EWG's Horwitt adds, “We're concerned about the entire drilling process. … What we've said is that natural gas and drilling and drinking water do not mix.”

One of the chief concerns many have in Pennsylvania has been enforcement of existing regulations. “We're concerned that there is still inadequate staff on the ground to enforce the law,” Schmidt says.

Nels Taber, director for Pennsylvania DEP's north-central region as well as its East Oil and Gas program, acknowledges, “It became obvious pretty quickly that there was an inadequate number of people” initially to conduct inspections. But the Dept. of Environmental Protection hired more staff since launching its oil-and-gas program in the north-central region in 2009. “[Our] inspections increased substantially between 2009 and 2010,” he said. “I would anticipate that inspections in 2011 are going to increase even beyond [2010's figure] simply because we have more people.”

Gas-sector experts say hydrofracking is safe. “There is a lot of misinformation out there about the process, about the environmental safeguards and regulations and policies in place that not only ensure that groundwater resources are protected, but that the environment at large is protected,” says the Marcellus Shale Coalition's Windle. Operators are careful to separate the natural-gas wells from sources of freshwater using several layers of cement and steel casing, he says.

Engineering Opportunities

“There is a lot of emotional debate going on about the relationship between hydrofracking and groundwater,” adds David Breitmayer, senior business consultant with Atlanta-based engineering and environmental services firm Golder Associates. “The reality is, it's an entirely safe and environmentally sound process. Having said that, if there are issues with well design and construction, there is the possibility for impact on surface water. But it has no relation to the hydrofracking which is going on 5,000 feet deep.”

Breitmayer is leading Golder's shale gas business development efforts in the Appalachian Basin and manages the firm's new office in Pittsburgh, opened in 2011 specifically to capitalize on the Marcellus shale market. Golder already has 16 offices throughout the Appalachian Basin, as well as offices at nine of nearly 30 active shale gas basins in North America. Firms say the opportunities for engineering firms in the Marcellus shale region, as well as at other shale plays around the nation, are growing. The type of services firms provide run the gamut of typical environmental engineering consulting work: regulatory compliance, safety audits, environmental permitting, preparation of water management plans, design and construction of water- supply intakes, groundwater wells, water transmission pipelines and pump stations.

Matthew DeMarco, principal with Chester, Pa.-based Advanced Geoservices, says the ramping up of Appalachian Basin projects quickly adds up for engineering firms. “It may be that one well pad may be a relatively small design, but when you look at 100 of them in one year, it ends up being a large program,” DeMarco says.

San Diego-based engineering firm Kleinfelder, a member of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, is helping Oklahoma City-based energy services firm Chesapeake mostly in the “midstream” of the natural-gas extraction process, building gathering lines from the wells to the compression systems, which lead to interstate pipeline systems, says Tom Woodrow, Kleinfelder senior project manager. The company has several million dollars in ongoing work helping Chesapeake to set up operations in the northeastern part of the state.

The two companies have been working together for about 18 months, and right now Chesapeake is one of Kleinfelder's top clients, Woodrow says. The companies have been collaborating on development in the counties of Bradford, Sullivan and Susquehanna.

Usually the sites the firms have been working on are very rural, with little infrastructure. Water and sewer systems often are nonexistent, and many of the sites have only gravel or dirt roads as access. The lack of infrastructure presents its own set of problems.

In one case—on a project in Towanda Township, Pa., which Woodrow calls “the least rural [Pennsylvania] project we've worked on yet”—Kleinfelder had to build a 4,500-ft road and get approval for it from Bradford County's Planning Commission. The project also required approval of erosion and sediment control plans by the Bradford County Conservation District.

At its point of entrance, the topography of the site was a very steep hill, into which Kleinfelder had to make a large cut of dirt and rock. “The biggest challenge we had was to do the construction in the winter,” Woodrow says. “We needed to get earthwork done to meet the project deadline.”

Part of the Solution

According to DeMarco, engineering firms can be part of the answer to the industry's environmental questions. “Our background is in environmental remediation, so we're tied a lot to the environmentalists' position. We try to harmonize that [set of concerns] with what the industry needs,” DeMarco states.

One aspect of that balance is finding ways to increase the amount of water generated during fracking that can be recycled. After fracking, most of the fracking fluid returns to the surface—this is called “flowback” water. As the well begins to produce natural gas, some of the water from the rock also returns to the surface—this is called “produced” water.

“We believe that it is possible to safely and responsibly extract natural gas, and the U.S.government remains committed to that.”

Steven Chu,Dept of Energy

In some shale plays, like the Barnett Shale Formation in Texas, most of the water generated is treated, then injected back into the ground. But the geology of Pennsylvania makes that difficult, says the Marcellus Shale Coalition's Windle. As a result, energy companies typically try to recycle at least a portion of the generated water and transport most of the rest to storage sites in West Virginia and Ohio, although some water does go back into the rivers and streams of Pennsylvania after it is treated.

According to the Pennsylvania DEP, operators in the state recycled about 70% of the water generated from fracking and drilling in 2010.

Marty Muggelton, principal with Williamsport, Pa.-based Larson Design Group (LDG), says, for energy clients in 2010, a LDG subsidiary treated and returned about 17.5 million gallons of generated water, which translates to about 7.5% of the total amount recycled in Pennsylvania last year. The subsidiary,TerrAqua Resource Management, designed and managed construction of a facility to treat water generated from hydrofracking and drilling (see story, p. 24).

Other firms, including Pittsburgh-based Chester Engineers, are working to develop mobile treatment facilities that can treat and recycle water at well sites. In April, Canonsburg, Pa.-based Aquatech, a global provider of water purification technology, unveiled its mobile shale gas wastewater distillation unit that the firm claims can treat the flowback and produced waters at the well pad to meet compliance levels associated with stationary water treatment facilities.