Isn't that special...

[jayL]

Chloride (a chlorine ion) is present in seawater. It's what bonds with sodium to make salt.

 

[osprey]

YUP YUP chloride is in salt , sodium chloride YUP but chloride is NOT chlorine. They specifically mention chlorine mixing with other chemicals to form halomethanes.

 

[JackM]

Kinda like hydrogen in water, yet it won't combust? I flunked college chemistry.

 

[osprey]

hate to bust yer bubble JackM but that's sorta how a hydrogen cell works in a car using water for fuel , the hydrogen is seperated and then injected into the fuel mix.....kapow.....ignition. Beleive it or not i observerved two young Woofers (look that one up) construct a hydeogen cell this summer from mason jars and spare parts from my friends farm........and it worked.

 

[jayL]

If the chloride ion is present, of course chlorine is present.

"The most abundant dissolved ions in seawater are sodium, chlorine, magnesium, sulfate and calcium.[6]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater#Compositional_differences_from_fresh_water

 

[AndyP]

I am adding my 2 cents a day or so after I read the article so spare me if I have anything "wrong" here. One of my bigger concerns regarding this whole mess, and I believe it will be a huge mess to deal with in the next decade is that some of the treatment plants are failing to meet their treatment "standards" and in some cases are in violation by not being able to handle the total dissolved solids in the frack water. To me it should be really simple- if you produce frack water and can't get it treated to meet the standards set to allow discharge then you can keep your frack water in storeage until you can find a place that can treat it.
BTW, does anyone know if their are any new treatment plants being built specifically to handle frack water? You would think if some $$$ could be made treating the frack water a few state of the art plants would be in the works.
All in all this whole Marcellus Shale industry has been greenlighted too fast with too little oversight and if you have ever been on a farm you know hard it is to get the horse back in the barn wants he has gotten out......

 

[salvelinus]

"The most abundant dissolved ions in seawater are sodium, chlorine, magnesium, sulfate and calcium.[6]"

I am an analytical chemist. That's an error in that wiki. Elemental chlorine is diatomic, Cl2, like oxygen, O2. Chloride is the ionic state. But if ionic bromide is present with chlorine, the chlorine can react with bromide to produce bromine. Bromine in turn is highly reactive and can react with hydrocarbons as mentioned in the article.

Let's not get into a pissing match, the fact is it's being done and it's not a good thing Martha. OK so they stop it but from what I get from the article is that the waste that is being produced from existing operations is grandfathered and does not require further treatment despite how toxic it may be, nor will it be treated in the future. After all let's not get them upset, they may leave PA and the politicians will lose their perks from these moneygrubbers.

 

[jayL]

Interesting and I stand corrected.

 

[pcray1231]

pcray..........where does chlorine occur naturally in the ocean?

Chlorine, or more accurately chloride (chlorine atom missing an electron) is a major constituent in sea salt. Salt is classically depicted as NaCl, though realistically there's often a mixture of different salts. Thats a sodium ion bonded to a chlorine ion.

So chlorine, the element, is in high abundance in our oceans. However, its typically ionized, not in its elemental form (Cl2, as sal said). Cl2 is the reactive substance used to disenfect water, like in swimming pools, or in lower abundance, our drinking water.

Bromide is another common salt, present in seawater as well one of the salts in treated frackwater (treatment does a poor job at removing the salts). Just like chlorine, the substance in the salts is the ionic form, bromide. The elemental bromine (Br2) is similar in many respects to Chlorine (Cl2). In fact, it's used instead of chlorine as a disenfectant in many pool applications, such as the hot tub on my deck. The reason is that it is less volatile than elemental chlorine (Cl2), so it stays in the water longer and stinks less, especially in heated and disturbed water.

So bromide + chloride are both salts and common in seawater, frackwater, any salt, really, even fresh springwater has some salinity. The elemental forms (Cl2 and Br2) are the reactive forms, and are typically NOT present, nor are they present in frackwater. However, when bromide salts come in contact with elemental chlorine (Cl2), they can free the ionic bromide to form bromine (Br2). The elemental chlorine is supplied when the water is treated for use as drinking water. That frees the elemental bromine, which can combine with hydrocarbons to form the substances discussed.

i don't know what you do for a living

I have degrees in Physics (B.S.) and Materials Science and Engineering (M.S). Most people don't understand the latter. Basically, it's kind of a mix of physics and chemistry, focusing on different forms of matter and their effects on the physical properties of that material. A lot of work in bonding and crystallography. I currently work as a metallurgist. I design new alloys for use in specific applications. For the sake of full disclosure, yes, we design alloys for drilling application and interact with their engineers. But to say I'm personally invested in the industry takes it perhaps a bit too far, as we do just as much with wind, nuclear, etc. None of them are our "cash cow", aerospace fills that role.

you'd make a great lobbyist for the gas companies , you seem to try and debunk every statement the folks on here make if it's negative towards the marcellus project. would you be so kind as to explain why?

