Trends in fracking waste coming to

New York State from Pennsylvania

By Karen Edelstein/April 20, 2021 / 11 minute read

view map & data

Overview

Over the past decade, New York State has seen a steep decline in the quantity of waste products from the fracking industry sent to its landfills for disposal. Following the state’s banning of high volume hydraulic fracturing in 2014, quantities dropped off considerably. And then in 2020, New York State closed the “Fracking Loophole,” passing legislation that ordered the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to stop exempting oil and gas activities from scrutiny applied to other hazardous material. Because oil and gas waste may include hazardous levels of radiation, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and heavy metals, this legislation is highly significant.

We have covered this topic more broadly in the past, tracking the fate of solid and liquid waste from the fracking fields of Pennsylvania to locations as far flung as Texas and Utah (however most of this waste now is either disposed of in Pennsylvania, Ohio, or West Virginia). However, each year, the situation changes. FracTracker likes to present the data on maps, rather than in lengthy charts and tables. This will give you an instant view of the extent and location of the sources of these drilling waste products.

Pennsylvania Unconventional Drilling Waste Disposal in New York State, 2011 – 2020

Use this interactive map to see cumulatively, or year by year, the locations in Pennsylvania that sent their drilling waste products north, over the border to New York State. The basemap is set to view roads, but as you zoom in, you have the option to toggle on a layer that shows aerial imagery, as well. This is the last item in the map’s legend. In order to turn layers on and off in the map, use the Layers dropdown menu. This tool is only available in Full Screen view. All data sources are listed in the “Details” section of the map, as well as at the end of this article.

View Full Size Map | Updated 4/1/2021 | Data Tutorial

By and large, most drilling waste in New York State has recently been accepted by the Chemung County Landfill. This past year, the Chemung facility accepted a little over 9000 tons of drilling waste, up slightly from 2019. But this is a dramatic decrease from 2014, just prior to the state-wide ban, when the Chemung County Landfill, alone, received over 80,000 tons of solid drilling waste from Pennsylvania.

About the data

All data can be downloaded as .csv files from Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (PA DEP) Oil and Gas Reporting website.

Click on the year labels below to view their respective data.

2011

In 2011, five New York State landfills (Angelica, Lowman, Niagara Falls, Painted Post, and Waterloo) received a total of:

213,724.44 tons of drill cuttings
8590 Bbls of drilling fluid
1320 Bbls of flow-back fluid
443.47 tons of flow-back fracturing sand
445 Bbls of produced fluid

2012

In 2012, four New York State landfills (at Angelica, Lowman, Niagara Falls, and 2 facilities in Painted Post) received a total of:

70,002.1 tons of drill cuttings
8199.48 Bbl of drilling fluids
3348.1 Bbl of drilling fluid waste
55.7 tons of flow-back fracturing sand

2013

In 2013, four New York State landfills (at Angelica, Lowman, Niagara Falls, Painted Post) and a storage facility based in Syracuse, received a total of:

69,362 tons of drill cuttings (84% went to Lowman/Chemung County Landfill)
112 Bbl of drilling fluid waste
50 tons of flowback fracturing sand
525 Bbl produced fluid (landfilled)
2606 Bbl fracing fluid waste (stored)
2200 Bbl produced fluid waste (stored)

2014

In 2014, two New York State landfills (at Painted Post and Lowman) and a storage facility based in Syracuse, received a total of:

104,367 tons of drill cuttings (77% went to Lowman/Chemung County Landfill)
83 Bbl produced fluid (stored)
19 Bbl fracing fluid waste (stored)

2015

In 2015, three New York State landfills (at Painted Post, Angelica, and Lowman) and a storage facility based in Syracuse, received a total of:

60,695 tons of drill cuttings (86% went to Lowman/Chemung County Landfill)
497 Bbl produced fluid (stored)
1.28 Bbl fracing fluid waste (stored)

2016

In 2016, three New York State landfills (at Painted Post, Lowman, and Angelica), received a total of:

28,618 tons of solid waste (86%, or 24,753 tons, were drill cuttings that were sent to Lowman/Chemung County Landfill)
168 barrels of oil and gas waste
1.76 tons of other oil and gas wastes
18.92 tons of other oil and gas wastes
115 tons of servicing fluid
621 tons of soil contaminated by oil and gas related spills
748 tons of synthetic liner material

2017

In 2017, two New York State landfills (at Angelica and Lowman), received a total of:

