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State wastewater regulations for natural gas drilling may change to reduce pollution threat.

By Rory Sweeney[email protected]
Staff Writer

Anyone concerned with pollution threats from increased natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania has likely encountered the phrase, “total dissolved solids” and recognizes its potential to be a problem.

However, fewer no doubt know how it can become a problem or that – because of issues emerging from the increased drilling – the state Department of Environmental Protection is considering changes to wastewater discharge standards for TDS that would become effective Jan. 1, 2011.

DEP is seeking public comment on the proposals, and citizens have until Feb. 5 to make them. Earlier this month, Penn State University released a document to help people understand the issues and participate in the process.

Rather than a specific chemical, TDS is a measurement of all dissolved matter – such as minerals, salts and metals – in a given water sample and can be naturally occurring. The federal safe drinking-water standard has a recommended level of 500 milligrams per liter for TDS, but no specific regulation. However, concentrations above that can damage treatment equipment and be toxic to aquatic life and people who drink it.

DEP is proposing the changes, which would limit the TDS levels in wastewater discharges, because it determined that some state waterways, including the West Branch of the Susquehanna River, don’t have the ability to absorb increased levels of TDS.

According to the Penn State report, most of the water used to prepare gas wells – often called “frack water” – is between 800 milligrams per liter and 300,000 milligrams per liter.

The industry estimates the amount of such high-TDS wastewater needing disposal in Pennsylvania will increase from about 9 million gallons per day in 2009 to nearly 20 million gallons per day by 2011, the report said.

DEP’s proposal would change two parts of state code.

First, it would require high-TDS discharges to be diluted to at least 500 milligrams per liter, plus lower thresholds for sulfates and chlorides and, for the oil and gas industry, limits of 10 milligrams per liter for strontium and barium.

Second, it would change water-quality standards for the actual waterway, which would, in turn, affect what could be discharged into it. That regulation change hasn’t yet been officially proposed.

To comment on the proposed rules, the Penn State report recommends several approaches: be specific in citing documents or the target of the comment, stick to comments on the proposed rule rather than water-quality in general, include personal experiences and note where the proposed rules are written unclearly.

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

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EnCana Corp. will work with WhitMar Exploration Co. in seeking gas in the Marcellus Shale in the region.

By Rory Sweeney[email protected]
Staff Writer

EnCana Corp., perhaps the largest natural-gas producer in North America, has chosen Luzerne County as its entry point into the Marcellus Shale, thanks to an exploratory agreement with WhitMar Exploration Co.

WhitMar, a Denver-based exploratory company, has already leased about 25,000 acres in Columbia and Luzerne counties, including in Fairmount, Ross, Lake, Dallas, Lehman, Jackson, Huntington, Union, Hunlock and the northwest corner of Plymouth townships.

However, it doesn’t have the resources to develop the entire leasehold, so it went looking for a partner. It found EnCana, a Calgary-based company with U.S. headquarters in Denver that produced 1.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2008, according to its Web site. For comparison, Chesapeake Energy, another industry leader with a local presence, produced 839.5 billion cubic feet that year, according to its 2008 annual report.

Spokesman Doug Hock said EnCana has no other interest in the Marcellus Shale, a ribbon of gas-laden rock about a mile underground that stretches from upstate New York into Virginia but centers on Pennsylvania.

The agreement, however, only commits EnCana to the two exploratory wells WhitMar has agreed in its leases to create, Hock said. “Further activity will really depend on the results of the first two wells,” he said. “The first couple wells that we’re drilling are really to prove it up and ensure that we have viable program there.”

Both wells, while exploratory, will also be put into production, he said, though it’s unclear where pipelines will be installed to connect the wells to regional gas lines.

The deal gives EnCana 75 percent interest in the leasehold and control as the operator, according to WhitMar spokesman Brad Shepard. “Being an exploration company, we’re a small company,” he said. “At least in the Marcellus, we get a partner to develop it with.”

He said there were several companies interested, but that EnCana was “the best fit” thanks to similar interests in testing, drilling and size of the project.

