Frack Water Treatment being Re-evaluated in PA

The New York Times has ongoing coverage of the Marcellus Shale drilling for natural gas and illustrates the use of toxic materials in this interactive illustration from March this past spring.



Governer Corbett Punts on PA Frack water treatment regs, summoning EPA to determine safety of citizens.

After the accident today leaking thousands of gallons into Towanda Creek which feeds into the Susquehanna River, Shamokin Dam borough has fears of Frack poisoning.l

From the Daily Item article on April 21, 2011:  
"WNEP.com reported the blowout happened Tuesday night on the Morse family farm outside Canton, a farming community. A piece of equipment on a Chesapeake Energy well failed, company officials said, gushing water from the earth and over the well pad.

Thousands upon thousands of gallons of fluid have spilled into nearby land and waterways, WNEP.com reported.

As of deadline Wednesday, the well was still not under control, but officials on site were able to stop the fracking water from discharging into nearby streams, DEP spokeswoman Katy Gresh. Inspectors, Chesapeake officials and emergency responders were still on site, she said.

The main tributaries, including Towanda Creek, are being monitored for contamination and will continue to be throughout emergency response, Gresh said.

Well-control specialists Boots and Coots had arrived from Texas at the blowout site Wednesday, she said.

Dressler advised waiting for more information from DEP “before we go assuming it’s Armageddon,” Hovenstine said.

With any incident up-river, which can include sewage plants and fuel spills, DEP provides an estimate to municipalities of when they’d see the heaviest concentration and whether there is any danger or action to take, Hovenstine said. In the past, the borough has dealt with sewage plant failure that required preventative measures.

“Our water reserves are well-stocked, and we just don’t draw it” from the river during an incident, he said.

“We’d only get surprised if no one would tell us,” he said.

The reserve contains enough water for three to four days, Hovenstine said. A local stream also is an alternate drinking water supply."


It wasn't clear at the time of this article if Shamokin Dam was actually relying on reserves until reports come back on whether the water is indeed going to be safe. Your guess about that is as good as mine.

An average of 1.7 million to 1.9 million gallons of wastewater per day are treated at Sunbury Generation. Marcellus Shale wastewater makes up 8 percent of that.

Nov. 17, 2011, the Sunbury Daily Item also reported that "around" 15 gas-drilling companies truck frack-wastewater to "Sunbury Generation" where the Snyder county plant, treats up to 80,000 gallons of drilling fluid each day, and was authorized to do so since November 2008 by DEP.



 You rarely hear about the radioactivity...  Scientific American posted this about the radioactivity that ends up in fracking fluids back in 2009...
Just trying to keep up with this mess...