NDP Government Gives Fracking Waste Handler Free Ride: Colchester County Left Holding Bag

Short deadline for appeals leaves groups scrambling

Ken Summers  ::  Halifax Media Co-op

Report Release Monday 7:00 22 April Kennetcook Fire Hall [behind Home Hardware]

Atlantic Industrial Services is the Maritime's largest processor of industrial wastewater. They are looking to dump fracking wastewater down the Debert sewer system. [Photo: K. Summers]

Noel, Nova Scotia - Fracking waste water has now been sitting in two Kennetcook storage ponds for 5 years. In 2011 one third of the frack wastes still there was transferred to a facility in Debert, where it has been in a pseudo-regulatory purgatory ever since. Also 5 years ago, another 4 plus million litres of untreated waste water was taken to some unknown location and just dumped. Our government says it does not know where, and did not need to know. 

Three years ago, 7.3 million litres of fracking wastes was dumped untreated into the Town of Windsor's Sewage Treatment Plant, with the blessing and facilitation of our provincial government.  The government’s approval of that was secured on the basis that the waste water would come from the Kennetcook waste ponds, and was based on an analysis of those wastes. That analysis was fundamentally inappropriate for the environmental risks involved. 

At least another 10 million litres of fracking wastes has been brought into Nova Scotia from New Brunswick by Atlantic Industrial Services (AIS). Apparently the company was not required to report that fact to anyone in the Nova Scotia government, and no one made it their business to know until the process was well underway.

Some of those fracking wastes did eventually make their way to the AIS Debert facility, after Nova Scotia Environment realized the New Brunswick wastes were being brought in, and retroactively deemed that AIS “had always been approved to process fracking wastes”…

The facility is NOT approved to process Waste Dangerous Goods (WDG); fracking wastes are treated as WDG across Canada, and the Department of Environment had classified the Kennetcook fracking wastes as waste dangerous goods. 

Out of Control: Province Abdicates as Regulator

The thread in all this willful abdication of regulatory responsibility is that the government of Nova Scotia decided early on that, “As the Department did not attribute a significant risk associated with these (Kennetcook) ponds and the water contained in them, the Department had no reason to verify where the water was ultimately disposed.”

Department of Environment spokesperson Lori  Errington followed up that the department was unable to release the data that this decision was based on, even through Freedom of Information [FOIPOP], because it was ‘proprietary information’. But the list of chemical compounds used in the fracking compound did make it intoNOFRAC’s Freedom of Information trove, and the documented correspondence establishes that the Department simply accepted Triangle Petroleum’s assertion that the amounts used were “minimal.” [pages 183-5]

Very late in the process- more than 3 years after the fracking in Kennetcook, Nova Scotia - Environment took note of a crucial and commonly occurring issue with high volume hydraulic fracturing of shale beds: elevated levels of naturally occurring radioactive materials [NORM] brought to the surface with the “flowback wastewater.”

Given the arduous process that has unfolded since test results showed elevated NORMs, one might expect that Nova Scotia Environment would revisit their early acceptance of the presumption that the chemical compounds in the Kennetcook fracking wastes is not an issue requiring their attention.

But no attention has been forthcoming.

Instead, the NDP government has passed the buck on regulating the chemical compounds in the fracking wastes, which has landed by default in the lap of the Municipality of the County of Colchester- home to Atlantic Industrial Services' Debert waste treatment facility, which discharges into the municipality’s Debert sewage treatment plant.

Since another Media Coop article first brought the very unresolved radioactivity issue to light last year, the public focus of the fracking wastes has been on that vexing question. What to do with it is indeed a very complex and contentious question. The glare of public scrutiny and need to literally invent a regulatory process has been neatly downloaded onto a municipal government.

Colcehester County Municipality Forced to Fill Void Left by NDP Government

To its credit, Colchester County has addressed the issue of radioactivity in the waste water, and has taken a step back and away from the NDP government’s abdication of responsibility to at least look at the issue of what toxic chemicals in the fracking wastes need to be tested for.

Spurred by the issue of the fracking wastes, Colchester County has drafted and enacted a new Sewer Use By-Law. And they have determined the need that the wastewater be tested at many stages of processing for the what are known as theBTEX group of chemicals. 

 These are toxic volatile organic chemicals [VOC] commonly used in hydraulic fracturing. The suite of chemicals the County is requiring tests for can be seen here. 

