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.”

Setting record straight on factors in Dunkard Creek fish kill: Mine discharge, H2O withdrawals, dumping, foreign algae

In the summer of 2009, the debate over the merits of shale gas development was briefly cast in the context of an ecological disaster at Dunkard Creek, a pristine and thriving freshwater fishery winding across Pennsylvania’s border with West Virginia.

The headwaters of Dunkard Creek come together upstream of Brave, Pennsylvania, a hamlet of 412 people in Greene County. From there, the creek – once teeming with more than 161 aquatic species ranging from freshwater mussels to 3-foot muskellunge -- winds 43 miles to the Monongahela. On September 4, 2009, dead fish began collecting in a pool below the Lower Brave Dam. Over the next week, fish floated to the surface, sank to the bottom, and washed up on the banks along the entire length of the creek. By the end of the month, almost everything in Dunkard Creek was dead. The only exception was an invasive microscopic alga—common in Texas estuaries—that had somehow migrated into the creek and now thrived in its suddenly brackish water.

This fish kill happened to coincide with the initial rush to develop the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania as natural gas prices spiked to record high levels. Drilling companies were drawing down water levels at local tributaries, including Dunkard Creek, with larger tankers. They were also disposing of brine and other waste by hauling it to sewage treatment plants that were unequipped to handle it downstream on the Monongahela River.

Dunkard Creek is one of the many issues explored in my book, Under the Surface.
In a recent review, Bill McKibben cited my depiction of the fish kill as an example of the ecological stakes of shale gas development. Early this month, former DEP Secretary John Hanger criticized McKibben’s characterization as a “false narrative” that contributed to the polarization of the shale gas debate. Hanger’s assessment has been held up by the industry, which insists that Dunkard Creek portrayal comes from skewed and erroneous media reports that unfairly suggest the industry was involved in the disaster.

There has been confusion over the factors that lead to the fish kill in Dunkard Creek, and the gas industry has used this confusion to deflect accountability for its role.

The catalyst for the disaster, according to an assessment from the Pennsylvania state DEP and the federal EPA, was a coal mine operated by Consol Energy that had been granted variances for discharges with high TDS concentrations. TDS (total dissolved solids) is a measurement of chlorides and other elements, which in the summer of 2009 tipped the chemistry of Dunkard Creek beyond its ecological threshold.

Somehow, the industry likes to ignore the fact that in addition to the mine discharge, which had been legally allowed for years, there were instances of illegal dumping by a drilling waste hauler for a period leading up to the fish kill; that low water levels contributed to the impact of the disaster; or that the foreign algae that thrived in the brackish water and robbed oxygen from the freshwater species was indigenous to the same place where the drilling equipment originated -- Texas. Failure to acknowledge any of these facts is the most recent example of the industry’s way of portraying environmental impacts related to full scale shale gas development: If they are not black, they must be white. The Dunkard creek disaster is neither of these, but these aspects are pretty straight forward:

The EPA has determined that a contributing factor was low water levels in the Creek due to the industry’s water withdrawals to supply hydraulic fracturing.

The organism that infected the creek ---Prymnesium Parvum (Golden Algae)---was not a local phenomenon, or a product of the mine discharge, but an import that hitched a ride from a place where it thrived in coastal estuaries. It should be noted here that drill rigs, related equipment and crews are by their natura itinerant, and offer a plausible means for the golden aglea to spread.

In addition to the mine discharge, illegal dumping of drilling wastewater has been identified as a suspect at several locations, including a brine disposal well, called Morris Run. This well had come under scrutiny for lax security and possible environmental problems. In 2009, the EPA fined Consol Energy, the owner of the well, $158,000 for failing to keep gates locked or to properly log the trucks coming and going from the site. This February, Alan Shipman, who hauled waste for the drilling industry, pleaded guilty to 13 of 98 charges that he illegally dumped millions of gallons of wastewater in different Pennsylvania counties over the last six years.
The plea bargain came after authorities accused Shipman of dumping drilling waste into Morris Run, other tributaries of Dunkard Creek, as well as other Pennsylvania watersheds from 2003 to 2009.

I raise these facts now because the history of Dunkard Creek is being written by the industry as something less than it really was. If you examine the story of Dunkard Creek from all relevant sources, as I have, rather than the industry’s obfuscation of the event, you will find a record that shows more at play than simply a discharge from a recalcitrant mine operation, and these other factors are fair points of discussion when looking at the impact of shale gas development. At some point, the industry may realize that the way to build credibility and public favor is to take accountability for problems and work to make improvements, rather than to point the finger at others and throw up a veil of blamelessness.