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Thursday, October 20, 2011

EPA planning rules on water from shale-gas, coal-bed methane drilling operations

The Environmental Protection Agency "is planning to regulate how drillers dispose of the millions of gallons of wastewater created by shale gas production and expects to begin a rulemaking process in 2014," Mike Soraghan of Environment & Energy News reports. "The agency plans to start a rulemaking in 2013 on wastewater from coal-bed methane production, because it already has more information on such waste.

Surprisingly, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, a lobby largely for small, independent drillers, did not oppose the move, "noting the standards will be added to existing Clean Water Act standards and be enforced by states," Soraghan reports. But the American Petroleum Institute, dominated by major companies, "reacted coolly to the idea, noting it already has standards and state regulators can also regulate wastewater."

Soraghan notes, "EPA became alarmed last year by the practice of some drillers in the Northeast, particularly in Pennsylvania, of sending their wastewater to sewage-treatment plants unequipped to handle the salts and sometimes even radioactive material in the waste." Cynthia Dougherty, director of EPA's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, told a Senate subcommittee today that drilling wastewater can inhibit such treatment plants' ability to treat sewage. "West Virginia has already banned disposal of brine in publicly owned treatment works," Soraghan notes. (Read more, subscription required)

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