NORWICH – The City of Norwich’s wastewater treatment plant turned away a load of fluids hauled in from a natural gas drilling operation in the region on Monday and the plant’s operator said he was unsure where the driver traveled next.
Public Works Superintendent Carl Ivarson said the hauler was refused for lacking a permit, and presumably left for a municipal treatment facility in another county or returned the waste to the generator’s well site containment pit.
Ivarson provided the information Tuesday morning in a report to members of a special committee charged with monitoring natural gas drilling operations in Chenango County. The city’s municipal water supply and waste water treatment plant are being solicited by companies in the area that are drilling wells into the natural gas reserves in the Utica and Herkimer formations.
The news prompted several responses from members of the committee. Town of Smyra Supervisor James Bays said the rejected hauler should be known to other treatment facilities. Ross Iannello, the New Berlin supervisor, said the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation should tag non-permitted haulers. Charles Rowe, a representative of the Central New York Landowners Coalition, said milk haulers who attempt to deliver tainted milk are tagged by distributors.
DEC press spokesman Yancey Roy said he didn’t know whether a tracking mechanism was in place for what’s called “simulation” and “production” waste that is refused by treatement plants. He said he planned to find out whether such a measure would be part of the DEC’s updated environmental review regulations for gas companies. The new procedures are expected to be completed in the spring.
The Norwich plant accepted two loads of drilling waste from haulers this summer in what Ivarson called “a test” of the facilities’ capabilities. However, no horizontal hydrofracking fluids - some which may contain hazardous metals and other controversial chemicals - were taken in, he said, because that type of frac’ing has yet to ocurr in Chenango County.
To prepare for the large quantities of frac’ing fluids that will be used to tap into the highly prized Marcellus Shale formation in the future, the city has developed a new waste water permit and raw water permit specifically for natural gas generators. The permit enhances existing state regulations on sewers (that were revised in 1996), and includes pre-treatment requirements. Ivarson said any proprietary additives used in frac’ing or other waste would be revealed to treatment facility operators via a confidentiality agreement.
The DEC stamped its approved of the county’s permit in September.
Ivarson said the gas companies would be responsible for any and all permits, not their independent, contracted haulers. Companies must also sign a $1 million bond to be held by the city for 1 year after drilling wastewater has been accepted. The treatment plant is tested once a year.
“The permit is needed so that the sludge doesn’t eventualy turn into hazardous waste,” Ivarson said. “I will know what they are using (the chemical components of drilling liquids). I wouldn’t take the risk of killing our bug life.”
The composition of each formation’s waste water is different. Sample would be tested. “We do a lot of testing here,” the plant’s operator said.
Ivarson said a representative from the Environmental Protection Agency visited the Norwich plant last week. “I thought that was very interesting,” he told members of the committee. “They haven’t been her for 10 years. Maybe they are looking at all of the plants around here.”