27,456 tons of solid waste (92%, or 25,265 tons, were drill cuttings that were sent to Lowman/Chemung County Landfill. The only waste received by Hyland Landfill in Angelica/Allegany County was 42 tons of contaminated soil)
17.6 tons waste water treatment sludge
238 tons unused fracturing fluid waste (measured in all previous years in bbls)
1859 tons synthetic liner materials
47 tons soil contaminated by oil and gas related spills
22 tons servicing fluids
7.8 tons and 96.2 bbls of “other oil and gas wastes”
1.3 bbl drilling fluid waste

2018

In 2018, two New York State landfills (at Angelica and Lowman), received a total of:

27,456 tons of solid waste (91%, or 18,337 tons, were drill cuttings that were sent to Lowman/Chemung County Landfill. The only waste received by Hakes C&D Landfill in Painted Post, New York, was 297 tons of drill cuttings and 16 tons of unused fracking fluid)

2019

In 2019, two New York State landfills (at Angelica and Lowman), received a total of:

2555 tons of solid waste (67%, or 1704 tons, were drill cuttings that were sent to Lowman/Chemung County Landfill. The only waste received by Hakes C&D Landfill in Painted Post, New York, was 103 tons of drill cuttings.

Other waste products included:

4 tons miscellaneous oil and gas waste
47 barrels of oil and gas wastes (sent to Environmental Products and Services of Vermont, Inc. in Syracuse)
458 tons unused fracturing fluid waste (measured prior to 2018 in bbls)
280 tons synthetic liner materials
3 tons of waste water treatment sludge
2 tons of contaminated soil

2020

In 2020, the only landfill in New York State that received Pennsylvania drilling waste was the Chemung County Landfill in Lowman, New York.

99+% of this — 9307 tons — were drill cuttings sent to Chemung. The remainder sent there consisted of contaminated soil.
67 barrels of fluid waste were sent to Environmental Services of Vermont, located in Syracuse, New York. An additional 2.4 tons of contaminated soil were sent to the same facility.

Trends over time

Here are the current trends for solid and liquid wastes coming to New York State from Pennsylvania’s unconventional drilling operations.

Solid drilling waste sent from PA to NYS, 2011-2021

Figure 1. Trends for solid wastes coming to New York State from Pennsylvania’s unconventional drilling operations. Data source: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Oil and Gas Reporting website

Liquid drilling waste sent from PA to NYS, 2011-2021

Figure 2. Trends for liquid wastes coming to New York State from Pennsylvania’s unconventional drilling operations. Data source: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Oil and Gas Reporting website

Conventional waste (vertical wells)

In addition to unconventional waste disposal from drilling from sources in Pennsylvania, conventional drilling wastes originating in Pennsylvania were also disposed of in New York State in 2011-2019.

These included produced fluid that is most commonly spread on roads to control dust and ice. Produced fluid is the liquid that comes out of the well, along with the gas, after a well is drilled. It is typically highly salty.

Click on the year labels below to view their respective data.

2011

760.03 Bbls (31,921 gals) road-spread in Chautauqua, New York (Chautauqua County)
2602 Bbls (109, 284 gals) road-spread in Bolivar, New York (Allegany County)
2936 Bbls (123,312 gals) to centralized treatment plant in Buffalo, New York (Erie County)

2012

778 Bbls (32,676 gals) road-spread in Chautauqua, New York (Chautauqua County)
111.86 Bbls (4,698 gals) road-spread in Cuba, New York (Allegany County)
80 Bbls (3360 gals) to Hakes Landfill in Painted Post, New York (Steuben County)

2013

943.02 Bbls (39,607 gals) road-spread in Chautauqua County, New York
338.74 Bbls (14,227 gals) road-spread in Bolivar, New York (Allegany County)

2014

789 Bbls (33,138 gals) road-spread in Chautauqua County, New York
224 Bbls (9408 gals) road-spread in Bolivar, New York (Allegany County)
352 Bbls (14,784 gals) to Hyland Landfill in Angelica, New York (Allegany County)
153 Bbls (6426 gals) of residual waste to Syracuse, New York for storage

2015

195 Bbls (8190 gals) road-spread in Chautauqua, New York
8 Bbls (336 gals) road-spread in Mayville, New York

2016

941 Bbls (39,522 gals) road-spread in Bolivar, New York (Allegany County)
265 Bbls (11,130 gals) road-spread in Chautauqua County, New York

2017

112 Bbls (4704 gals) road-spread in Bolivar, New York (Allegany County)
200 Bbls (8400 gals) road-spread in Chautauqua County, New York
0.2 tons residual waste to Syracuse, New York for storage/transfer

2018

According to PA DEP records:

100 Bbls (4200 gals) road-spread in Chautauqua County, New York
210 tons (perhaps this is a typo, and should be Bbls?) road-spread in Chautauqua County, New York. If it’s not a typo, this is over 52,000 gals on the roads, which seems highly unusual compared to previous levels.

