Pennsylvania trying to deal with 'fracking' water

Two separate contaminations of the Monongahela River from natural-gas drilling have further illuminated problems surrounding the discharge of wastewater from fracturing gas-bearing rock strata. Industry officials estimate that oil and gas wells discharge about 9 million gallons of waste water a day in Pennsylvania, Joaquin Sapien of ProPublica reports, and by 2011 that figure is expected to top 19 million gallons, enough to fill 29 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection officials say the most troubling substance in drilling waste water is total dissolved solids, which can make the water five times as salty as sea water. "Large quantities of TDS can clog machinery and change the color, taste and odor of drinking water," Sapien reports, adding that while TDS is not usually harmful to humans it can damage freshwater streams. Pennsylvania drilling companies currently dispose of their waste water at municipal sewage plants, despite warnings from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the facilities aren't equipped to remove TDS, and that TDS can kill organisms needed to treat human waste in the water.

DEP chief John Hanger has promised to implement more aggressive plans by 2011, including a requirement that drilling wastewater be treated in special plants capable of removing TDS. Until then, DEP has promised to add more TDS monitors along the Monogahela, Sapien reports, and monitor the level of TDS in streams where water would be discharged before it is treated at a specific sewage plant. Dana Aunkst, who heads the DEP's water program, told Sapien: "We were trying to scramble, to put it bluntly, to get our act together to figure out how we were going to address these withdrawals as well as the disposal issues." (Read more)