Fracturing

A series of bills that would affect the regulation of natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) operations in Arkansas failed to clear a hurdle in the state’s House Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development Thursday and appeared unlikely to move to the full House during the current legislative session.

Range Resources Corp. Tuesday was cleared of fouling North Texas water wells with natural gas by a unanimous vote of the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC). It was vindication for the Fort Worth, TX-based producer and an informal indictment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — not that anyone from the federal agency was at the meeting in Austin, TX, to hear it.

A hydrogeologist from Penn State says companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale play through hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) are recycling about two-thirds of the wastewater that returns to the surface.

A significant majority of Pennsylvania residents support the use of a severance tax on drilling operations to help close a projected $4 billion state budget gap, according to the results of a survey released Thursday by the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA.

Siemens Water Technologies will provide Hydro Recovery LP with a system to treat natural gas hydraulic fracturing wastewater from Marcellus Shale drilling and produced water from operating wells in northeastern Pennsylvania. The system, which Siemens said will produce a hydraulic stimulation fluid for reuse, will be part of a new wastewater treatment plant scheduled to go online in April in Tioga County, PA. The system is designed to treat 288,000 gallons of wastewater daily, reducing total suspended solids to less than 100 parts per million. Last year Pennsylvania adopted wastewater treatment rules that limit discharges of wastewater from gas drilling to 500 milligrams per liter (mg/l) of total dissolved solids and 250 mg/l for chlorides (see Daily GPI, Aug. 26, 2010).

Despite a recent spate of negative media attention, hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) in the Marcellus Shale is still supported by a majority of the general public, according to the results of a poll conducted by the Rochester Business Journal (RBJ).

A story about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking), which was published by the New York Times last weekend, was “deliberately misleading,” the former chief of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said Monday.

Texas natural gas producers would be required to add a “tracer” liquid to help identify the fluids they use in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations under a bill filed in the state legislature last Friday.

New York should proceed cautiously as it considers how to regulate hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) in shale drilling operations, but the state shouldn’t wait for federal authorities to complete a lengthy review, the incoming Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) chief said last week.