2019

According to PA DEP records:

50 Bbls (2100 gals) road-spread in Clymer, Chautauqua County, New York
355 Bbls (14,910 gals) road-spread in North Harmony, Chautauqua County, New York

2020

According to PA DEP records, no conventional drilling waste from Pennsylvania was road-spread in New York State.

Why the change?

The decline in conventional drilling waste shipped to New York State in 2020 is a result of several factors.

There has been a significant impact on greater scrutiny that drilling waste products now receives in New York State, following the closure of the drilling waste loophole in 2020. In contrast to New York State, Pennsylvania—where regulations are not as stringent—spread nearly 11,000 barrels of conventional drilling waste water on its roads in 2020. In 2019, PA road-spread 17,000 barrels. In 2018, the quantity in PA was close to 19,000 barrels. In 2015, that number was more than 87,000 barrels.

In addition, rather than disposing of waste by road-spreading, Pennsylvania has historically sent produced water to sewage treatment plants, or other treatment facilities. Nonetheless, while the quantity of liquid waste sent to these facilities was nearly 3.5 million barrels in 2015, the volume declined to only 220,000 barrels by 2020. In general, this trend parallels the movement towards unconventional directional/ horizontal drilling, and away from conventional methods employed prior to the development of high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing.

The Take Away

In New York State, the impacts of drilling activity in Pennsylvania have changed considerably over the past decade. New Yorkers saw the environmental and public health impacts of oil and gas drilling first-hand in their neighbors just to the south. These observations helped shape policy about the future of unconventional drilling in New York, as well as the degree to which New York would provide disposal ground for Pennsylvania’s fossil fuel extraction.

As a nation, as we move towards more renewable sources of energy, it is possible that patterns aggressive fossil fuel extraction and the challenges inherent in their disposal, will ebb. However, oil and gas drilling has long been an important part of the Keystone State’s economy. Nevertheless, as available reserves are depleted, the economic benefits of renewable energy become more pronounced, and a more vigorous engagement of climate science pervades the public sentiment, perhaps changes will naturally move in the direction of an economy dominated by clean energy.

References & Where to Learn More

Datasets used in this analysis include:

PA unconventional drilling waste sources shipped to NYS in 2011 https://arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=073a75e4cb1e4d59b6a5c4a2032b61b8
PA unconventional drilling waste sources shipped to NYS in 2012 https://arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=936fae3569e14dedae59ea6441468395
PA unconventional drilling waste sources shipped to NYS in 2013 https://arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=0814b60c1dcc4fdcb6ac9627f288f7b1
PA unconventional drilling waste sources shipped to NYS in 2014 https://arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=ce71cd65d262425594e2bfa3ed32b6e6
PA unconventional drilling waste sources shipped to NYS in 2015 https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=a14927cd534c4f23bbbeb2856f998507
PA unconventional drilling waste sources shipped to NYS in 2016 https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=f61d0e9004044ea2bf25ef4836f5479f
PA unconventional drilling waste sources shipped to NYS in 2017 https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=108ea030e64f44ed867f2951fcbb8621
PA unconventional drilling waste sources shipped to NYS in 2018 https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=88cf498b847943e9a9643d072ebb1b35
PA unconventional drilling waste sources shipped to NYS in 2019 https://arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=c43b5ea71f3346db8e6239b7c0f18cfe
PA unconventional drilling waste sources shipped to NYS in 2020 https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=e7b3ccb3b8094899aa7d469f5aebf2be

Topics in This Article:

Data and Analysis, Infrastructure, Waste, Wells

Join the Conversation

2 replies

Rachel Treichler says:
April 22, 2021 at 10:17 am

Thanks very much, Karen, for keeping us updated on these important numbers!
- Karen Edelstein says:
  April 22, 2021 at 12:25 pm
  
  It’s an honor to be working alongside you to protect the environment in New York State, Rachel. Thank YOU for all your excellent efforts.

Comments are closed.

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