Posts Tagged ‘transportation costs’

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

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

Experts tell landowners to understand everything they are signing related to leases.

LEHMAN TWP. – Natural-gas drillers seem to be taking “a wait-and-see attitude” right now, according to Ken Balliet, a Penn State Extension director well versed in gas-lease issues.

If exploratory wells being drilled this summer are productive and some state regulatory issues are ironed out, gas-lease offers could jump, he said.

But as anticipation builds over natural-gas drilling in the region, here’s one thing landowners can expect.

“As soon as you sign a lease, in a few days or weeks, the price (others sign leases for) is going to go up,” Balliet said. “You’ve gotta understand this is still a highly speculative play.”

That said, landowners have many other issues to consider beyond the bottom line, according to other experts who spoke at a gas-lease workshop on Monday evening at Lake-Lehman High School. There are environmental, liability, property rights and payment issues that should be considered.

For Luzerne County landowners who are undergoing property reassessment, another concern is retaining the land’s “clean and green” tax abatement status. Dale Tice noted that the financial risk could be transferred to the drilling company. Tice, an oil and gas attorney, said an addendum could be added to leases to require drillers to pay any rollback taxes.

Another important lease consideration for farmers is making sure the drillers isolate the topsoil during excavation, pointed out Joe Umholtz, an oil and gas program manager with the state Department of Environmental Protection. DEP doesn’t have a regulation requiring that, he said.

Tice also mentioned inserting compensation clauses for crop loss and land damage.

Beyond soil and groundwater pollution or water usage, landowners should consider the sound pollution from compressor stations and other machinery.

While all the issues probably won’t deter wildlife indefinitely, drillers can arrive at any time of year, so owners should prepare accordingly for hunting seasons, the experts said.

Regarding payments, owners should be aware that companies currently deduct transportation costs for getting the gas to market, Tice said, but legislation is pending to ban that. Also, while companies might offer owners the opportunity to use as much gas as they want, the pressures involved make it practically unreasonable, so Tice suggested that owners negotiate for payments in lieu of the gas.

It’s also important, he said, to restrict lease rights to only what might come up from the well because a broader lease might allow extraction of other minerals.

Finally, he advised against allowing options to re-lease land, but instead offer the first right to refuse a new lease offer.

“If they drill a well, that means you’ve got one chance to get this lease correct. You need to be sure you understand everything you’re signing,” he said.

Copyright: Times Leader