Both companies are also interested in increasing the acreage in the leasehold, he said. Within the area the current lease encompasses, there are perhaps 25,000 to 30,000 acres that aren’t leased, Shepard said. “What we’re trying to do now is basically trying to infill all the land that we have now,” he said.

According to Hock, EnCana, whose business is currently 80 percent gas production, is in the process of splitting the company into two “pure plays” to “enhance the value” of each: EnCana, which would focus entirely on gas, and Cenovus Energy Inc. to oversee its oil-sands operations in Canada.

“We’re in that process right now,” Hock said. “The deal is expected to close at the end of the month.”

EnCana slid on the New York Stock Exchange this week, from $59.40 per share on Monday to $56.11 on Friday.

Both companies are also interested in increasing the acreage in the leasehold.

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Authority soliciting proposals now to raise money for upgraded pollution controls.

By Rory Sweeney[email protected]
Staff Writer

The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority is investigating the feasibility of treating wastewater created from natural-gas drilling.

It hopes to offset some cost increases the authority will soon incur to make pollution-reducing renovations.

The authority published a request for proposals earlier this week, seeking bidders who could supply at least 500,000 gallons of wastewater daily for at least three years and pay at least 5.5 cents per gallon. Using both minimums, that would create daily revenue of $27,500.

Drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale creates millions of gallons of wastewater that must be treated.

“The good part of that is that, instead of paying for fresh water from the Susquehanna (River), we would pre-treat this and they would reuse that to fracture new wells,” said Fred DeSanto, the authority’s executive director. “We know drilling’s going on; we are a wastewater treatment facility. That’s our business to treat it. We just don’t want time to go by as there’s water to treat.”

That means that, for now, the plant is seeking a permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection to treat up to 150,000 gallons per day in its sewage stream. The company, however, is reserving the right to inspect for pollutants in incoming drilling wastewater.

It requires pre-testing for “total dissolved solids” and “suspended solids” – generally a measure of the amount of minerals and chemicals in the water – and reserves the right to deny it.

DeSanto said that protects the authority’s equipment, which would “probably” be damaged by heavy loads of solids.

All testing and transportation costs would be paid by the drilling company, which also must carry $2 million in liability insurance, indemnify the authority from all risks associated with hauling the waste and provide a “blanket statement” that it isn’t “hazardous waste.”

The long-term goal is to build a million-gallon-per-day, closed-loop facility to “pre-treat” the water enough that it could be reused in industrial capacities and resell it to the companies that brought it in.In its bid request, the authority is looking to get at least half a cent per gallon for that water. That water would never touch the sewer operation or be discharged into the river.

“It’s the preferred method of disposal by DEP,” said John Minora, the president PA NE Aqua Resources, which is consulting on the project. “We’re left with a sludge cake that gets either landfilled or incinerated. … The water that’s left, it looks a little milky because it’s high in salt.”

That waste could then be mixed with effluent from the plant’s sewer operation to reduce solids levels, thus preventing more discharges to the river, he said. As pollution discharge credits, which would set a limit for how much facilities can discharge, become a reality, the reduced discharges could provide more revenue.

“I think the people who are environmental should be very happy about that,” Minora said. “Recycle and reuse, I don’t think it has to be an us-against-them” situation.

The revenue would go toward the millions the authority will have to spend to upgrade its system for upcoming requirements to reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and to fix stormwater overflows that currently spill untreated sewage into the river whenever it rains heavily.

Potential revenues are “unknown right now because we don’t exactly what the treatment cost is going to be,” DeSanto said. “We feel that there’s enough there that we could make a profit to help our operating budget in the future, help our ratepayers.”

Bids are due by Nov. 16.

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

Copyright: Times Leader

Chesapeake Energy explains protections it practices during drilling for natural gas.

By Rory Sweeney[email protected]
Staff Writer

PLAINS TWP. – As negative issues arise related to natural-gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, at least one company is being careful to keep residents informed about the industry’s benefits and distance itself from concerns.

Speaking on Thursday at the “Executive Management Breakfast Series” put on by Penn State Wilkes-Barre, a spokesman for Chesapeake Energy detailed the environmental protections his company uses when drilling and outlined the positive economic effect the industry has had in Pennsylvania.

