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Eureka Resources: Bringing clean water since 2008

Eureka Resources, oil and gas wastewater management, has been servicing the area’s needs for cleaner water since 2008.

With three different facility locations, 419 Second St., Williamsport; 208 Catawissa Ave., Williamsport; and 34640 Route 6, Wysox; the business has been going strong to provide water treatments from oil and gas industry use.

“We treat reduced and flowback water for the gas industry … we are the only company in Pennsylvania that can put the water after we treat it back into the water,” said Tim Butters, co-founder, vice-president of sales and director of business development.

Butters started the business with two other founders.

“Myself, Daniel J. Ertel (CEO) and his brother, Bill Ertel, (director of construction) founded the company in 2008. We started with one (facility) right down on 419 Second St.,” Butters said. “We expanded in 2011 or 2012; we built the facility on Reach Road. In 2013 or 2014, we built the facility in Wysox.”

He said that the company cleans water.

“We take all the impurities out of the water,” he said. “We make viable byproducts from the impurities.”

More than finding ways to use the impurities in the water, the company makes the water safe for the environment again.

“Our water is treated to secondary drinking standard,” Butters said. “It’s basically cleaner than the water when it goes back into the river.”

One of the byproducts they are able to use from the impurities is sodium chloride.

“We take sodium chloride, and we can sell that as salt water for swimming pool salt,” Butters said. “We reclaim methanol. We extract the methanol out, and we can resell that to different industries.”

They are able to find uses for some of the impurities that the oil and gas industry puts into the water, extract the impurities out and then return the water back into its natural environment once its been fully treated.

“We repurpose a lot of stuff, basically. We reuse all the byproducts that is in this flowback water that is generated from the oil and gas industry,” Butters said. “It’s putting the water back into the hydrologic cycle. The industry takes millions and millions of water out of the water basin. We’re the only one putting it back in the watercycle. It’s good for the environment. I don’t think anybody else does what we do.”

Butters said that having a way to return the water to the natural watercycle is not only good for the environment but also essential to the oil and gas industry.

In the current set up, many in the industry store water themselves and reuse it only for the industry’s purposes, but Butters said that can’t go on forever.

“At some point, the industry will get to a point where they can’t reuse their water,” he said. “A lot of them try to reuse the water and frack with it, but there will come a time where they can’t … As long as the well produces gas, it also produces water. They get to a point where they can’t reuse the water. “

He said the difference is their business returns the water to the natural watercycle.

“We are the only ones who can ultimately dispose their water,” he said. “They can bring it to us, we clean it up.”

He said it’s good for everyone in the area.

“I think it’s very important for the people that live in Pennsylvania to know that there are companies out there that think of the environment and are doing it right, and that’s what Eureka is all about,” he said.

For more information about Eureka Resources, visit www.eureka-resources.com or call the headquarters at 570-651-9973.

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