Wastewater

Researchers from Duke University published another controversial study on Wednesday, this time taking aim at a wastewater treatment plant in western Pennsylvania after finding radioactive chemicals in an adjacent creek bed, and blaming the find on Marcellus Shale development.

As drilling increases in the Marcellus and Utica shales, researchers from the Battelle Memorial Institute are studying the geology and operations of wastewater injection wells in four states, with the hope that the data collected will ensure that future wells are drilled in safe locations.

Criminal charges have been filed by the Pennsylvania attorney general against ExxonMobil Corp.’s XTO Energy Inc. for violating environmental laws in 2010, when more than 50,000 gallons of Marcellus Shale drilling wastewater were spilled.

Produced water from oil and natural gas drilling sites that is treated at wastewater plants appears to create elevated levels of some of the “most toxic” chemicals, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Nearly 100 small earthquakes that hit northeast Ohio throughout 2011 and into early 2012 were triggered by a now-shuttered wastewater disposal well in Youngstown, according to a Columbia University researcher.

Michael Guesman, an employee of Hardrock Excavating LLC, admitted Thursday that he dumped oilfield waste into a storm drain that empties into the Mahoning River near Youngstown, OH, a violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA) that prompted the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) to permanently revoke the operating permits for Hardrock and a second company also alleged to have violated the CWA.

Halliburton Co. is teaming up with Nuverra Environmental Solutions Inc. in the Bakken Shale to advance a produced water recycling project for unconventional oil and natural gas drillers.

The Buckeye Water District (BWD), a utility based in Columbiana County, OH, agreed to supply water for at least three years to a subsidiary of Rex Energy Corp. for oil and natural gas drilling in neighboring Carroll County, OH, the most prolific in the Utica Shale.

Despite a dozen small earthquakes in 2011 blamed on wastewater disposal wells, voters in the City of Youngstown, OH, stood firm on Tuesday and defeated, by a 57-43% margin, an amendment to the city’s charter that would have banned hydraulic fracturing (fracking).