McKeesport Rivers

7/28/2019 McKeesport Rivers

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McKeesportlike Pittsburghsits on a golden triangle of economic possibility. The

city was built where the Youghiogheny River meets the Monongahela, which flows roughly 15 miles to

Pittsburghs Point.

However, the quality of these waterways has been less than golden through the years of

industrial use and abuse by steel manufacturing, longwall coal mining, and most recently, by Marcellus

Shale drilling and hydraulic fracking.

McKeesports municipal authority is one of several water treatment facilities in the Mon Valley

that has accepted frack water from Marcellus drilling companies in order to bolster its economy via a

new revenue stream. The waste stream, however, was blocked because the municipality lacked the

proper permits from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

In April 2012, McKeesport settled a legal dispute with Clean Water Action (CWA) and Three

Rivers Waterkeeper, two environmental non-profit groups, by agreeing to stop accepting frack water

into its waste processing plant until it obtained the proper DEP permits. This suit was the first filed in a

federal court to stop the discharge of Marcellus drilling wastewater in Pennsylvania. The environmental

groups claimed that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) had essentially

bypassed the Clean Water Act when it allowed McKeesport to discharge 100,000 gallons per day of frack

water into the Monongahela River. The court found that government at the federal, state, and local

level had all failed to properly protect their citizens from drinking potentially contaminated drinking

water.

The McKeesport case begs questions about the relationships among the various levels of

government involved in protecting our waterways and what effect Marcellus drilling is having on rivers

and streams. How is our drinking water monitored? How are the laws and regulations created to protect

the water supply actually enforced? The system appears to have some cracks.


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Regulation

According to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers document from the October 2012 West Virginia

Water Research Conference, the following regulations exist on the federal level to ensure water quality:

56 federal laws 10 executive orders 38 regulations 8 interagency memorandums of agreement Other miscellaneous directives and guidance documents that regulate water quality.

The most far-reaching pieces of federal legislation are the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Safe

Drinking Water Act of 1974, which created most of the framework for ensuring that the nations water is

treated in a way that assures good environmental and human health. These acts have been amended

several times but continue to serve as the primary legal guardians of our water. The U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA) enforces these laws at the national level.

On the state level, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett signed Act 13 into law in , 2012. Act 13 is

an environmental legal provision that, according to the DEP website, increased setback requirements

for unconventional gas development; enhanced protection of water supplies; and [created] strong,

uniform, consistent statewide environmental standards. It is one of the most recent additions to the

DEPs list of regulatory duties that also address Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling with previously unseen

level of political clout.

Throughout the country, various River Basin Commissions also create their own interstate

policies and regulations to protect the health and quality of the rivers, as well as the health and general

well-being of the citizens who reside within the basin. For example, the Susquehanna River Basin


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Commission (SRBC) creates policies that effect Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland. Some ofSRBCs

policies are regulate natural gas development, low flow period procedures, and the use and reuse of

low-quality water.

One of the disadvantages Southwestern Pennsylvania has is that they dont have a River Basin

Commission like the Delaware or the Susquehanna does, said Steve Hvodzovich, Marcellus Shale Policy

Associate, lobbyist and community organizer for Clean Water Action The SRBC brings together multiple

state players around that watershed, and together they wield greater political clout. Without such a

commission, Southwestern Pennsylvania has a harder time exerting political pressure on clean water

issues, Hvodzovich said. A river basin commission or a similar interstate group could have prevented

McKeesport and other municipalities from harming the quality of the Monongahela.

Enforcement

Evan Stoddard, former director of economic development for the Urban Redevelopment

Authority of Pittsburgh and now associate dean at Duquesne Universitys McAnulty College of Liberal

Arts, believes that regulators on the federal, state and local levels are struggling to keep up with the

rapid development of shale drilling. Regulations address known problems he said. As the issues

resulting from shale gas extraction surface, regulators are trying to figure out how to address them. It's

a process of trial and error to some degree.

Historically, he said, environmental enforcement has followed a trickle-down approach.

In general, state laws have conformed with federal laws, and the EPA has looked to the states

to implement federal laws and standards., he said. But the oversight of shale drilling has scrambled

this relationship, he explained. With shale drilling, environmental regulations overlap with land use

ordinances, and the latter have remained in the domain of states and local municipalities. I suspect

that local officials don't know much about regulation of the industry, Stoddard said.


