Guest Authors: Brian Bohm, P.G., ALL Consulting; Teri S. Holmes, M.S., ALL Consulting

Water Resources

Water is a necessary component of the hydraulic fracturing process and is utilized in significant quantities, usually several million gallons for a horizontal well to be completely drilled and fractured, although the amounts will vary depending on the well and geological characteristics of the formation (DOE, 2009; ALL, 2008b; ALL, 2008a). Issues regarding availability, use, transportation, treatment and disposal abound as water is a vital resource to communities and industry. Water is acquired through municipal water systems, groundwater wells, surface water sources, and re-used produced water from oil and gas operations, and is then transported by pipeline or truck to drilling sites (DOE, 2009; ALL, 2008b; ALL, 2008a). While the volume of water needed is not to be dismissed as trivial, comparatively it is a minor percentage of total water usage in any given basin, ranging from less than 0.1% to 0.8% of the total water consumed by industry in any particular shale gas development region (DOE, 2009).

Generally, water volume and usage is more noticeable as new oil and gas operations enter a region; other community businesses and industries may use as much or more water than the oil and gas operations. However, these other water usage practices are historically established and accepted within the community, as such they are less noticeable to the public. Additionally, oil and gas operations need water at all times of the year when drilling and hydraulic fracturing are occurring, even when seasonal variability creates a high demand/low availability scenario for a community. Industry, community organizations and government agencies are making efforts to address this issue with advanced planning to take advantage of seasonal flow differences in rivers and lakes.

One example is the partnership project between an operator, a community in the Fayetteville Shale basin and Trout Unlimited, an environmental conservation organization. The project involved construction of a water impoundment to store water extracted from surface water during high flow events on the Little Red River, such as during spring flows or storm events (DOE, 2009). This type of communication and cooperation among community stakeholders and oil and gas operators in the Haynesville Shale region would allow for additional planning and innovative solutions that mitigate current and cumulative impacts to community groundwater and surface water supplies as well as regional watersheds.

Water Management and Regulation

Water used for hydraulic fracturing that flows back to surface, commonly referred to as flowback water, presents additional challenges to water management programs due to volume and physical/chemical makeup of the water. Although flowback water will contain some hydraulic fracturing additives, proppants and dissolved constituents (solids) from the formation, produced water has dissolved solids concentrations that varies considerably with each well, ranging from nearly freshwater quality of less than 5,000 parts per million (ppm) Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) to brackish at 100,000 ppm TDS (DOE, 2009; ALL, 2008a).

Management of oil and gas produced water is governed by federal, state and local regulations. Louisiana’s oil and gas environmental protections are under rules within the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) Office of Conservation as codified in the Louisiana Administrative Code (LAC), Title. 43. Louisiana regulation allows for disposal of produced water in underground injection wells or discharged to receiving bodies of water, contingent upon highly regulated permitting by the national and state permit program which is administered by the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality. Generally, produced water in the Haynesville Shale area is disposed in Class II underground injection disposal wells under the governing rules of the Federal Underground Injection Control Program.

The Federal Underground Injection Control (UIC) Program, under the auspices of the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 (SDWA) established national health-based standards for public drinking water supplies, was devised to allow and regulate the injection of wastes into the ground in order to protect drinking water resources from contamination. The UIC program specifically prohibits injection of wastes into formations that may be underground sources of drinking water and the injected wastes “must not endanger, or have the potential to endanger, a current or future public water supply.” (DOE, 2009 p.33). The State of Louisiana’s Department of Natural Resources is authorized to administer the UIC program under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) approval. Through the Office of Conservation, the DNR’s engineering and geological sections are responsible for reviewing underground injection well applications and providing expertise regarding regulatory compliance (State of Louisiana, 2009).

Oil and gas operators are increasingly looking to treatment options to either reuse the water in fracturing operations or allow for alternative disposal options such as discharge after treatment, if permitted, as the long-term viability of injection well disposal is questionable (ALL, 2008a). Water treatment pilot projects in the Barnett Shale Gas Play are still in the early stages of testing; with approval from Texas Railroad Commission, Fountain Quail Water Management tested a water distillation process that allows reuse of 80% of the produced water in that region. As of April 2008, 5.7 million barrels of flowback water (and produced water) have been processed to recover 4.5 million barrels of water for reuse in operations (ALL, 2008a). Economic and technical viability of treatment options is highly dependent on each well and basin’s unique characteristics and constituents within the produced water, as well as the federal, state and local regulatory framework for that region. However, continued technological advances in treatment process and operational practices are bringing the option of produced water reuse to greater potential.

Summary

For the foreseeable future, natural gas is the most viable and available energy resource for meeting the needs of our society while working to protect our environmental quality. As domestic conventional sources of natural gas diminish, our nation must develop unconventional resources such as tight sand formations, organic shales and coal bed methane deposits. While there are challenges to capturing natural gas from these unconventional sources, advances in drilling and well completion technology provide an optimum mix of environmentally appropriate operational practices with economic efficiency in energy exploration and production activities. Coupled with increasing cooperation between citizen groups, governmental and regulatory agencies and the oil and gas industry, these practices should be able to ensure a steady, dependable supply of domestically produced natural gas for decades in the United States.

For more info visit www.all-llc.com or email Dan Arthur at darthur@all-llc.com

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ALL Consulting
1718 S. Cheyenne Ave.
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phone: 918-382-7581

I want to thank Dan, Teri and Brian for their contribution. we look forward to working with them more in the future. It's great to have this caliber of knowledge and experience contributing to the site

Keith - Site Publisher


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