Water firms fear fracking risks

Water is being used by opponents and proponents of fracking in equal measure. Water UK is not taking sides. What I want is for water to be considered at the right time in an open manner.

No matter where developers eventually source their water from, early dialogue with their local water company will be productive - and save them money.

Now is the time to address the challenges and get the frameworks in place. If we do that then water won’t be an issue. If we get it wrong then water has the potential to stop the shale gas industry in its tracks.

Challenges

Broadly speaking there are four challenges: water quality, water quantity, removing and treating waste water and infrastructure. Last year the water industry commissioned its own research into understanding the potential impacts. This is due to be published soon and some of my thoughts are related to this report.

There are risks to water quality associated with any activity taking place in a catchment. Shale gas wells are another risk we have to assess, understand and plan for.

What are the risks and can they be quantified, for example: contamination of aquifer as a result of fracturing running through geology; contamination via a failure in the well casing; direct contamination of surface waters from poorly managed waste water or chemical handling; or tertiary risk associated with traffic movement or drilling in general?

Water companies are generally as unsighted about the impacts of shale gas as other members of society

Water UK policy advisor Dr Jim Marshall

Moving on to water quantity. The problem is it is still a big unknown. We know that the extraction of shale gas uses large quantities of water during the fracking operation.

Our research report indicates that a peak demand could be around 2Ml/d during fracturing with a total demand in the order of 20Ml/yr.

The research assumed no recycling and is based on the demand of a 1,000 well field reaching peak production in around three to six years into the development.

This is a large demand for a single well - equivalent of a sizeable industrial use. Is this estimate accurate? To aid proper planning we need robust answers to the questions around water needs – how much per well, how many wells, over what period and what the input quality needs to be.

We can then plan on the appropriate timescale. So what are the options? Where does this water come from? The only way to bring water into an area is to either abstract it from local sources, take advantage of tap water, recycle returned fluids or rainwater or tanker it in.

The reality may be a combination of these approaches, with a connection to the mains augmented with recycled water, on site storage and tankers to meet the peak demands.

The next challenge is what to do with the water that is no longer needed. Taking aside the discussion on reuse the chances are that there will be volumes of water that need to be removed from the site.

The research carried out on behalf of the water industry has indicated that flowback water should be treatable at larger urban waste water treatment facilities.

Flowback waters are typically highly saline – which is toxic to bacteria used in the treatment process - so it will only be these larger works that can provide the required dilution.

That said, more consideration needs to be given to: water containing naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM); transportation of waste to works; and how costs can be fully recovered so that water customers don’t end up carrying the can.

The final point just to mention is infrastructure. There are two aspects to this. Firstly if a public water supply is needed then is the infrastructure in place to deliver this? A 2Ml/d supply would need a pipe of around 300mm diameter. Provision of such may be tricky on the edges of a network – but not impossible.

How to address the challenges

I have spoken to a lot of water companies about this in recent months and they are generally as unsighted about the impacts of shale gas as other members of society.

Some, in anticipation, are starting to do baseline quality monitoring. Others are looking at their water resource management plans to see what impacts it could have.

Others are just simply waiting to see what comes about. There is a bit of a theme here - talk and talk early. The earlier the engagement with the water company, the better the decisions that can be made.

Maybe a site could be provided with water more easily if it was planned a mile to the west or maybe there could be options around on-site storage or access to raw water.

Maybe some of our supply chain could help bring innovation and different ways of thinking to the party. I think what is needed at this stage is a clarification from both sides.

I am hearing the need for a “cards on the table” session with water companies and shale gas operators. This should happen sooner rather than later.