Gas drilling (fracting) and your hunting property

[Doewhacker]

I may be wrong but I think Doc was refering to the reclaimed dirt from splashing or minor spills. Just guessing.

[Doc]

I may be wrong but I think Doc was refering to the reclaimed dirt from splashing or minor spills. Just guessing.

I don't understand, if they re-capture and re-use 100% of the water used in the process, why is Canada and PA exporting frac solution to NY wastewater treatment plants?

It seems that a wastewater treatment plant is a strange place to be treating solutions that have toxic chemicals added. After all, this isn't exactly sewage that we are talking about. Are these toxic chemicals something that settles out or is somehow extracted from the water? If so, where does that stuff go? Or do they perhaps have a procedure for completely isolating and re-using those chemicals. I'm no expert on the subject, but that doesn't sound exactly like a wastewater treatment function. I haven't really been able to find much that talks about final disposal.

Also, Doewhacker brings up another disposal question. I'm sure that on site spills are not unheard of. Where does that chemical soup go to be disposed of? Apparently not at the Ontario County landfill.....lol.

Doc

[CNYScott]

Doc - I think Ontario County was addressing a wide range of issues, I'll investigate further.

Many companies do now recapture 100%, but not all and where drilling has been going on for a while the technology is older, prompting the need for wastewater treatment.

Let's take a reality check here.  WASTEwater is mostly residential sewage and kitchen/shower water.  It's not stuff you'd want to consume.  It's also industrial waste from manufacturers, including nasty chemicals, pharmaceuticals, petroleum, etc.

Nothing in frac fluid is even close to the nastiest stuff that our municipal plants already treat successfully.

As for spill remediation, it does and will happen - as with any industrial site.  There are strict protocols and standards, that's why we have the DEC.  Spills happen - from gas station spills to industrial accidents.  Companies such as NY based OpTec are the best in the world at remediation.  I don't profess to know chapter and verse on what you do with contaminated industrial soil, but I know it is nothing new and is being handled properly.

Not for nothing, but horizontal drilling fluids, water and soil have been handled in NY for decades.

[Culvercreek hunt club]

The sewage plant  are very capable of treating the solutions. The solutions are nowhere near as bad as what is sent down those pipes every day. They add chemical cocktails to the treating that coagulate and are mixed thouroughly. most of the contaminanted fall out of the  waste as particulates and are captured in a sludge form. that sludge is very high in organics and you can imagine.....gag....the sludge is usually placed in digesters and microbs are used to break it down further and the gas...methane... is captured and usually used in some form to power or heat the plant where it is made. quite often the gas prodeuced exceds the demand at the plant an you can see the open fire torches burning at plants on occassion.

The based on the final chemical composition of the sludge it is either landfilled or can be run through an incinerator and that by product landfilled.

If tha material is very clean after final treatment is actuall can be used for products in things like potting soil

[Doc]

Interesting. So I'm going to have to go back and re-read the newpaper article and see just what it was that the landfill was not going to accept from the gas well drilling operations. It sounds like if this stuff is actually put through waste water treatment plants, the landfill administrators would have one heck of a time keeping only the gas well's portion of the treated sludge out of the landfill.....lol. So, I've got to go back and see exactly what they were talking about.

[Culvercreek hunt club]

Interesting. So I'm going to have to go back and re-read the newpaper article and see just what it was that the landfill was not going to accept from the gas well drilling operations. It sounds like if this stuff is actually put through waste water treatment plants, the landfill administrators would have one heck of a time keeping only the gas well's portion of the treated sludge out of the landfill.....lol. So, I've got to go back and see exactly what they were talking about.

Depending on the plant they may have a seperate treatment train to handle isolated or trucked in waste. it is alll how the plants were designed

[Doc]

Well, the article didn't go into any detail regarding what the county's problem was with that particular waste product. All they said was that they approved a resolution which stipulates that the Ontario County landfill will not accept waste products from hydraulic fracturing without written permission from the County. Also, "The Ontario County Board of Supervisors overwhelmingly backed a measure to ban the practice of hydro-fracking on property owned by the County". I assume that to mean county parks, and other County real estate holdings.  There was also some discussion about drafting model resolutions for towns and villages interested in passing their own hydrofracking regulations. They also talked about compensation agreements for local road use.

So, there was no description of what the waste is or any 3rd parties that might be involved in bringing it to the landfill. But it does look like the County and other municipalities within the county are gearing up to put some protections in place. Whether they know what they are doing or not, I can't say. However from past issues like windfarm regulations, they did do a proper job of investigating that whole industry and most of those regulations were done in conjunction with other county governments, so they had a fair amount of resources involved in their studies. I assume the same kinds of investigations will be or have been done regarding the hydrofracking process.

[wztirem]

All one has to do is visit the the NYC Environmental Protection website and click the link pertaining to natural gas drilling. It is an interesting read.

[First-light]

Some good articles in the current issue of NYON. Gas drilling in NY, you decide.

http://outdoornews.com/new_york/

[G-Man]

I'm signed into a 3 year lease with 2 years left on it, my neighbor has had 3 different gas lases overhis lifetime, nothing has been drilled in our area in years and it doesn't look that they will drill any time soon, its freemoney! Nys does a good job of regulatiing the drilling and if your not sure of what to get put in a lease get a lawyer. I don't have a problem with drilling the information you want/need is out there. the payments help with planting and paying taxes.