WASTEWATER ONSLAUGHT: The McKeesport Sewage Treatment Plant, one of nine plants on the Monongahela River that has treated wastewater from Marcellus Shale drilling operations.
Image: CREDIT: PROPUBLICA/JOAQUIN SAPIEN
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Workers at a steel mill and a power plant were the first to notice something strange about the Monongahela River last summer. The water that U.S. Steel and Allegheny Energy used to power their plants contained so much salty sediment that it was corroding their machinery. Nearby residents saw something odd, too. Dishwashers were malfunctioning, and plates were coming out with spots that couldn’t easily be rinsed off.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection soon identified the likely cause and came up with a quick fix. The Monongahela, a drinking water source for 350,000 people, had apparently been contaminated by chemically tainted wastewater from the state’s growing natural gas industry. So the DEP reduced the amount of drilling wastewater that was being discharged into the river and unlocked dams upstream to dilute the contamination.
But questions raised by the incident on the Monongahela haven’t gone away.
In August, contamination levels in the river spiked again, and the DEP still doesn’t know exactly why. And this month the DEP began investigating whether drilling wastewater contributed to the death of 10,000 fish on a 33-mile stretch of Dunkard Creek, which winds through West Virginia and feeds into the Monongahela. A spate of other water contamination problems have also been linked to gas drilling in Pennsylvania, including methane leaks that have affected drinking water in at least seven counties.
2011: 19 million gallons, per day
Pennsylvania is at the forefront of the nation’s gas drilling boom, with at least 4,000 new oil and gas wells drilled here last year alone, more than in any other state except Texas. This rapid expansion has forced state regulators to confront a problem that has been overlooked as gas drilling accelerates nationwide: How will the industry dispose of the enormous amount of wastewater it produces?
Oil and gas wells disgorge about 9 million gallons of wastewater a day in Pennsylvania, according to industry estimates used by the DEP. By 2011 that figure is expected to rise to at least 19 million gallons, enough to fill almost 29 Olympic-sized swimming pools every day. That’s more than all the state’s waterways, combined, can safely absorb, DEP officials say.
"I don’t know that even our [water] program people had any idea about the volumes of water that would be used," said Dana Aunkst, who heads the DEP’s water program.
Much of the wastewater is the byproduct of a drilling process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which pumps at least a million gallons of water per well deep into the earth to break layers of rock and release gas. When the water is sucked back out, it contains natural toxins dredged up during drilling, including cadmium and benzene, which both carry cancer risks. It can also contain small amounts of chemicals added to enhance drilling.
But DEP officials say one of the most worrisome contaminants in the wastewater is a gritty substance called Total Dissolved Solids, or TDS, a mixture of salt and other minerals that lie deep underground. Drilling wastewater contains so much TDS that it can be five times as salty as sea water.
Large quantities of TDS can clog machinery and affect the color, taste and odor of drinking water – precisely the problems reported along the Monongahela. While TDS isn’t considered particularly harmful to people, it can damage freshwater streams, which is what happened when TDS levels spiked in Dunkard Creek this month. West Virginia’s DEP is investigating whether TDS-laden wastewater from a coal mine near the creek could be to blame. It is also investigating reports that wastewater from natural gas wells may have been illegally dumped into the stream.
