CLEAR December 2008

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The Ohio River of Filth
by Duane330＠aol.com 30 Dec '08

30 Dec '08

The River Of Filth Half of Ohio River unfit to swim from fecal bacteria >From Staff Reports, Wheeling Intelligencer, December 26, 2008. WHEELING - West Virginia is working with five other states and the federal government to clean up about 475 miles of the Ohio River that is sometimes unfit for swimming because of sewage. The Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission analyzed more than 14,000 samples taken between Pittsburgh and Cairo, Ill., and found high fecal counts following heavy rains along almost half of the 981-mile river. The amount of harmful pathogens from sewage found in local samples of Ohio River water exceeded acceptable limits many times in May, June and July and on a few occasions in August, September and October. An average monthly level of fecal coliform that is considered safe is 200/100 milliliters of water, according to the study. For E. coli, a safe monthly average is listed at 130/100 milliliters. But in May alone, levels of fecal coliform in samples taken at four local points along the river all exceeded those safe monthly averages: At Pike Island, the monthly average for May was 527/100 milliliters; at Warwood, 458/100 milliliters; at Wheeling, 701/100 milliliters; and at the Ohio-Marshall county line, 894/100 milliliters. The monthly May average for E.coli was much the same, with readings including: Pike Island, 186/100 milliliters; Warwood, 178/100 milliliters; Wheeling, 124/100 milliliters; and the Ohio-Marshall county line, 544/100 milliliters. Although the average amount of E. coli at Wheeling did fall within acceptable limits, the fecal coliform level made the overall pathogen level unacceptable. Much of the sewage in the river came from treatment-plant overflows, groundwater runoff from farms and slaughterhouses, and tanning, pulp and paper factories, ORSANCO said. Roughly 2,000 companies and municipalities have permits to discharge treated wastewater into the Ohio River and its 130 tributaries. Problems occur when heavy rains cause water flows to exceed treatment plants' capacity, allowing untreated waste to flow into the river. The Ohio provides drinking water to nearly 3 million people and is a major transportation route. It also is a source for manufacturing and power generation. The commission is working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia to develop a remediation plan required to meet water quality standards of the federal Clean Water Act. Tetra Tech Inc. of Fairfax, Va., has been hired to provide consulting services and help develop the plan by 2010. Public hearings are scheduled next month in all six states. **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000…)

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Final EPA Non-Attainment Designations PM 2.5
by Duane330＠aol.com 24 Dec '08

24 Dec '08

West Virginia Charleston, WV Kanawha Putnam Kanawha Putnam Kanawha Putnam Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH Cabell Mason (p) Wayne Cabell Mason (p) Wayne Morgantown, WV Monongalia Monongalia Parkersburg-Marietta, WV-OH Pleasants Wood Pleasants (p) Wood Pleasants (p) Wood Steubenville-Weirton, OH-WV Brooke Hancock Brooke Hancock Brooke Hancock See the following web site.............. _http://www.epa.gov/pmdesignations/2006standards/regs.htm#3_ (http://www.epa.gov/pmdesignations/2006standards/regs.htm#3) **************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000…)

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Pennsylvania concerned about waste water
by duane330＠aol.com 22 Dec '08

