Posts Tagged ‘John Minora’

The board is still considering building a second plant.

By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

HANOVER TWP. – The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority board has decided not to treat wastewater from the Marcellus Shale gas-drilling process at its current plant, but is still considering building a second plant for that purpose.

Fred DeSanto, executive director of the authority, informed the state Department of Environmental Protection last week that the board wanted to withdraw an application to revise its current permit to allow treatment of wastewater high in total dissolved solids from gas and oil drilling operations.

After meeting with DEP officials, who explained the requirements the authority would have to meet for a revision, authority officials decided it would be too risky to contract with an energy company to accept 150,000 gallons of wastewater per day and possibly exceed the limits of dissolved solids imposed by DEP, said Robert J. Krehley, the authority’s director of administration and planning.

“We just knew that a good majority of the time, we’d be over the limits,” Krehley said.

DeSanto said the board is waiting to hear from a consultant it hired to look into the feasibility of constructing a stand-alone plant.

John Minora, president of Pennsylvania Northeast Aqua Resources, said his staff is still researching some technical issues, but he expects to make a recommendation to the board at the next meeting on April 20.

Minora said he’ll likely recommend constructing a second plant because it would benefit the authority and ratepayers as well as energy companies; it’s just a matter of working out details based on data he is still waiting to receive.

Disposing of wastewater in Hanover Township would save energy companies in transportation costs, given that the closest treatment plant that can process drilling wastewater is in Williamsport, and the next closest is in Somerset County. The Williamsport plant doesn’t have the capacity for wastewater from all nearby drilling sites, he said.

Minora said a “closed-loop” treatment plant would remove solids from the water; the solids would be disposed of in landfills. The treated drilling water would be high in chloride and diluted with treated water from the authority’s current treatment plant; that blended water could be sold back to drilling companies to re-use in drilling operations.

Given that the current plant would be discharging less treated water into the Susquehanna River because it would be added to the treated drilling water, the authority would in turn discharge less nitrates and phosphates into the river. The authority could then sell credits to other treatment plants that discharge nitrates and phosphates in excess of state limits, Minora said.

The additional revenue could be used to stave off rate increases to customers.

Steve Mocarsky, a Times leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7311.

Copyright: Times Leader

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority is looking to join the ranks of regional sewer authorities profiting from natural gas drilling.

Following Williamsport and Sunbury, where authorities are already treating drilling wastewater, the WVSA is requesting proposals to build a closed-loop pretreatment plant on its land in Hanover Township.

The plant would accept wastewater only within certain pollution parameters, and the treated water would need to be reused for other gas drilling.

Proposals are due by March 29, and the authority hopes to have the plant built within a year, pending necessary permitting.

“I think this thing can get built in seven, eight, nine months or quicker, so again, when will it be permitted?” said John Minora, president of PA NE Aqua Resources, which is consulting on the project.

The plant would be able to treat 800 gallons a minute with a daily flow of 1 million gallons, plus storage and a filling station. The system could utilize any of several techniques that could include separation and disposal of waste in a landfill, evaporation and land application of the minerals or treatment and dilution, Minora said.

Dilution would require the same amount of water, plus about 10 percent more, he said, which would come from the plant’s treated sewage water.

Removing the solids and chemicals is easy, he said, but extracting the dissolved salts is not, which is why dilution might be the most economical option.

“Honestly, we’re open,” he said. “We’ll consider any system that does that job.”

Unlike at Williamsport or Sunbury, however, the resulting Hanover Township water won’t be sent to the existing treatment facility and would need to be purchased by gas companies for use in drilling.

“We want a system that isn’t going to discharge (into a waterway, such as the Susquehanna River), whether or not there’s a byproduct we have to dispose of in another fashion,” he said.

There is an old rail spur at the site that could be reconditioned. Rail is the preferred transportation method, he said, because it’s faster and less disturbing to the community. However, a trucking route is being considered utilizing a second entrance that passes only a few homes, he said.

That route requires the rebuilding of a washed-out bridge.

“We’ve looked at some alternatives, where really the impact on the neighborhood is minimal,” he said.

All proposals require a bid bond of 10 percent of the total bid. Minora declined to offer an estimated cost.

Copyright: Times Leader

Authority soliciting proposals now to raise money for upgraded pollution controls.

By Rory Sweeneyrsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer

The Wyoming Valley Sanitary Authority is investigating the feasibility of treating wastewater created from natural-gas drilling.

It hopes to offset some cost increases the authority will soon incur to make pollution-reducing renovations.

The authority published a request for proposals earlier this week, seeking bidders who could supply at least 500,000 gallons of wastewater daily for at least three years and pay at least 5.5 cents per gallon. Using both minimums, that would create daily revenue of $27,500.

Drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale creates millions of gallons of wastewater that must be treated.

“The good part of that is that, instead of paying for fresh water from the Susquehanna (River), we would pre-treat this and they would reuse that to fracture new wells,” said Fred DeSanto, the authority’s executive director. “We know drilling’s going on; we are a wastewater treatment facility. That’s our business to treat it. We just don’t want time to go by as there’s water to treat.”

That means that, for now, the plant is seeking a permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection to treat up to 150,000 gallons per day in its sewage stream. The company, however, is reserving the right to inspect for pollutants in incoming drilling wastewater.

It requires pre-testing for “total dissolved solids” and “suspended solids” – generally a measure of the amount of minerals and chemicals in the water – and reserves the right to deny it.

DeSanto said that protects the authority’s equipment, which would “probably” be damaged by heavy loads of solids.

All testing and transportation costs would be paid by the drilling company, which also must carry $2 million in liability insurance, indemnify the authority from all risks associated with hauling the waste and provide a “blanket statement” that it isn’t “hazardous waste.”

The long-term goal is to build a million-gallon-per-day, closed-loop facility to “pre-treat” the water enough that it could be reused in industrial capacities and resell it to the companies that brought it in.In its bid request, the authority is looking to get at least half a cent per gallon for that water. That water would never touch the sewer operation or be discharged into the river.

“It’s the preferred method of disposal by DEP,” said John Minora, the president PA NE Aqua Resources, which is consulting on the project. “We’re left with a sludge cake that gets either landfilled or incinerated. … The water that’s left, it looks a little milky because it’s high in salt.”

That waste could then be mixed with effluent from the plant’s sewer operation to reduce solids levels, thus preventing more discharges to the river, he said. As pollution discharge credits, which would set a limit for how much facilities can discharge, become a reality, the reduced discharges could provide more revenue.

“I think the people who are environmental should be very happy about that,” Minora said. “Recycle and reuse, I don’t think it has to be an us-against-them” situation.

The revenue would go toward the millions the authority will have to spend to upgrade its system for upcoming requirements to reduce pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and to fix stormwater overflows that currently spill untreated sewage into the river whenever it rains heavily.

Potential revenues are “unknown right now because we don’t exactly what the treatment cost is going to be,” DeSanto said. “We feel that there’s enough there that we could make a profit to help our operating budget in the future, help our ratepayers.”

Bids are due by Nov. 16.

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

Copyright: Times Leader