Horizontal drilling in Marcellus shale has yet to begin in New York, but some communities face questions about how to handle drilling waste. The Chemung County landfill is already accepting drill cuttings from Marcellus wells in Pennsylvania, but there are few places to send drilling wastewater.

In the draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS), the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) states that Marcellus permits would require drilling companies to provide a disposal plan for fluid wastes.

Currently drillers may truck brine and flowback to a treatment plant in Pennsylvania or other neighboring state, send it to a suitable sewage treatment plant in New York state, or inject it into an underground disposal well.

Pennsylvania may stop allowing treatment plants to accept drilling waste; there have already been several incidents in which excessively high levels of total dissolved solids have polluted rivers. The dissolved solids came from sewage plants accepting brine.

New York doesn’t have the capacity for treating huge quantities of drilling wastewater. The municipal wastewater treatment plant in Watertown is the only one accepting brines, and they are limiting the amount they accept.

That leaves underground injection wells, an option EPA touts as “the safest” method for disposal of drilling wastewater. Currently there are six active injection wells in New York and eight in Pennsylvania. Ohio, with 159 active state-regulated injection wells, is concerned about the amount of wastewater expected from increased Marcellus drilling; the state is considering a 20-cents/barrel tax on out-of-state brine.

The good news, according to attorney Rachel Treichler, is that local governments can regulate disposal wells. If municipalities do not already have such laws in place, they should develop local legislation as soon as possible. “It can be done through a local permitting process,” Treichler explains.

Treichler was one of three panelists who spoke at an educational forum in Ithaca on May 3. Cornell engineering professor Tony Ingraffea and USGS scientist William Kappel also spoke, addressing the geology and engineering aspects of underground injection wells.

Injection wells are regulated by EPA under the Safe Drinking Water Act. In addition, the DEC has its own list of criteria. “Waste fluids have to be injected below the drinking water aquifers,” Kappel says. The injection pressure is critical; it must remain below 80 percent of the fracking pressure.

Companies looking for disposal options may drill a disposal well or convert an existing deep well into an underground injection well for wastewater, Kappel says. The geologic formations most likely to accept injected waste are the Oriskany and Medina sandstones and the Potsdam layer. Old Trenton-Black River wells may be converted to disposal wells, too, as they have larger spaces for liquids to fill.

What hydro-geologists must determine is how porous the formation is, how permeable the layer is and the thickness of the layer. They also need to know the locations of abandoned gas or oil (or even drinking water) wells in the area before injecting waste, because any unplugged wells could provide a conduit for waste fluid to contaminate groundwater.

“It is important that they do an injection test prior to any sustained liquid injection and observe the limits of injection capacity,” Kappel notes. In one case a company tried to inject too much fluid into their wells. As the wells filled, they increased the pressure, and eventually the injections set off seismic activity, he added.

For the municipal officials attending the forum, the most encouraging news is that they have the power to regulate disposal wells. “If they have the laws in place,” Treichler emphasizes.

Before a company may drill a disposal well, or convert an abandoned deep well to that use, it must apply for several permits. These include an EPA permit for a Class IID injection well; a DEC State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (SPDES) permit for brine disposal; a SPDES permit for stormwater runoff; a DEC MRB well permit to drill a brine well or convert a well to that purpose; a Municipal Special Use permit if required by local law; a State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) for a brine disposal facility and permission of the landowner.

“Municipalities may issue permits if their local laws require it or if zoning requires it,” Treichler says.

TAGGED WITH: DEC, dSGEIS, gas drilling, geology, Marcellus Shale, water