In 2014, the Canadian Water Network (CWN) funded five academic teams from across Canada to research and identify knowledge gaps in the hydraulic fracturing water cycle. Our team was tasked with studying issues related to wastewater storage, treatment, handling, reuse/recycling, transport, and disposal. To capture a broad cross-section of jurisdictions of various levels, we focused on four North American formations: the Montney (Alberta and British Columbia), the Duvernay (Alberta), the Marcellus (largely Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia), and the Barnett (Texas). Task groups identified knowledge gaps in (1) quantifying the water treatment and disposal practices within these basins, (2) delineating stakeholder concerns surrounding hydraulic fracturing wastewater, and (3) reviewing regulatory and policy regimes regarding wastewater in the various jurisdictions within the studied geographic regions. Three oil and gas databases were consulted including FracFocus, geoSCOUT, and AccuMap. Overall, quantifying wastewater treatment and disposal practices in these basins is a difficult task, in part because of differing modes of reporting flowback and produced water data by various companies and within different basins. By cross-referencing the databases, it may be possible to extract more informative basin scale data. We found that regulations are relatively homogeneous across the different jurisdictions, and were either very specific with enumerated criteria and measures or broad and diffuse, focusing on pollution prevention or environmental vitality. Cumulative effects are generally not considered. It was beyond the scope to track events that may have influenced the introduction of legislation/regulation and what the level of compliance is. Finally, our stakeholders concern analysis showed large differences in the use of terms such as “social license to operate” among the studied basins, while at the same time we found that the public does not often separate individual aspects of the hydraulic fracturing process (such as wastewater treatment and disposal) when considering its impacts.

Identifying gaps in hydraulic fracturing wastewater management practices across four North American basins

249th National Meeting (2015)

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