State Has No Specific Rules on Containing Fracking Water Spills

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
26 April 2011
By Timothy Puko

Murky rainwater pools on hundreds of square feet of black plastic that covers the ground beneath the drilling rig at Consol Energy Inc.'s Nineveh gas well in Morris, Greene County.

The plastic should catch any minor spills of gas- and chemical-laced water at this Marcellus shale wellhead.

For larger spills, the ground is graded, sloping four feet from one side of the well pad to the other, to channel runoff into a containment pit.

When deep drilling starts, the company will have at least a one-foot high berm around the pad and enough emergency equipment to siphon away more than 10 million gallons of water in a catastrophic spill.

And yet, state regulators don't require any of those measures to contain a blowout similar to one last week at a Chesapeake Energy Corp. well in Bradford County that sent thousands of gallons of chemically laced drilling fluid into a tributary of Towanda Creek. The Sierra Club asked the Department of Environmental Protection to revise its deep-shale well permit system because of the incident.

"What happened to Chesapeake, that's a concern for me, too," said Jeff Boggs, vice president of drilling operations for Consol. "I can't say that with what we do, that's never going to happen to us. We try to think out all the contingencies that could happen. ... What separates you is your plan and how you react."

DEP leaves emergency planning up to gas drillers, and despite concerns over salty, toxic wastewater and spills that contaminated waterways at two Pennsylvania sites since June, the department says it doesn't have specific rules for how companies should contain spills.

The Chesapeake spill, stopped after two days of work to cap the well, shows mandated contingency plans are inadequate, said Thomas Au, conservation chair of the Sierra Club's Pennsylvania chapter and its water quality committee's co-chair.

Chesapeake had containment measures there, but the amount of flowback overwhelmed them, regional DEP spokesman Dan Spadoni wrote in an e-mail. Chesapeake said it used a sump and dug ditches to channel the spill water into a previously constructed sediment trap.

Berms and impermeable plastic are common on the company's wells, especially in hilly, rainy areas near waterways, the company said in a statement. At the Bradford County well, it had an earthen berm that was somewhat compromised by recent rains.

DEP relies on prevention and contingency plans, and erosion and sediment controls that it requires from each driller to handle emergencies, said Jamie Legenos, its spokeswoman in Harrisburg.

"I would imagine it would be a good practice if they would write it into the law," said University of Pittsburgh professor Radisav D. Vidic, who studies wastewater from shale drilling. "When the flowback water comes out, they have those sand catchers and stuff, there's a lot of splashing around. ... It would just be common sense to say, 'Look here, if I'm preparing food at home, I'm going to put something underneath to clean it up.' "

Drillers must explain what they'll do with spilled water and chemicals, and have countermeasures in place for spills, according to the DEP website. They must include a list of clean-up equipment and up-to-date contact information for permitted waste treatment facilities and haulers to take it away.

If the department outlined more specifics, it would help set a baseline of best practices the industry should use to contain spills, Vidic said. The department did just that for the drilling process in February, outlining new specific rules to improve drilling, casing, cementing, testing, monitoring and plugging to keep oil and gas from leaching from wellheads into public water sources.

Spokesmen could not say whether the department has considered tightening the rules for what goes in those plans. The DEP is constantly reviewing all of its regulations, said Katy Gresh, a DEP spokeswoman in Pittsburgh.

"I just don't think that (spill containment) is something we can say, 'Yes, we're definitely working on this,' or 'No, we definitely aren't,' because we're always considering everything that comes to us," Gresh said.

Chesapeake suspended all well completions in the Marcellus shale while it investigates the accident and inspects its other wellheads, according to a company statement. The well has been stable and has not been leaking since Thursday, and efforts at a permanent cap are ongoing, spokesman Rory Sweeney said.

"At Chesapeake, our commitment to the environment and doing things the right way justifies all of these costly measures which are above and beyond any PA DEP requirements," the statement read.

The best innovations are coming at water impoundments, Range Resources Corp. spokesman Matt Pitzarella said in an e-mail. Electronic monitoring and underground drainage systems are allowing workers to spot leaks faster and keep water in catch basins and closed loops that lead water back to the impoundments.

Spill kits, absorbent materials and vacuum trucks all help, and they are all accounted for in engineering and emergency plans approved by the DEP, he added.

"You have to try to rehearse the worst-case scenario as best as you can," said Sam McLaughlin, vice president of Consol's Southwestern Pennsylvania Operations. "We need to get as efficient at emergency response as we are at drilling the gas well."

Timothy Puko can be reached at tpuko@tribweb.com or 412-320-7991.