Wastewater Requirements Topic of Marcellus Meeting
Washington PA Observer-Reporter
30 January 2010
By Christie Campbell, Staff writer
chriscam@observer-reporter.com
Natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale reserve has the potential
to bring revenue and jobs to Pennsylvania, but protection of the
state's resources - especially water - is of paramount importance to
any regulation that permits the activity.
So said a number of people who testified during a fact-finding hearing
on wastewater treatment issues related to Marcellus Shale drilling held
Wednesday before the state Senate Environmental Resources & Energy
Committee in Harrisburg. The committee is chaired by Sen. Mary Jo
White, R-Oil City. Sen. J. Barry Stout, D-Bentleyville, is a minority
member.
At issue are proposed revisions from the state Department of
Environmental Protection to the state's wastewater treatment
requirements on the discharges. If approved, it would take effect next
January.
Patrick Henderson, executive director of the Environmental Resource and
Energy Committee, said the regulation would establish a statewide
standard on total dissolved solids that wastewater plants would have to
meet before discharging into a river or stream.
TDS can include inorganic salts or organic matter, or may contain
contaminants such as toxic metals and organic pollutants. TDS sources
can be anything from storm-water runoff to meat packing plants,
beverage processing facilities, oil and gas drilling and abandoned mine
drainage.
John Hines, deputy secretary for the Office of Water Management for the
DEP, said the TDS problem is "a very real threat to Pennsylvania's
waterways." He pointed out that TDS levels exceeded drinking water
standards along the Monongahela River in 2008 and 2009.
"The Marcellus Shale gas reserve is enormous. It potentially holds
enough gas to fully supply the nation for 10 or more years. Producing
the gas will create hundred of billions of new wealth and tens of
thousands of jobs, profoundly changing Pennsylvania and its economy,
but not at the sacrifice of our water resources," Hines said.
Also speaking before the committee was Erika Staaf, the clean water
advocate for PennEnvironment, a citizen advocacy organization.
While Staaf applauded the DEP for addressing the wastewater treatment
requirements, she went on to say that protection would further be
ensured if the TDS threshold was set as a daily maximum, not a monthly
average.
PennEnvironment also wants standards not currently included in the DEP
proposal to include bromides or brominated disinfection byproducts,
arsenic, benzene and radium. The contaminants, which are carcinogenic,
can be found in Marcellus wastewater or fracking fluids.
However, Paul Hart, president of Hart Resource Technologies Inc. and
Pennsylvania Brine Treatment, recommended cleanup of abandoned lands
known to contain sulfates first before instituting a policy that would
target manufacturing, mining or electric generation.
"If the proposed strategy is implemented as is, it will have little or
no impact on the existing TDS levels, because the strategy does not
address the primary source of TDS," he said.
Noting that while the TDS levels exceeded DEP water quality criteria in
October and November 2008, a study by Tectra Tech showed they were
significantly below the limits that December.
Another concern mentioned by Hart, whose company is the only one in the
state that operates a crystallization system to treat high chloride
fluids, is that no suitable facility exists for treating wastewater
under the proposed discharge requirements.
Henderson said the committee is expected to issue a comment on the
proposed regulation.