It’s been more than a week since the Coudersport Area Municipal Authority unanimously approved a string of resolutions terminating its relationship with Epiphany Environmental LLC and the proposed $1 million wastewater treatment plant along the Allegheny River.
The pressure brought by the Seneca Nation of Indians and its supporters led to a critical potential client saying it wouldn’t use the plant, effectively ending the affair — at least at the Potter County site.
But as the Senecas and environmentalists celebrate their successful effort against the plant, a question can still be raised: Does the process of treating hydraulic-fracturing wastewater proposed by Epiphany actually work?
In other circumstances, perhaps development of the “distilling” process, making fracking wastewater “clean enough to drink” (using Epiphany’s words) is still worth pursuing. It’s a certainty in states like Pennsylvania, where fracking in the shale formations for natural gas continues unabated, that any viable solution for wastewater deserves attention.
But Epiphany, clearly not anticipating the level of opposition that would arise, picked the wrong area to try it out.
There are many waterways in the state of Pennsylvania in which the quality is far more degraded because of past industrial abuses than the Allegheny, particularly its upper reaches. (More on that later.) Indeed, the Allegheny was the state’s 2017 River of the Year, as named by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and the Pennsylvania Organization for Waterways and Rivers.
There are also plenty of other Pennsylvania waterways that don’t, in a few short miles, button-hook up into decidedly anti-fracking New York state and flow through a Native American reservation that already has a justified history of grievance regarding the river. A look at a map — made by someone who pays attention to such things during the media storm the Lakotas created in their opposition to the Keystone Pipeline out West — might have revealed some red flags.
In the end, “Trust us,” the fallback position used too often by industry when the environment is concerned, wasn’t enough.
Epiphany needed to demonstrate proof, far more effectively than it did, that its processes were ready for live application — particularly the issue of removing radioactive trace material from any water to be discharged back into the environment.
It’s too bad, really, because it seems the fracking industry as a whole could use a win in the court of public opinion regarding more solutions regarding its waste. It’s frankly amazing that the energy companies themselves aren’t more proactive in this area, rather than relying on ancillary startups like the Epiphany project to handle its waste byproducts.
Take, for instance, a scenario in which the same project were established on one of the tributaries of the West Branch of the Susquehanna River — not far from the headwaters of the Allegheny — long defiled by acid mine drainage from abandoned surface coal mines. The West Branch and many of its tributaries, which flow through some of the most picturesque country east of the Mississippi, were long dead, devoid of aquatic life, and only now are recovering.
Water discharged from the kind of plant Epiphany wanted to establish could be treated with lime to remove metals and raise its alkalinity, which could further help reduce the acidity of the Susquehanna system’s waters.
Just a PR-friendly thought.
JKLM Energy — based in the Pittsburgh area and owned by Buffalo Bills and Sabres owner Terry Pegula — walked away pretty casually from Epiphany when things got too sticky regarding the Potter County proposal. Yet JKLM and other fracking operators’ needs remain for better solutions than tank-trucking wastewater, in some cases hundreds of miles, for disposal.
Fracking brought jobs and revenues to Pennsylvania, while the shale gas boom has resulted in billions in energy-cost savings and greater energy independence for the nation. Natural gas has played an important role in reducing the number of dirtier coal-fired power plants. These are facts.
But fracking comes with an environmental cost, not least complications on what to do with waste byproduct. That also is fact.
I for one hope Epiphany can find its place in an equation of solutions. Innovation is the watchword of the energy game — it was innovation that developed the fracking process in the first place.
Anything the industry can do more to develop or support innovative ways to answer such challenges as wastewater disposal or even containing methane emissions is good for everyone.
(Jim Eckstrom is executive editor of The Bradford Era and the Olean Times Herald. Email him at jeckstrom@oleantimesherald.com.)
