Water rape

[melvinp]

How much water is enough,Been watching the levels of my local fishing haunt the Tunkhannock creek (Wyoming and susquhanna counties)Did a little looking to see if I could see how much water is being taken by the natural gas industry.Well only found one listing and that was in 2010,It was for 980,000 gallons a day,There are now a least 4 different water pick up locations now.(980,000X4)Folks that is a lot of water and the creek is showing it.X4 is only an estimate I would only hope they are not all that high. :-?

 

[pcray1231]

Not taking a stance either way, as that is significant. Just putting the math in perspective.

1. I'd assume 980,000 gallons/day is a maximum, as in permitted amount, not an average, and very unlikely that it's taken EVERY day? Correct? Would help to clarify.

2. At the gauge station, the average August flow of Tunkhannock Creek is approximately 22 cubic feet per second.

3. 1 cubic foot = 7.48 gallons. So that's 164.56 gallons per second. There are 86,400 seconds in a day. Hence, 22 cubic feet per second = 14,217,984 gallons per day. So if this well truly took the full 980k gallons every day, and all of it was upstream from the gauge, that equates to a little under 7% of the typical August streamflow at the gauge. If all 4 of them did, then it's 28% of the typical August streamflow.

Those are significant numbers. That said, even if they did take that kind of volume/day on a regular basis, some basic flow controls could pretty easily prevent any major impacts. You could specify a minimum flow rate where they can extract. Or you could set up the maximum allowable volumes to be on a sliding scale, so that when flow rates decrease, allowed volume decreases in kind.

But yeah, if 4 wells are allowed to take that per day, and all 4 decide to take the maximum during a low water period, the impacts aren't insignificant here.

 

[melvinp]

These are just water pick up areas I would say that there are way more than 4 wells being feed from this creek.Its pretty hard to find out much info on this topic at least given the time I have to work on it.I would just hope that some official body of government was at least keeping track.Thank you for the math lesson it does help to put it into perspective.I think I would like to know how many wells are been feed but I am sure it would just **** me off.

 

[pcray1231]

I certainly don't know for sure. But its possible what you found were permits for 1 time extractions, or perhaps a couple days. Each corresponding to a single well. While the activity at a drill site is lengthy, fracking is a fairly quick process. Get a permit, extract water, frack a well. Some months later, repeat on the next well.

If thats the case, it still depends on when. Do it with healthy flows, no big deal. Do it during an August drought, then its a big deal.

 

[franklin]

I did some research on some of the water withdrawals a few years back. Many times when a company requests a permit they ask for much more than they could possibly use just in case. Take the permit you mention for 980,000 gal per day. If that is used to fill trucks running to well sites there would be a heck of a lot of trucks loading there. Many of the tankers being used have 4,500 gal tanks. So you would be filling well over a hundred truck loads a day to get to that total.

In other cases they piped the water from the intake to a couple nearby well sites. In those cases once the wells were fracked the water use stopped.

 

[FarmerDave]

I'm not familiar with that particular stream, but most streams are more impacted by consumer use than withdrawals for other purposes.

That even includes bottled water drawn from the aquifer in some cased.

Doesn't make it right though. Just puts it in perspective.

 

[sarce]

Am I the only one bothered by the overuse of the term "rape" when it comes to environmental issues?

 

[The_Sasquatch]

sarce wrote:
Am I the only one bothered by the overuse of the term "rape" when it comes to environmental issues?

No.

 

[melvinp]

Did not mean to over use the word (rape) just seemed to be fitting.Dont want or need to ruffle any ones feathers.

 

[FarmerDave]

I can't say I was particularly "bothered" by it this time because misuse of words is so common these days.

Melvin, pillage may have been a more appropriate word.;-)

 

[osprey]

IMPEACH COREBUTT.

 

[melvinp]

We finally got a little rain all hope is that some official somewhere is keeping track of water levels,This poor girl is very,very low right now.but the trucks and tanks keep moving.This creek is a major breeding area for smallmouth bass in my area.

 

[gfen]

melvinp wrote:
Well only found one listing and that was in 2010,It was for 980,000 gallons a day,There are now a least 4 different water pick up locations now.(980,000X4)Folks that is a lot of water and the creek is showing it.

And yet, when I go through USGS gages looking at every August from 2008 to 2014 they all seem to be within a couple CFS of each other, which leads me to believe if "the creek is showing it" your eyesight might be failing.

 

[melvinp]

I looked at USGS gauge and your are right,But I could not find any data before 2008 and water removal well intrenched by 2008.

 

[melvinp]

Just the same old story,another water holding center has been zoned.thats six.

 

[jifigz]

Just to defend the use of the word rape a little here in this chosen usage I would like to point out a few listed definitions of the word that are found in the dictionary.

In the noun categorization definition 4 reads: an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation, violation.

Under the verb definition number 7: to plunder, despoil.
and number 8: to seize, take, or carry off by force.

My point? Being someone who loves literature and studied writing in college I think that it is a perfectly legitimate use of the word which helps to enrich our language and stories by having that word, and words like it, not being placed into only one tiny role while the rest of its definitions are cast to the side and forgotten. I also don't think a simple word should be upsetting as it is merely a means to describe what is horrible which is the action or act.

I hope this doesn't offend.

 

[melvinp]

Looked around and found the WATER USE AND WATER RIGHTS IN PENNSYLVANIA a status report from the league of women voters of pa,Citizen Education Fund Common Ground Project on: "Water Resources Management for Pennsylvania's Future .(ITS DOOMED!)

 

[franklin]

melvinp wrote:
Looked around and found the WATER USE AND WATER RIGHTS IN PENNSYLVANIA a status report from the league of women voters of pa,Citizen Education Fund Common Ground Project on: "Water Resources Management for Pennsylvania's Future .(ITS DOOMED!)

Dated 1998. Is it still relevant?

http://wren.palwv.org/documents/WaterUse_000.pdf

 

[melvinp]

Best I could find in the time frame I have.Thanks for the hookup on this franking not very computer savey.

 

[Chaz]

sarce wrote:
Am I the only one bothered by the overuse of the term "rape" when it comes to environmental issues?

Archaic use of the word and not appropriate now.
But Pat is right, it's really not an issue, likely that drought is and wells, but wells to feed an insatiable appetite for more water and irresponsible use of water.