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The sheer size and complexity of the shale industry has also challenged enforcement. Between

2008 and 2011, the number of Marcellus shale wells in Pennsylvania grew form 326 to 1,976, an 500

percent increase.

The EPA has stepped up its inspection of energy extractions in an effort to keep pace. In an

effort to address what it says is an urgent need to assure that we develop energy sources in an

environmentally protective manner, EPA inspections shot up 133 percent between 2011 and 2012. But

enforcement, showing only a 23 percent increase during the same period, has not kept pace.


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State and local agencies are unlikely to be of much help. In March 2013, $154 million was cut from

appropriations to state environmental programs because of federal Sequestration. Pennsylvania saw

over $5 million in cuts to clear water and air programs and over $1 million more to fish and wildlife

preservation programs. As the failure of governmental oversight of McKeesports water processing

shows, the problems with water quality are too numerous for federal or state agencies to monitor.

Since the discovery that McKeesport was attempting to process frack water, Hvodzovich of CWA

said, the DEP has asked all the natural gas drilling operators in Pennsylvania to voluntarily stop taking

their wastewater to municipal treatment facilities and to develop alternative ways of disposing of it

through recycling or injection wells. That has certainly helped in addressing this issue, he said.


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But the request is voluntary. In 2011, when the EPA sent orders to 13 waste water treatment

facilities in Pennsylvania requiring them to certify that they were no longer accepting frack water,

several plants refused.

Fragmentation of governmental responsibility hampers enforcement. Non-profits like

CWA and TRW have struggled to plug up holes that left by sweeping federal mandates that state

agencies have failed to enforce. Problems are further hampered by the fact that environmental

problems are not contained by governmental jurisdictions.

State lines, state laws and even municipal boundaries can be a challenge because one state or

one municipality doing the right thing doesnt mean the next one is, Hvodzovich said. Youve got to

take it piece by piece so to speak because thats the only way youre going to be able to deal with

people and make them realize that this is a bigger issue than just one area.

Monitoring but not enforcing?

One agency with oversight over all U.S. waterways that provide drinking water is U.S. Army

Corps of Engineers (USACE). The Pittsburgh District USACE is responsible for 328 miles of navigable

waterways and over 1,000 miles of 21 major rivers and streams and impacted by the Corps operation of

16 reservoirs. Its jurisdiction extends to West Virginia, Ohio, Maryland and New York.

Congressional mandate, executive orders and federal laws charge the Corps with managing

water reservoirs to maintain water quality. However, the reservoirs are also used for flood control, low-

flow scenarios, water supply, fish and wildlife protection, and recreation.

The Corps is not a regulatory agency and does not have to the authority to regulate water

quality, just monitor it. The only regulatory functions the Corps is responsible for are Section 10 of the

Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 and Section 404 of the Clean Water Act.


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Under Section 10, a permit is required for work or structures in, over, or under navigable waters

of the United States. A permit is required for the discharge of dredged or fill material into waters of the

United States. However, neither of these acts has any provisions for enforcing water quality standards.

A representative of the Corps Pittsburgh District gave the following statement:

To assure optimum operation of projects for authorized purposes, the District has been

monitoring water quality (time-series and grab samples), since the mid 1970s. After four

decades of improving water quality, in 2008 our data began to show negative trends for

water quality parameters related to shale gas extraction activities (total dissolved solids,

chlorides, sodium, strontium, etc.). These data also show that the assimilative capacity

for total dissolved solids (TDS) during low flow periods has already been reached in the

lower Monongahela, Casselman, Youghiogheny, and West Fork Rivers. These

measureable changes in the water resources of the Monongahela River Watershed,

which coincided with the development of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation in

those basins, are affecting the Corps water quality and natural resource management

missions. Our ability to realize authorized water quality benefits could be further

impacted by excessive withdrawals from reservoir inflows or their downstream regulated

reaches, or with permitted or unpermitted discharge of high TDS wastewater into surface

waters. In addition, Corps reservoirs have little or no capacity to release enough water to

dilute the Monongahela River TDS load during low flow periods. The District therefore

supports implementation of a sustainable watershed-based approach for water

withdrawals and management of the growing TDS load in the entire upper Ohio River

watershed.