I believe in being accurate. I debunk everything and attempt to be unbiased in doing so. Rarely are stories meant for public consumption not designed as propoganda, nomatter which side it comes from. Writers have agenda's, they probably took the job to begin with in order to influence people. Usually they aren't outright false, but they are misleading. I abhor senstionalism. Read everything with a skeptical eye, look for the truth behind an article, beyond the emotion the author is trying to get you to feel. Emotion clouds the truth.

There are definitely issues with M shale drilling that need to be addressed. We are doing a poor job in many areas at regulating this, and improvements need to be made. The problem is that there seem to be 2 camps. One says let em do anything they want. The other says oppose em at every juncture. Both are poor positions to take, IMO. The end result is that too much emphasis is put on putting in controls that attempt to fix non-problems, and ignoring the real problems.

 

[osprey]

There are probably a dozen folks on here , including myself who have stated more than once that we are not opposed to drilling , but would like to see it done with minimal damage to the environment , to me that is as moderate as we can get. I will agree that there is a camp that says "Drill baby Drill" but , on here at least i think most folks are ok with the project as long as it doesn't end up a disaster. When we hear things like bromide mixed with chlorine creates halomethanes (carcinogens) in the water treated at sewage treatment plants , subsequently released into our drinking water sources, for some , even the moderates that=disaster.

 

[pcray1231]

When we hear things like bromide mixed with chlorine creates halomethanes (carcinogens) in the water treated at sewage treatment plants , subsequently released into our drinking water sources, for some , even the moderates that=disaster.

1. they're not sewage treatment plants. They're frackwater treatment plants. Sewage comes with its own list of issues.

2. what comes from the frackwater treatment plant is the bromide, i.e. a type of salt. It's already naturally present in the water despite frackwater discharge, though the discharge surely raises its concentration considerably.

3. The chlorine is supplied by the drinking water purification, and not present until that point. Yes, chlorine is put in your drinking water, thats how they kill all the bacteria and stuff. It is only then that the halomethanes can form, only if there is the presence of hydrocarbons (which there are, but I don't know how much at that point).

Halomethanes are carcinogens. We are exposed to hundreds if not thousands of carcinogens every day. I haven't seen any studies of the severity of these particular ones compared to others, so I'll refrain from comment on that. But seeing that we could be exposed to a carcinogen, while it doesn't make me happy, if I counted that as a disaster then my daily life is full of one disaster after another.

Plus, you missed my point. I don't want to see increased halomethanes in my drinking water any more than you do. Yes, this is a danger, one to keep an eye on. But this article is basically in response to a change in the law. This change won't reduce the amount of halomethanes that have been in our drinking water for decades, but it will prevent an INCREASE in the concentration of them. While we can still wish more was done, isn't a control put in place to keep things from getting worse a good thing? I just don't understand the outrage? We weren't outraged before. Now we put controls on the gas industry in place to make sure our water supply doesn't get worse than it already is, and we get outraged at it? Wasn't this a measured "win"?

 

[pcray1231]

BTW, does anyone know if their are any new treatment plants being built specifically to handle frack water? You would think if some $$$ could be made treating the frack water a few state of the art plants would be in the works.

I don't know of any specifically, but this article is in response to a law which states that new frackwater treatment facilities will NOT be able to discharge into waterways, while the older plants that have been doing this for years will be grandfathered and allowed to continue what they're doing. That suggests to me that at least there's some people who think new ones will be built to handle the higher volumes of M shale. The plants that are running have been in operation for some time to treat the frack water from traditional vertical shallow wells.

I definitely agree with you. My understanding is that the current plants do a fine job with the heavy metals and such, but do a poor job with the salts. If we are capable of building plants that better handle the salts, then we should do that, and shut down the old plants that do a worse job. The danger with what we did was that it may discourage the new, better plants from being built, and encourage increased use of the older, dirtier facilities.

Make the regulation based on the cleanliness of the outflow. You then encourage the building of newer, better plants, and make sure they are up to snuff and that the builder's don't skrimp on $ and design them for dirtier discharge. For the old plants, you either force them to upgrade or shut them down, at the very least you discourage much volume from going through them. That should result in cleaner water, rather than just trying to ensure an existing problem doesn't get worse.

 

[osprey]

Unless i'm mistaken which i could be , there are no frackwater treatment plants , they use existing sewage treatment plants to treat the frackwater and they don't do a thorough job. There is a device that evaporates the leftover water but it's patent pending i beleive. out west the water left in the pits naturally evaporates due to the weather conditions but here that doesn't happen , what happens is we get one of our famous flash floods and the water ends up in the nearest creek.

 

[pcray1231]

Typically they are the same locations as sewage treatment facilities, but have extra processes to handle the frackwater (albeit still unsufficient IMO). So frackwater treatment facilities are likely to also be sewage treatment facilities. But only a few sewage treatment facilities are capable of being frackwater treatment facilities.

