Posts Tagged ‘Bob Manbeck’

PA American Water Co. to sample water from Huntsville Creek near natural gas well.

By Jerry Lynottjlynott@timesleader.com
Business Writer

A water company has begun inspecting a creek flowing from the Huntsville Reservoir as a result of a permit issued for a natural gas well in Lehman Township.

PA American Water Co. also will soon begin sampling water from Huntsville Creek, company spokesman Terry Maenza said Thursday.

The testing is to check whether drilling has affected the 1.9-billion- gallon reservoir that supplies drinking water to the utility’s customers. The reservoir is in the Back Mountain area of Luzerne County where more than 25,000 acres have been leased by companies planning to tap into the natural gas rich Marcellus Shale formation underground.

Technicians will go out once a week to take water samples, said Maenza, “so we have baseline data.”

Last month township officials approved a drilling permit for EnCana Gas & Oil USA Inc. It has partnered with Whitmar Exploration Co. to locate possible drilling sites within nine townships and Harveys Lake in the Back Mountain.

PA American has two reservoirs bordered by lease holdings. The 2.9 billion gallon Ceasetown Reservoir also is located in Lehman Township. In conjunction with Huntsville, Ceasetown supplies water to 100,000 people in the Wyoming Valley, Maenza said.

The reservoirs have 500-foot buffer zones around them where drilling is not permitted, he explained.

Maenza added that the water company relies on regulators and inspectors to enforce laws related to drilling and disposal and treatment of waste water used in the hydraulic fracturing or fracking, the high pressure injection of a mixture of water, chemicals and other materials to break up the rock containing the natural gas.

The utility frequently is in contact with the state Department of Environmental Protection on a number of issues, including permits issued for drilling. “They’re letting us know about it,” Maenza said.

Two other water companies that serve customers in the Back Mountain are leaving oversight up to DEP, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission and the state Fish and Boat Commission.

Donna Alston, a spokeswoman for Aqua Pennsylvania, said existing DEP regulations provide protection for the company that draws its water from wells. The company provides service to customers in Luzerne County through its White Haven Division. Statewide it serves 1.4 million people in 30 counties.

Still, Aqua is stepping up its own efforts.

The utility “will be monitoring water quality more frequently and extensively than required by regulation whenever drilling activity is occurring anywhere near one of its well supplies to detect and respond to any water quality changes that might occur,” Alston said.

What steps United Water takes depends upon how close a natural gas well is drilled to one of its water wells, said spokesman Bob Manbeck.

“If a permit for extraction was under consideration within a one mile radius of a United Water-owned well, we would intervene in the permitting process and attempt to ensure that the extraction points are an appropriate distance from our wells,” said Manbeck.

United Water has six wells in Dallas, two each in Dallas Township and Harveys Lake and one in Noxen Township in Wyoming County. It serves 10,000 customers in the Back Mountain.

Copyright: Times Leader