Chesapeake has paid out $700 million to landowners since 2008, along with $100 million to contractors in the state and $500,000 to community projects in 2009, according to Brian Grove, the director of corporate development for the company’s eastern division.

But the growth – a plan for 200 more wells in 2010 – isn’t at the expense of precautions, he said. Wells receive five layers of protection from ground water, he said, and “all of the chemicals (used in the hydraulic fracturing process) are stuff you will find in your home.”

The statement comes weeks after driller Cabot Oil and Gas was fined by the state Department of Environmental Protection for spilling fluids that contaminated a nearby wetland and a day after the department announced another fine against Cabot and ordered that alternative water supplies be provided to Susquehanna County residents whose water wells have been contaminated with methane.

“Certainly, when an operation isn’t meeting the regulations laid out by the state, it doesn’t reflect well on the industry,” Grove acknowledged, adding that Chesapeake is striving to remain free of such image-tarnishing incidents.

At least one of Chesapeake’s operating practices impressed Mary Felley, the executive director at Countryside Conservancy in La Plume, for its environmental protection beyond state regulations. Drillers must collect water contaminated by drilling activities, but they’re only required to store it in open-air pits. When Grove noted that Chesapeake stores all of it in closed containers, Felley complimented the company on its additional protections.

Grove also assured members of the Wyoming County Landowners Group whose land rights are confirmed will be receiving the full up-front payments the group negotiated, which was a particular concern for Marisa Litwinsky, a financial advisor with Merrill Lynch. Group members and others who have recently signed with Chesapeake have worried that the driller might back out on paying the balance of those deals.

“We’re committed to” the land group, Grove assured. “Anyone who’s got a good title, they’re going to have a lease.”

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

Copyright: Times Leader

The Associated Press

DIMOCK — State regulators are fining a Houston-based company because its natural-gas drilling operations polluted residents’ water wells in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Department of Environmental Protection officials said Wednesday that Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. is paying $120,000 in connection with its finding that gas seeped underground into 13 water wells in Susquehanna County.

Cabot has drilled numerous gas wells into the Marcellus Shale rock formation in the rural county, about 15 miles south of the New York State border.

On Jan. 1, a water well exploded at a home nearby Cabot’s operations, prompting an investigation.

The department says its approval of Cabot’s well casing and cementing plans is now required before Cabot can drill.

It also says Cabot must develop a plan to permanently restore or replace the affected water supplies.

Copyright: Times Leader

Economist from M&T Bank predicts gas drilling will give area “a huge shot in the arm” in next decade.

By Ron Bartizek[email protected]
Business & Consumer / City Editor

WILKES-BARRE – The Marcellus Shale gas play will be “a game changer” for Northeastern Pennsylvania, bringing a “huge economic injection” and making life here very different a decade from now, an economist said Wednesday.

James E. Thorne, Ph.D., chief investment officer of equities for M&T Bank, told members of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry during a luncheon talk at the Westmoreland Club that the region will get “a huge shot in the arm” from natural gas drilling. “The economic forecast is very bright.”

Gas drilling has boomed in the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania since horizontal drilling technologies using pressurized liquids have made it financially feasible for companies to drill into the Marcellus Shale, a layer of gas-laden rock that runs about a mile underground from New York into Virginia.

Many landowners in Luzerne County have entered into leases with drillers, but no wells are yet operating in the county.

Thorne said the future direction of the national economy is less clear while emphasizing that the United States has a history of adapting to changing times. He cited the push into science and technology in the late 1950s after the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite as an example.

As at that time, “there’s got to be a new industry created” that the U.S. can lead the world in, Thorne said, suggesting “green” technology may be the logical successor to space exploration and the Internet. The current economic problems, he said, were made worse by a diversion of resources to consumption and housing, which do not increase productivity.

Export-led, resources and infrastructure industries need to be the immediate focus, Thorne said, adding that additional government spending to rebuild and repair aging domestic

The present weakness of the dollar is necessary, Thorne said, to give American exporters the opportunity to expand their markets. But in the long run “the solution is to create inflation.

