radioactivity claims. Neither are we. One of the favorite drive-by media claims is that drill cuttings are setting off radiation alarms at landfills in record numbers (“hundreds” of times a year). Thing is, those same alarms go off when medical waste is hauled in too–they’re that sensitive that even radioactive dyes are picked up by them. It proves NOTHING. Yet you see that argument often used–fracking dirt contains radition! Whatever. Here’s the latest drive-by attempt to scare people with radioactive waste concerns, this one emitted by the Columbus Dispatch…

    Read More “Glow in the Dark: Are We Being Irradiated by Frack Waste?”

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    WV Anti-Drillers Try to Tie Coal Chemical Spill to Fracking

    MDN alerted you yesterday that some businesses on the periphery of the shale drilling industry in West Virginia may be affected by the recent coal-related chemical spill in that state that shut off water to some 300,000 residents (see Bumpy Ride for GreenHunter Because of WV Coal Chemical Spill?). Apparently anti-drilling Democrats in the state aren’t stopping at the periphery of the industry–why not use this unrelated chemical spill tragedy to falsely paint the entire shale drilling industry too? Yeah! What a great idea! (Rahm Emanuel: “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.”)

    And so is born one of the most confusingly false and fact-challenged articles we’ve read in a long time–and that’s saying something. A Huntington News reporter was apparently so wowed by has-been WV politician Charlotte Pritt (who once ran for governor in WV and lost), that he accepted her spoon-fed pablum that the recent coal-related chemical spill “has ties” to the fracking industry. The reporter confusingly cites studies going back years from trustworthy sources like (*cough*) Politico, and sprinkles in liberal doses of liberal dogma like “Halliburton loophole,” and apparently expects you to understand what he and Queen Charlotte are trying to say: frackin’s bad for ya man…
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    Bumpy Ride for GreenHunter Because of WV Coal Chemical Spill?

    Is there a connection between the recent chemical leak in West Virginia that cut off water for 300,000 people–a leak related the coal industry–and GreenHunter Water’s plans for a frack wastewater recycling plant in Wheeling, WV? Perhaps. No, GreenHunter had nothing to do with the chemical spill that made national headlines for weeks (see Coal Industry Blamed for West Virginia Chemical Spill). But because GreenHunter plans to store fracking wastewater in tanks above ground “mere yards from the Ohio River” as one article says, they are now coming under increased scrutiny. One might say they’re now under a microscope.

    MDN has covered the long road for GreenHunter in establishing the Wheeling wastewater recycling facility (see these MDN articles). Just when it appeared that the path was clear–and that even the U.S. Coast Guard would finally grant GreenHunter permission to barge frack wastewater from the Wheeling facility–the coal-related chemical spill happened, which may end up adversely affecting the GreenHunter project…
    Read More “Bumpy Ride for GreenHunter Because of WV Coal Chemical Spill?”

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    Duke Study: Acid Mine Water in Fracking Reduces Radioactivity

    MDN has for years covered the story that some drillers would be happy to use acid mine drainage water for fracking–except enviro-nazis will sue them into the next lifetime for environmental contamination when they eventually dispose of what’s leftover after fracking (see PA Enviro Groups Oppose Using Acid Mine Water for Fracking as just one example). We now have an intriguing study from the mostly-anti-drilling Duke University that says if you use acid mine drainage water for fracking, it will reduce the amount of radioactivity in frack wastewater. Hmmm.

    There’s enough acid mine drainage water in this country to just about meet all fracking needs–if all of it were used (not practical of course). But using acid mine water could greatly reduce the amount of fresh water needed–especially in places where fresh water is in short supply. Under such a scenario, everybody wins–except enviro-nazis who demand nothing less than the obliteration of all fossil fuels as a source of energy. Here’s more details about this interesting Duke study that says using acid mine drainage for fracking can cut down on radioactivity in wastewater…
    Read More “Duke Study: Acid Mine Water in Fracking Reduces Radioactivity”

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    Athens County, OH Anti-Drillers Sue to Stop New Injection Well

    Anti-drillers with the Athens County Fracking Action Network (ACFAN) have filed a legal challenge to the permit issued last month by the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) approving a new injection well to be drilled in the county. The injection well would be the second well at a site owned by K&H Partners and would dispose up to 168,000 gallons of frack wastewater per day. According to ACFAN, this is the first challenge to a permitted injection well in 20 years, something they’re quite proud of.

