• “By recycling the wastewater, they can reduce their transportation costs and the overall environmental footprint of the industry”
• “There’s nothing in flowback water that’s particularly difficult for an environmental engineer to manage”
• “The DEP analyses are determining that the average daily consumption in the shale industry is ‘no greater than one of our power plants’”

“Expert Says Marcellus Drillers Reusing Two-Thirds of Water”: A hydrogeologist from Penn State says companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale play through hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) are recycling about two-thirds of the wastewater that returns to the surface. David Yoxtheimer, a researcher with the university’s Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research, presented his findings Sunday at the annual Geological Society of America conference in Pittsburgh. “The regulatory framework is such that there are higher costs to take wastewater to a treatment facility that is permitted to treat and dispose of that water, plus more higher costs for them to get more fresh water and haul it in,” Yoxtheimer told NGI’s Shale Daily on Tuesday. “By recycling the wastewater, they can reduce their transportation costs and the overall environmental footprint of the industry.” … Yoxtheimer found that the 30-day average recovery of flowback totaled between 8% and 10%. He said that from June 2008 to May 2010, drilling companies had reused about 44.1 million gallons and disposed of 21 million gallons, a recycling rate of nearly 67%. (Shale Daily, 3/23/11)

Carnegie Mellon University Environmental Engineering Professor: “There’s nothing in flowback water that’s particularly difficult for an environmental engineer to manage,” said [Kelvin Gregory, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, who has studied recycling operations]. (Philly Inquirer, 3/23/11)

“Gas drillers reuse two-thirds of water, expert finds”: A Penn State University researcher found that Marcellus shale gas drilling companies reused at least two-thirds of the water returned to the surface during 30 days of drilling. “The industry is striving to reuse as much flowback as possible,” said David Yoxtheimer, a hydrogeologist with Penn State’s Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research. … Reusing the water reduces reliance on groundwater or municipal sources of water, reducing the environmental impact, said Yoxtheimer. (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 3/21/11)

PSU Hydrogeologist:Marcellus Water Use a Fraction of Other Sources, Industrial Purposes: Yoxtheimer cited data from the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, which found 9.48 billion gallons of water are being extracted from surface and groundwater sources every day in Pennsylvania. Of that amount, 1.9 million gallons per day (gpd) is used in Marcellus Shale development. By comparison, thermoelectric power uses 6.43 billion gpd, the public water supply draws 1.42 billion gpd and industrial users are taking 770 million gpd. (Shale Daily, 3/23/11)

“Marcellus Water Issue Overrated, Pennsylvania [DEP] Official Says”: Water use in Marcellus Shale drilling “may not be as big an issue as we originally thought it was,” a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) official told a natural gas forum on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, last Wednesday. Dana Aunkst, an engineer and DEP’s acting deputy secretary for field operations, said the DEP analyses are determining that the average daily consumption in the shale industry is “no greater than one of our power plants.” … There are no current health hazards but said the state is taking “precautionary controls” and intends to require close monitoring of wastewater, along with “accelerating the frequency at which downstream drinking water intakes may have to monitor their water just to be on the safe side.” (Shale Daily, 3/21/11)