DOH to Use Gas Well Brine to Treat Roads
A new agreement will allow state road crews to use natural gas well
brines to prevent and remove ice from roads in the winter.
The State Journal
12 August 2010
By Pam Kasey
The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has entered an
agreement with the state Division of Highways setting standards for
natural gas well brines used for winter road safety.
“This allows us a more readily available source of brine,” said
Department of Transportation spokesman Brent Walker.
The agreement allows the use of natural gas well brines for
pre-wetting, or mixing with rock salt to prevent clumping; anti-icing,
or applying to roads before precipitation; and deicing, or applying
during and after precipitation.
The agreement has been in the works for more than a year, according to
DEP Water and Waste Management Director Scott Mandirola, and was set in
motion when someone suggested that natural gas well brines could
replace the brine DOH was mixing from rock salt mined in the Great
Lakes region.
“That ended up containing a fair amount of soil, and with that you get
iron and other metals,” Mandirola said. “It was going relatively
unchecked. We sat down and looked at some specs and came up with some
limits that were better than the quality of what was currently being
used.”
With regard to salts, the agreement sets maximum concentration levels
for chloride and sodium and a minimum level for the combination of
those salts and calcium — all related to the brine’s freezing
temperature.
With regard to other aspects of natural gas well brine, the memo
establishes levels for pH, iron, barium, lead, oil and grease, benzene
and ethylbenzene.
For each new source of brine to be used on roadways, DOH has to submit
an analysis of these criteria to the DEP.
The intention behind the agreement was to use brine that is generated
during the ongoing production of natural gas, Mandirola said, not to
use the hydraulic fracturing fluid that comes back when Marcellus Shale
wells are “fracked.” That fluid contains additives to make it thicker
and slicker.
However, Louis Bonasso, owner of the AOP Clearwater facility in
Fairmont that distills frack flowback and leaves behind a concentrated
brine, said that just a little more treatment would qualify his brine
under the standards set out in the agreement.
“We are currently making 50,000 gallons minimum a day,” said Bonasso,
who would like to sell his brine as a byproduct. “I’m excited by this.”
Mandirola expressed concerns about using this fluid.
He specifically mentioned what’s known as Naturally Occurring
Radioactive Material, or NORM, which has been found in some Marcellus
Shale “hot spots” in Pennsylvania. NORM hasn’t been ruled out in West
Virginia.
In addition, when operators at the Clarksburg wastewater treatment
plant wanted to treat Marcellus Shale brine, the DEP required the plant
to test for about 30 other substances that are not mentioned in the
agreement with DOH, including arsenic, mercury and selenium.
While Mandirola conceded that some brine applied to roadways will find
its way to the state’s waters, he said the standards set in the
agreement were not aimed at maintaining water quality standards. “What
we came up with here is equal to or better than what’s been happening,”
he said.
“From a public safety perspective, you have to allow de-icing,” he
said. “I wouldn’t necessarily say it outweighs the water quality
issues, but in most cases during storm events you’ve got high flow
conditions and a lot more dilution available to assimilate the
potential contaminants that are used in road salt.”
He noted the agreement establishes application rates aimed at
minimizing runoff — 10 gallons per ton for pre-wetting, 50 gallons per
lane-mile for anti-icing and 100 gallons per lane-mile for de-icing.
Walker said DOH maintains 76,000 lane-miles statewide.
The department will bid the brine out and is looking for a price of
about 5 cents per gallon, he said. It will probably distribute about
1.2 million gallons of brine at 123 sites around the state to start the
road treatment season and will purchase further brine as needed.