Dunkard Creek fish kill

Avoidable disasters forecasted to happen (4.00 / 2)

From what I heard (unconfirmed rumor) this happened way back in mid-Aug. and the company didn't tell authorities right away and tried to cover it up.  Let's hope these polluters get the book thrown at them to discourage this type of behavior in the future.  Let's strongly encourage the DEP to come up with strict rules/penalties on gas drilling for the Marcellus gas play whereby all the characteristics of the deep drilling/fracing process are covered to protect land and water integrity.  If the process allows this sort of "accident" to happen frequently then it's not worth the gas it's trying to extract.

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by: JBdem4usa @ Thu Sep 24, 2009 at 00:48:04 AM UTC

Talk about lax regulation (4.00 / 2)

Last spring Harrison County, WV residents learned that the city of Clarksburg's water board had contracted with drilling companies to dispose of frac water. The disposal had been going on for 6 months when it was finally discovered. In exchange for a mere $300,000 a year, they received thousands of gallons of frac water and discharged it into the West Fork River. The West Fork flows north into the Monongahela River.

Eventhough there was a general outcry from some environmentally conscious citizens, the city continued the program stating that there was no danger and everything was fine.

The drilling companies are not legally bound to disclose the contenets of their proprietary fracking solution, so the contents are unknown except for the fact that it contains a high amount of salt and other dissolved solids. Because it is used to fracture the shale layer to free up natural gas it can contain a wide array of contaminants including heavy metals and according to rig hands, whatever else they dump into it.

Recently the city agreed to temporarily stop discharging the frac water due to a high amount of TDS (total dissolved solids).

Are other municipalities downstream also disposing of frac water for a fee? Shouldn't the DEP know this?  

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by: wv voice of reason @ Thu Sep 24, 2009 at 01:20:39 AM UTC

If you think the DEP will do anything, don't hold your breath. (4.00 / 3)

It's been a year and a half since Huffman stated they were still gathering data regarding the dumping of toxic levels selenium in the headwaters of Mud River. Although Hobet had 3,000 dumping violations, Huffman still had the brass to say

"We are in the process of making that kind of determination on our own, in fact, our study is not done. We're still collecting data." source

I looked all over the place for any action by the DEP to force Hobet to clean up the arsenic and selenium problems since that time, but I couldn't find that they'd done anything, other than stall.

It is notable that Huffman was a part of the problem for 21 years with the DEP before replacing Stephanie Timmermeyer as big business #1 shill for the agency.

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by: One Citizen @ Thu Sep 24, 2009 at 01:32:49 AM UTC

Dunkard Timeline (4.00 / 3)

The EPA document that Ken Ward posted indicates that there may have been more than one toxic dump.
http://wvgazette.com/static/co...

The first official notice seems to have been August 28.  This is about two weeks after Clarksburg stopped accepting Marcellus waste water.  Perhaps that is just coincidence.

The Post-Gazette said:

Unlike Pennsylvania, the West Virginia DEP
doesn't permit water or sewage treatment facilities in the state to accept or discharge Marcellus well wastewater, Ms. Cosco said.

The Clarksburg sewage treatment plant was accepting about 37,000 gallons of Marcellus shale waste water from last fall until mid-August. The impression I got from the coverage at the time was that DEP's position was that local discharge levels could be established and a permit issued and the plant could then resume accepting the wastewater (which wasn't being treated, just diluted.)

At least waste water diluted through the sewer treatment plant was diluted; it looks like someone took the cheap and easy (for them) alternative of dumping it straight into the stream.

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by: JAWVMM @ Thu Sep 24, 2009 at 01:38:34 AM UTC

Dunkard Timeline (4.00 / 1)

The DEP was aware of the Clarksburg contract and directed that water samples for TDS were supposed be taken. At some point in August it was reported that the levels were much higher than expected, not just in the Harrison Co. area, but farther downstream as well.

In addition to disposal of waste water, drilling companies are still sucking up thousands of gallons of water from rivers and other water sources around the area for use in frac operations. Obviously unsustainable, but I haven't heard that the DEP is regulating that either.

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by: wv voice of reason @ Thu Sep 24, 2009 at 12:28:03 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

ZERO coverage in Wheeling newspapers (4.00 / 4)

What a shock, huh? Considering Dunkard comes together to form Big Wheeling Creek, one would think that the Wheeling papers would be covering this story. Of course, they are not.

That will change. Trust me.

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by: WV26003 @ Thu Sep 24, 2009 at 16:38:09 PM UTC

Clarksburg Exponent (4.00 / 1)

usually a worthless piece of newsprint actually did an excellent job of investigating and reporting on the Clarksburg story as well as the recent story on Dunkard Creek.

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by: wv voice of reason @ Thu Sep 24, 2009 at 19:56:43 PM UTC

[ Parent ]