“The dollar is a reflection of economic growth; we benefit from a weak dollar.”

“We’re going to enter an adjustment period,” Thorne said, that could be several years long. But he said there’s reason to be optimistic about the outcome.

“We’ve done this before. I’m hugely bullish on the American economy,” he said.

Copyright: Times Leader

Authorities allowed the company to resume work after corrective actions.

By Rory Sweeney[email protected]
Staff Writer

The state Department of Environmental Protection announced on Thursday that it has fined Cabot Oil and Gas $56,000 for three polluting spills at one of its natural gas drilling sites in Susquehanna County.

The fine comes a little more than a month after the spills, which all occurred within a week of each other at the Heitsman well in Dimock Township and totaled about 8,400 gallons of fluids. Some of the liquid, which was a mix of mostly water and a gel that facilitates the drilling process, drained into an adjacent wetlands and Stevens Creek.

“The department presented a number to us and we thought under the circumstances that it was appropriate and not something that we wanted to fight about,” said Ken Komoroski, Cabot spokesman. “We’re just going to move forward.”

Within a few days of the spill, DEP ordered Cabot to halt hydraulic fracturing – the process that caused the spills – and submit an engineering analysis about what went wrong and how it will be avoided in the future.

Cabot’s report said the failure was caused by pressure surges and that significant elevation differences between where the liquid was stored and where it was being pumped to contributed to the problem.

The report includes a list of corrective actions that Cabot has agreed to take, among them providing better containment and pressure-regulating valves for sites where elevation is a factor.

DEP approved the report on Oct. 16 and allowed Cabot to resume “fracking.” The process forces water, sand and a mix of chemicals into the rock layer that contains the gas, causing fractures that release the gas up the well.

Gas drilling has boomed in the Northern Tier since fracking and horizontal drilling technologies have made it financially feasible for companies to drill into the Marcellus Shale, a layer of gas-laden rock that runs about a mile underground from New York into Virginia.

Copyright: Times Leader

CAMILLE FIOTI Times Leader Correspondent

LEHMAN TWP. – Chris Miller of Jackson Road voiced concerns Monday about the effects of possible gas drilling in the township.

“I am not opposed to gas drilling,” he said told the township supervisors at their meeting. “I am concerned and vigilant about what gas drilling can do to our special community if we do not properly plan.”

He commended the board for passing the Growing Greener ordinance last year that was adopted to help preserve natural, open space in the township.

“Many of us who live here do so because this is a wonderful community,” Miller said. “Our kids can breathe fresh air. The water is clean. There is plenty of forest to hike and hunt in and streams to fish in,” he added.

Supervisor Ray Iwanoski said the board is also concerned; however, the state, not the township, has control over drilling. Drilling hasn’t started in the township, but a number of leases have been issued, Supervisor Dave Sutton said.

“I’m also not opposed to drilling,” Sutton said. “But the township’s initial concern is damage to the roads.” Large trucks hauling machinery and polluted water used in hydraulic fracturing – the type of drilling used to stimulate the release of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale – will take a toll on the township’s roads, Sutton added.

Iwanoski said the board plans to meet with representatives from Whit Mar, the Denver-based firm that has a hold on the area’s gas leases.

In another matter, Sutton addressed complaints made by several Oak Drive residents at last month’s meeting regarding the condition of their road. Sutton said the residents complained that their road is riddled with potholes and is dangerous to drive on.

“There was a lot of exaggeration at the last meeting,” he said. He said he tested the road on his way home from that meeting. “The road is very safe. It was very easy to drive.”

Iwanoski added the road didn’t qualify for a state grant to pave it. He said the road crew patched the potholes the day after the complaints were made.

Copyright: Times Leader

By Rory Sweeney[email protected]
Staff Writer

TUNKHANNOCK – As if responding to previous community criticism about a similar facility, company officials hoping to build a drilling-waste treatment plant near Meshoppen said Tuesday recycling water is part of their plans.

“It makes sense to reuse this water,” said Ron Schlicher, an engineer consulting for the treatment company. “The goal here is to strive for 100-percent reuse, so we don’t have to discharge.”