    Here’s the ACFAN announcement:
    Read More “Athens County, OH Anti-Drillers Sue to Stop New Injection Well”

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    Sierra Club Gets What They Want in OH, and It’s a Big Fat Nothing

    The anti-drilling Sierra Club–an organization that once lauded natural gas as an energy bridge to the future but now hates it (because it’s a good fundraiser for them to demonize it)–went fishing for information in Ohio, and came up with nothing. The Sierra Club previously sued the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) seeking all documentation (emails, etc.) for the case of D&L Energy/Hardrock Excavating–the company that repeatedly dumped untreated frack wastewater in the dead of night down a drain–untreated wastewater that ended up in the Mahoning River (see Youngstown Business Dumped >200K Gal of Untreated Wastewater).

    Not only did the ODNR immediately take strong action against the perpetrators of this environmental crime by shutting down the companies involved, the drilling industry itself loudly and strongly condemned it. Not good enough for the Sierra Clubers. They thought there may be some teeny tiny sliver of something they could demagogue and use in yet another fundraising letter–if only they could sort through the pile of communications surrounding the case. So they sued. The ODNR finally relented and gave them what they wanted–and according to the Sierra Clubers, there were “few new details” in the document dump. In other words, it was a colossal waste of time and taxpayer money…
    Read More “Sierra Club Gets What They Want in OH, and It’s a Big Fat Nothing”

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    WVU Prof Stokes Radioactive Fears, Says DEP Study Missing Research

    Say What?Here’s a story that we confess, we’re having a tough time wrapping our brains around. Allegations are swirling in West Virginia that one of three officially conducted studies for the state’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) released last year overlooked important data collection. The study in question was completed in December 2011 and released in February 2012. Titled “Pits and Impoundments Final Report,” the report looks at frack wastewater impoundments and water pits used in horizontal Marcellus Shale drilling (see WVU Study Finds Potential Problems with Frack Wastewater Pits for a copy of the full study). From what we can determine, solid waste, like drilling mud and “cuttings” (leftover rock and soil from drilling) were not part of that study–at all.

    But now, the Charleston Gazette identifies and quotes a WVU professor who supposedly worked on that study (although his name doesn’t appear in the study) who says researchers tried to test drill cuttings for radioactivity and were either denied access or put off/delayed until they finally ran out of time and had to file the report without doing the analysis. It’s now a big deal because anti-drillers are raising the specter that everyone is about to glow in the dark from radioactive drill cuttings going to landfills across the state. The WVU prof seems to be intentionally stoking those fears…
    Read More “WVU Prof Stokes Radioactive Fears, Says DEP Study Missing Research”

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    Check-in on GreenHunter’s Wheeling Frack Wastewater Plant

    Spandex outfits on. Check. Capes flapping in the breeze. Check. Homemade protest signs created. Check. The so-called Wheeling Water Warriors are ready for more protests against the eeeve-ill, nasty frack wastewater company–GreenHunter. Yes saracasm. Yes we believe the “Water Warriors” are nothing more than fossil-fuel haters stoked by irrational fears that carbon (the very substance they’re made from) is actually a pollutant and that burning it will mean the end of our existence. Boggles the mind. But there you go.

    It’s time to check in for an update on GreenHunter’s project to build a frack wastewater recycling facility in Wheeling, WV, and on GreenHunter’s future plans to ship frack wastewater via barge down the Ohio River when the Coast Guard gets around to issuing the “go ahead” signal. It’s also time to check in on the half dozen or so people who continue to grab headlines using the misleading name Wheeling Water Warriors…
    Read More “Check-in on GreenHunter’s Wheeling Frack Wastewater Plant”

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    Range Strikes Deal with Mt Pleasant for 1 of 4 Water Impoundments

    Finally a happy ending in the ongoing kerfuffle over the fate of our water impoundments (“ponds”) in Mt. Pleasant (Washington County), PA. For a long time now MDN has reported on the back and forth between Range Resources, who operates the impoundments, and the local town board over whether those impoundments can continue to operate now that the wells they were intended to support have been drilled. As recently as September the town was telling Range to stuff it (see Mt Pleasant Tells Range Resources “No Deal” on Water Impoundments).

    However, after continuing negotiations, the two sides struck a deal last week for one of the four impoundments. At least it’s a start…
    Read More “Range Strikes Deal with Mt Pleasant for 1 of 4 Water Impoundments”