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Permalink Reply by Philip Thackray on October 25, 2014 at 1:40am

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

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Permalink Reply by Frank Walker on October 25, 2014 at 2:13am

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.

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Permalink Reply by Philip Brutz on October 26, 2014 at 1:46am

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

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Permalink Reply by Philip Thackray on October 26, 2014 at 2:04am

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

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Permalink Reply by Philip Thackray on October 25, 2014 at 2:56am

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

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Permalink Reply by elliemae82 on October 25, 2014 at 5:42am

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!

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Permalink Reply by Nancy LeNau on October 25, 2014 at 1:54pm

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

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