Fracking wastewater dumped in B'more?
There's no hydraulic fracturing for Marcellus shale natural gas in Maryland yet, but apparently the state already has been on the receiving end of some of the wastes from the controversial drilling technique.
Wastewater from "hydrofracking" operations in Pennsylvania got shipped to Baltimore last year and passed through the city's Back River wastewater treatment plant, according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Tom Pelton, who reported it in the group's Bay Daily blog.
Clean Harbors, a company that handles industrial wastes, disposed of 50,000 gallons a day at Back River "for a few months" early last year, Pelton says he was informed by the Maryland Department of the Environment. The company treated the wastewater beforehand to remove metals, MDE told Pelton. It also tested it and found "no detectable levels" of radiation in the liquid, which is a concern that's been raised about fracking wastes lately.
Radioactive contaminants have been reported in the "flowback" water pumped out of wells drilled in Pennsylvania using hydraulic fracturing, the New York Times reported earlier this week. Much of the fracking wastewater is disposed of at municipal sewage treatment plants there, the Times said, but those facilities lack the capacity to remove radioactive contaminants, so they're likely getting into rivers like the Susquehanna, a backup drinking water supply for the Baltimore area. Likely is the best that can be said because state and federal governments apparently don't uniformly require testing for radioactive contaminants in wastewater.
Back River, which receives the treated wastewater from the city's sewage plant, is not a drinking water source for anyone because it's brackish. But one of the comments on Bay Daily raises another concern - that the drilling fluids often contain certain chemical compounds that can be lethal to Chesapeake Bay oysters at levels even below what can be readily detected.
(Settling tanks at Back River wastewater treatment plant. 2010 Photo by Colby Ware, special to The Sun)
Comments
I have been covering fracking and it's many pros and cons. One major question I have is about fracking solution being disposed of at municipal water facilities... If the facility doesn't know exactly what chemicals were added into that well's fracking cocktail-how can they clean out the possible chemicals (benzene, glycol ethanol, arsenic)? Are all water treatment plants able to pull out every known chemical "out there" and contaminant? The reason I ask this is I have been reading that pharm. drugs don't get cleaned out and many of the chemicals used in today's products go into waterways (may explain frogs with 6 legs and intersexual fish). I was under the impression that water treatment plants work to federal levels and those levels are a bit out-dated and do not cover the myriad of chemicals used in our world? If that's the case that treatment plants don't get everything and fracking solutions can be a mix of up to 250 chemicals, how are those chemicals getting cleaned out? My guess is they are not and add some radioactivity--yummy? I think everyone is hoping dilution is the key and once again we're hoping that " a little won't hurt".
With the number of wells growing so rapidly, I think it's fantasy to think we can clean fracking solutions out by using our water treatment plants. Being exempted from the many environmental laws helps this process and you can see how a possible major business expense (fracking solution disposal) can be avoided. Tricky... What is your analysis. Laurel Peltier
Posted by: Laurel Peltier | March 6, 2011 5:31 PM
Perhaps the best method of cleaning up the water is the use of flocculants this method of Water treatment would help by attaching itself to all of the contaminates and as the name suggests drawing them all together that way they can be collected with some required effort but this would hopefully leave the water in a better state. It’s mostly used in industrial water treatment but environmental use isn't unheard of.
Posted by: Water Treatment | November 22, 2011 10:25 AM