Frack Check WV » frackwater

Further Evidence of Stream Contamination by Toxic Frack Water

Duane Nichols — Thu, 12 May 2016 17:31:00 +0000

See the Note in the Article.

Unconventional Oil & Gas Wastewaters Affect WV Surface-Water Stream

From the US Geological Survey, Reston, VA, May 9, 2016

These are the first published studies to demonstrate water-quality impacts to a surface stream due to activities at an unconventional oil and gas wastewater deep well injection disposal site.

Evidence indicating the presence of wastewaters from unconventional oil and gas production was found in surface waters and sediments near an underground injection well near Fayetteville, West Virginia, according to two recent studies by the U.S. Geological Survey, University of Missouri, and Duke University.

These are the first published studies to demonstrate water-quality impacts to a surface stream due to activities at an unconventional oil and gas wastewater deep well injection disposal site. The studies did not assess how the wastewaters were able to migrate from the disposal site to the surface stream. The unconventional oil and gas wastewater that was injected in the site came from coalbed methane and shale gas wells.

“Deep well injection is widely used by industry for the disposal of wastewaters produced during unconventional oil and gas extraction,” said USGS scientist Denise Akob, lead author on the current study. “Our results demonstrate that activities at disposal facilities can potentially impact the quality of adjacent surface waters.”

The scientists collected water and sediment samples upstream and downstream from the disposal site. These samples were analyzed for a series of chemical markers that are known to be associated with unconventional oil and gas wastewater. In addition, in a just-published collaborative study tests known as bioassays were done to determine the potential for the impacted surface waters to cause endocrine disruption.

Waters and sediments collected downstream from the disposal facility were elevated in constituents that are known markers of UOG wastewater, including sodium, chloride, strontium, lithium and radium, providing indications of wastewater-associated impacts in the stream.

“We found endocrine disrupting activity in surface water at levels that previous studies have shown are high enough to block some hormone receptors and potentially lead to adverse health effects in aquatic organisms,” said Susan C. Nagel, director of the EDC study and associate professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women’s Health at University of Missouri.

Scientists analyzed the microbial communities in sediments downstream. These microbes play an important role in ecosystems’ food webs.

“These initial findings will help us design further research at this and similar sites to determine whether changes in microbial communities and water quality may adversely impact biota and important ecological processes,” said Akob.

Production of unconventional oil and gas resources yields large volumes of wastewater, which are commonly disposed of using underground injection. In fact, more than 36,000 of these disposal wells are currently in operation across the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the volume of unconventional oil and gas wastewater requiring disposal has continued to grow despite a slowing in drilling and production.

“Considering how many wastewater disposal wells are in operation across the country, it’s critical to know what impacts they may have on the surrounding environment,” said Duke University scientist Christopher Kassotis, the lead author on one of the studies. “These studies are an important first step in that process.”

Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that interfere with normal functioning of organisms’ hormones.

The studies were published in Environmental Science and Technology and Science of the Total Environment and can be found here. They are titled:

“Wastewater Disposal from Unconventional Oil and Gas Development Degrades Stream Quality at a West Virginia Injection Facility,” with Akob as the lead author
“Endocrine Disrupting Activities of Surface Water Associated with a West Virginia Oil and Gas Industry Wastewater Disposal Site,” with Kassotis as the lead author

This study is part of USGS research into the possible risks to water quality and environmental health posed by waste materials from unconventional oil and gas development. The USGS Toxic Substances Hydrology Program and the USGS Environmental Health Mission Area provide objective scientific information on environmental contamination to improve characterization and management of contaminated sites, to protect human and environmental health, and to reduce potential future contamination problems.

NOTE: Map of sampling locations near Fayetteville, WV within the Wolf Creek watershed (A) and specific sites (B) in a stream running adjacent to a class II disposal facility. Panel A shows that Site 2 was located in a separate drainage from the disposal facility sites (outlined in black box), which are shown in panel B (Sites 4, 5, 6, 7 and 3). In panel B, the blue line highlights the stream and the yellow outline is the location of the former impoundment ponds.

Wheeling Water Warriors in Garden Park on Saturday

Duane Nichols — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 15:30:13 +0000

: Ohio County Program on Ohio River

Wheeling Water Warriors: Awareness Rally

This Saturday, 6/15/13, from noon to 4:00 pm in Garden Park in Warwood the Wheeling Water Warriors are having an awareness rally.

There will be free music provided by Joe Zelek, Cabin Fever Strings Band, and Uncle Eddie and Robin.

Dr. Ben Stout, Professor of Biology at Wheeling Jesuit University, will be speaking on the six (6) reasons Greenhunter should not open their proposed facility in Warwood. Lots of information and handouts will be available.

There will be free children’s activities as well. We hope to see you all there!!!!

Erin Bowers, Wheeling Water Warriors

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Opposition to GreenHunter Frack Water Plant Persists

From Article By Ian Hicks, Wheeling Intelligencer, June 4, 2013

As GreenHunter Water officials prepare to present their site plan for a proposed frack wastewater recycling facility in Warwood to the Wheeling Planning Commission, residents who fear for the safety of their drinking water again brought their concerns to City Council.

