Toxins tied to fish kill may have hitchhiked

Investigators weigh whether mining equipment is culprit

Sunday, October 04, 2009
By Don Hopey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Bob Donaldson/Post-Gazette

Dead fish rot on a rock where the water of Dunkard Creek left them near the village of Brave in Greene County.An invasive toxic algae, blamed for contributing to the massive Dunkard Creek fish kill along the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border, may have hitchhiked to the region aboard equipment used in Marcellus shale drilling.

That kind of transregional travel could put fish and aquatic life in the states' other creeks and watersheds at risk in coming years as thousands of new wells are drilled into the thick and gaseous layer of shale that lies a mile deep under much of Pennsylvania and the northern Appalachians.

It has been more than a month since fish started going belly-up on Dunkard Creek, and officials with federal and state environmental and fisheries agencies have yet to identify what killed the fish or assign blame.

The only official explanation has come from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, which last week blamed alien golden algae for wiping out thousands of fish, mussels and other aquatic life in 35 miles of what had been one of the most biologically diverse creeks in either state.

But the West Virginia agency doesn't know how the algae got into the creek.

"We might never know how it got there," said spokewoman Kathy Cosco. "We are trying to determine if it's present already in other water bodies or has spread."

Investigators also are looking at the possibility that someone illegally dumped drilling wastewater into the creek.

The algae-as-hitchhiker theory is one being considered by federal investigators. It's part of the big puzzle federal and state agencies are trying to solve as they attempt to identify what many investigators say are "complex and multiple" causes for the ecological destruction.

The investigation continues to focus on extremely high levels of dissolved solids and chloride found in discharges from two Consol Energy mine-water treatment facilities on the creek, and low flow conditions -- possibly acerbated by tanker trucks that local residents have said they often saw withdrawing water from the creek. That combination created an aquatic environment conducive to growth of the algae.

"We do believe there is golden algae in the creek, but for it to thrive there must be a lot of stuff in the creek that shouldn't be there," said David Sternberg, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spokesman. "There are other contributing factors."

Golden algae is one of a group of algae known as chrysophytes that are usually found in hotter, sometimes coastal, environments of the Southwest and South. It is the only chrysophyte algae that produces toxins lethal to fish, mussels, salamanders and other aquatic life.

"Our biggest concern is how the conditions were created in Dunkard Creek that allowed that algae to thrive," Mr. Sternberg said. "If we see a saltwater algae in a freshwater creek, we know there must be something very wrong."

The EPA also is "very concerned" that golden algae could spread throughout the northern Appalachian region where it might devastate other fisheries, Mr. Sternberg said.

Dr. John Rodgers, a professor at Clemson University who has researched invasive freshwater algae, made the initial identification of the algae in Dunkard Creek for Consol. He said its spores could be transported by animals, in boats, on people's shoes, in blown dust or in industrial equipment.

"[Drilling equipment] is certainly something you will want to look at. This is not an organism you want to trifle with," he said, adding that it has been blamed for wiping out bass populations in Texas.

"Certainly you want to think through the pathways it took to that stream and start working on it as fast as you can."

Last week, a long-awaited 18-month state environmental review of Marcellus shale drilling issues in New York said that floating and submerged aquatic plants could be transported by a variety of equipment used in the deep shale drilling and hydraulic fracturing processes to crack the shale layer and release the gas it contains.

"Invasive species may potentially be transferred to a new area or watershed if unused water containing such species is later discharged at another location," the report said. "Other potential mechanisms for the possible transfer of invasive aquatic species may include trucks, hoses, pipelines and other equipment used for water withdrawal and transport."

Texas origins?
The algae, prymnesium parvum, has been known to kill fish in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico since it first showed up in 1985 in the Pecos River in Texas. It also has been found in the Brazos River in Texas where gas well drilling companies are advised not to draw from the river during the algae's winter blooming season.

But the algae had not been found around the Mason-Dixon Line before. It is not known if Texas drilling equipment was moved to Pennsylvania; no states track the movement of drill rigs and tanker trucks.

Leroy Young, fisheries bureau director for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, declined to provide details about the commission's ongoing criminal investigation of the Dunkard Creek fish kill. But he said the golden algae is a concern.

