Water use permits create speed bump to gas development

By DAVID THOMPSON dthompson@sungazette.com
Water permitting issues that arose recently involving natural gas drilling in the Susquehanna River basin will slow but not stop natural gas development in the area, according to a local “expert” on gas drilling.

“Overall, companies are indicating this will slow the overall development of the Marcellus shale, but it likely won’t stop it,” Thomas Murphy, an educator with the Penn State Cooperative Extension in Lycoming County, said Tuesday.

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission’s recently announced that 23 natural gas companies using or planning to use water to develop gas wells in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations must receive approval from the commission.

The shale formations run from the southern tier of New York through Pennsylvania and into Maryland. Because the formations have similar characteristics to formations in other parts of the country that have yielded high volumes of natural gas, gas companies have shown intense interest in the area in recent years.

Technologies, such as hydrofracing, which are used by those companies to extract gas from the shale formation, use large amounts of water.

Hydrofracing involves pumping large quantities of water at high pressure into a gas well to pulverize the rock and release gas trapped in it.

The companies were notified Friday, Susan Obleski, commission director of communications, said Tuesday.

Companies who continue operating without approval from the commission will be “considered in willful noncompliance,” she said.

Permitting is required for a company to pass predetermined thresholds, according to the commission. The thresholds include consumptive water use of 20,000 gallons per day over 30 consecutive days, water withdrawals of 100,000 gallons per day over 30 consecutive days or consumptive use involving surface water or groundwater withdrawals.

The commission defines consumptive use as “water that is used in a way that it is not returned to the basin.”

By injecting water into the ground during hydrofracing, the water is unable to return to the source from which it came, thus it falls into the consumptive use category, Obleski said.

“Discussions with some of the different companies are indicating that this new ruling will temporarily stop the hydrofracing process until the appropriate permits are secured,” Murphy said.

Although several natural gas companies have leased property and have secured or are securing permits to drill in Lycoming County, only two companies, Range Resources and Chief Oil and Gas, are actively drilling in rural areas of Lycoming County, Murphy said.

“With a lot of these activities, the richest source of natural gas is in remote areas where you have headwaters where streams begin,” Obleski said.

Obleski said that because some of the headwaters are low-volume water sources, removing large amounts of water from them may adversely impact aquatic life and water consumers downstream.

“The citizens of the basin have to live with the long-term impact of this,” Obleski said.

The commission meets to review applications every three months, Obleski said. The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday in Elmira, N.Y., she said.

There are 10 permits on the agenda for that meeting, none of which involve activities in Lycoming County, she said.

According to Murphy, gas companies are learning as they go and want to comply with permitting requirements of all regulating agencies.

“They’ve said they are working diligently to secure the permits and water resources they need to be compliant with the permits to be issued to them in the near future,” he said, adding, “assuming the applications are approved.”

Obleski acknowledged that gas companies coming to Pennsylvania from out-of-state may not be aware that commission approval is necessary, since it is unique to the region.

However, that does not free the companies to proceed without the proper approvals, she said.

”We don’t want to be a hindrance to a valuable economic resource, but it’s got to be done properly,” she said.

“It (applied to) anybody — water bottling companies, municipalities, other energy providers, golf courses — withdrawing water within our regulatory threshold,” Obleski said.