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21 Comments
Add CommentThis is another example of money trumping clean water. We know that the water source for mining the Marcellus Shale natural gas will have to be clean surface or well water, and that the consumption of the source water will deplete the streams and wells. At the same time we know that the polluted water recovered from the drilling will have to be disposed of in clean streams and possibly ground water. Clearly, the result will be the destruction of stream ecosystems and possibly pollution of clean ground water. One needs no college degree to reach this conclusion. A similar scenario occurred in Pennsylvania with the coal industry which polluted more stream miles than any other state, and we are still paying the ecological price. Now, here we go all over again, and this time it could be worse. This type of natural gas mining will always result in destroyed ecosystems, and we will be paying the ecological cost ourselves, and will leave this sorry legacy to our children and their children. They will ask what we were thinking. And we will say it's all about money. How dumb can we be?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMichael J. Sebetich
Talk about the blind and stupid leading the blind and stupid. Again greed triumphs and human life is sacrificed on the front line. If the people of these communities do not rise up and get this disaster under control, these drilling companys are going to destroy you...community by community. You are acting like sheep being led to the slaughter by these stupid ignorant SOBs'. Do something to stop this mass chemical genocide before it is too late. Don't let greed plant you and your children in these empty gas and coal graves. Your life is worth a lot more than the couple of dollars these thoughtless people are stuffing in the politicans' pockets.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat a familiar cycle. Greedy business causes giant environmental / health risk, agencies notice and wag their fingers, greedy business comforts everyone with long term plans to fix the problem, everyone calms down, and it's business as usual. Except NOTHING EVER CHANGES.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJames,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKind of extreme rhetoric on an issue for which the most damaging effects on humans appear to be spotty dishes. This isn't some big environmental disaster. TDS is salt. And for salt, dilution is a good solution.
You probably get more salt in streams in that area from ice control in the winter.
Relax a little. Enjoy life, spotty dishes and all.
Well, Soccerdad, people shouldn't curl up in a corner and whimper like a whipped pup and let these people poison their drinking water and food. There were more, and deadlier, chemicles listed than just TDS. If you drink enough of the TDS in the ocean, you will get brain damage and later die. I think that is serious enough for people to want to stop it being dumped into their water in such large quanties. These gas, oil, and coal companies shouldn't be dumping anything into the water and food supplies. As much as these companies care about our environment, a human would think that they are from another planet; come here to rape, pilfer and exterminate us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYea right JD, like people are dying off by the scores because of this issue.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople want natural gas, and apparently it takes some water to produce it. I agree there needs to be limits on discharge, but your hyperbole seems a bit extreme here.
Y'all are right! We need to stop natural gas drilling NOW!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKeep the status-quo!
(brought to you by the Coal Miners for Mountain Top Removal).
The problem: Oil & gas companies are in business to make a profit. Solution: Pennsylvania needs to modify it's environmental regulations to reduce or prevent the discharge of the contaminated water, which will include large fines for non-compliance. Then, the problem becomes the solution. In order to make a profit, the companies will have to avoid the fines. Environmental companies will then arrive and start competing with solutions to the contaminated water.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is exactly what has occurred in many similar scenarios.
It's all about money, so use that to get what you need. The environmental companies will need workers, i.e. more jobs and therefore more tax revenue. More tax revenue. Politicians love that so they will get right on it.
For those who think that this is simply a matter of spots on dishes, I suggest you read the letter to the editor I submitted to our local newspaper:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe identity of many of the chemicals used in gas extraction from Marcellus shale have not been disclosed by the drilling companies. Of those that have been reported, The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (www.endocrinedisruption.org) states that 73% are known to be damaging to human health. Of the damaging chemicals, 95% affect the respiratory system - and remember that Washington County and Allegheny County (PA) already are among the 35 counties in the entire United States with the lowest (worst) air quality.
Furthermore, 44% of the potentially harmful chemicals are endocrine disruptors that effect development and reproduction. Think bis-phenol A and hard plastic water bottles; think lowered sperm counts in males (hence increased difficulty in conceiving children) and increasingly early puberty in boys and girls; think about the mounting evidence for a connection between endocrine disruptors and autism.
Other of these chemicals affect the brain and nervous system, the heart, the liver, and the immune system. Approximately 30% are known to contribute to the development of cancer. Most of the effects are long-term and the extent of damage to human health wont be apparent for years or even decades after gas drilling has stopped.
The gas company will clean all of the chemicals out of the water they use? They regularly dump enormous amounts of dissolved salt and other dissolved solids into the Monongahela River as brine water from fracturing operations. Thats not counting the leaks and spills such as the one that wiped out fish and other wildlife in Cross Creek Park in May.
Not near the drilling operation? Dont breathe a sigh of relief 45% of the chemicals known to harm humans are volatile. Theyll get into the air and blow over everyones property, well or no well.