“You’re sitting in those chairs because the good people of Wheeling elected you to them. … The decisions you make or don’t make will impact many other people than in just Wheeling,” Warwood resident Robin Mahonen told council members during their meeting Tuesday.

Mozart Road resident Erin Bowers also presented council members with copies of a 2011 U.S. Geological Survey study on the presence of radium in fracking wastewater. The study states radium levels are higher in produced water from the Marcellus Shale compared with other shale formations in the Appalachian Basin.

Although drilling waste set off radiation alarms more than 1,000 times at Pennsylvania landfills during 2012, neither the Nuclear Regulatory Commission nor the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection consider radioactive material in that waste to be dangerous.

The company has an easement it believes gives it the right to use an existing pipe that runs beneath the trail to load water onto barges for transport, but city officials contend GreenHunter Water would need a zone change to use the docks, which would require council’s approval.

But barge loading isn’t yet part of GreenHunter’s site plan because the Coast Guard and other federal agencies have yet to decide whether to allow transport of fracking wastewater on inland waterways. Company officials have said they will proceed with the Wheeling facility regardless of that decision and simply move the water by truck if necessary.

Councilwoman Gloria Delbrugge said city officials have been invited to tour GreenHunter Water’s plant in New Matamoras, Ohio, on Thursday morning, and the Wheeling Planning Commission will meet to review the company’s Warwood site plan at 6 p.m. Monday.

Delbrugge, who represents Warwood, has been an outspoken opponent of the planned facility since the company announced its acquisition of the former Seidler’s Oil Service Property on North 28th Street in March.

Frack Water Too Contaminated For Sewage Treatment Plants

Duane Nichols — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 01:54:53 +0000

: Sewage Plant Effluent

WV and PA Discourage Processing Frackwater at Sewage Plants

From the Article by Leigh Krietsch Boerner, Chemical & Engineering News, March 18, 2013

When energy companies extract natural gas trapped deep underground, they’re left with water containing high levels of pollutants, including salts, benzene and barium. Sometimes the gas producers dispose of this contaminated water by sending it to wastewater treatment plants that deal with sewage and water from other industrial sources.

But a new study suggests that the plants can’t handle this water’s high levels of contaminants: Water flowing out of the plants into the environment still has elevated levels of the chemicals from natural gas production (Environ. Sci. Technol., DOI: 10.1021/es301411q).

In 2010, about 23% of U.S. natural gas production involved a process called hydraulic fracturing or fracking. Workers inject high volumes of water at high pressures into the ground to break shale rock formations and to release trapped natural gas. Up to 80% of that injected water returns to the surface, where it’s collected as wastewater.

Currently, companies deal with this leftover water by reusing it, injecting it into deep storage wells, or sending it through sewage treatment plants.

However, in May, 2011, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection asked that the state’s treatment plants voluntarily stop processing fracking wastewater. The request came in response to public concern over elevated bromide levels in the Pennsylvania Monongahela River watershed—an area with facilities that treat water from natural gas production. Scientists hadn’t definitively pinpointed fracking waste as the source of this pollution. In general, researchers haven’t studied how fracking wastewater affects the quality of water leaving sewage plants.

To learn more, Kyle J. Ferrar, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, and his colleagues analyzed water from treatment facilities that initially processed fracking water and then later complied with the state’s recommendation. They took water samples from one private and two public facilities in Pennsylvania that treated water from the nearby Marcellus Shale region, the largest shale basin in the U.S. They collected samples both before and after the department’s request.

Using a variety of spectroscopic techniques, the team measured levels of chemicals found in gas production waste but aren’t typically present in other industrial wastewaters. Although levels of these chemicals varied widely among the three treatment plants, in general, concentrations dropped significantly after the plants stopped taking the fracking waste, Ferrar says. For example, at a municipal plant in Greene County, average barium concentrations fell from 5.99 to 0.14 mg/L.

But when the plants still handled the waste, levels of several of the chemicals exceeded drinking water standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. At the Greene County plant, the levels of barium and strontium, two toxic metals found in fracking wastewater, were on average 5.99 and 48.3 mg/L, respectively. EPA drinking water standards for these metals are 2 and 4 mg/L, respectively.

Carl Kirby, a professor of geology at Bucknell University who studies the environmental impact of Marcellus Shale gas production, says the human health impact of elevated contaminant levels from processed fracking water is unclear, because the water the team sampled is not used directly as drinking water. However, he points out that fracking contaminants eventually could reach larger water systems used for drinking water, albeit at significantly diluted levels.

Ferrar agrees that there is no immediate public health concern over the pollutant levels. But he does worry about how the elevated levels affect aquatic ecosystems receiving water from treatment plants. He hopes researchers will study further the impact of disposing of produced waters via wastewater treatment plants.