Fracking Water: It's Just So Hard to Clean

Despite the fact that they've been in use for very

some time to treat water from traditional oil and
gas operations, lots of facilities of this type have
been located lacking and some have even incurred
fines for failure to meet Clean Water Act or other
regulatory requirements.
You could say that the final results raise some concerns:
* Assumes half of the wastewater treated at the facility is wastewater from Marcellus Shale gas
wells.
. (Additional here [pdf].)
RO Systems
Chloride and bromide concentrations downstream of the plant were on average 4.5 and 12 times
background levels. The concern is that by hanging around at elevated concentrations, it can
potentially be a extended-term supply of radiation for nearby aquatic life. This level of radiation
exceeds the level for application to soil and may well also exceed some landfill limits as nicely.
Among the much more vexing is the potential for considerable environmental costs. _________________
You gotta feel undesirable for the gas firms. Environmental Protection Agency and the Pennsylvania
Department of Environmental Protection "since at least July 2011, when the agency tested the
sediments at Blacklick Creek and found radioactivity larger than the base line established by EPA."
(Study more right here.) In a settlement [pdf] with EPA, Fluid Recovery Solutions LLC, the parent
company of the Josephine Brine Therapy Plant and two other facilities exactly where contamination
was identified, agreed to expected upgrades, tighter treatment requirements, and monitoring for
radioactivity once the plant begins accepting shale gas wastewater. energy plants.
Hydraulic fracturing, as the term implies, entails water -- both at the front finish with fracking fluid,
the water-based chemical cocktail that is injected into the shale, and at the back finish where there
is flowback water and produced water.
Ideally, the water would be reused or recycled, eliminating the will need for quick disposal. Bromide
enrichment can be a issue for downstream drinking water treatment facilities given that
carcinogenic compounds kind throughout chlorination in the presence of bromide.
But there are so-known as brine treatment plants that are at least in principle equipped to handle
that level of contamination. As component of the treatment, chemicals are added to the fracking
wastewater to precipitate out salts and metals. More than a two-year period beginning in August
2010, Warner et al. Fracking wastewater can include enormous amounts of brine (salts), toxic
metals, and radioactivity. And solutions to reuse far more are getting created. And, at 1st blush, a
fuel that's very good for the atmosphere: all-natural gas is the cleanest of the fossil fuels and has
already begun displacing coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, in U.S. Even so, that leaves a enormous
amount of toxic wastewater to be disposed of.
Particularly, the authors looked at the effluent from the Josephine Brine Treatment Facility in
western Pennsylvania and its effect on downstream water quality and sediment. calculate that every
kilogram of the resulting sludge could include roughly 900 becquerels of radium* (at 900 becquerels
of radioactivity, 900 atoms of radium decay each and every second emitting a high-energy alpha
particle and leaving behind a radioactive gas, radon). Their shale gas boom keeps coming up with
cracks they have to have to seal up -- in this case the crack is leaking some truly foul water.
Flowback water (which literally "flows back" during the fracking method) is a mixture of fracking
fluid and formation water (i.e., water rich in brine from the targeted shale gas-rich rock). The plant
was identified to contribute about 90 % of the downstream chloride content material. Measurements
suggest that, at least in some instances, drilling operations that involve fracking have caused
contamination of surface and drinking water, and fracking operations, like all natural gas drilling,
cause the leakage of methane, a strong greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. And if it exceeds
landfill limits, then it has to be treated as a hazardous waste, which is another can of radioactive and
contaminated worms in its personal right.
Now a paper published this week in the journal Environmental Science and Technologies by
Nathaniel Warner formerly of Duke University and colleagues focuses on one more of these
environmental costs: disposal of wastewater.
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So how effectively do these facilities genuinely do? What is their downstream influence? Warner and
his colleagues set out to find out.
What a bonanza: a new and sizable supply of all-natural gas. In the Marcellus Shale gas nation of
Pennsylvania, for example, a substantial percentage of the water, in the vicinity of 70 percent, is
presently reused. Warner et al. The plant, which only treats oil and gas wastewater, dumps its
effluent into Blacklick Creek, a kayaking and whitewater destination. Combined with horizontal
drilling, fracking has allowed us to access huge amounts of heretofore unrecoverable organic gas.
End Note
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Although radioactive "radium [was] substantially (&gt90%) reduced in the treated effluents," stream
sediments at the point of discharge were about 200 occasions background levels. The fantastic news
is that most of the radium appears to be localized in those nearby sediments**. As soon as the
chemistry of the water coming out of the properly resembles the rock formation rather than the
fracking fluid, it is recognized as made water and can continue to flow as lengthy as a well is in
operation. (For more, see "All-natural Gas, Hydrofracking and Security: The 3 Faces of Fracking
Water.")
A single disposal route is injection into deep wells, and a good deal of flowback and created water
from the Marcellus Shale is transported to Ohio for just such a deep burial. And plants like Eureka's
are not a panacea: even these plants have to deal with the sludge that is left behind, they are high-
priced, and at least for now, their present capacity is rather restricted.
Complications With Fracking
The Effluent From a Plant Developed to Treat Fracking Effluent
Effluent is not the only byproduct. But this method has its personal problems -- the injection
approach has the inconvenient habit of causing an earthquake each now and again.
A further crack in the "fracking is protected" story for the sector to address.
Crossposted with TheGreenGrok and National Geographic's
Wastewater Complication
As a common rule, you would not want to take a shower significantly less drink flowback or
formation water, nor would you want to just pour the stuff into a river or stream (although that has
been identified to come about, as described right here and here). It also has the potential to be
remobilized and transported downstream ultimately.
But alas, as with most too-very good-to-be-correct things, fracking's got some downsides. One
sophisticated plant I visited for the duration of an eco-reality-discovering trip to Pennsylvania in June
2012, run by Eureka Resources, appeared to do a quite thorough job of obtaining contaminants out
of wastewater from fracking operations (see photo), but even it has garnered some air top quality
violations from EPA. And so the gas corporations have a issue: what to do with the stuff.
** In 2011, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection found levels of radium had
been still elevated in samples collected 20 meters downstream from the point of discharge.
You know that fracking issue? For the uninitiated, hydraulic fracturing (a k a fracking) is the method
of injecting water, sand and chemical substances at high pressures into shale and other tight rock
formations to release the fuel trapped inside. Considering that the fracking rush is way previous the
begin phase, these are almost certainly not non-starters for fracking, but they do represent massive
challenges for business and government who need to have to make positive they are appropriately
addressed.
Yet another alternative is waste therapy: removing the contaminants and then dumping the"clean"
water into a nearby sewer or river. collected effluent as effectively as downstream and background
water and sediment samples, and analyzed them for key contaminants and radioactivity.
Certainly, these issues have been on the radar of the U.S. And just like the water from the plant,
plant operators have to have a place to send the precipitates to. And certainly there is a lot of that.
But you cannot use a normal municipal water treatment plant to treat flowback and produced water
as these facilities are just not designed to handle the level of contamination, particularly
radioactivity, found in these waters. (See here, right here, right here, right here and here.)
The Effluent From a Plant Developed to Treat Fracking Effluent
Are all remedy plants like Josephine? I suspect not