Pa. eases water standard update after industry complaint Corbett’s DEP withdraws 4 pollutants from regulatory plan

In the face of industry opposition, Pennsylvania officials have backed away from proposed standards that would limit certain kinds pollution that drilling and fracking operators can discharge into the Commonwealth’s waters.

Specifically, the agency has removed proposed standards for molybdenum, sulfates, chlorides, and 1-4 dioxane, because the restrictions “raised the concern of the business community,” according to a recent DEP report.  The constituents were originally included in proposed updates to Chapter 93, which regulates water quality under the Clean Streams Law. The revised proposal is now pending approval by the Department of Environmental Protection’s Environmental Quality Board.

The most acutely toxic of the chemicals excluded from the proposed standards is 1-4 dioxane, a manufacturing solvent that can cause illnesses ranging from cancer to organ failure, and for which there is no current water quality standard in Pennsylvania.  Chlorides and sulfates, also eliminated from the revised regs, are less acutely toxic than dioxane but can cause ecological and health problems, especially when discharged in quantity over time in water bodies already stressed by high levels. Chlorides and sulfates are principal waste components of the shale gas and mining industries. They are measured as Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), or, more simply, things that dissolve in water. Water with high TDS, often deceptively clear, can wreak havoc on fresh water systems. Chlorides can also be a flag for other possible pollution that comes deep in the ground with flowback, including undisclosed mixtures of chemical solutions and naturally occurring metals and hydrocarbons that can foul fresh water.

Oil and gas drilling and fracking operators were joined by representatives from the electric generation, coal, steel, pharmaceuticals and metallurgy interests in opposing the original Chapter 93 updates drafted by regulatory officials using current information from the field and national guidelines. Trade associations maintained the proposed restrictions on chlorides and other chemicals “were not rooted in clear scientific evidence and failed to take the economic impact of the regulated community into account,” according to a DEP report.

Dunkard Creek fish kill

The proposal to develop standards for chlorides and the other constituents was due partly to problems that have cropped up since shale gas development took off in Pennsylvania five years ago. TDS levels spiked in the Monongahela and Allegheny river systems, when drilling waste was commonly disposed in treatment plants that were unequipped to handle it. In October, 2009, TDS levels in the Monongahela exceeded water quality standards at all of the 17 Potable Water Supply (PWS) intakes from the border with West Virginia to Pittsburgh, prompting an advisory to use bottled water that affected 325,000 people. That same year, Dunkard Creek, one of the most prolific freshwater sport fisheries in the region and a tributary to the Mon, was wiped out by TDS pollution. The 43 mile creek along Pennsylvania’s rural border with West Virginia was teeming with more than 161 aquatic species ranging from freshwater mussels to 3-foot muskellunge. By September, 2009, almost everything in Dunkard Creek was dead, with the exception of an invasive microscopic alga—common in Texas estuaries—that had somehow migrated into the creek and thrived in its suddenly brackish water. The disaster was attributed to multiple factors, including discharges from mining operations, water draw downs by the drilling industry which needed large quantities of fresh water to support fracking operations, illegal dumping, and the introduction of invasive algae.

The story of Dunkard Creek and the Mon (chronicled in Under the Surface) represents a broader concern about the health of Pennsylvania waterways that lead to revisions in the Pa. Clean Streams law under governor Ed Rendell and his DEP secretary John Hanger in 2010. The Chapter 95 revision (not to be confused with the Chapter 93 revisions now on the table) restricts new treatment plants from accepting high TDS waste from drill operators, although it allows the practice to continue at old plants. Environmental watchdog groups are concerned about  plants that continue to discharge high levels of chlorides into the watershed, including Waste Treatment Corp., in Warren County, Hart Resources Technologies, in Indiana County, and two plants run by Pa. Brine, one in Venango County and one in Indiana County. The plants are discharging effluent with chloride concentrations more than two times greater than seawater, according to Myron Arnowitt, Pennsylvania state director with Clean Water Action.

