Millions of gallons of drilling wastewater released to Pennsylvania Streams

By Nicholas Kusnetz
ProPublica, Jan. 5, 2011, 9:20 a.m. As gas-drilling operations proliferated in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale over the past couple of years, most of the hundreds of millions of gallons of briny wastewater they produced was eventually dumped into the state’s rivers. Much of the rest is unaccounted for. That news, from a detailed look [1] at the state’s management of drilling wastewater by the Associated Press, should come as no surprise to readers of this site. As we reported [2] in October 2009, Pennsylvania was largely unprepared for the vast quantities of salty, chemically tainted wastewater produced by drilling operations in the Marcellus, the gas-bearing shale formation that stretches under that state and into West Virginia, New York and Ohio. While the state Department of Environmental Protection called for the fluids to be sent through municipal treatment plants, those facilities are largely unable to remove the salts and minerals, also known as Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), from the waste. As our story noted, abnormally high salt levels in the Monongahela River in 2008 corroded machinery at a steel mill and a power plant that were drawing water from the river. The DEP suspected that drilling wastewater was the cause and ordered upstream treatment plants to reduce their output. But months later levels spiked again. AP examined the DEP’s first annual report of waste produced by drilling operations in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale area from July 2009 through June 2010. Among the AP findings:

More than 150 million gallons were discharged into rivers after passing through treatment plants in the 12-month period. Enough, as the AP put it, “to cover a square mile with more than 8 1/2 inches of brine.”
More than 50 million gallons, or about one-fifth of the total waste fluid, was unaccounted for because of “weakness” in the state’s reporting system or incomplete filings from drilling companies.

The AP report says researchers still don’t know whether high TDS levels are harmful to humans or wildlife. But the analysis found that some public water utilities had exceeded the federal limit for levels of cancer-causing trihalomethanes, which can form when chlorine in drinking-water treatment systems combines with bromide, which can be present in drilling waste. …