EPA to control fracking fluids disposal
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HARRISBURG -- Federal environmental officials announced Thursday that they plan to develop new rules over the next three years for disposing of natural gas drilling wastewater.
Those rules will create national standards for handling the briny wastewater produced from drilling underground coal and shale formations.
Pennsylvania officials say they expect the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines to dovetail with a state request issued in April that gas drillers stop hauling wastewater to unequipped municipal treatment facilities.
But state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer also questioned whether the EPA rules are necessary, noting that several of the federally overseen facilities also voluntarily stopped accepting wastewater after the DEP request.
"Because of what we did with regulations and our April call [to drillers], it virtually dried up," Mr. Krancer said in an interview.
Meanwhile, the regulatory announcement drew cheers from environmental advocates concerned about water safety. Industry officials expressed skepticism, saying they viewed the move as duplicative to current rules.
Officials at the EPA pointed to a July letter from Mr. Krancer as one reason for the agency to become more involved in what has traditionally been a state-regulated industry.
In that letter, the secretary wrote that there were several specialized pre-treatment facilities that the commonwealth lacked the authority to ask to stop accepting drilling wastewater. He urged the federal agency to update its rules concerning those treatment centers, noting that Pennsylvania's request to state-regulated treatment centers had resulted in near-universal compliance.
Drilling wastewater in Pennsylvania no longer is handled through any facilities that discharge water back into streams or rivers, according to the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry trade group. That water is either recycled and reused, or disposed in government-regulated injection wells both here and in Ohio.
But federal officials appear to have some questions about that process. An agency spokesman said "extensive data gathering" is planned, including visiting well sites, talking with industry and environmental groups, and compiling a national survey of the shale gas industry.
Coal bed methane standards are expected in 2013, and rules for shale gas wastewater in 2014.
First Published October 21, 2011 12:00 am