Many Parties Appeal After County Approves AIS Discharging Fracking Wastes

Council and staff of Colchester County have spent many hours discussing the substantive issues surrounding the proposed discharging of fracking wastes, and in re-vamping their by-laws, policy and decision process. The Public Works Director’s Approval of discharge by AIS into the Debert Sewage Treatment Plant has always been seen as the first step of a process, and formal appeals of the decision were expected.

Despite most appellants having less than 2 weeks notice before the April 10 filing deadline, County Council received more than 30 appeals, many with substantial documentation prepared on the short notice. Appeals were filed by Millbrook First Nation, the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaq Chiefs, the Sierra Club, the Council of Canadians and the Ecology Action Centre, among others. As Chief Julian opened in theAssembly’s appeal,“The primary concern for the Mi'kmaq is to avoid any irreparable harm to the environment and we wish to ensure that our lands and waters are protected.”

Adequacy of the Information Gathering and Decision Making Process

Without being provided documentation of the chemicals known to be present in the fracking fluids, the County made a prudent choice in requiring tests for the BTEX group. But both the Province and AIS do have documentation

It is a mystery why the provincial government has always accepted the dismissal of a need to test for chemicals documented to be present in Triangle Petroleum’s Kennetcook fracking wastes. Given the vested interest AIS has, it is easy to understand General Manager Andre Lachevrotiere  waving off any concerns in his submission to the County.

Colchester County’s conditions for the discharge of the fracking wastes were recently developed. Since they required testing only for the BTEX group of chemicals, apparently they accepted the earler assurances of AIS General Manager Lachevrotiere about other chemicals present that “these two chemicals at the time of their use comprised less than 0.1% of the total volume of the fracturing fluid”. [page 1]

Reasonably accurate estimates cannot be calculated from the documentation AIS and the provincial government have, so the basis for that claim is another mystery. Even if the volume of a chemical is known, that is only relevant in the context of information on its toxicity.

In fact, the two “chemicals” that Lachevrotiere is referring to are actually commercial products that are a combination of chemical compounds [pages 29-37] . Since there a number of other products documented as used in the Kennetcook frack fluids, it is unclear why he refers only to these two. But there is one very notable risk in just these two, that should have jumped out at somebody.

Biocides are used in most high volume shale bed hydraulic fracturing. The documents submitted by AIS include data for the product ‘B4,’ which contains significant amounts of Methylene Bis (Thocyanate) and 2-(Thiocyanomethylthio) Benzothiozole. 

Both of these biocides are rated with the highest toxicity category of the US EPA. The concentration of 0.1% which AIS minimized in its submission, would behundreds of times greater than any of the exposure thresholds of concern for Toxicity Category 1.

Emblematic of the strains this issue has put on the municipal government’s process and capabilities, is that the crucial documentation of the AIS application and submissions for discharging the wastes, including those that entail the presence of chemical compounds, only became available on the deadline day for filing appeals. Appellants seem generally to see this as a consequence of the County having to scramble.

This obviously raises a number of specific questions about the adequacy of the appeal process, and of the information that is being put to the Sewer Use Committee. But perhaps it most of all illustrates that no municipal government should be responsible for such complex regulation that is the responsibility of the provincial government.

“The provincial government needs to take some leadership on this issue. Nova Scotians need to be protected against an industry who as we have seen through AIS will try to push against what the precautionary principle demands of us,” said Angela Giles, Atlantic regional organizer with the Council of Canadians.

                             FRACKING WASTEWATER TIMELINE

March-April 2008 Triangle fracks two wells in Kennectccok- 7 million litres of flowback wastes into two waste ponds.

June 2008 Kennetcook #2 mostly drained. 3.5 million litres required to be taken to an “approved facility” [none in the Martime region then]. Nova Scotia Environment [NSE] says it does not know where because chemical composition of wastes not a concern. No testing done.

June 2008 Additional frack treatment for Kennetcook #2. Large amount of “formation water” returns to surface and into the waste pond.

April 2009 Triangle fracks well at Noel Lake. No storage pond, and wastewater taken away as produced. Again, dumped at a location still unknown to NSE. No testing of wastes.

September 2009  AIS gets approval of provincial government for its 200 page environmental assessment submitted so that it can construct expansion allowing it to process Waste Dangerous Goods. Business opportunity of processing fracking wastes emphasized.

