Produced water is one form of drilling waste. It’s salty water laced with chemicals, metals, and naturally occurring radioactive elements that come up thousands of feet along with the gas and oil. Antero is the country’s eighth-largest gas drilling company and operates hundreds of sites like this, producing hundreds of thousands of barrels of waste.
WV Department of Environmental Protection – Antero Fracking Waste Water ENGINEERING EVALUATION / FACT SHEET:
No Easy Solutions
Antero is spending $275 million to construct a wastewater facility in West Virginia which is scheduled to begin operation in September, 2017. At its peak, the facility could see up to 600 trucks a day, processing 60,000 barrels of wastewater.
A filtering system would recover about two-thirds of the water, which could be reused in drilling. But that filtration system leaves behind thousands of tons of salt and hundreds of tons of sludge from the sediment, which concentrates the radioactive materials. Baston said that sludge — as much as 180 tons a day — will be disposed of elsewhere.
Learn morea at Inside Energy: http://insideenergy.org/2016/06/21/hot-waste-getting-rid-of-drillings-radioactive-leftovers/
Why Wastewater From Fracking is Such a Threat
Somewhere between 20% – 40% of the water used for hydrofracking a well returns to the surface as wastewater, also known as produced water. This wastewater not only contains the toxic and hazardous chemicals used in fracking fluid but also contains contaminants that it picks up from deep within the earth, most notably heavy metals, volatile organic compounds, salty brine and radioactive materials. Theoretically, this toxic cocktail could be treated at treatment facilities assuming these plants were properly equipped to remove these chemicals and radioactivity, however, there are few if any plants in New York State that currently have the technology to do this. Insufficient or incomplete treatment of wastewater will result in water being released into our streams, rivers and lakes that contain contaminants that are in higher levels that are considered safe. This is in fact what is happening in neighboring Pennsylvania, presenting significant health risks.
Learn more at Catskill Mountainkeepers: http://www.catskillmountainkeeper.org/our-programs/fracking/whats-wrong-with-fracking-2/wastewater/
Residents wary of Antero’s answer to fracking wastewater problem
“I wonder if you recognize that what you regard as a problem or an obstacle to making profits is different than what someone who lives nearby regards as a problem,” Lucas said. For example, Lucas said, “You may be saying there’s only 10 houses affected, but if you live in one of those houses, that’s a big deal.”
The scale of the Antero project alone has many residents worried. Located on a nearly 500-acre site, the landfill would accept 2,000 tons of salt per day, according to a Rivers Coalition fact sheet. Environmental groups also note that the landfill project alone would bury more than 5 miles of streams.
Learn more at Charleston Gazette-Mail: https://www.wvgazettemail.com/business/residents-wary-of-antero-s-answer-to-fracking-wastewater-problem/article_e159920f-51cb-5071-82fd-3eb1c522af96.html