That number is straight from the industry and is inaccurate, according to other sources. A March 1, 2011 article in The New York Times noted that less than half of fracking wastewater was recycled by gas-drilling companies in Pennsylvania in the 18 months prior to last December. Howarth, who is an expert on the environmental impacts of hydro-fracking — two weeks ago, he was in Brussels providing testimony to the European Union, which is considering a ban on the drilling practice — said the amount of wastewater that’s recycled is a relatively small percentage. (The 90 percent figure was the result of an accounting error by the industry, he said.)
Not that recycling is the solution either, given that injecting the contaminated fluid back into the well risks contaminating the ground water. But that’s another story.
Expensive modifications
Regarding the DEC’s claim that WWTPs could be modified to accept the fracking wastewater, such retrofitting would be “shockingly expensive,” according to Walter Hang, owner of Toxics Targeting, an Ithaca-based research firm that archives and provides environmental data to government agencies, citizens, and businesses. “It’s never been done. The plants can’t handle gas drilling wastewater pollution.”
In its proposed regulations, the DEC categorizes the fracking wastewater, a combination of flowback water when the well is first drilled and production fluid, called brine, produced over the life of the well, as nonhazardous waste, due to the diluted concentrations of the chemicals. Nonetheless, Hang said the waste contains three categories of “extremely difficult-to-treat pollutants:” the previously mentioned TDS, which include a wide variety of toxic metals; petroleum hydrocarbons, which are found in the gas; and radionuclides (referred to as naturally occurring radioactive materials, or NORM, in the DEC SGEIS), which are radioactive particles.
The TDS aren’t biodegradable, said Hang, and thus immune to the bacteria that’s used to break down human waste in a sewage treatment plant. While some become concentrated in the sludge, most of the compounds pass right into the river or creek. Hydrocarbons, which include the solvents benzene and toluene in small concentrations, are “difficult to degrade and typically not broken down quickly enough. They survive and go into the water.”
Radionuclides are radioactive, so they can concentrate “in anything they come into contact with,” said Hang.
So far, only one WWTP in New York — Niagara Falls — has applied to accept hydraulic fracking wastewater under the new proposed regulations. That plant is unusual in that “it has activated carbon, which is designed to remove organic chemicals found in petroleum waste” — a throwback to the era when industrial facilities thrived in the area. (However, the plant can’t remove the TDS or radionuclides, Hang said.)
Where else would it go?
The DEC’s proposed regulations stipulate that producers of the fracking waste have a back-up to the WWTP for disposal. One option would be to dispose of the waste in deep wells. In Texas, where fracking first started 15 years ago, the gas companies dump the wastewater into abandoned gas or oil wells, which are abundant, according to Howarth. But New York State has only three comparable wells, all of which are already filled. Building new wells waste disposal is too expensive, he said.
Injecting the wastewater into underground wells might cause other problems, noted Kate Hudson, watershed program director for Riverkeeper. “There is an increased concern with migration of the fluids. Small earthquakes have also been associated with underground injections,” a correlation that led to a ban on disposal in underground wells in one Midwestern state, she said.
The upshot: “Dealing with gas-drilling wastewater is the Achilles’ heel of horizontal drilling,” said Hang. “The combined gas-drilling wastewater is very difficult to get rid of. This is the fatal flaw of the revised draft regulations.”
I think this is BS – a story meant to scare people with poor facts. Try some actual journalism for a change…
Based on what? If you genuinely care to find the truth, take a ride down to Bradford county, PA. I did, and I saw for myself firsthand the aftermath of hydrofracking. People are being poisoned, robbed (of land equity), and gagged (gag orders in exchange for water from the perpetrators of the aquifer contamination). Thousands of people’s lives have been utterly destroyed by hydrofracking. It’s not too late yet for you to see this, and do something to protect yourself from the same fate.
Perhaps, Bobalo Smith works for a gas company who wants to drill.
This is not news. Any industrial waste water can be considered uber-toxic. Uber being borderline hysterical. So much for un-biased reporting.
Why does one have to be un-biased about facts? Why are you so biased against simple caution and common sense?
