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There's still hope for the Anacostia in spite of all the strikes against it
Books On The Bay
Marcellus Shale: Pipe dreams in Pennsylvania?
PA studies wastewater left over from drilling
Pennsylvania environmental protection officials are studying the wastewater from the state's fast-growing natural gas exploration activity to determine whether it is hazardous to human health.
Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Tom Rathbun said a chemical analysis the agency is doing should be finished by the end of January.
Regardless of what is found, he said, the gas industry must come up with a way to treat the massive amounts of wastewater coming out of wells being drilled into the thick, black rock of the Marcellus Shale formation. The formation, more than a mile under Pennsylvania and several other states, could become the nation's largest natural gas field.
Exploration companies stress that the solution of chemicals, salts, metals and other components is not hazardous, but biologists and academics are not so sure.
"They don't have an analysis of what's in the wastewater they're pulling out," said Conrad Dan Volz, who directs the Center for Healthy Environments & Communities at the University of Pittsburgh. "What they're putting into the wells can chemically change...underground, and no one is saying how much arsenic, manganese, cobalt, chromium and lead is in the stuff. Depending on the concentration, it could be a hazardous waste."
The companies say much care is taken to shield the solution from contaminating surface water and groundwater near the wells, and in treating it before it is reused or put back into waterways.
Drillers inject up to 54 substances into the water they use to break up the shale. Fracturing the rock gets more gas to flow, and some of the chemicals that are injected are intended to reduce friction when the water is pumped down into the well to blast the rock. In addition, pesticides are added to the water to kill algae in ponds and tanks built next to the drilling pads, because algae can ruin the water pumps.
The drilling companies typically reveal the list of chemicals they add to the water, but they do not discuss how much of each is used.
Among the additives are formaldehyde, which the federal government said may cause cancer in humans, and pesticides that are toxic to fish and other aquatic life. Depending on their concentrations, many of the chemicals can irritate a person's skin and eyes, and damage kidney, heart, liver and lung function.
Up to 4 million gallons of water might be used in a single gas well, and 20-40 percent of the water comes back up after it is blasted into the shale, industry officials said.
The DEP has issued more than 500 permits to drill on Marcellus Shale, and drilling activity has taken place at more than 300 sites, Rathbun said.
A couple of companies are considering on-site recycling systems. Some of the wastewater is taken to approved municipal sewer authorities and some is taken to one of the state's six industrial water treatment facilities. But state officials say more treatment capacity is needed and have encouraged more companies to use on-site recycling methods. Franklin-based Pennsylvania Brine Treatment Inc., which owns three of the state's six industrial treatment facilities, wants to build six more.
Potomac, Anacostia suit filed
Environmental groups went to court in January to challenge federal regulations governing pollution in the Potomac and Anacostia rivers.
Earthjustice filed two lawsuits on behalf of Anacostia Riverkeeper, Friends of the Earth and Potomac Riverkeeper. The groups say EPA pollution caps for bacteria, metals, sediment and other pollutants do not meet Clean Water Act requirements.
In the first lawsuit, the groups seek the revision of 15 pollution limits based on average annual or seasonal discharges. They say the EPA is violating a 2006 U.S. District Court order requiring the agency to issue daily limits.
"Until we can guarantee the safety of our waters in the D.C. area on a daily basis, we cannot guarantee the safety of the people who interact with it," said Potomac Riverkeeper Ed Merrifield.
In the second suit, the groups argue that the EPA's daily limits for sediment and suspended solids for the Anacostia River are too high. They note that current requirements would permit more than half of the 7,000-ton annual pollution limit to wash into the river during one day of heavy rainfall. They also are attempting to force the agency to issue pollution caps for individual sources of sediment.
"This 4,300-ton loophole completely skirts the law's requirement for daily pollution caps," Anacostia Riverkeeper Dottie Yunger said. "It is a cynical approach and signals that the federal government has given up on a healthy future for the Anacostia River."
Parasites killing fewer oysters
Maryland biologists say results from their 2008 oyster survey indicate that fewer oysters in the Chesapeake Bay are dying from parasitic diseases.