Wyoming Somerset Regional Water Resources Corp. is proposing a facility in Lemon Township in Wyoming County to treat water contaminated during natural-gas drilling in a process called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”

To do so, it requires a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

That process includes a period of public comment, for which the hearing at the Tunkhannock Middle School on Tuesday evening was held.

Wyoming Somerset is the second company to propose such a facility in Wyoming County. Two weeks ago, DEP held a similar hearing for North Branch Processing LLC, which wants to build a plant just outside Tunkhannock in Eaton Township to discharge up to 500,000 gallons daily of the treated waste into the Susquehanna River.

Citizens attending that hearing complained that the discharges could potentially harm the river’s ecology and suggested that the waste simply be recycled into other fracking jobs.

Wyoming Somerset’s proposal is to discharge up to 380,000 gallons daily into the Meshoppen Creek, but company officials said they hoped to sell it all back to drillers instead.

“The discharges need to be in place to make sure that the weather doesn’t have an adverse effect on operations of cleaning the water,” said Larry Mostoller, Wyoming Somerset’s president. “I’ll be willing to drink what we produce. I’ll be willing to drink what comes out of this plant, and you can hold me to that.”

That promise and the vague goal of full reuse didn’t sit well with the roughly 75 citizens who attended the hearing. Questioning everything from why the facility couldn’t guarantee zero discharges to its proposed site, residents came out squarely against the plan.

Many non-residents joined them, including two from Bucks County, one an environmental scientist and the other a lawyer, and a man from New Jersey.

Don Williams, a Susquehanna River advocate from Lycoming County, warned that cashing in on the gas-laden Marcellus Shale is “jeopardizing our land and our feature for the false promise of jobs” and money.

Of particular frustration for many were the unknown details about the plant’s design. Schlicher presented an overview of it, noting reverse-osmosis filters, evaporation tanks and a three-tiered output to provide drillers with water at various levels of treatment.

The water that could potentially be discharged would be “essentially meeting drinking water standards for most things,” Schlicher said, but not everything, including lead, aluminum and iron “because the surface water body can handle them,” he said.

Design specifics won’t be known until the second part of the application, when the company proposes how it will meet its discharge limits. That part likely won’t have a public hearing, DEP officials noted.

Those wishing to comment on the proposed facility may do so until Oct. 30 by contacting the DEP. The number for its Wilkes-Barre office is (570) 826-2511.

Copyright: Times Leader

Eileen Godin Times Leader Correspondent

LAKE TWP – Concerns over gas drilling and a nuisance property brought two different groups to Wednesday’s supervisors meeting.

Ron Kirkutis and others expressed concerns over possible air and water pollution caused by Marcellus Shale gas drilling.

Kirkutis said information he read revealed about 280 chemicals are used in the fluid the gas drilling companies use.

“Some chemicals are carcinogenic,” he said. “I have a newborn and a 3-year-old. What if that seeps into my well water?”

“I do not want to see a gas drilling operation going on next door,” he said.

Luzerne Conversation District member and Township Supervisor Amy Salansky said residents who lease their property should make sure the gas company is required to test the well water.

She also assured residents that no gas drilling permits have been issued in Lake Township.

Township Attorney Mark McNealis said the supervisors will not have much control over gas drilling.

“The supervisors do not oversee the zoning within the township. That falls under the Luzerne County zoning office, but talk to DEP (the state Department of Environmental Protection), talk to your agencies,” he said.

Also concerned with pollution, resident Leonard Ruotolo complained about a nuisance property.

Ruotolo along with residents Lewis and Edna Higgins, told the supervisors that William Harrison did not comply with the state DEP’s 45-day timeframe to clean up his property, and the situation is getting worst.

DEP issued a citation in August ordering Harrison to clean up three trash piles on his Tulip Road property.

The matter is now awaiting action by DEP’s compliance and legal teams.

McNealis said this is coming down to an enforcement matter. He said residents should contact the district attorney’s office and state Rep. Karen Boback, the county zoning office and the state police.

Copyright: Times Leader