Congratulations to the Kingston times for this informative article. Do you want to end up like the impoverished landowners in Appalachia? This is as destructive as mountain top removal coal mining. Don’t believe the hype the gas companies are spreading. We have a lot to defend.
speaking and acting graphically to wake up a population that has been Resting In Peace(r.i.p.) for so long seems to be unavoidable. Thank you for this information. I think more of this sort of reasoning is highly necessary.
Bobalo Smith and Ed Leighton,
Please explain why you think my article is “BS” and biased. What is the basis for your insinuation that disposal of fracking wastewater is safe, and that it’s “borderline hysterical” to assume otherwise? I, and the Kingston Times, strive for accuracy so we would very much like to know why you think this article is inaccurate.
Good journalism.
And when, for goodness sake, are we going to stop these insane methods of getting energy from the earth?! When, oh, when, will we use solar for our needs?
When Mario Cuomo was NYS governor, and the Shoreham nuclear plant was about to go online, protests erupted and he actually heeded the warnings of the dangers to NY residents and land: It didn’t open. So, Andrew? Do what your dad did and pay attention to the people. Stop hydrofracking; stop nuclear plants; do something honorable and make it a law that buildings be “solarized”; do it for the next generations, would ya?
People in favor of this terribly toxic method of getting energy from the earth support it for the love of money, and the lack of imagination and vision, lack of respect for nature. They insult and degrade those of us with higher values for being truth-tellers, and questioners of authority. Horizontal fracturing is a monstrous proposal. Any morally and intellectually average fifth grader would agree. The waste of our water resources alone is reason enough to reject it. Millions of gallons of clean water per well. Sick! All the other problems, such as what to do with the toxic waste just make it more and more abominable. People who don’t acknowledge this are just ridiculous, and amoral, or perhaps immoral, at least on environmental stewardship issues. Who told them they can do whatever they want in life, regardless of the costs? They must learn to respect others and not just steamroll their way through life. We must stop them from destroying what most of us consider to be sacred and irreplaceable.
It seems Mr. Smith and Mr. Leighton would rather get their information from industry propaganda. Or maybe they are actually serving as paid industry propagandists. As with any battle over public opinion, I imagine the gas companies have a few people who are tasked with spreading misinformation and criticizing objective reporting on the most serious fracking issues. As a reasonable environmentalist, I used to accept natural gas as the so-called bridge to an alternative energy future. I used to think, well, at least it’s cleaner than coal and less risky than nuclear. I almost invested in natural gas equities, hoping to make a killing from the inevitable boom. But no longer. As I wade through the troubling facts and become educated about the impacts, it is more and more obvious that this industrial process is not worth it. I hope Gov. Cuomo comes to this realization soon–we need to speak up and help him realize that it’s just not worth it. Those who favor hydrofracking and who aggressively criticize its opponents are either uneducated about the facts, or paid off in one way or another, it’s that simple. Those who believe that an economic boom is inevitable as soon as the first new well is permitted are sadly naive. Get with it folks. Stick to the facts. Reject the propaganda. Before it’s too late.
THANK YOU, Kingston Times and Lynn Woods. The article represents impeccable journalism, and if anything it was understated in terms of the damage toxic, radioactive, produced frack fluid would do to the
Kingston Waste Water Treatment system.
1) The toxic chemicals are labeled “Hazardous Waste” when they are put into the wells. When they return to the surface they magically turn into “industrial” waste. The magic of the industry’s lobby efforts, that is.
2)Waste treatment plants use live creatures–bacteria–to process sewage. This fluid is full of biocides and other poisons which will destroy the bacteria.
3)World renown sewage expert, Al Appleton, says the fluid will go in and then back out into the Rondout without mitigation.
4)The fluid is super salty, beyond anything sewage plants can handle
5)The trucks, which would ruin our lovely Rondout neighborhood, would not be marked with specific contents because the compounds are proprietory, exempt from Clean Water laws and vary greatly from drill pad to drill pad.
6)Kingston might be tempted (for the hefty fees involved) but would be nuts to accept this stuff.
thanks again, Kingston Times.