22 Dec '08

State concerned about waste water from new gas wells Sunday, December 21, 2008, By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Gas well drillers tapping into the deep Marcellus Shales add up to 54 substances, some of them toxic, to the water they use to fracture that rock and release the gas. And the state Department of Environmental Protection doesn't know what chemicals, metals and possibly radioactive elements are in the waste water that is pushed out of the wells. It is discharged into the state's aterways including the Monongahela River, from which 350,000 people get their drinking water. "That's the bigger issue. They don't have an analysis of what's in the waste water they're pulling out," said Dr. Conrad Dan Volz, assistant professor in the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. "What they're putting into the wells can chemically change and be added to underground, and no one is saying how much arsenic, manganese, cobalt, chromium and lead is in the stuff. Depending on the concentration, it could be a hazardous waste." Each well drilled into the Marcellus Shales, which lie at least a mile deep beneath parts of Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio, uses up to 4 million gallons of water to fracture the rock and release natural gas. The chemicals are added to the "frac" water that is pumped into the wells under high pressure to reduce friction in the pipe and allow the water to flow more freely into the rock layers. Among the chemical additives are formaldehyde, a human carcinogen; various acids; a variety of petroleum compounds and several pesticides that are toxic to fish and other aquatic life. Many of the chemicals, depending on their concentrations, can also cause human skin, eye and nose irritations, and damage kidney, heart, liver and lung function. Much of that frac water -- about 40 percent of the total used -- is pushed back to the surface\ ?by the gas released from the shale, and it must be disposed of. "Yes, we're concerned," said Mark Hartle, chief of aquatic resources for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. "And we're more concerned with the recovered fluids from the wells than ?with the water they use to do the fracing initially. The problem is, we're not sure what they're ?ending up with so we don't know the constituents of the discharges." Lou D'Amico, executive director of the Independent Oil & Gas Association of Pennsylvania, said frac water chemical concentrations are low and treatment facilities are removing much of the metals and dissolved solids from the waste water. "Companies are committed to huge investments to treat the waste water, because without that we're out of business," Mr. D'Amico said. "We're very aware of all the environmental and public concerns, and our mission is to develop the Marcellus shale as an economic benefit to Pennsylvania and in an environmentally sensitive way." He said drilling and fracing companies are doing a wide-ranging survey of the waste water, also known as "flow-back water," to show it is not a health hazard. Tom Rathbun, a DEP spokesman, said the department also is doing a chemical analysis of the waste water, a study that should be done by the first of the year. "We have a general idea but want to know for sure," Mr. Rathbun said. "If it's different, we will make the necessary adjustments. "I don't think they've been doing enough Marcellus Shales drilling so far to make a difference," Mr. Rathbun said. "But the gas industry needs to come up with a way to deal with this. A couple of companies want to do on-site water treatment, and others are looking at different recycling technologies." He said there are now only about 20 active Marcellus Shales gas wells. But there has been drilling activity at more than 300 in Pennsylvania, and another 250 have been issued state permits. The drilling and water discharges have attracted the attention of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "It is an issue that's been on our radar for a while and currently a matter we're looking into," said Dave McGuigan, associate director of EPA's regional office of permits and enforcement. "The question is what is in [well waste water] and what are the treatment facilities doing with it." Some of the waste water is taken to DEP-approved municipal sewer authorities that dilute it with their regular effluent before discharging it into a river or stream. Some is trucked to one of the state's six industrial water treatment facilities, where metals, oils and some dissolved solids are removed but where waste salts are a disposal problem exacerbated by the volume of the waste water. "The salts are the biggest issue right now and the most expensive thing to remove from the highly concentrated brines," said Paul Hart, president of Pennsylvania Brine Treatment Inc., who owns three of the state's six industrial treatment facilities and wants to build six more. Mr. Hart criticized the DEP for slow action on permit applications for new treatment facilities, for regulating the well water as waste, which limits the ability of drillers and treatment facilities ?to recycle it, and for failing to determine the composition of the waste water. "The Marcellus has wide variations in the amount of iron, barium and salt, and we need to know the high and low marks so we can treat it and we're still determining that," he said. ?"Right now we don't know as much as we'd like to know." The drilling companies provide the DEP with lists of chemicals they add to the water but not the amounts of specific mixtures, claiming that is proprietary information. Four of the chemical compounds are complex pesticides that scientific assessments have determined are "very toxic to fish." One, 2.2-Dibromo-3-nitrilopropionamide, retards fetal development in rabbits. The pesticides are added to the drill water to stop the growth of algae in temporary holding ?ponds and tanks built next to the drilling pads. Algae and other "biofilms" can foul pumps used to push the water underground and into the shale. None of those chemicals should be discharged directly into surface water such as the Monongahela River, said Dr. Volz, who is studying the effects of pollutants in the rivers. "If there's enough biocide to kill algae, by the looks of this bromated compound there's enough to do damage to fish," Dr. Volz said. "Throwing it in the water is just crazy." He said formaldehyde, which is a human carcinogen, "is always a concern," but any risk is impossible to assess without knowing its concentration. In addition to the pesticides, the chemicals added to the well "fracing" water include acids to dissolve cement around the pipe casings and open perforations in the pipe for the water to flow through and into the shale formation; friction reducers to make pumping easier; and additives to keep clay from reducing the flow of the released gas. Different pumping companies use different frac-fluid recipes and formulas and different combinations and amounts of those chemicals. A report on the chemical additives requested by DEP's Bureau of Oil & Gas Management and prepared for the Independent Oil & Gas Association of Pennsylvania states that care and controls are used to prevent the frac chemicals and chemical water solutions from contaminating surface and ground water near the wells. The report also notes that water in the Marcellus Shales contains high concentrations of dissolved solids, making it unsuitable as a drinking, agricultural or industrial water supply. The DEP and public water suppliers have said the high TDS levels are not a health concern. But David Dzombeck, an environmental engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, said without knowing the chemical composition of the dissolved solids, that's hard to confirm. Don Hopey can be reached at 412-263-1983. First published on December 21, 2008 at 12:00 am Source:? http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08356/936646-113.stm PICTURE Caption:? A drilling rig used to bore thousands of feet into the earth to extract natural gas from the Marcellus Shales deep underground is seen on the hill above the pond on John Dunn's farm in Houston, Pa., in October.

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WVWN Agenda for tomorrow
by duane330＠aol.com 02 Dec '08

02 Dec '08

WVWN 2008 Winter Meeting Free Everyone Welcome “Riparian Areas Resources and Strategies” Wednesday, December 3, 2008 Lakeview Resort, Morgantown WV AGENDA 10:00 – 10:20 Introduction , Tim Craddock, WV Save Our Streams Tim will describe the connection between riparian buffers, water quality, and the ecological integrity of streams. 10:20 – 11:20 Funding Panel Discussion – Facilitated by Alvan Gale q Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program, Bill O’Donnell, NRCS WHIP Program Manager q Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, Kevin Hinkle USDA Farm Service Agency q Partners for Fish and Wildlife, John Schmidt , USFWS q Mining Mitigation, Dennis Stottlemeyer, WV DEP Mining and Reclamaiton q Transportation and Enhancement, Bill Robinson, WV DOT 11:20 – 11:30 BREAK The afternoon sessions will be presentations from project organizers outlining the following: q Planning q Design q Implementation q Monitoring and Maintenance q Lessons Learned – what did not work and things to consider such as planting times, manpower needed, availability of trees, laying out the site 11:30 – Noon Sleepy Creek Riparian Planting, Gale Foulds, Sleepy Creek WSA and Barbie Elliott, WV Conservation Agency Noon – 1:00 LUNCH on your own C2 1:00 – 1:30 Riparian Area Electric Fencing Demonstration, Neil Gillies, Cacapon Institute 1:30 – 2:00 Wardensville Project, Carla Hardy, WV Conservation Agency 2:00 – 2:10 BREAK 2:10 – 2:40 Mining Reforestation, Scott Eggerud, DEP DMR 2:45 – 3:10 Group Discussion on Lessons Learned – Facilitated by Rick Buckley 3:10 – 3:15 Evaluations and Wrap Up

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Fwd: WVWN Meeting Reminder - Dec 3 Morgantown
by Duane330＠aol.com 01 Dec '08

01 Dec '08

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CLEAR December 2008