"Pa. official defends rules on gas drilling waste"

By David B. Caruso, Associated Press, January 5, 2011:

Pennsylvania's top environmental enforcement official said Tuesday that he is confident that wastewater discharged into rivers and streams by the booming natural gas industry hasn't degraded the state's drinking water.

At least 3.6 million barrels of the ultra-salty, chemically tainted wastewater produced by gas drilling operations were discharged into state waterways in the 12-month period that ended June 30, according to records reviewed by The Associated Press. Drinking water for hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians is drawn from those rivers and streams.

Those discharges have troubled some environmentalists. Most of the big drilling companies digging thousands of new wells in Pennsylvania have committed to curtailing or ending the practice.

John Hanger, the outgoing secretary of Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection, said he believes the new regulations are adequate to protect water supplies. . . . [continued]

"Authority: Discharge met its regulations"

By Rich Pietras, Intelligencer, January 5, 2011:

The Hatfield Municipal Sewer Authority said it did nothing wrong in accepting treated wastewater from Marcellus Shale drilling operations.

Wastewater used for Marcellus Shale gas drilling was treated by the Hatfield Municipal Sewer Authority over a one-year period starting in April 2009, but the water was treated twice and met authority regulations for discharge into the Neshaminy Creek, the authority's director said Tuesday.

The authority stopped handling the water, however, because of regulations restricting trucking wastewater from one watershed into another.

"Pa. allows dumping of tainted water from gas boom"

By David B. Caruso, Associated Press, January 3, 2011:

The natural gas boom gripping parts of the U.S. has a nasty byproduct: wastewater so salty, and so polluted with metals like barium and strontium, that most states require drillers to get rid of the stuff by injecting it down shafts thousands of feet deep.

Not in Pennsylvania, one of the states at the center of the gas rush.

There, the liquid that gushes from gas wells is only partially treated for substances that could be environmentally harmful, then dumped into rivers and streams from which communities get their drinking water. . . . [continued]