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But the Corps has no regulatory authority over water quality, does not conduct identify pollution

sources, and cannot investigate any causality between sources of pollution and water quality.

However, the Corps own research does indicate that sodium and chloride levels in the

Monongahela are on a linear increase, and these elements are considered TDS. Other TDS include

sulfates, magnesium, arsenic and calcium and while not technically a TDS, certain radioactive isotopes

such as radium and uranium have been found in water quality samples pulled by the Corps and others as

well. In an April 3,, 2013 release, the DEP stated that based on current data regulations and industry

practices, there is no indication that the public or workers in the oil and gas industry face health risks

from exposure to radiation from these materials [flowback waters, drilling equipment, etc].

The Corps seems to be a good candidate to monitor, regulate, and enforce on behalf of the

environment and the population, but that is not its role. Given its unique position and various

operational missions related to water, its easy to compare the Corps with a power-hitter being asked to

bunt.

McKeesport plus one year and The Future

One year after the April 2012 federal lawsuit stopped McKeesports municipal authority from

illegally discharging frack water into the Monongahela River, where do things stand? A 2010 list of

permitted use facilities within the Monongahela River drainage, compiled by Conrad Volz of the

Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the University of Pittsburgh, included the

following sites:

Site and 1,000 Gallons/Day

Site 1,000 Gallons/Day

McKeesport* 115

Clairton Municipal Authority* 60

Mon Valley Brine 200

Authority of Borough of Charleroi 30

Municipal Authority of Belle Vernon 10

Borough of California 10


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Brownsville Municipal Authority 9

Franklin Township Sewer 50

Waynesburg Borough 8

Shallenberger-Ronco 500

Shallenberger-Rankin Run 125

Shallenberger Connellsville 1,000*Clairtons municipal authority was offered $700,000 for its 2010 frack water contract.

If given the same deal, McKeesport stood to make over $1.3 million that year.

A statement from the DEP said none of the sites listed above discharges frack water anymore.

The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program, a creation of the EPA,

controls water pollution by regulating point sources that discharge pollutants into waters. Industrial,

municipal, and other facilities must obtain permits if their discharges go directly to surface waters. In

most cases, the NPDES permit program is administered by authorized states. In the case of

Pennsylvania, permits are issued by the DEP.

Mon Valley Brine permit applications were withdrawn along with the Shallenbeger-Rankin Run

and Shallenberger Connellsville. The Shallenberger-Ronco site has an NPDES permit but all of the water

treated is recycled and reused. Two sites currently have NPDES permits that are not on the 2010 list:

Reserved Environmental Services in Hempfield Township is authorized to discharge into Sewickley Creek

and Belson Run, but the water treated there is also recycled; Somerset Regional Water Resources in

Somerset Township also has a permit, but the facility is not in operation.

Two sites are also in the process of applying for NPDES permits; Green Earth has proposed a

facility in Perry Township that would discharge into Dunkard Creek and Penn Woods Enterprises has a

proposed facility in Summit Township that would discharge into the Casselman River.

The Future

Nearly 100 percent of the Monongahela Basin is underlain by the Marcellus Shale formation.

Extraction of this resource means the opportunities and risks exist for every municipality in the region.

An estimated 489 trillion cubic feet of potentially recoverable natural gas lies in the Marcellus Shale.


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Consequently, some of these former steel towns could see glimmers of their former glory made

manifest by natural gas drilling. McKeesport alone stood to make millions of dollars for accepting frack

wastewater.

But the holes in the governmental safety nets were too large, just a year ago to catch the danger

of McKeesports frack water dumping with the help of non-profit organizations. While none of the

permitted use facilities from 2010 presently discharge into the Monongahela River, two proposed sites

will. The Casselman River has already reached TDS assimilative capacity and Dunkard Creek has a history

of environmental alteration as a result of Marcellus Shale drilling. In 2009, an algae bloom caused by

high TDS levels resulted in a historic kill of fish in Dunkard Creek.

As Evan Stoddard said, regulating pollution resulting from natural gas extraction is a process of

trial and error to some degree.


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Documents

McKeesport Rivers