Title
Drinking Before the Drills: a Study of Three Pristine Water Sites in Sullivan County
Start Date
21-11-2014 8:00 PM
End Date
21-11-2014 10:00 PM
Description
During the last decade, technologies have improved allowing for extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus shale at depths of eight to ten thousand feet, opening Pennsylvania for drilling and fracking. Economic reality, however, has caused oil and gas companies to delay drilling at many of the sites for which they have obtained drilling permits. This affords us the opportunity to measure natural non-impacted chemical quantities (aka baseline data) at several ponds in Sullivan County, specifically Sones Pond, Beech Lake, and Shumans Lake. Sones Pond is located in the Loyalsock State Forest, Forks, PA and was sampled on June 6. Beech Lake is located in Laporte, PA and was sampled on June 11. Shumans Lake is located in Lopez, PA and was sampled on June 20. Samples from each site were strategically taken to gain knowledge of the entire body of water, including any obvious inflows and outflows. Data collected in situ included pH, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, and turbidity. Conductivity values averaged 12 µS/cm (Beech) and 14 µS/cm (Sones), but ranged from 61 to 204 µS/cm at Shumans Pond. pH at all the ponds was slightly acidic to neutral, with the lowest pH at Beech Lake (5.2 to 5.6). Alkalinity was low at all sites sampled, ranging from 1.1 to 1.6 mg/L as CaCO3 at Beech Lake to 2.4 to 9.6 mg/L as CaCO3 at Shumans Pond. Acidities were also low ranging from 2.1 to 6.0 mg/L as CaCO3 at Beech Lake to 4.6 to 13.6 mg/L as CaCO3 at Shumans Pond. Samples were analyzed for aluminum, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, manganese, nickel, and zinc using ICP-OES, with all metals except barium, iron, and manganese being below detectable limits. Both fracking and produced water from Marcellus production can be traced using conductivity, chloride, strontium, barium, and some heavy metals making pollution from Marcellus production easily detectable in these ponds should it occur – all via a sonde placed at the inflow.
Type
Poster
Session
Poster Presentations
Language
eng
Drinking Before the Drills: a Study of Three Pristine Water Sites in Sullivan County
Elaine Langone Center, Terrace Room
During the last decade, technologies have improved allowing for extraction of natural gas from the Marcellus shale at depths of eight to ten thousand feet, opening Pennsylvania for drilling and fracking. Economic reality, however, has caused oil and gas companies to delay drilling at many of the sites for which they have obtained drilling permits. This affords us the opportunity to measure natural non-impacted chemical quantities (aka baseline data) at several ponds in Sullivan County, specifically Sones Pond, Beech Lake, and Shumans Lake. Sones Pond is located in the Loyalsock State Forest, Forks, PA and was sampled on June 6. Beech Lake is located in Laporte, PA and was sampled on June 11. Shumans Lake is located in Lopez, PA and was sampled on June 20. Samples from each site were strategically taken to gain knowledge of the entire body of water, including any obvious inflows and outflows. Data collected in situ included pH, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, and turbidity. Conductivity values averaged 12 µS/cm (Beech) and 14 µS/cm (Sones), but ranged from 61 to 204 µS/cm at Shumans Pond. pH at all the ponds was slightly acidic to neutral, with the lowest pH at Beech Lake (5.2 to 5.6). Alkalinity was low at all sites sampled, ranging from 1.1 to 1.6 mg/L as CaCO3 at Beech Lake to 2.4 to 9.6 mg/L as CaCO3 at Shumans Pond. Acidities were also low ranging from 2.1 to 6.0 mg/L as CaCO3 at Beech Lake to 4.6 to 13.6 mg/L as CaCO3 at Shumans Pond. Samples were analyzed for aluminum, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, manganese, nickel, and zinc using ICP-OES, with all metals except barium, iron, and manganese being below detectable limits. Both fracking and produced water from Marcellus production can be traced using conductivity, chloride, strontium, barium, and some heavy metals making pollution from Marcellus production easily detectable in these ponds should it occur – all via a sonde placed at the inflow.