A team of academicians with Resources for the Future lead by Sheila M. Olmstead examined the chloride issue in Pennsylvania waterways, with results published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences early this year.  The team found (among other things) that chloride levels tended to be high downstream from treatment plants, and “surface water disposal of treated waste from shale gas wells represents a potentially important water quality burden.” In addition to chloride, “many other wastewater constituents could potentially reach surface water, although available data on their concentrations is limited.” (Michael Levi, who writes for the Council on Foreign Relation's Energy Security and Climate blog, takes a broader look at the study here.)

Michael Krancer

The Chapter 93 revisions now under consideration would have provided much broader limits on untreated disposal of chlorides. The removal of the proposed standards for chloride and other pollution is consistent with the platform of Governor Tom Corbett, Rendell’s successor, who campaigned openly to oppose impediments to the industry’s expansion in Pennsylvania. The decision to ease the Chapter 93 rules came under Corbett’s DEP chief, Michael Krancer, a former and future industry attorney. This month, Krancer left the DEP to rejoin Blank Rome, effective April 15, where he will chair the energy, petrochemical, and natural resources practice. The firm describes itself as “uniquely positioned to counsel and represent shale oil and gas exploration, production, and mid-stream companies regarding all of their business needs.” During his time as DEP secretary, Krancer did little to dispel the notion held by his critics that he was too accommodating to drilling interests.

The proposal to include and then withdraw the four pollutants are part of a larger package of water standards under consideration with Chapter 93, which is periodically updated to reflect technological and cultural changes along with evolving risks to water sheds.

Arnowitt said he believes there is a chance that the federal EPA may encourage DEP to include the standards for the pollutants in its final rule. “We suspect that the DEP and the EPA are having conversations about what the finished version is going to look like,” he said. “It’s possible the DEP will change course (due to) the fact that they have not officially put it forward.”

After 5 years, water remains focus of drilling debate Transparency issues still hamper knowledge base

When Marcellus production ramped up in Pennsylvania five years ago, questions arose about the volume, contents, and endpoint of the waste it produced and its impact on water supplies.

If we knew then, what we know now….

We still wouldn’t have known much. Despite advances in public awareness of the risks and rewards of drilling, what a land play looks like, the sums of money at stake, the role of shale gas in domestic energy production, and technical aspects of high volume hydraulic fracturing, precisely tracking the shale gas waste stream and determining its impact on water supplies remains a politically complicated task. And it’s a task hampered by an inconclusive, and often conflicting body of science and policy initiatives.

So the work continues. Last week, news on several fronts demonstrated both the level of commitment to assess and address problems, and the amount of work still to be done by scientists and policy makers. Here’s a summary:

BROMIDES IN THE WATERSHED: High concentrations of bromides, one of the many constituents of drilling waste, are often a signal of larger water quality problems related to Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), a unit that generically quantifies concentrations of all soluble material in a given water sample. These include various constituents of drilling waste, including brines and metals.

With the onset of the Pennsylvania Shale Gas Boom from 2008 through 2010, TDS levels spiked in major Pennsylvania watersheds, including the Monongahela and Allegheny river systems. The spikes coincided with the disposal of drilling waste to municipal treatment plants that were not equipped to treat it. After TDS levels hit crises levels in the Mon, the Pennsylvania DEP drafted new rules, under Chapter 95 of Pennsylvania’s Clean Streams Laws, to discourage the disposal of drilling waste at treatment plants by setting TDS ceilings for incoming shipments. But many plants ended up grandfathered into the old standard, and the industry found other ways around the new rule, and the problem persisted.(More on tha here) After repeated calls for the industry to voluntarily stop taking drilling waste to plants ill equipped to handle it, TDS levels have recently dropped dramatically in the Mon River. (See Friday's Associated Press report here.) But they remain a problem in the Alleghany. See the Trib Live report here. The picture is complicated by other factors – including mine drainage -- that influence TDS pollution.

EPA STUDY: With the presidential election decided and the future leadership and direction of the EPA no longer an uncertainty, a leading agency official provided an update Friday on a critical federal study to assess the impact of fracking on groundwater. EPA Science Advisor Glenn Paulson reported that a progress report on the study would be released on schedule by the end of this year (within seven weeks). The final study will be submitted for peer review in 2014.

