Mon, upper Delaware on list of 'most endangered' rivers in U.S.
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Two Pennsylvania rivers, the Monongahela River and upper Delaware River, are on this year's listing of "Most Endangered Rivers" due to the threat of toxic pollution from accelerated Marcellus shale gas well drilling activities.
American Rivers, a national river advocacy organization, on Wednesday named the Monongahela, which flows out of West Virginia and joins the Allegheny River at Pittsburgh to form the Ohio River, the ninth most endangered river in the nation.
The Delaware River, which provides drinking water to 17 million people in Pennsylvania and New York, is ranked first on the endangered river list, which has been issued annually by the group to call attention to imperiled and threatened rivers.
"We must put the brakes on the rampant gas drilling that is already threatening the safety of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people," Rebecca Wodder, president of American Rivers, said about the Monongahela River.
"We simply can't let energy companies rake in profits while putting our precious clean water at risk."
Each well pumps 2 million to 8 million gallons of chemically treated water underground at high pressure to fracture the shale rock and release the gas. About 1,400 Marcellus shale wells have been drilled to date in Pennsylvania and tens of thousands more are expected.
American Rivers and its partners, the Center for Coalfield Justice and the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, called on the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission, Pennsylvania and West Virginia to protect the Mon from further degradation from drilling wastewater.
The drilling waste contains high concentrations of dissolved solids and hundreds of chemical additives used in the drilling process to help break up or "frack" the shale and release the gas from the mile-deep Marcellus shale bed that underlies three-quarters of Pennsylvania and parts of New York, Maryland, Ohio and West Virginia, a total of 95,000 square miles.
High levels of dissolved solids in the Mon in 2008 and 2009 caused concerns from industries that cannot use the contaminated water and also affected the taste of public drinking water supplies.
Lou D'Amico, president of the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association, said the notion that Marcellus shale wastewater discharges will pollute the Monongahela or Delaware rivers is "utter nonsense."
"There is very little if any Marcellus shale wastewater going into the Mon anymore," Mr. D'Amico said. "Because of all the minewater discharges coming out of West Virginia, there's no room for any more TDS."
Also on the list is the Gauley River, a popular whitewater rafting and recreation river in West Virginia, which is threatened by degradation due to ongoing mountaintop coal mining, according to American Rivers.
First Published June 3, 2010 12:00 am
