FOIL sheds light on fracking-related test in Livingston
Steve Orr, Staff writer
Four years ago, a small industrial compound near the Livingston County hamlet of Cuylerville hosted a test that participants hoped would help solve a vexing problem for the natural gas industry: What to do with all the wastewater being generated by the drilling boom in Pennsylvania.
The compound houses a facility built in 2006 for a different purpose -- desalinating brine that originates in a vast salt mine beneath western Livingston County that had begun to collapse in 1994.
Highly salty water was being forced upward from the mine and was threatening to contaminate freshwater aquifers. The mine owner, AkzoNobel Salt, constructed the plant to intercept and treat that brine.
Last year, however, the company sought permission to shut down the plant, saying it was unnecessary and overly costly. Even as that happened, rumors circulated in Livingston County that the facility might be transformed into a treatment center for oil and gas drilling wastewater.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/watchdog/2014/03/26/cuylerville-wastewater-test/6907659/