Biologists from the Department of Natural Resources say that's a hopeful sign, but also noted the annual survey showed oyster reproduction was poor last year.
Two diseases, Dermo and MSX, began killing oysters in Maryland's portion of the Bay in the late 1950s, causing up to 90 percent of the oysters to die in some areas.
Both diseases thrive in higher salinities, so mortality is much higher in lower parts of the Bay. Disease also tends to be worse in dry years, when low freshwater flows into the Bay result in higher salinities.
With higher salinity in the Bay between 1999 and 2002, MSX, Dermo and oyster mortality was higher than average. The relatively wet years between 2003 and 2006 translated into reduced disease pressure and lower oyster mortality.
But the dry summer of 2007 did not result in high disease levels similar to previous dry years. Dermo increased in 2007, but remained below normal in both prevalence and intensity. MSX increased in frequency, but for the fifth straight year, observed oyster mortality remained low.
"Oyster mortality in 2006 and 2007 were the two lowest years since the 1980s," said Mike Naylor, director of DNR's Shellfish Program. "It's too early to know if this is a trend, but this is a very positive development that we will be monitoring carefully."
The oyster survey has been conducted each fall since 1939 to assess the health of the oyster population. Preliminary results from last fall's survey indicate that reproduction was poor throughout most of the Bay, with the exception of the lower Eastern Shore areas of Tangier Sound, Honga River, and the Little Choptank River.
Groups oppose oil, gas drilling
Environmental groups are calling on the U.S. Department of the Interior to keep Virginia's coast free of offshore oil and gas drilling. In a letter to the Minerals Management Service, the Southern Environmental Law Center says the drilling poses "substantial risk" to the environment and coastal communities. Three other environmental groups also took a stand against drilling.
The concerns were offered as part of a public comment period that ended Jan. 13.
President Barack Obama has said he would support a limited expansion of offshore oil and natural gas development.
The proposed drilling would occur 50 miles from shore in an area covering approximately 3 million acres.
VA to buy back crab licenses
Virginia would spend some of its $10 million in federal disaster aid to buy back licenses from watermen who would volunteer to no longer catch blue crabs from the Chesapeake Bay.
The idea is part of a plan described by state officials to restore crab stocks in the Bay. The money is being made available after the U.S. Commerce Department declared the crab fishery a federal disaster.
Virginia also is using state funds, which are expected to be reimbursed next year, to pay more than 50 watermen to trawl the Bay in search of abandoned traps that still catch and kill crabs.
Island to be cleared of munitions
For more than 40 years, a 3,276-acre peninsula on the Chesapeake Bay served as a bull's-eye for U.S. military bombs and rockets.
The Army Corps of Engineers was set to begin work in January to clear an untold number of ordnance-some of it unexploded -that litters the marshy landscape of Plum Tree Island.
Signs along the shore and at Poquoson marinas warn of the danger, yet people continue to ignore them and visit, officials said. In 1958, three teens were seriously hurt after a bomb half-buried in the sand exploded.
"This work has to be done," said Joe McCauley, the Plum Tree Island National Wildlife Refuge manager with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Army Corps' Baltimore District office will oversee the recovery project, which includes demolition of the unexploded munitions. Work is scheduled to begin in mid-January and continue into April, then resume in 2010.
The island was used by the military from 1917 until 1959. George Follett, the Army Corps' program manager for the Plum Tree Island cleanup, said the largest munitions lobbed on the island were 2,000-pound bombs containing about 1,000 pounds of explosives. Most of the ordnance is expected to be smaller, he said. "Our mission now is to do a survey to find out the nature and extent."
Between 2-5 percent of the rockets and bombs on the island probably didn't explode, Follett said.
Shaw Environmental Inc., an Edgewood, MD, firm that has done similar work at other former Department of Defense sites, will sweep for ordnance, then detonate any remnants. "There will be some loud bangs at some point," Follett said, "but nothing to get nervous about."
The work is being done in stages because of birds that nest on the refuge, which has been managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service since 1972.
