Pennsylvania Pumps Up Gas Well Regs

DEP responds to the rising risk of natural gas well wastewater pollution

Compiled by staff

Published: Sep 1, 2010

This spring, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began its squeeze-down on total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. So it's no surprise that, on August 21, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection began enforcing tightened standards for total dissolved solids (TDS) in natural gas drilling wastewater.

The combination of this Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) Rule and the new rule requiring 150-foot buffers for Pennsylvania's approximately 20,000 miles of high-quality streams give waters in the state the strongest legal protection in history, says DEP Secretary John Hanger.

The new permitted limit for discharges of wastewater from gas drilling is 500 milligrams per liter of total dissolved solids and 250 mg/l for chlorides. All new and expanding facilities treating gas well wastewater must meet these discharge limits.

"DEP's proposal of these new limits has already driven industry investment in new technologies to treat this wastewater which is high in TDS," he notes. Since DEP proposed these new rules, some businesses began treating gas well wastewater for recycling by the natural gas industry rather than discharging it into waterways.

Pennsylvania's streams receive total dissolved solids from a variety of wastewater sources. Primary sources of these pollutants are storm water runoff and discharges from coal mines and other industrial activities. That wastewater can affect the taste and odor of drinking water and, in high concentrations, can damage or destroy aquatic life.

Drinking water treatment facilities aren't equipped, points out Hanger, to treat the solids and chloride contaminants. They rely on normally low levels of chlorides and sulfates in surface waters used for drinking water supplies.

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I congratulate PADEP in enforcing the new 500-mg/l TDS standards on fracking liquids and waste water in natural gas drilling. It would be an excellent and helpful idea if landowners dependent on wells for drinking and domestic water would get their wells tested for TDS and chlorides before well drilling gets started in their areas. If TDS levels spike later on, their well readings may be effective in proving well drillers negligence. I live in Centre county and my well water tested at about 230 mg/l when we bought land in 2006. I recently had my well water tested and it came in at 226 mg/l. I would see anything over 300 mg/l as non-historical and cause for concern.
Posted by Mary Carol on September 1 at 10:39 AM

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