Trib News: Long-term solution for wastewater disposal eludes shale gas industry

This article examines the issue of wastewater from shale gas development in Pennsylvania

Defining wastewater disposal in the Marcellus shale fields has been a moving target.

Drillers initially sent millions of gallons to public water treatment plants, until regulators said the plants were not equipped to properly clean the salt- and metal-laden water that comes from shale gas wells. The traditional method of injecting it back into deep wells is less feasible in Pennsylvania, which has few such wells, and Ohio is accepting less wastewater because of potential links between injection and earthquakes.

The search for a solution has spawned an industry of companies and innovators looking for ways to treat or reuse the wastewater that environmentalists feared would foul drinking supplies.

“They can barge all this water somewhere else or reuse it, which is what we're seeing now,” said Radisav Vidic, chair of the University of Pittsburgh's civil and environmental engineering program and a leading researcher on management of gas drilling waste.

Recycling wastewater from hydraulic fracturing in shale gas production has become the norm in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays. About 90 percent of what comes out of wells goes into the next job, Vidic said.