Fracking Company Cuts Plan To Use Water From West PA Creek - They Know Warming Means There Won't Be Enough Water
Ed. - Not because they give a shit. Because they understand the water won't be there.
A natural gas company has surrendered its permits to pump water from a western Pennsylvania creek in a move welcomed by environmentalists fearful of rising industrial demand for surface water and the growing threat of climate change.
PennEnergy Resources asked the state’s Department of Environmental Protection in April to rescind its permits for 1.5 million gallons a day from the Big Sewickley Creek in Beaver County near Pittsburgh, saying the creek would not likely provide enough water for eight horizontal wells it plans nearby.
Years earlier, the company had requested to drain 3 million gallons a day from the main-stem creek and a million gallons from its north fork. DEP denied the application, citing risks to a fish, the southern redbelly dace, that the state classifies as threatened. The company modified its application, and in January 2024, the agency issued permits for a withdrawal of 1.5 million gallons a day. But PennEnergy, a Pittsburgh-based independent oil and gas company, no longer wants the smaller amount, saying that changes in the stream flow would not provide enough water as required in its permits.
“We noted naturally occurring alterations of the stream-bed conditions making it unlikely that our approved withdrawal location would be viable to meet bypass flow conditions as specified in the permit ahead of the need for our well-development operations,” said Amanda Peterson, a PennEnergy spokeswoman. Peterson declined to say if the company had found a new source of water. But she noted that each well uses between 9 and 18 million gallons for hydraulic fracturing operations, about two-thirds of which is recycled. She said the request to rescind the permits was a voluntary action and not a response to public pressure or instruction from regulators.
EDIT
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29052025/pennsylvania-fracking-company-surrenders-water-permits/