September 2009  Expansion of Debert facility is not undertaken, ever. AIS instead proposes dumping of untreated Kennectook fracking wastes into Town of Windsor Sewage Treatment Plant.  NSE approval process concerns itself solely with salinity.

March 2010 to August 2011  AIS discharges 7.3 million litres of frack wastes at Windsor. Mathematical impossibility that amount came from the Kennetcook waste ponds. During the same period, AIS brings more than that amount of frack wastes from New Brunswick.

During 2011  Environment allows AIS to begin bringing New Brunswick frack wastes to the Debert facility. When questioned about the change, NSE claims AIS "was always approved to process fracking wastes”.

October 2011  AIS contracts with Triangle Petroleum to bring the14.5 million litres of frack wastes in the Kennetcook ponds to the Debert facility for processing. NSE requires Triangle to test wastes for radioactity [NORM], but allows transport of wastes to begin.

December 2011  NORM test results show elevated levels. Transport suspended, with 4.5 million litres of the frack wastes now at the AIS Debert facility.

August 2012   AIS gets NSE Pilot Project approval to remove sufficient radioactive material to make possible treated frack waste discharge into Colchester County Debert Sewage Treatment Plant. Project completed in October.

March 2013   Colchester County Public Works Director approves discharge of the treated wastes into their sewage system. Appeals known in advance to be virtually guaranteed.

May 2013  Effective date of County's Approval for AIS to discharge fracking wastes.

Testimony:  Record 36% of North Dakota Fracked Gas Was Flared in December

Steve Horn  ::  DeSmogBlog / News Report  ::  11 March 2014

"In 2012 alone, flaring resulted in the loss of approximately $1 billion in fuel and the GHG emissions equivalent of adding one million cars to the road," explained Ceres' July 2013 report. According to World Bank data, the U.S. is now one of the top five flarers in the world.

The recent March 6 House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power hearing titled "Benefits of and Challenges to Energy Access in the 21st Century: Fuel Supply and Infrastructure" never had over 100 online viewers watching the livestream at any point in time. And it unfolded in an essentially empty room. 

But the poor attendance record had no relation to the gravity of the facts presented by testifiers. Among other things, one presenter revealed 36 percent of the gas by-product from oil obtained via hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") in North Dakota's Bakken Shale basin was flared off as waste during a brutally cold midwest winter with no end in sight.

These damning facts were brought forward by Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (Ceres) Oil & Gas and Insurance Programs Director Andrew Logan, one of eight people called to testify around topics ranging from domestic propane markets to fossil fuels-by-rail markets, to pipeline markets and flaring. 

A topic covered previously by DeSmogBlog, Logan submitted to the Subcommittee that flaring "is getting worse, not better."

"Flaring in North Dakota hit 36% in December, a new record," Logan told the subcommittee. "This means that more than 1/3 of all natural gas produced in the state is going up in smoke, at the same time as consumers around the country are seeing price spikes from natural gas in this cold winter, along with actual shortages of propane in many places."

Logan also said that wasteful flaring is also a growing quagmire in Texas, which has seen a 10-fold increase in flaring permits since 2010.

At least one influential Subcommittee member has taken notice.

U.S. Rep. Waxman: Flaring "Wasteful and Unnecessary"

During the question-and-answer portion of the hearing, U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) chimed in with his thoughts on flaring, calling for a follow-up hearing to focus exclusively on this issue.

"The wasteful and unnecessary flaring of natural gas is a serious problem and has no place in a modern energy infrastructure. I believe the Subcommittee should a hearing to get the facts regarding flaring and to develop real solutions to the problem," said Waxman.

In an interview with DeSmogBlog, Logan said he believed that a hearing on this issue would go a long way toward tackling the flaring problem. 

"Flaring, at least at the level we are currently seeing in the Bakken, is so obviously indefensible that simply shining a light on the problem should get us well on the way to a solution," said Logan. "That being said, the Republicans obviously control the House — and therefore the subject of hearings at present — and so I don't know how likely it is that we will see hearings anytime soon."

"Wasteful" is an understatement given how much gas is flared off in the Bakken Shale. The amount flared off could heat over half a million homes per day, according to a New York Times investigation. 