And that $40/month which is a realistic estimate for the payment youll get for the gas they extract from under your property? Better think about saving it for future medical bills.
I find it all quite ironic; for all the talk by the sound-byte seeking senators and President Obama clucking about the Canadian Oil Sands being "dirty oil", Canadian environmental protection laws are so stringent that any oil executives in Canada attempting this type of stunt would be thrown in jail.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess Greenpeace knows that they can raise more money chaining themselves to a conveyor belt in the pristine Canadian wilderness than to someones plugged up dishwasher in Allentown.
I am very afraid of what will happen to our water. We have a well! Where are we to get water from once the well is contaminated? They tell us that they will bring a truck of water to us once we prove that they caused the problem. We can not afford to keep paying some company to test our water, and that is what the drilling companies count on. How can we stop them? We can't! There are too many people with large properties ready to be paid! Then that leaves the rest of us, the people with an acre or two. We are bullied into signing the papers. I have been told by a representative from a drilling company that if I don't sign, they will drill under my land anyway, and we would never be able to prove it. He also said that if I don't sign and my water is contaminated, it would take years and years of lawyer fees and stress to get compensation. But if we sign, at least they will provide some kind of solution once we prove that the water wasn't contaminated prior to the drilling, or greater than six a month period. DEP? They state that they really have no say in what is underneath the ground, so therefore....we are screwed. Everyone caves in to the "all-mighty dollar". Our land wont be worth a dollar without water. I'll bet the taxes will increase because of the drilling though! They all have their hand stretched out for the money. How do we stop the drilling?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for getting politicians involved, that's a joke. They are too worried as to where they can profit from our losses. They are ready to spend that money! They don't care what happens to our land and water! Where are we to go? We can't afford to just walk away and buy another home, like they can. I have a mortgage and taxes to pay, children and animals to feed. Will my horses get sick or die because they are eating the grass? Will we end up getting some kind of cancer from bathing in the water? No one can answer these questions honestly, but they still keep drilling anyway. When I start asking about such things, the people who will benefit ask me why I want to stand in the way of progress! Bullies!!! Pennsylvania
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have also read that traces of radioactive contaminants come back with this water. Spotty glowing dishes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the gas drilling companies were required to decontaminate their waste water the real price for gas would be less competative and renewable sources of CLEAN energy would be more cost effective. We need to develop more suppliers of these truly green technologies yesterday! In the future there will be wars over water.....the future is sooner than you think.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSoccerdad,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't believe that you think polluting drinking water is not a problem. Too much salt is toxic. Not enough can kill you.
Look up salt on Wikipedia.
It's the other chemicals that's the problem. Read up on the subject. You have kids...Have you thought about their future?
TaraL,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm sorry about your problem.
I know that you can't trust other people...when it comes down to greed and money.
You have to help yourself somehow!
Is there a college near by that tests water or can help you?
Can you test the water for some chemicals yourself?
Have you learned as much as you can about the problems and what you can do to protect yourself?
There's got to be some way to work this out.
How much DAMAGE has to be caused before we realize that NATURAL GAS DRILLING is harmful. I feel betrayed and discouraged to be AMERICAN!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi said my problem is about the canal sucking to how to sove that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't believe this is happening in our country these gas companies should be charged with a crime. It is unamerican what these people are doing and the it needs to be stopped. Josh Fox's Gasland was a real eye opener and people need to listen. This is awful and needs to end.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo how long can you survive in the middle of the ocean with the only water to drink is the salt water from the ocean??????????????????
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCellBioProf, you wrote that people are getting is 40 dollars a month, are you for real??? Here in Texas people are getting thousands of dollars for a sighn on bounus and hundreds of dollars a month in royalty payments depending on how much land they have. ATTENTION to the people of the keystone state, you are sitting on a goal mind!!!! dont sighn on the dotted line until you talk to an attorney , one that you and some other home owners have picked out and tell haliburton, shell , phillips66, devon energy to show you the money. People here that have ranches in north west area of Fort Worth have made big money here. these companies have plenty of money to spend!!!!
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