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As
part of our research in to gas well drilling we've looked
at drilling waste management. We're dealing with the issue
piecemeal on our blog and will put pages and items here, with
links. When we have a chance we'll get everything sorted out.
We
have the following items on this site related to drilling
waste management:
An
examination of drilling additives with lots of links.
A
table
showing a selection of contaminants found in various kinds
of waste in Pennsylvania.
Transcription
from the 1985 Fact Sheet which gives the state's rationale
and program for managing pit waste by landspraying.
An
Excel file
with a SAR calculator, a chloride load calculator and a spreadsheet
showing some of the contaminants found in 5 drill waste pits
in West Virginia in the 1980s. The spreadsheet is from Table
C of the 1985 Fact Sheet prepared by the state.
The
state's Department of Environmental Protection is in the process
of preparing Industry Guidance for high fluid volume wells
(generally Marcellus formation wells) and we've submitted
our comments. The document
on this site includes both our comments and the original draft
Industry Guidance document, though the state's Industry
Guidance document alone can be accessed at the DEP website.
The
state's Department of Environmental Protection is in the process
of preparing water quality criteria for Total Dissolved Solids
(TDS). We prepared comments suggesting stronger criteria for
chloride and new criteria for sulfates instead. Our comments
focus on the effects of chloride on the environment and problems
with the state's waste management program which contributes
to chloride (and TDS) pollution. The comments
are in Word 97 format and can be viewed here. The Chloride
section of our comments is available as a web page.
Waste
Pits
Our pits section includes a
page with the state's regulations
for drill waste pits and another with our
suggested regulations. Links on the pits page includes
two posts about pits on our Sootypaws
blog site.
The
state's Department of Environmental Protection is proposing
new regulations that include changes to the rules for
pits. We have our comments
for the changes and for also what we believe is missing from
the rules (in Word97 format).
Landspraying
We've begun a section on the state's landspraying
disposal practice which includes our
analysis of the landspraying debacle at the Fernow Experimental
Forest.
The
Spill at Buckeye Creek
A spill
occurred sometime in the summer of 2009 into Buckeye Creek
in Doddridge County, West Virginia. We have
a section of the web site devoted to this event and plan
on updating the section as more information becomes available.
The spill consisted of fracture flowback from a recently drilled
natural gas well. Louanne Fatora's photographs document the
spill, remediation, and after effects.
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