Burying Shale Drilling Cuttings

[AndyP]

There was a interesting article in the Sunday Inquirer about what the Gas companies do with their "cuttings", that is the soil/rock/and minerals that come up out of the drill hole. This material is wet,therefore it also contains frack water. For now companies are allowed to have a lined pit and they can bury the material on the site. There must be some issues with the material if it has to be put in a lined dump site and then capped with a liner. My questions are numerous, but mainly I don't like the idea of having hundreds or even thousands of these " little landfills" all over the place. Who would check on these sites 5, 10, or 20 years down the road?

An even stronger indication that this practice is loaded with problems is that one Gas company, Andandarko ( totally misspelled), has decided to put all of their cuttings into metal containers and have them shipped and emptied at a landfill. They are even asking the State for permission to go back and dig up the sites where they have buried material. it gets more interesting as time goes by.....

Sorry for not posting the article. I tried and I was doing something wrong and gave up. If anyone else can I think it would be good for others to read.

Andy

 

[osprey]

Just like all the "Super sites" like Love Canal , down the road we'll pay to have the #OOPS# cleaned up.

 

[pcray1231]

This material is wet,therefore it also contains frack water.

It really shouldn't. They drill, then they frack. The drilling phase is where the cuttings come from. Yeah, it'll be wet. There's water at depth, and they probably add some drilling lubricants, as well as foaming agents to help recover the cuttings.

But that doesn't make it less dangerous. Deep cuttings are full of heavy metals and such from depth. In fact, thats where frack water gets a lot of its contaminants. Yeah, its one of the problems of drilling. And I don't know much about it, but shooting from the hip I like the thought of 1 big landfill more than thousands of little ones.

 

[Acristickid]

My guess is they will follow the successful models of the past.

Form subsidiaries, mine or drill then leave antiquated equipement on the property for a decade or two to show they are still active then declare bankruptcy as to aviod additional liability.

 

[skeeter]

Yup kinda big news at my house. LINK

What worries me is that:
1) They trucking that material this far south? Why?
2) The landfill in Tioga County was able to turn it away, so what is in it?
3) On a Harrisburg TV news station the owner/manager of the Cumberland Co. landfill asked for the test results of the material they were accepting into the landfill and the DEP denied them the info?

I work in the enviro. industry and there is only a few landfills in Ohio that take the petroleum contaminated soil we recover from our drillings when we install our shallow wells (for GW remediation). Also, when the contaminated soil is hauled way and delivered to the landfill in Ohio a chain of custody must include a copy of the soil sample results. The landfill is not privy to this info.....FROM THE STATE?

This SH*T in PA is getting out of hand!

 

[jeff]

skeeter wrote:


This SH*T in PA is getting out of hand!

Sure is!

 

[AndyP]

pcray - your probably right on thr frack fluid. i think that i was mixing up info on another link where a landfill was taking cuttings and frack fluid/sludge, (not in PA ). I agree that it should go to centralized or regional landfills. Documentation of the flow of material would only help the drilling companies defend themselves. I just don't see DEP's rational in allowing what could be thousands of mini dumpsites.

 

[David]

Some more info on drill cuttings and all that other fracking stuff.

http://wri.eas.cornell.edu/gas_wells_waste.html