Let me say up front I've no personal experience with Range.  I think they used to operate here where I live, but left, turning drilling over to other gas companies.  I'd be interested to learn if there is any validity to the claims in this writing, anything at all.  I have to assume the alleged wrongdoing described here might have happened in WPA (western Pennsylvania).  Can you WPA landowners, or Pennsylvania landowners in Range territory regardless region, substantiate any of this?

Is this a truthful writing?

Where I live we have pits;  but only for fresh water.  They are not objectionable.

While I'm pro-drilling, I'll admit that open pits holding produced water and/or drilling waste, near to my home, would be a real concern.

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Frank,

Whatever happened in the past, the open lined pits are now for fresh water only.  Recovered fracking water, drilling waste, mud pits are all contained in vessels of one type or the other.  Here is a picture of the fracking pond for my XTO unit.  The pond is partially on my property - the grey building is a barn on my property.

Phil

Philip

Appreciate your input.  Sorry I am so vague on this but it's not happening where I live. And yes, again, there is of course no harm in fresh water pits and they help the industry.

Whenever you see writing which attacks drilling, it's impossible to know the truth. There are so many fruitcakes out there, so many insane anti-drilling nut cases.  Still, I cannot support open pits for produced water.

What you wrote jogged my own memory a bit.  Not right here where I live (I live on my land), but not too far away (perhaps ten miles) there is an installation going in of closed containment (i.e., tanks) for drilling waste.  If that's the new rule, no open pits for this stuff I mean, it's a good and smart rule.

Philip, is there a time limit on how long they can keep the pond on your property?

Philip,

I was told five years. 

This pond serves three XTO well pads, Marburger B, Gill and Hixon.  They fracked wells in all three units in 2013 and came back in 2014 to frack a few more wells on the Hixon unit.  There are quite a few wells left to drill on all three pads.  I don't know what happens if they still need the pond after five years.  This pond is fed by the Connoquenessing River in the valley below.  Water is pumped in not trucked. So it is a nice setup for XTO and there is no crazy truck traffic like I've seen at other sites.

Phil

Frank, Jesse,

This was my vantage point for watching the drilling and the fracking.  This is the fracking process.  I was also able to meet an XTO completion (fracking) engineer and ask him questions from this vantage point.  I learned a lot about the various processes.  In the pictures above, the fracking water is supplied by the green tankers (frack pond just to the left of the green tankers) and the large initial quantity of produced water goes into the red tankers.  Once the bulk of the fracking water is recovered all the tankers are removed and the remaining produced water, oil and condensate are gathered in the tall green container in the back ground.  (Another tall green container was added later.)  The haze in the air is the exhaust of the 15 V12 diesel pumping trucks lined up behind the tankers.

Phil

Thanks for sharing the pictures Phillip. Everything looks  neatly kept and very professional. One could hope other companies operate in the same manner.

The only thing that bugs me is they haven't switched their trucks from running diesel to natural gas. Thanks again!

elliemae, I  look for that to happen ( switching from Diesel to Nat. Gas ) in the near future.

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