Frackwater is not new to the state, the same stuff has been processed for years from the shallow gas wells. So we do have a few plants who historically have treated the stuff. The difference is volume. Those few plants do a fine job with many contaminates, but because they had a much smaller treated frackwater outflow, they were less concerned with salts. Just not enough salty water going out to effect the big rivers, so they didn't worry about it. Dilution is fine for salts. Now, the demand has increased considerably, and we have some problems. 1. There's just not enough capacity to handle it. and 2. If we increase the capacity without increasing the requirements on the salts, then the much higher volume of salty outflow is much more of a problem. Not enough dilution to handle the problem anymore.

I think I read recently that there are 6 facilities in the state which treat frackwater, and 12 permits for new, dedicated and higher tech treatment facilities. I can't find that reference now and don't know how old it is, so the numbers may have changed, some of the permits may have been accepted or unaccepted, etc.

I'm saying we should do everything we can to make sure the new ones are up to snuff. And then encourage their use over the old ones, or force the old ones to upgrade.

 

[jeff]

Who is gonna pay for all these new treatment plants pcray? Our broke *** state can't..... The politicians won't make the gas companies do it. :-?

 

[pcray1231]

It's a business of sorts. I've no clue what they're profit margins are like, or if its currently just subsidizing a public works. But gas drillers do pay so much per gallon to have the water treated, and my understanding is that new plants would be a for-profit business.

 

[jeff]

I am all about "for profit" wastewater treatment plants. I suspect most now are public works. Just goes to show again how we are getting ahead of ourselves by having to use our sewage treatment plants to process frac water. All frac water should be processed at a plant designated for frac water only! Then instead of dumping the treated water back into our water supply the gas companies could come back and pick it up to use again. If it is safe enough to dump back into our water supply it surely can be used over in the drilling process right?

Two years ago someone should have stood up and asked these mindless questions like. How do we treat the water? Do we have enough facilities to treat the water? If we use our exsisting facilities can they treat the water properly, and won't the treated water be put back in our water supply? Nope, instead they said go ahead and drill we will figure out the rest as we go along. Mind blowing!!!!!!!!

 

[pcray1231]

Then instead of dumping the treated water back into our water supply the gas companies could come back and pick it up to use again.

By and large they do exactly that. I don't know the details, but I think it has to do with how far away the treatment plant is. If its just down the road, great. If its 200 miles away, then you have not only the cost issues of transporting it again, but also concerns about using roadways more than necessary, extra use of oil, extra traffic, etc. Traffic and road degradation are one of the very real problems with M shale drilling. To pick it up, you essentially need a massive convoy of huge tanker trucks who are going to drive to some small town en masse, and then return fully loaded to a rural location over country roads and bridges. They gotta do this at least once to deliver the water, but making it happen twice doubles the volume of this traffic.

 

[jeff]

pcray1231 wrote:

Then instead of dumping the treated water back into our water supply the gas companies could come back and pick it up to use again.

By and large they do exactly that. I don't know the details, but I think it has to do with how far away the treatment plant is. If its just down the road, great. If its 200 miles away, then you have not only the cost issues of transporting it again, but also concerns about using roadways more than necessary, extra use of oil, extra traffic, etc. Traffic and road degradation are one of the very real problems with M shale drilling. To pick it up, you essentially need a massive convoy of huge tanker trucks who are going to drive to some small town en masse, and then return fully loaded to a rural location over country roads and bridges. They gotta do this at least once to deliver the water, but making it happen twice doubles the volume of this traffic.

By and large? I am not so sure about that. If the gas company can take an unlimited supply of H2O from any water source (they can depending where they are in the state) for fracking and they can drop off the used water at a treatment plant and be done with it..... Why would they want to re-use it? Just gonna take away from their bottom line. I for one would pick the lesser of the 2 evils and have them build centralized treatment facilities. Of course while they were wrecking our roads they would also have to pay to fix them. If traffic is a problem I would restrict at what times and how many of their trucks could be on the road. All this should have been done years ago before the M Shale got going. Of course if we did this now we could slow things down and get a handle on things. Don't worry the gas companies aren't going anywhere. It will cut into their profit but they will still make billions before it is all said and done. The only thing I care about is at what expense to the environment and our kids future?

 

[pcray1231]

Looking into it further, what is being re-used to a high degree is the fluid before being sent to the treatment facilities. It may be used multiple times before being sent off for treatment. The reason is to save cost on trucking it, and to reuse the waste. The very article that started this thread has a section on it:

Cabot, which produced nearly 370,000 barrels of waste in the period examined by the AP, said that since the spring it has been reusing 100% of its well water in new drilling operations, rather than shipping it to treatment plants

All 10 of the biggest drillers in the state say they have either eliminated discharges in the past few months, or reduced them to a small fraction of what they were a year ago.

The biggest driller, Atlas Resources, which produced nearly 2.3 million barrels of wastewater in the review period, said it is now recycling all water produced by wells in their first 30 days of operation, when the flowback is the heaviest. Half of the rest is now sent to treatment plants.

"The new rules, so far, appear to be working," he said