The EPA endeavor includes analysis of data from 21 research projects in several drilling states to determine if and how the country’s natural gas boom and fracking in particular is affecting drinking water. Paulson gave the update at the University of Pittsburgh’s annual conference on the health effects of shale drilling. Trib Live’s Timothy Puko reported that Paulson told a crowd of about 150 people that the EPA effort “has the promise to be pretty close to definitive on the drinking water/fracturing issue ... as anything else that’s going on.”

AP’s Kevin Begos also covered the conference, where Paulson built high expectations for the study’s significance. Begos reports:

Paulson said the study of fracking and drinking water “is one of the most aggressive public outreach programs in EPA history.” He said the progress report will show the “range and depth” of what EPA is looking at, and will be open to public comment.

“It will really be a lot for experts to chew on in their particular fields,” Paulson said, noting that EPA is reaching out to geologists, academic experts, the industry, environmental groups, and even Indian tribes.

The EPA study was commissioned in 2010 by members of Congress, who challenged the industry’s exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act. The exemption, known as the Halliburton Loophole, was granted under the Bush/Cheney administration to help encourage shale gas development.

While the EPA”s work is reportedly progressing on schedule, the agency may not be able to complete its wish list of objectives, according to Puko’s report. Specifically, Paulson told the Pittsburgh audience that officials have been unable to get industry cooperation for access to well fields in Washington County or other areas to conduct a series of controlled tests to gather localized water quality data before and after drilling.

DEP TESTING PROTOCOL: Earlier this month, Pennsylvania State Rep. Jesse White called on state and local authorities to investigate the DEP for fraud and misconduct – charges stemming from allegations that the agency manipulated water quality data in reports to residents in drilling districts.

The DEP has a long-standing policy of releasing results that are filtered through agency officials rather than a complete set of raw data, according to agency Secretary Michael Krancer. Officials have defended this practice as a tool to screen relevant data from noise.

White sees the practice as an easy and convenient tool to manipulate data. He cited an example stemming from testimony of a state official in a lawsuit brought by homeowners against Range Resources and the DEP. DEP Bureau of Laboratories technical director Taru Upadhyay testified that agency employees use a ‘Suite Code’ that limits information coming back from the lab to the field office, and ultimately to the property owner. For example,. Suite Code 942 reports results for only eight of 24 metals in the test: barium, calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, manganese, sodium and strontium. It doesn’t report results for silver, aluminum, beryllium, cadium, cobalt, chromium, copper, nickel, silicon, lithium, molybdenum, tin, titanium, vandium, zinc and boron.

Authorities defend the practice as a long-standing and sound method to filter noise from relevant data. Although metals excluded from the report might be byproducts of drilling, the DEP does not consider them to be prevalent and typical markers of a drilling-related problem. According to Krancer, “Professional staff, trained in evaluating water complaints, utilize the relevant data and information to inform their conclusions. Although other results are generated by the lab tests, such results would not contribute to answering the question at hand--determining whether there is a connection between the gas well activities and the water supply.

Critics argue that the fields blocked by the suite code are useful indicators of drilling contamination and other problems. Moreover, homeowners have a right to all results of water quality tests that can flag health risks.

Looking for a non-partisan voice in this, I will offer the reflections of John Hanger. Hanger is the former DEP Secretary who often comes to the defense of shale gas development and the DEP’s handling of regulations. But not this time. He has called on the agency to release comprehensive test results as a matter of policy. He told Rachel Morgan of Time On Line:

My view is that the (DEP) should release all the test results of any substances found,” he said. “It’s just better to release all the substances to the owner of where the water was taken, whether or not the pollutant of substances (found) are relevant to an investigatory purpose. It would concern me if the department found a high (concentration) of a substance that posed a threat to the health of the owner and would not release it.

The questions of bromide levels in rivers, the status of the EPA study, and the controversy over the DEP testing protocol represent just a few of the dynamics in the matrix of developing science/policy/politics that will shape long-term viability and economics of shale gas development. It’s been a long and grueling process. Don’t expect it to end anytime soon.