Strange Bedfellows? Gas Companies & Environmental Groups Agree to Wastewater Standards

A collaborative of natural gas companies, environmental groups, and NGOs joined forces in 2013 in order to set standards for the safe discharge of treated shale wastewater. The result was The Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD), a group that has created important, environmentally conscious performance standards for gas companies to follow as they produce and discharge wastewater.

Today we’ll tell you what the group has said about wastewater treatment and wastewater disposal, and how AWWT can help!

The Challenges: Wastewater Recycling and Wastewater Transport

CSSD’sPerformance Standard 1 identified two acceptable forms of wastewater discharge: recycling and underground injection. Along with those findings, the group admitted that each option came with unique challenges that needed to be addressed:

• Companies using underground injection as a means of discharge typically must transport wastewater over long distances, creating high costs and many associated risks.

• When a company’s operations mature. They typically begin producing more wastewater than they can recycle.

The Solutions: Alternatives to the Standard Approach

By 2015, CSSD had explored all wastewater treatment technologies and reviewed EPA guidance and federal and state regulatory frameworks. They found that regulated Centralized Waste Treatment (CWT) facilities are the most appropriate solution to the challenges mentioned above. Specifically, they found that:

• Some advanced wastewater treatment facilities provide an acceptable alternative to zero-discharge wastewater recycling because they could treat shale gas wastewater at the same level or better than receiving stream standards. A pilot plant permitted in Ardmore, OK to discharge the treated water to local waterways consulted with AWWT for the project.

• The best available wastewater treatment technology involves a combination of distillation and biological treatment and, depending on the waste to be treated, reverse osmosis.

However, the CSSD did acknowledge that wastewater treatment technology (like technology in general) is constantly evolving and improving, and any facility that shows success using a combination of existing technologies or new technologies should be utilized by operators. AWWT can use many technologies to create any water quality level.

Visit our homepage to learn more about our Cost Savings Calculator and our wastewater treatment technologies!