Published: August 16, 2008 12:00 am      

Taking water from river basin to require OK by commission

Natural-gas operators working in the Marcellus, Utica or other shale formations have been notified of an upcoming change to water use, according to a media release from the Susquehanna River Basin Commission.

As of Oct. 15, any amount of water withdrawn, or consumptively used, from the river will require prior approval from the SRBC. The current regulation requires such approval only if operators use more than 28,000 gallons of water a day, said spokeswoman Susan Obeleski.

This is the first time Commission Executive Director Paul Swartz used his authority on a particular class of water users, she said.

It came about, a commission official said, because some operators tried to get around the regulatory process by using an amount less than the target. The date for the start of the restriction was chosen to give the industry time to change its practices, said Mike Brownell, chief of water research management.

In taking this action, Swartz determined the natural-gas industry's water use could have an adverse impact on the river, he said in the release.

"Our intent is not to impede the proper development of the natural-gas reserve in the Susquehanna basin, but rather to balance economic needs with sustainability of water resources for all uses," Swartz said.

"It would be prudent to impose the more stringent provision on the natural-gas industry to give us the ability to review and regulate the industry's individual and cumulative impacts on water resources," he added.

SRBC will consider proposed rules that streamline administrative procedures for reviewing such water uses during its next business meeting.

The natural-gas companies are largely in the exploratory phase of gas recovery, Swartz said. Once the development phase kicks in, he added, the impacts on the workload of the commission as a regulatory agency could be enormous.

The commission is the governing agency, including federal and state representatives, for the water resources of the Susquehanna River Basin, which includes parts of New York.