"In 2012 alone, flaring resulted in the loss of approximately $1 billion in fuel and the GHG emissions equivalent of adding one million cars to the road," explained Ceres' July 2013 report titled, "Flaring up: North Dakota Natural Gas Flaring More Than Doubles in Two Years." 

According to World Bank data, the U.S. is now one of the top five flarers in the world.

So, what's being wasted? Not just methane gas, but also "rich [and] valuable natural gas liquids like propane and butane [which are] about the last gas you would want to flare," according to Logan's testimony.

The propane is being flared at the same time North and South Dakota face a propane crisis and accompanying price spike.

"In North and South Dakota, the shortage has become so acute that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has opened shelters to serve its population, most of whom rely on propane," explained The New York Times.

Logan says the situation in the Dakotas epitomizes why strong federal regulations are needed. 

"It's outrageous that propane is being flared off as a waste product when Dakotans are shivering in the cold due to artificial propane shortages," he said. "The only real solution is regulation that forces the industry to curtail flaring once and for all."

"Flaring in North Dakota will only be solved when the regulatory structure changes so that flaring is no longer the easiest option. For that to change, the incentive structure needs to change."

Why Flare? Profits

At the hearing, Waxman asked Logan why he thinks companies choose to flare at all. 

"Well, it's really all about the relative economics and also the state of regulation in places like North Dakota. So while it's profitable to capture the gas, it's more profitable to drill the next oil well," Logan testified. "So if you're an oil company with a limited amount of money to spend — as they all are — it's a somewhat rational short-term choice to say, 'Well look, if I don't have to capture that gas, I'd rather spend that money to drill another well.'"

"We think in the long-term that's very short-sighted and a waste of the value of that resource, but you can kind of see why the market is pushing companies in that direction."

This short-term, profit motive was echoed by an oil and gas industry representative in a September 2011 story appearing in The New York Times. 

"I’ll tell you why people flare: It’s cheap," Troy Anderson, lead operator of a North Dakota gas-processing plant owned by Whiting Petroleum told The Times. "Pipelines are expensive: You have to maintain them. You need permits to build them. They are a pain."

It also helps the industry that the head of North Dakota's oil and gas regulatory body — the Department of Mineral Resources — is headed by Lynn Helms, a former employee of industry giants Texaco and Hess. 

"Bakken...not going anywhere"

Logan and the over 100 members managing the more than $11 trillion Ceres represents argue that a time-out is needed to determine how to develop the Bakken more strategically.

"The Bakken formation has been around for 360 million years. It’s not going anywhere. If it takes a little extra time to develop the resource in a thoughtful and deliberate way, it seems to me we should strongly encourage that," said Logan in his concluding remarks to the Subcommittee. 

Strange Byproduct Of Fracking Boom: Radioactive Socks

Forbes Magazine  ::  Jeff McMahon

Justin Smith, Watford City North Dakota Superintendent of Public Works, holding an oilfield filter sock. (Photo courtesy of Neal A. Shipman, Editor, McKenzie County Farmer, Watford City, ND)

Oilfield filter socks, used to filter wastewater at drilling sites, have turned up in some odd corners of North Dakota, including a roadside, an Indian Reservation, a city garbage can, and tucked under other waste trucked to landfills.

The socks often contain naturally occurring radioactive materials—radium is the usual suspect—and may be dumped to avoid more costly disposal at radioactive waste depositories out of state.

“Unfortunately, if the only disposal options are out of state, I think that creates a bad environment for people to try to sneak bags of it into landfills,” John Harju of the Energy and Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota told the Jamestown Sun. “People don’t know what to do with it.”

Hydraulic fracturing and lateral drilling have spurred an oil boom in western North Dakota so rapid that the region has struggled to house and feed the influx of workers, according to the North Dakota Health Department. Monthly oil production in the state has increased from about 3 million barrels per month in 2008 to 25 million, according to the state’s Department of Mineral Resources.

Some of the water injected into deep shale formations during hydraulic fracturing returns to the surface as “flowback water.”

“Flowback will contain the chemical additives used during hydraulic fracturing; thus, flowback is an industrial wastewater that requires proper treatment and/or disposal,” according to Cornell University’s Water Resources Institute. “In addition to chemical additives, flowback water will also contain chemical constituents associated with the shale,” which may include high levels of salt, metals, organic compounds, and naturally occuring radioactive materials (NORM).

Filter socks are used to capture the solids in flowback water.