NORWICH – The municipal water treatment plant in the Village of Sherburne has accepted an undisclosed amount of waste water from local natural gas drilling operations since the spring, and the City of Norwich accepted 20,000 gallons for the first time last week.
Public works directors at much smaller capacity plants in the villages of Greene, Oxford and Bainbridge said they had not been approached.
“I guess they’re coming, though, right?” said Bainbridge DPW superintendent Jeff Webb.
With 10 wells in Chenango County currently targeting the Marcellus Shale, and the possibility of 100s more to come in the future – based on fast-paced land leasing activity here and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s website - Webb’s concern is warranted. Each well drilled into the Marcellus requires hydro-fracing, a process that utilizes between 50,000 to 1 million gallons of water per well.
Where gas companies obtain the water needed for drilling, and where they later dispose of it, are hot button issues for environmentalists and regulators today. The Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers, they fear, could be threatened by the large quantities of water needed to tap into the profitable layer of Marcellus Shale found under much of Central New York. And, they say, an unknown mixture of chemicals and solvents needed to crack the shale might later contaminate drinking water downstate.
The questions have prompted Governor David Paterson to call on the DEC for more drilling oversight, a process that has slowed the permitting process in the Marcellus.
Contractors for Nornew, Inc., a natural gas company with offices at the Eaton Center in Norwich, have been actively drilling mostly horizontal wells in both Madison and Chenango counties.
Company spokesman Dennis Holbrook said Nornew’s water usage is required to follow Susquehanna Delaware River Basin regulations that limit drilling activities to under 600,000 gallons of water per month. While he didn’t say what water sources Nornew is tapping, the company drills six or seven wells per month, using about 560,000 gallons of water or 80,000 gallons per well. (A typical swimming pool holds 20,000 to 25,000 gallons of water.)
Highly pressurized air and well as water is forced down the well shaft, Holbrook said.
“We’ve been drilling with air, using minimal water. Some formations don’t require fracing,” he said yesterday. Drillers have been targeting the Herkimer, Oneida and Oriskany rock deposits in Smyrna, Otselic, Plymouth, Preston, Smithville, Oxford and Coventry.
