Isn't that special...

[RyanR]

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? Isn't Pennsylvania's leadership currently too stupid to require injection wells to reuse the water? That's something I got from the article.

 

[pcray1231]

By the way, found a list of treatment facilities, listed by region. This lists both current and proposed sites.

http://www.marcellus-shale.us/pdf/PA-Wastewater-Plants.pdf

Lists the owner, recieving stream, flow, county, GPS coords, municipality, type, status, and facility designation.

Type, I don't really understand. Major types are IW, POTW, direct discharge, CWT. IW = Injection well. Direct discharge is self explanatory. CWT = chemical waste treatment. Anyone know what POTW or OTW stands for?

Status lists the good info. Facility Designation is the easier way to sort it:

MSW = takes Marcellus waste
O&G = takes oil and gas waste other than Marcellus (old shallow wells), but not Marcellus waste.

A P before either means its not operating yet.

 

[jeff]

pcray1231 wrote:
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

Well if that's the case then we are all good :lol: But with the lack of oversight who the hell knows??? Should we take them for their word?

From what I understand the re-used water is only good for a few uses before it must be treated. It is where it goes from there that is concerning. Does the treated water go back to the companies to re-use or into our water supply? Answer back into our water supply!

 

[pcray1231]

Well if that's the case then we are all good But with the lack of oversight who the hell knows??? Should we take them for their word?

I won't take anyone for their word. But I do consider the DEP to be more trustworthy than most.

From what I understand the re-used water is only good for a few uses before it must be treated. It is where it goes from there that is concerning. Does the treated water go back to the companies to re-use or into our water supply? Answer back into our water supply!

Yep. My guess is they use it for about as many wells as are on a single pad (8-12). Once they load it up, it's goin to the treatment plant, either to be injected or treated to remove the impurities (except salt) and released.

 

[bikerfish]

pcray, good info in there, thanks for the link. a smart business man might want to start a water treatment plant if he had the resources to do so!

 

[osprey]

from my research , without a doubt evaporation is the safest method of getting rid of it , a potable evaporation device is already in the works "the frackinator" mounts on a big rig trailer and can be moved from site to site. What is left after evaporation is minimal and could be contained similar to landfill waste. The inventors name is Mike Kaufman , not the one on here , i asked.

 

[bikerfish]

we can put the waste into tea bags and sell it to gas company execs as our own PA blend!!

 

[jayL]

for pcray

Don't forget to hover it for alt-text.

 

[AndyP]

I work in the construction business in SEPA and was talking to a friend at Aqua Pa/ Aqua America and they have a subsidiary that is in the waste treatment end of the water business and he said that they are working a putting plants in place to handle the new "frack water business". Hopefully some new plants could help.

Pcray - some nice info. I don't believe anyone really wants this to turn into an enviromental tragedy. My outrage is in the special treatment the industry has gotten. The permit process was speeded up with virtually no review of the site plans and the County Conservation District was told that they were not allowed to inpect the soil and erosion controls(this may have changed). In 25 years of managing construction sites I was never allowed to disturb the site until my soil&erosion controls were inpspected and signed off by the CCD agent. It is all about oversight and regulation. I know that the drilling can't be stopped and it shouldn't be, but our water supply and enviroment needs to be protected since it is under increased pressure every year. I just have a sinking feeling that this is going to end badly. And boy do I hope I am wrong. I will glady eat some humble pie and wash it down with a glass of frack water!!!

 

[troutbert]

pcray1231 wrote:
By the way, found a list of treatment facilities, listed by region. This lists both current and proposed sites.

http://www.marcellus-shale.us/pdf/PA-Wastewater-Plants.pdf

Lists the owner, recieving stream, flow, county, GPS coords, municipality, type, status, and facility designation.

Type, I don't really understand. Major types are IW, POTW, direct discharge, CWT. IW = Injection well. Direct discharge is self explanatory. CWT = chemical waste treatment. Anyone know what POTW or OTW stands for?

Status lists the good info. Facility Designation is the easier way to sort it:

MSW = takes Marcellus waste
O&G = takes oil and gas waste other than Marcellus (old shallow wells), but not Marcellus waste.

A P before either means its not operating yet.

POTW means publicly owned treatment plant = municipal sewage plant.

How much "treatment" of brines, frack chemicals, etc. do you think really occurs running through a facility designed to break down sewage?

It's dilution, not treatment.

They are dumping it in the streams and rivers. Which is the point of the article.

 

[David]

And then there's your Total Dissolved Solids, not good to drink but the trihalomethanes are even worse...

"The wastewater often contains bromide, which reacts with the chlorine used to purify drinking water. That creates trihalomethanes.

The EPA says people who drink water with elevated levels of trihalomethanes for many years have an increased risk of cancer and could also develop liver, kidney or central nervous system problems." - Pennlive.com 01/04/2011

Official announcement for those getting drinking water from the Mon.

http://www.amwater.com/files/PA%20-%20TDS%20-%20December%202009.pdf

(The Mon has many issues, but it WAS starting to get better.)

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_699963.html

(another link related to above)

 

[Chaz]

The problem is even treated it isn't drinkable the treatment pants are not able to remove most of the contaminants.