Fracking's thirst for water: a delicate dance between gas industry and river commission
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WYSOX, Pa. -- The Marcellus Shale natural gas industry has a huge thirst for water -- to hydraulically fracture a single gas well requires upward of a thousand tanker-trucks of water.
And so during the summer, when some streams in gas-rich northern Pennsylvania naturally turn into trickles, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission pays close attention to ensure that drilling interests don't suck the state's creeks dry.
The commission, an interstate agency responsible for managing the Susquehanna watershed, this summer has suspended withdrawals from as many as 40 permitted locations because of seasonal low flows. Most of the suspended locations affect gas drillers.
But the shale-gas industry, now moving rapidly from an exploratory to a production phase, has hardly missed a beat. Fracking continues, largely unabated.
The commission allows drillers to withdraw up to 98 million gallons per day at 142 locations, though in reality, the industry uses far less than what it is allowed, the commission says. The permitted amounts are based on elaborate computations tied to historical stream flows. When stream levels fall below a certain level, withdrawals must stop.
Anticipating the seasonal fluctuations, natural gas operators have built vast networks of impoundments -- plastic-lined ponds -- to store water from the rainy seasons.
"The natural gas industry is trying to capture some of the large spring flows because they know they can't take water all summer," said Paula Ballaron, the commission's manager of policy implementation and outreach.
But drillers can continue to pump water out of larger rivers even in the summer because the volumes the commission allows are small compared with the total flow.
Public confusion about where the drillers can legally withdraw water in the summer -- and where it is banned -- has caused an increase in complaints to the commission. The agency has three inspectors based in Sayre. They prowl the basin looking for violators.
First Published August 30, 2011 12:00 am
