W.Va. Wants Details on Gas Drillers’ Water Use
Morgantown Dominion Post
12 March 2010
Associated Press
CHARLESTON — The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection
(DEP) has begun gathering more detailed information about where oil and
gas producers are getting water to drill their wells and how they’ll
dispose of it afterward.
A new online form requires companies to cite the source of the water
they’re withdrawing, as well as how they plan to treat it and dispose
of it afterward.
The form, issued last week, must be completed when an operator is using
more than 750,000 gallons to hydraulically fracture or ‘‘frack’’ a well
in any natural gas formation, said Scott Mandirola, acting director of
the Division of Water and Waste Management.
It applies not only to the massive Marcellus shale field, but also to
companies fracking for coalbed methane.
The new form seeks more detailed information than in the past,
including: latitudes and longitudes; volumes and dates of water
withdrawals; well names, numbers and target formations; volumes
injected; and locations of disposal sites, whether through underground
injection, treatment plant, land application or reuse.
A typical Marcellus shale well requires about a million gallons of
water. Drillers inject the water, mixed with sand and chemicals, into
tightly compacted rock to force open channels and allow oil and gas to
flow.
Fracking has come under increasing scrutiny as drilling crews flock to
the Marcellus region, a gas reserve the size of Greece that lies about
6,000 feet beneath New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.
Last month, several congressmen concerned about potential environmental
and public health problems asked eight oil and gas companies to provide
information about those chemicals, including benzene, toluene,
ethylbenzene and xylene.
A 2004 study by the Environmental Protection Agency said there was no
evidence fracking threatens drinking water, but critics contend the
report’s methodology was flawed.
West Virginia’s new disposalplan requirement builds on an existing
pre-use report that had been required by the DEP’s Office of Oil and
Gas.
In January, that office began requiring operators expecting to use more
than 210,000 gallons of water to estimate volumes, identify sources and
explain disposal methods.
Brian Carr, of the Office of Oil and Gas, said the new form was
required under a 2008 amendment to the state Water Resources Protection
and Management Act.
The information collected will help create a state Water Management
Plan, which is due with the Legislature in 2013.