WV to Monitor Mon River for Drilling Wastewater

Charleston Gazette
14 April 2009

By the Associated Press

Morgantown, WV - West Virginia plans to install at least four real-time monitors along the Monongahela River to detect salty wastewater from gas well drilling.

The wastewater is produced as drillers break apart rock to reach gas deposits locked in deep Marcellus shale formations. Companies must dispose of it, but last fall, Pennsylvania treatment plants couldn't clean it properly, and thousands of residents ended up with smelly water.

Patrick Campbell, of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, said the state will monitor total dissolved solids, which are not currently regulated in West Virginia, and discuss possible standards later this spring.

The U.S. Geologic Survey and the Army Corps of Engineers will help install the monitors in West Virginia, Campbell said Monday at a conference in Morgantown. Another 15 monitors will likely be installed elsewhere along the main stem of the river and some of its major tributaries.

The Division of Natural Resources is also interested in the potential wastewater problem and will begin a fish monitoring program on the river next month.

Barry Pallay, vice president of the Upper Mon River Association, said his organization supports a limit on total dissolved solids, which Pennsylvania already regulates.

The DEP is also currently taking comments on proposed guidelines for Marcellus shale drilling that would require operators to report where they plan to draw water and how they will dispose of it. Regulating such withdrawals would require legislative approval, Campbell said.

Now, drillers submit reports on water use after the fact, and only if their withdrawal is above a certain limit. The Water Resources Protection Act requires water users to report when they withdraw more than 750,000 gallons of water in any given month.

Cindy Rank of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy wants the state to go further with its regulations and prevent problems.

"The guidance that's out there now is so preliminary that it's really not going to do anything," she said.

The 128-mile-long Monongahela River is formed by the Tygart and West Fork rivers near Fairmont. It flows northward to Pittsburgh, where it joins with the Allegheny to form the Ohio.