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Plant near New Stanton to treat gas wastewater
Mar 13, 2010 (Tribune-Review - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
A Fox Chapel businessman has obtained a state permit to treat wastewater from natural gas drilling operations at a former glass plant near New Stanton.
Stephen Frobouck, a partner in Reserve Environmental Services Inc., said the treatment facility at the former American Video Glass plant in East Huntingdon, Westmoreland County, is ready for operations to begin in April.
"We will have the capacity to handle (water from) 500 to 600 wells a year," Frobouck said Friday, declining to say how much the firm paid to prepare the plant for its new use.
The state Department of Environmental Protection issued a wastewater treatment permit on Thursday to Frobouck's firm, DEP spokeswoman Helen Humphries said yesterday, adding the permit doesn't allow discharge into the nearby Little Sewickley Creek.
The treatment plant sits outside the 400,000-square-foot building that once produced glass for Sony Corp. television sets. Frobouck is a part owner of the former glass plant, through his partnership in Commonwealth Renewable Energy.
The Reserve Environmental firm installed equipment to prepare the treatment plant for its new use, in serving the gas drillers that are working in the Marcellus Shale regions of Western Pennsylvania. About 16 million gallons of brine water used in gas drilling operations across Pennsylvania this year will have to be treated, according to a state estimate.
The treatment plant will create 20 to 30 jobs, said Frobouck, who scrapped plans for an ethanol plant at the East Huntingdon facility last year. The drilling companies would truck the water to the plant, but Frobouck said he envisions establishing transfer stations later.
The treatment process will remove total dissolved solids -- salts, organic matter and other materials. Treated water will be returned to the drillers for re-use, and the remaining sludge will be dried and sent to landfills, Frobouck said.
Drilling operations in the Marcellus Shale reserves can consume millions of gallons of water. Frobouck said he's talking with gas drillers operating in Western Pennsylvania and with the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an organization that represents gas producers, about using the plant. A coalition representative was unavailable for comment yesterday.
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