"... Any kind of invasive is a concern," Mr. Young said. "This is a new thing and we'll be looking hard at it."

Matt Pitzarella, a spokesman for Texas-based Range Resources, one of the biggest drilling companies operating in the Marcellus shale, said Range hasn't moved any drilling rigs from Texas to Pennsylvania. Its water-transport equipment is based in Pennsylvania, and it has no wells in Greene County or West Virginia.

"Almost all of our water-storage units are leased or rented from local companies and the water trucks are all local subcontractors," he said.

The company, which has drilled 150 wells into the Marcellus shale, 45 of them horizontal wells, has been recycling all drill water for more than a year, Mr. Pitzarella added. Some smaller drilling companies among more than two dozen gas producers operating in the state may be using equipment brought here from Texas, he said.

Pennsylvania may have as much as 363 trillion cubic feet of natural gas worth as much as $1 trillion deep underground in the Marcellus shale formations. Gas wells to tap those deposits are drilled 5,000 to 8,000 feet deep; each uses up to 4 million gallons of pressurized, chemically treated water to crack, or "frac," the shale and release trapped natural gas. Leftover wastewater contains high levels of chlorides, dissolved solids and fracing chemicals.

The use of fracing fluids and the drawing and disposal of well drilling wastewater have become environmental concerns. High levels of total dissolved solids in the Monongahela River last winter and this fall, which damaged equipment for some industrial water users and caused bad-tasting and -smelling water for residential water customers, was caused in part by discharges of drilling wastewater.

Last month, Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., another Texas-based company with a long history in Pennsylvania, was ordered by the Pennsylvania DEP to temporarily stop its well fracing operations in Dimock, Susquehanna County, until the state can review three frac fluid spills. The company blamed faulty hose and equipment, and fully cleaned up all of the spills.

Declining quality
Although Dunkard Creek was a popular and productive warm-water fishery with good populations of bass, catfish and muskie until the beginning of September, its water quality has been in decline since at least 2002. Discharges high in dissolved solids and chlorides have poured into the creek from mine-water treatment facilities at Consol Energy's Blacksville No. 2 deep mine and its Loveridge Mine in West Virginia.

The West Virginia DEP granted orders in 2004, 2007 and 2008 allowing the company's treatment facilities to discharge unlimited amounts of chloride into the creek until 2013. Mr. Sternberg said the EPA only recently found out about those three administrative orders and is reviewing them.

"The Clean Water Act allows for compliance schedules negotiated by states," he said, "but by law water-quality standards and permit-effluent limits cannot be changed by an enforcement order."

The inability to pin down the fish kill's cause, and begin to address the problem has frustrated environmental, sportsmen's and watershed organizations.

"The players coming to drill here are new to Pennsylvania and may be bringing problems we could not foresee," said Jan Jarrett, president and chief executive officer of Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, an environmental group that has campaigned for a state severance tax on gas well drilling.

"If that's the case, we need some protocols to make sure we don't have hitchhiker invasives. Right now the regulatory system is not nimble enough to address this."

Betty Wiley, president of the Dunkard Creek Watershed Association, said she lacks confidence in the environmental agencies of both states. Last week, a coalition of West Virginia and Pennsylvania watershed groups called on the EPA to take the lead role in the investigation of the fish kill and restoration of the watershed.

"The states haven't told us anything and this is a big problem," Ms. Wiley said, adding that she believes the West Virginia DEP traditionally has been lenient with coal companies. "I feel they are not capable of dealing with this thing in any way. We need the big guys to take charge"

The EPA said it won't do that. But last week it did order Consol to stop pumping wastewater from coal bed methane drilling operations into the Morris Run Borehole, which is attached to its inactive Blacksville No. 1 mine. Stopping that will help determine what impact that operation may have had on elevated discharges from Consol's Blacksville No. 2 treatment facility.

The EPA also proposed new limits on amounts of pollutants that can be discharged into West Virginia's Dunkard Creek watershed.

Consol spokesman Joe Cerenzia said the company had stopped pumping into the Morris Run borehole as directed and last week stopped discharging water from both of its mine-water treatment facilities. He said the company has several Marcellus shale wells in Greene County but none take water from the creek or discharge water into it or the Blacksville No. 1 mine.

Don Hopey can be reached at dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.
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