The danger down below

Natural gas drilling in this region might do wonders for landowners’ bank accounts, but concerned Pennsylvanians are wondering about the effect on another important resource – water.

Water rights issues defined gas drilling in Pennsylvania last year. Some drillers rushing to exploit high commodity prices were surprised to find the Susquehanna River Basin Commission standing in their way, requiring water withdrawal permits that aren’t necessary in other states or, until recently, even in western Pennsylvania. In May, the state Department of Environmental Protection partially shut down two Lycoming County operations, which didn’t have those permits, for failing to protect nearby waterways from pollution and excessive withdrawals.

DEP then acted quickly to place an addendum on its drilling applications specifically for deep shale because the techniques used to drill horizontal wells more than a mile underground require as much as 5 million gallons of water, roughly double what’s needed to drill shallower, vertical wells. Drillers must now define where and when they want to withdraw water and where it will go afterward, and the SRBC is coordinating specifics.

“The Susquehanna watershed is largely a water-rich watershed,” SRBC spokeswoman Susan Obleski said. “The issue is there are areas that may be stressed, so we need to protect those stressed areas. … The best situation is matching up the best water sources with the needs of the industry.”

Within the Marcellus Shale region, which stretches from New York to West Virginia, the SRBC covers a region from upstate New York west to Indiana County, south to Fulton County and east into Wayne County.

Where the drilling water comes from is only a portion of the problem. Drillers must ensure that wells are sealed to prevent contamination of groundwater, but some incidents have cast doubt on whether that actually happens. In January, DEP confirmed the cap blew off a water well in Susquehanna County within a quarter of a mile of several wells drilled by the Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp.

About 20 residences are being monitored for gas contamination, and Cabot has supplied alternative water supplies to three homes where it was confirmed that gas infiltrated the water wells.

While it’s unclear whether drilling caused the incident, the department has ruled out gas that naturally moves underground and has matched a sample from the well to that found in the underground shale formations being drilled in the area, DEP spokesman Mark Carmon said.

The gas is trapped in a layer of shale rock 6,000 feet or more underground. To release it, gas companies have developed a method of drilling horizontally, in which the drill bit is gradually angled over thousands of feet until it bores sideways. The gas is released by fracturing the dense rock in which it’s trapped with water, sand and chemical mixtures delivered under high pressure, a process called hydraulic fracturing.

As the rock cracks, the sand and other materials support the eroding rock structure, but remain porous enough to let gas pass through. The sideways drilling allows more rock to be fractured around each bore.

When the rock is fractured, the liquid, known as fracing fluid, is pumped out, but only about half comes back, according to Thomas Beauduy, the SRBC’s deputy director. It’s unclear what happens to the remainder, but DEP believes the water is segregated far enough away from groundwater to not be an issue.

Permits require drillers to find a disposal site for the returning fluid. Several facilities specifically for that purpose exist in western Pennsylvania, but there is none in the northeastern part of the state. Carmon said one such facility has been suggested at a former cheese-making factory in Lemon Township, Wyoming County, and a preliminary application has been submitted by North Branch Processing LLC for another in Eaton Township near Skyhaven Airport, along with a sample of the water it would treat and discharge into the Susquehanna River.

“My guess is it’s out of the Cabot group of wells” focused in Susquehanna County, Carmon said. He noted the water contains many heavy metals and other pollutants, but added, “We have industrial-waste dischargers with stuff a lot worse than this.”

Drillers protect their fracing formulas as proprietary information, but the sample provided to DEP contains several chemicals and elements above drinking water limits, such as boron, iron and arsenic, said Brian Oram, a professional geologist and director of the Wilkes University Center for Environmental Quality.

“The thing that stands out the most … is the high totals of salts,” he said. “These typically have to be treated by a treatment plant that’s rated for industrial waste, and that’s what we lack in this area.”

As is, the fluid is 100 times above the state limit for chlorides, he said, and 60 times above for total dissolved solids, which could create problems similar to what occurred in the Monongahela River late last year. DEP was investigating a rise in solids in the river, which, though not considered harmful, could cause changes in taste, smell and color. Since rectified, the increase was tracked to several causes, including low-water conditions last year and discharges from a facility that treats frac water in West Virginia.

Oram said other issues complicate the treatment process, such as getting the fluid to a treatment center. “One of the big potential hazards is trucking this stuff around,” he said. “Typically, the sole answer isn’t blending it in (at the treatment plant). … The idea is there would have to be some front-end pretreatment” at the site to dilute the fluid or filter out some materials.

DEP spokesman Tom Rathbun said facilities that are licensed to handle the fluid seem to be at capacity, but “there are a lot of private industries out there that have capacity.”

As alternatives, he said, the industry is looking at recycling used fluid or other contaminated sources, such as industrial waste water or acid mine drainage, though each could require some treatment before use. The state is providing the lab work and scientific analysis to see if those ideas are possible, Rathbun said.

He and Oram agree more treatment facilities are necessary within the watershed so that the water can be returned to its source.

Because of the chemicals involved, DEP has sent advisory letters to municipal treatment plants, such as the Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority, informing them that the waste would likely damage their filtration systems and they would need upgrades to treat it, Carmon said. The Greater Hazleton Joint Sewer Authority has expressed interest in taking up to 90,000 gallons per day of the waste, but DEP responded with nearly a dozen concerns, including issues with discharging into Black Creek.

Few disposal alternatives are available. Pennsylvania is considering allowing the water to be discharged into deep, stable wells as is done in other drilling states, such as Texas. But Teresa Candori, DEP’s press secretary, said finding suitable sites here could be difficult. “We want a place that’s not going to be disturbed if there’s a shift” in the ground, she said. “So much of the state is honeycombed (by mining activity), and it causes earth disturbances.”

Though crashing gas-commodity prices and the national economic downturn have cooled their excitement, drillers are still eager to tap the Marcellus Shale, which could be the largest shale-gas deposit in the country, satiating the country’s gas needs for more than a decade and infusing the economy with more than $1 trillion in wages and other spending.

But will the expenses to build treatment infrastructure outweigh the benefit of the gas?

“I think, to be honest, that’s what they (gas companies) are trying to figure out. Is there a price break and when does it occur?” Oram said. “It’s just that they’ve never dealt with this issue.”

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Drilling for natural gas comes with a problem – what to do about the polluted water.

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