Fracking issues raised by Auburn wastewater report
Dave Tobin
AUBURN, N.Y. -- An engineering firm hired by Auburn to clear the way for the city to accept wastewater from gas drilling has concluded the city's wastewater treatment plant can't handle it.
The firm's study could have broad implications in New York's debate about hydrofracking.
The report, by the engineering firm GHD, Inc., in Cazenovia, said that because of the high levels of chlorides (a constituent of salt) in gas drilling wastewater, the Auburn wastewater treatment plant "has no additional capacity to accept vertical natural gas well wastewater."
While the report, for the moment, stalls Auburn's consideration of accepting gas drilling wastewater of any kind, it also raises questions about the capabilities of any municipal waste water treatment plant in New York state to handle the wastes of high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, without greatly modifying wastewater treatment systems. The horizontal wells of hydrofracking typically extend farther and deeper than vertical gas drilling wells, and their by-products can contain higher concentrations of chlorides and other pollutants.
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