Another fracking forum

Recycling trend growing

By FRITZ MAYER

MONTICELLO, NY — For some people on both sides of the gas drilling debate, there is still a question about whether recoverable amounts of gas exist in the Marcellus Shale beneath Sullivan County. At a gas drilling forum held in Monticello High School on July 15, Anthony Ingraffea, professor of engineering at Cornell University, responded to a question about the quality of gas in the county.

He said, “There have been exploratory vertical wells into the Marcellus Shale in Sullivan County and Delaware County and also in Otsego County and all of those wells, so far, have shown higher than expected productivity from the Marcellus.”

Ingraffea was part of a four-member panel that gathered to discuss the health and environmental impacts of gas drilling. One of the biggest concerns, all panel members agreed, was what to do with the enormous amounts of toxic produced waters, or flow back waters, that are created in the aftermath of hydraulic fracturing.

In the west, the produced waters are often discarded in deep underground injection wells. Ingraffea said, however, that in New York and Pennsylvania, the geology won’t allow that. Therefore, some gas drilling companies are actively moving forward with research into recycling and reusing fracking fluids and produced water.

Ingraffea chastised the industry, which he said has been doing this kind of fracking for 20 years, for not spending the relatively small amount of money necessary to research recycling and reuse much earlier. He said the reason it is happening now is because New York State residents have said to the industry “you’re not coming until you figure it out.”

He added, however, “There is no regulation in Pennsylvania and we don’t know yet if there will be a regulation in New York that says all waste fluids must be recycled to the highest level currently feasible by existing technology regardless of cost.”

Paul Hartman, a representative with Chesapeake Energy, which owns the largest number of gas leases in New York State, said his company is “committed to the principal of 100 percent recycling and reuse of all the produced water in the Marcellus Shale.” He added, “We have recently achieved that status, we are now recycling and reusing on frack jobs all the produced water that was returned from the previous frack job” in new wells in Pennsylvania.

Hartman said it was a huge step for the industry and other drilling companies are following Chesapeake’s lead. He said the recycling and reuse issue will be addressed when the New York Department of Environmental Conservation issues the final Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement, which is expected in the near future.