The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that a natural gas drilling company soon will be disposing of fracking wastewater underground.

Seneca Resources Corp. has received federal approval to operate
a new drilling wastewater injection well in Elk County, and more of those deep
injection wells for the disposal of Marcellus and Utica shale gas drilling
wastewater are on tap for Pennsylvania.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
announced last week that it had approved Seneca’s proposal to convert one of
its existing vertical gas wells into an injection well that will pump up to
60,000 gallons a day of drilling wastewater and salty brine about 2,400 feet
below the surface into the Elk 3 Sandstone formation.

That formation is about 1,700 feet below
groundwater aquifers that supply residential water to residents of the area,
said Karen Johnson, chief of the EPA Region III groundwater and enforcement
branch.

The EPA has permitted 30,000 Class II
injection wells for drilling brine and wastewater disposal nationally — about
a third of those in Texas — but the Seneca disposal well is just the ninth
such well approved in Pennsylvania.

Ms. Johnson said more are in the offing for
the state, including three more new disposal wells that could receive federal
permits as early as this summer.

“We continue to have frequent meetings
with [gas well] operators and a number of additional permits are under
review,” she said. “Independent companies and big operators are all
saying they are going to need more capacity for disposal.”

Drillers use about 4 million gallons of water
and chemicals per well to hydraulically fracture or “frack” the deep
Marcellus Shale gas formation with about a quarter of that eventually flowing
back to the surface.

Drillers are no longer allowed to use municipal wastewater treatment
facilities for disposal, Ms. Johnson said, and — while many drillers recycle
their water — there is still a need for additional disposal locations

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